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The Five Orange Pips | Arthur Conan Doyle | 13 | ['Ku Klux Klan'] |
When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases
between the years ’82 and ’90, I am faced by so many which present
strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know
which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have already gained
publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a field for
those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so high a degree,
and which it is the object of these papers to illustrate. Some, too,
have baffled his analytical skill, and would be, as narratives,
beginnings without an ending, while others have been but partially
cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture
and surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to
him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable in
its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted to give
some account of it in spite of the fact that there are points in
connection with it which never have been, and probably never will be,
entirely cleared up.
The year ’87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or
less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings under
this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure of the
Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious
club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts
connected with the loss of the British barque _Sophy Anderson_, of the
singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and
finally of the Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as may be
remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man’s
watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that
therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time—a deduction
which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the case. All these
I may sketch out at some future date, but none of them present such
singular features as the strange train of circumstances which I have
now taken up my pen to describe.
It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had
set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the
rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of
great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the
instant from the routine of life and to recognise the presence of those
great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his
civilisation, like untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the
storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a
child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the
fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other was
deep in one of Clark Russell’s fine sea-stories until the howl of the
gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the
rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves. My wife was
on a visit to her mother’s, and for a few days I was a dweller once
more in my old quarters at Baker Street.
“Why,” said I, glancing up at my companion, “that was surely the bell.
Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?”
“Except yourself I have none,” he answered. “I do not encourage
visitors.”
“A client, then?”
“If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on
such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely to
be some crony of the landlady’s.”
Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a
step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his
long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant
chair upon which a newcomer must sit.
“Come in!” said he.
The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside,
well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy
in his bearing. The streaming umbrella which he held in his hand, and
his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather through which he
had come. He looked about him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I
could see that his face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a
man who is weighed down with some great anxiety.
“I owe you an apology,” he said, raising his golden pince-nez to his
eyes. “I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some
traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber.”
“Give me your coat and umbrella,” said Holmes. “They may rest here on
the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from the
south-west, I see.”
“Yes, from Horsham.”
“That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is quite
distinctive.”
“I have come for advice.”
“That is easily got.”
“And help.”
“That is not always so easy.”
“I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast how
you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal.”
“Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards.”
“He said that you could solve anything.”
“He said too much.”
“That you are never beaten.”
“I have been beaten four times—three times by men, and once by a
woman.”
“But what is that compared with the number of your successes?”
“It is true that I have been generally successful.”
“Then you may be so with me.”
“I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour me with
some details as to your case.”
“It is no ordinary one.”
“None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of appeal.”
“And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have
ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events
than those which have happened in my own family.”
“You fill me with interest,” said Holmes. “Pray give us the essential
facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to
those details which seem to me to be most important.”
The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out towards
the blaze.
“My name,” said he, “is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as far
as I can understand, little to do with this awful business. It is a
hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I must
go back to the commencement of the affair.
“You must know that my grandfather had two sons—my uncle Elias and my
father Joseph. My father had a small factory at Coventry, which he
enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He was a patentee
of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met with such
success that he was able to sell it and to retire upon a handsome
competence.
“My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and became
a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done very well. At
the time of the war he fought in Jackson’s army, and afterwards under
Hood, where he rose to be a colonel. When Lee laid down his arms my
uncle returned to his plantation, where he remained for three or four
years. About 1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe and took a small
estate in Sussex, near Horsham. He had made a very considerable fortune
in the States, and his reason for leaving them was his aversion to the
negroes, and his dislike of the Republican policy in extending the
franchise to them. He was a singular man, fierce and quick-tempered,
very foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a most retiring
disposition. During all the years that he lived at Horsham, I doubt if
ever he set foot in the town. He had a garden and two or three fields
round his house, and there he would take his exercise, though very
often for weeks on end he would never leave his room. He drank a great
deal of brandy and smoked very heavily, but he would see no society and
did not want any friends, not even his own brother.
“He didn’t mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the time
when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so. This would be
in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine years in England. He
begged my father to let me live with him and he was very kind to me in
his way. When he was sober he used to be fond of playing backgammon and
draughts with me, and he would make me his representative both with the
servants and with the tradespeople, so that by the time that I was
sixteen I was quite master of the house. I kept all the keys and could
go where I liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb him
in his privacy. There was one singular exception, however, for he had a
single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was invariably
locked, and which he would never permit either me or anyone else to
enter. With a boy’s curiosity I have peeped through the keyhole, but I
was never able to see more than such a collection of old trunks and
bundles as would be expected in such a room.
“One day—it was in March, 1883—a letter with a foreign stamp lay upon
the table in front of the colonel’s plate. It was not a common thing
for him to receive letters, for his bills were all paid in ready money,
and he had no friends of any sort. ‘From India!’ said he as he took it
up, ‘Pondicherry postmark! What can this be?’ Opening it hurriedly, out
there jumped five little dried orange pips, which pattered down upon
his plate. I began to laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from my
lips at the sight of his face. His lip had fallen, his eyes were
protruding, his skin the colour of putty, and he glared at the envelope
which he still held in his trembling hand, ‘K. K. K.!’ he shrieked, and
then, ‘My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!’
“‘What is it, uncle?’ I cried.
“‘Death,’ said he, and rising from the table he retired to his room,
leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope and saw
scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the gum, the letter
K three times repeated. There was nothing else save the five dried
pips. What could be the reason of his overpowering terror? I left the
breakfast-table, and as I ascended the stair I met him coming down with
an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand,
and a small brass box, like a cashbox, in the other.
“‘They may do what they like, but I’ll checkmate them still,’ said he
with an oath. ‘Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day,
and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.’
“I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked to step
up to the room. The fire was burning brightly, and in the grate there
was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned paper, while the brass
box stood open and empty beside it. As I glanced at the box I noticed,
with a start, that upon the lid was printed the treble K which I had
read in the morning upon the envelope.
“‘I wish you, John,’ said my uncle, ‘to witness my will. I leave my
estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to my
brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you. If you
can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you cannot, take my
advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy. I am sorry to
give you such a two-edged thing, but I can’t say what turn things are
going to take. Kindly sign the paper where Mr. Fordham shows you.’
“I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with him.
The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest impression
upon me, and I pondered over it and turned it every way in my mind
without being able to make anything of it. Yet I could not shake off
the vague feeling of dread which it left behind, though the sensation
grew less keen as the weeks passed and nothing happened to disturb the
usual routine of our lives. I could see a change in my uncle, however.
He drank more than ever, and he was less inclined for any sort of
society. Most of his time he would spend in his room, with the door
locked upon the inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of
drunken frenzy and would burst out of the house and tear about the
garden with a revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was afraid of
no man, and that he was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by
man or devil. When these hot fits were over, however, he would rush
tumultuously in at the door and lock and bar it behind him, like a man
who can brazen it out no longer against the terror which lies at the
roots of his soul. At such times I have seen his face, even on a cold
day, glisten with moisture, as though it were new raised from a basin.
“Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not to abuse
your patience, there came a night when he made one of those drunken
sallies from which he never came back. We found him, when we went to
search for him, face downward in a little green-scummed pool, which lay
at the foot of the garden. There was no sign of any violence, and the
water was but two feet deep, so that the jury, having regard to his
known eccentricity, brought in a verdict of ‘suicide.’ But I, who knew
how he winced from the very thought of death, had much ado to persuade
myself that he had gone out of his way to meet it. The matter passed,
however, and my father entered into possession of the estate, and of
some £ 14,000, which lay to his credit at the bank.”
“One moment,” Holmes interposed, “your statement is, I foresee, one of
the most remarkable to which I have ever listened. Let me have the date
of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and the date of his
supposed suicide.”
“The letter arrived on March 10, 1883. His death was seven weeks later,
upon the night of May 2nd.”
“Thank you. Pray proceed.”
“When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my request, made
a careful examination of the attic, which had been always locked up. We
found the brass box there, although its contents had been destroyed. On
the inside of the cover was a paper label, with the initials of K. K.
K. repeated upon it, and ‘Letters, memoranda, receipts, and a register’
written beneath. These, we presume, indicated the nature of the papers
which had been destroyed by Colonel Openshaw. For the rest, there was
nothing of much importance in the attic save a great many scattered
papers and note-books bearing upon my uncle’s life in America. Some of
them were of the war time and showed that he had done his duty well and
had borne the repute of a brave soldier. Others were of a date during
the reconstruction of the Southern states, and were mostly concerned
with politics, for he had evidently taken a strong part in opposing the
carpet-bag politicians who had been sent down from the North.
“Well, it was the beginning of ’84 when my father came to live at
Horsham, and all went as well as possible with us until the January of
’85. On the fourth day after the new year I heard my father give a
sharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the breakfast-table. There
he was, sitting with a newly opened envelope in one hand and five dried
orange pips in the outstretched palm of the other one. He had always
laughed at what he called my cock-and-bull story about the colonel, but
he looked very scared and puzzled now that the same thing had come upon
himself.
“‘Why, what on earth does this mean, John?’ he stammered.
“My heart had turned to lead. ‘It is K. K. K.,’ said I.
“He looked inside the envelope. ‘So it is,’ he cried. ‘Here are the
very letters. But what is this written above them?’
“‘Put the papers on the sundial,’ I read, peeping over his shoulder.
“‘What papers? What sundial?’ he asked.
“‘The sundial in the garden. There is no other,’ said I; ‘but the
papers must be those that are destroyed.’
“‘Pooh!’ said he, gripping hard at his courage. ‘We are in a civilised
land here, and we can’t have tomfoolery of this kind. Where does the
thing come from?’
“‘From Dundee,’ I answered, glancing at the postmark.
“‘Some preposterous practical joke,’ said he. ‘What have I to do with
sundials and papers? I shall take no notice of such nonsense.’
“‘I should certainly speak to the police,’ I said.
“‘And be laughed at for my pains. Nothing of the sort.’
“‘Then let me do so?’
“‘No, I forbid you. I won’t have a fuss made about such nonsense.’
“It was in vain to argue with him, for he was a very obstinate man. I
went about, however, with a heart which was full of forebodings.
“On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went from
home to visit an old friend of his, Major Freebody, who is in command
of one of the forts upon Portsdown Hill. I was glad that he should go,
for it seemed to me that he was farther from danger when he was away
from home. In that, however, I was in error. Upon the second day of his
absence I received a telegram from the major, imploring me to come at
once. My father had fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits which abound
in the neighbourhood, and was lying senseless, with a shattered skull.
I hurried to him, but he passed away without having ever recovered his
consciousness. He had, as it appears, been returning from Fareham in
the twilight, and as the country was unknown to him, and the chalk-pit
unfenced, the jury had no hesitation in bringing in a verdict of ‘death
from accidental causes.’ Carefully as I examined every fact connected
with his death, I was unable to find anything which could suggest the
idea of murder. There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no
robbery, no record of strangers having been seen upon the roads. And
yet I need not tell you that my mind was far from at ease, and that I
was well-nigh certain that some foul plot had been woven round him.
“In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. You will ask me why I
did not dispose of it? I answer, because I was well convinced that our
troubles were in some way dependent upon an incident in my uncle’s
life, and that the danger would be as pressing in one house as in
another.
“It was in January, ’85, that my poor father met his end, and two years
and eight months have elapsed since then. During that time I have lived
happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope that this curse had passed
away from the family, and that it had ended with the last generation. I
had begun to take comfort too soon, however; yesterday morning the blow
fell in the very shape in which it had come upon my father.”
The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope, and turning
to the table he shook out upon it five little dried orange pips.
“This is the envelope,” he continued. “The postmark is London—eastern
division. Within are the very words which were upon my father’s last
message: ‘K. K. K.’; and then ‘Put the papers on the sundial.’”
“What have you done?” asked Holmes.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“To tell the truth”—he sank his face into his thin, white hands—“I have
felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor rabbits when the
snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in the grasp of some
resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no precautions can
guard against.”
“Tut! tut!” cried Sherlock Holmes. “You must act, man, or you are lost.
Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for despair.”
“I have seen the police.”
“Ah!”
“But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convinced that the
inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all practical
jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really accidents, as
the jury stated, and were not to be connected with the warnings.”
Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. “Incredible imbecility!” he
cried.
“They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in the
house with me.”
“Has he come with you to-night?”
“No. His orders were to stay in the house.”
Again Holmes raved in the air.
“Why did you come to me?” he said, “and, above all, why did you not
come at once?”
“I did not know. It was only to-day that I spoke to Major Prendergast
about my troubles and was advised by him to come to you.”
“It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have acted
before this. You have no further evidence, I suppose, than that which
you have placed before us—no suggestive detail which might help us?”
“There is one thing,” said John Openshaw. He rummaged in his coat
pocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-tinted paper, he
laid it out upon the table. “I have some remembrance,” said he, “that
on the day when my uncle burned the papers I observed that the small,
unburned margins which lay amid the ashes were of this particular
colour. I found this single sheet upon the floor of his room, and I am
inclined to think that it may be one of the papers which has, perhaps,
fluttered out from among the others, and in that way has escaped
destruction. Beyond the mention of pips, I do not see that it helps us
much. I think myself that it is a page from some private diary. The
writing is undoubtedly my uncle’s.”
Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper, which
showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a book. It
was headed, “March, 1869,” and beneath were the following enigmatical
notices:
“4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.
“7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain of St.
Augustine.
“9th. McCauley cleared.
“10th. John Swain cleared.
“12th. Visited Paramore. All well.”
“Thank you!” said Holmes, folding up the paper and returning it to our
visitor. “And now you must on no account lose another instant. We
cannot spare time even to discuss what you have told me. You must get
home instantly and act.”
“What shall I do?”
“There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. You must put
this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass box which
you have described. You must also put in a note to say that all the
other papers were burned by your uncle, and that this is the only one
which remains. You must assert that in such words as will carry
conviction with them. Having done this, you must at once put the box
out upon the sundial, as directed. Do you understand?”
“Entirely.”
“Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. I think
that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have our web to
weave, while theirs is already woven. The first consideration is to
remove the pressing danger which threatens you. The second is to clear
up the mystery and to punish the guilty parties.”
“I thank you,” said the young man, rising and pulling on his overcoat.
“You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall certainly do as you
advise.”
“Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself in the
meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that you are
threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do you go back?”
“By train from Waterloo.”
“It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so I trust that you
may be in safety. And yet you cannot guard yourself too closely.”
“I am armed.”
“That is well. To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case.”
“I shall see you at Horsham, then?”
“No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek it.”
“Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with news as to
the box and the papers. I shall take your advice in every particular.”
He shook hands with us and took his leave. Outside the wind still
screamed and the rain splashed and pattered against the windows. This
strange, wild story seemed to have come to us from amid the mad
elements—blown in upon us like a sheet of sea-weed in a gale—and now to
have been reabsorbed by them once more.
Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head sunk
forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire. Then he lit
his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue smoke-rings
as they chased each other up to the ceiling.
“I think, Watson,” he remarked at last, “that of all our cases we have
had none more fantastic than this.”
“Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four.”
“Well, yes. Save, perhaps, that. And yet this John Openshaw seems to me
to be walking amid even greater perils than did the Sholtos.”
“But have you,” I asked, “formed any definite conception as to what
these perils are?”
“There can be no question as to their nature,” he answered.
“Then what are they? Who is this K. K. K., and why does he pursue this
unhappy family?”
Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the arms of
his chair, with his finger-tips together. “The ideal reasoner,” he
remarked, “would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its
bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up
to it but also all the results which would follow from it. As Cuvier
could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a
single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in
a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other
ones, both before and after. We have not yet grasped the results which
the reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved in the study
which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of
their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is
necessary that the reasoner should be able to utilise all the facts
which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you
will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these
days of free education and encyclopædias, is a somewhat rare
accomplishment. It is not so impossible, however, that a man should
possess all knowledge which is likely to be useful to him in his work,
and this I have endeavoured in my case to do. If I remember rightly,
you on one occasion, in the early days of our friendship, defined my
limits in a very precise fashion.”
“Yes,” I answered, laughing. “It was a singular document. Philosophy,
astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany
variable, geology profound as regards the mud-stains from any region
within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic,
sensational literature and crime records unique, violin-player, boxer,
swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco. Those, I
think, were the main points of my analysis.”
Holmes grinned at the last item. “Well,” he said, “I say now, as I said
then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with all
the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in
the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.
Now, for such a case as the one which has been submitted to us
to-night, we need certainly to muster all our resources. Kindly hand me
down the letter K of the _American Encyclopædia_ which stands upon the
shelf beside you. Thank you. Now let us consider the situation and see
what may be deduced from it. In the first place, we may start with a
strong presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some very strong reason
for leaving America. Men at his time of life do not change all their
habits and exchange willingly the charming climate of Florida for the
lonely life of an English provincial town. His extreme love of solitude
in England suggests the idea that he was in fear of someone or
something, so we may assume as a working hypothesis that it was fear of
someone or something which drove him from America. As to what it was he
feared, we can only deduce that by considering the formidable letters
which were received by himself and his successors. Did you remark the
postmarks of those letters?”
“The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee, and the third
from London.”
“From East London. What do you deduce from that?”
“They are all seaports. That the writer was on board of a ship.”
“Excellent. We have already a clue. There can be no doubt that the
probability—the strong probability—is that the writer was on board of a
ship. And now let us consider another point. In the case of
Pondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the threat and its fulfilment,
in Dundee it was only some three or four days. Does that suggest
anything?”
“A greater distance to travel.”
“But the letter had also a greater distance to come.”
“Then I do not see the point.”
“There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the man or
men are is a sailing-ship. It looks as if they always send their
singular warning or token before them when starting upon their mission.
You see how quickly the deed followed the sign when it came from
Dundee. If they had come from Pondicherry in a steamer they would have
arrived almost as soon as their letter. But, as a matter of fact, seven
weeks elapsed. I think that those seven weeks represented the
difference between the mail-boat which brought the letter and the
sailing vessel which brought the writer.”
“It is possible.”
“More than that. It is probable. And now you see the deadly urgency of
this new case, and why I urged young Openshaw to caution. The blow has
always fallen at the end of the time which it would take the senders to
travel the distance. But this one comes from London, and therefore we
cannot count upon delay.”
“Good God!” I cried. “What can it mean, this relentless persecution?”
“The papers which Openshaw carried are obviously of vital importance to
the person or persons in the sailing-ship. I think that it is quite
clear that there must be more than one of them. A single man could not
have carried out two deaths in such a way as to deceive a coroner’s
jury. There must have been several in it, and they must have been men
of resource and determination. Their papers they mean to have, be the
holder of them who it may. In this way you see K. K. K. ceases to be
the initials of an individual and becomes the badge of a society.”
“But of what society?”
“Have you never—” said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward and sinking his
voice—“have you never heard of the Ku Klux Klan?”
“I never have.”
Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee. “Here it is,”
said he presently:
“‘Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from the fanciful resemblance to the
sound produced by cocking a rifle. This terrible secret society was
formed by some ex-Confederate soldiers in the Southern states after the
Civil War, and it rapidly formed local branches in different parts of
the country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia,
and Florida. Its power was used for political purposes, principally for
the terrorising of the negro voters and the murdering and driving from
the country of those who were opposed to its views. Its outrages were
usually preceded by a warning sent to the marked man in some fantastic
but generally recognised shape—a sprig of oak-leaves in some parts,
melon seeds or orange pips in others. On receiving this the victim
might either openly abjure his former ways, or might fly from the
country. If he braved the matter out, death would unfailingly come upon
him, and usually in some strange and unforeseen manner. So perfect was
the organisation of the society, and so systematic its methods, that
there is hardly a case upon record where any man succeeded in braving
it with impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced home to
the perpetrators. For some years the organisation flourished in spite
of the efforts of the United States government and of the better
classes of the community in the South. Eventually, in the year 1869,
the movement rather suddenly collapsed, although there have been
sporadic outbreaks of the same sort since that date.’
“You will observe,” said Holmes, laying down the volume, “that the
sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the disappearance
of Openshaw from America with their papers. It may well have been cause
and effect. It is no wonder that he and his family have some of the
more implacable spirits upon their track. You can understand that this
register and diary may implicate some of the first men in the South,
and that there may be many who will not sleep easy at night until it is
recovered.”
“Then the page we have seen—”
“Is such as we might expect. It ran, if I remember right, ‘sent the
pips to A, B, and C’—that is, sent the society’s warning to them. Then
there are successive entries that A and B cleared, or left the country,
and finally that C was visited, with, I fear, a sinister result for C.
Well, I think, Doctor, that we may let some light into this dark place,
and I believe that the only chance young Openshaw has in the meantime
is to do what I have told him. There is nothing more to be said or to
be done to-night, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget
for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable
ways of our fellow men.”
It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a subdued
brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the great city.
Sherlock Holmes was already at breakfast when I came down.
“You will excuse me for not waiting for you,” said he; “I have, I
foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this case of young
Openshaw’s.”
“What steps will you take?” I asked.
“It will very much depend upon the results of my first inquiries. I may
have to go down to Horsham, after all.”
“You will not go there first?”
“No, I shall commence with the City. Just ring the bell and the maid
will bring up your coffee.”
As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table and glanced
my eye over it. It rested upon a heading which sent a chill to my
heart.
“Holmes,” I cried, “you are too late.”
“Ah!” said he, laying down his cup, “I feared as much. How was it
done?” He spoke calmly, but I could see that he was deeply moved.
“My eye caught the name of Openshaw, and the heading ‘Tragedy Near
Waterloo Bridge.’ Here is the account:
“‘Between nine and ten last night Police-Constable Cook, of the H
Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and a
splash in the water. The night, however, was extremely dark and stormy,
so that, in spite of the help of several passers-by, it was quite
impossible to effect a rescue. The alarm, however, was given, and, by
the aid of the water-police, the body was eventually recovered. It
proved to be that of a young gentleman whose name, as it appears from
an envelope which was found in his pocket, was John Openshaw, and whose
residence is near Horsham. It is conjectured that he may have been
hurrying down to catch the last train from Waterloo Station, and that
in his haste and the extreme darkness he missed his path and walked
over the edge of one of the small landing-places for river steamboats.
The body exhibited no traces of violence, and there can be no doubt
that the deceased had been the victim of an unfortunate accident, which
should have the effect of calling the attention of the authorities to
the condition of the riverside landing-stages.’”
We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and shaken
than I had ever seen him.
“That hurts my pride, Watson,” he said at last. “It is a petty feeling,
no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal matter with me
now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my hand upon this gang.
That he should come to me for help, and that I should send him away to
his death—!” He sprang from his chair and paced about the room in
uncontrollable agitation, with a flush upon his sallow cheeks and a
nervous clasping and unclasping of his long thin hands.
“They must be cunning devils,” he exclaimed at last. “How could they
have decoyed him down there? The Embankment is not on the direct line
to the station. The bridge, no doubt, was too crowded, even on such a
night, for their purpose. Well, Watson, we shall see who will win in
the long run. I am going out now!”
“To the police?”
“No; I shall be my own police. When I have spun the web they may take
the flies, but not before.”
All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it was late in the
evening before I returned to Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes had not come
back yet. It was nearly ten o’clock before he entered, looking pale and
worn. He walked up to the sideboard, and tearing a piece from the loaf
he devoured it voraciously, washing it down with a long draught of
water.
“You are hungry,” I remarked.
“Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing since
breakfast.”
“Nothing?”
“Not a bite. I had no time to think of it.”
“And how have you succeeded?”
“Well.”
“You have a clue?”
“I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw shall not long
remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their own devilish trade-mark
upon them. It is well thought of!”
“What do you mean?”
He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces he
squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five and thrust
them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he wrote “S. H. for J.
O.” Then he sealed it and addressed it to “Captain James Calhoun,
Barque _Lone Star_, Savannah, Georgia.”
“That will await him when he enters port,” said he, chuckling. “It may
give him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a precursor of his
fate as Openshaw did before him.”
“And who is this Captain Calhoun?”
“The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first.”
“How did you trace it, then?”
He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with dates
and names.
“I have spent the whole day,” said he, “over Lloyd’s registers and
files of the old papers, following the future career of every vessel
which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in ’83. There were
thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which were reported there during those
months. Of these, one, the _Lone Star_, instantly attracted my
attention, since, although it was reported as having cleared from
London, the name is that which is given to one of the states of the
Union.”
“Texas, I think.”
“I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship must have an
American origin.”
“What then?”
“I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the barque _Lone
Star_ was there in January, ’85, my suspicion became a certainty. I
then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present in the port of
London.”
“Yes?”
“The _Lone Star_ had arrived here last week. I went down to the Albert
Dock and found that she had been taken down the river by the early tide
this morning, homeward bound to Savannah. I wired to Gravesend and
learned that she had passed some time ago, and as the wind is easterly
I have no doubt that she is now past the Goodwins and not very far from
the Isle of Wight.”
“What will you do, then?”
“Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates, are as I learn, the
only native-born Americans in the ship. The others are Finns and
Germans. I know, also, that they were all three away from the ship last
night. I had it from the stevedore who has been loading their cargo. By
the time that their sailing-ship reaches Savannah the mail-boat will
have carried this letter, and the cable will have informed the police
of Savannah that these three gentlemen are badly wanted here upon a
charge of murder.”
There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and the
murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the orange pips which
would show them that another, as cunning and as resolute as themselves,
was upon their track. Very long and very severe were the equinoctial
gales that year. We waited long for news of the _Lone Star_ of
Savannah, but none ever reached us. We did at last hear that somewhere
far out in the Atlantic a shattered stern-post of a boat was seen
swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters “L. S.” carved upon
it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of the _Lone
Star_.
VI.
| null |
The Hunter's Lodge Case | Agatha Christie | 32 | ['Zoe Havering'] | The Missing Will
Hercule Poirot Solves an Extraordinary Case
by Agatha Christie
[Illustration]
The problem presented to us by Miss Violet Marsh made a rather
pleasant change from our usual routine work. Poirot had received a
brisk and businesslike note from the lady asking for an appointment,
and he had replied, asking her to call upon him at eleven o’clock the
following day.
She arrived punctually—a tall, handsome young woman, plainly but
neatly dressed, with an assured and businesslike manner—clearly, a
young woman who meant to get on in the world. I am not a great admirer
of the so-called New Woman myself, and in spite of her good looks, I
was not particularly prepossessed in her favor.
“My business is of a somewhat unusual nature, M. Poirot,” she began,
after she had accepted a chair. “I had better begin at the beginning
and tell you the whole story.”
“If you please, mademoiselle.”
“I am an orphan. My father was one of two brothers, sons of a small
yeoman farmer in Devonshire. The farm was a poor one, and the eldest
brother, Andrew, emigrated to Australia, where he did very well
indeed, and by means of successful speculation in land became a very
rich man. The younger brother, Roger, my father, had no leanings
toward the agricultural life. He managed to educate himself a little,
and obtained a post as a clerk in a small firm. He married slightly
above him; my mother was the daughter of a poor artist. My father died
when I was six years old. When I was fourteen, my mother followed him
to the grave. My only living relation then was my Uncle Andrew, who
had recently returned from Australia and bought a small place in his
native county, Crabtree Manor. He was exceedingly kind to his
brother’s orphan child, took me to live with him, and treated me in
every way as though I were his own daughter.
“Crabtree Manor,” she pursued, “in spite of its name, is really only
an old farmhouse. Farming was in my uncle’s blood, and he was
intensely interested in various modern farming experiments. Although
kindness itself to me, he had certain peculiar and deeply rooted ideas
as to the upbringing of women. Himself a man of little or no
education, though possessing remarkable shrewdness, he placed little
value on what he called ‘book knowledge.’ He was especially opposed to
the education of women. In his opinion, girls should learn practical
housework and dairy work, be useful about the home, and have as little
to do with book-learning as possible. He proposed to bring me up on
these lines, to my bitter disappointment.
“I rebelled frankly. I knew that I possessed a good brain, and had
absolutely no talent for domestic duties. My uncle and I had many
bitter arguments on the subject, for though much attached to each
other, we were both self-willed. I was lucky enough to win a
scholarship, and up to a certain point was successful in getting my
own way. The crisis arose when I resolved to go to Girton. I had a
little money of my own, left me by my mother, and I was quite
determined to make the best use of the gifts God had given me. I had
one long final argument with my uncle. He put the facts plainly before
me. He had no other relations, and he had intended me to be his sole
heiress. As I have told you, he was a very rich man. If I persisted in
these ‘newfangled notions’ of mine, however, I need look for nothing
from him. I remained polite, but firm. I should always be deeply
attached to him, but I must lead my own life. We parted on that note.
‘You fancy your brains, my girl,’ were his last words. ‘I’ve no
book-learning, but for all that, I’ll pit mine against yours any day.
We’ll see what we shall see.’
* * * * *
“That was nine years ago. I have stayed with him for a week-end
occasionally, and our relations were perfectly amicable, though his
views remained unaltered. He never referred to my having matriculated,
nor to my B. Sc. For the last three years his health has been failing,
and a month ago he died. I am now coming to the point of my visit. My
uncle left a most extraordinary will. By its terms, Crabtree Manor and
its contents are to be at my disposal for a year from his
death—‘during which time my clever niece may prove her wits,’ the
actual words run. At the end of that period, ‘my wits having proved
better than hers,’ the house and all my uncle’s large fortune pass to
various charitable institutions.”
“That is a little hard on you, mademoiselle,” commented Poirot,
“seeing that you were Mr. Marsh’s only blood relation.”
“I do not look on it in that way. Uncle Andrew warned me fairly, and I
chose my own path. Since I would not fall in with his wishes, he was
at perfect liberty to leave his money to whom he pleased.”
“Was the will drawn up by a lawyer?”
“No; it was written on a printed will-form and witnessed by the man
and his wife who lived in the house and looked after my uncle.”
“There might be a possibility of upsetting such a will?”
“I would not even attempt to do such a thing.”
“You regard it, then, as a sporting challenge on the part of your
uncle?”
“That is exactly how I look upon it.”
“It bears that interpretation, certainly,” said Poirot thoughtfully.
“Somewhere in this rambling old manor house your uncle has concealed
either a sum of money in notes, or possibly a second will, and has
given you a year in which to exercise your ingenuity to find it.”
“Exactly, M. Poirot, and I am paying you the compliment of assuming
that your ingenuity will be greater than mine.”
“Eh, eh! But that is very charming of you. My gray cells are at your
disposal. You have made no search yourself?”
“Only a cursory one, but I have too much respect for my uncle’s
undoubted abilities to fancy that the task will be an easy one.”
“Have you the will, or a copy of it with you?”
Miss Marsh handed a document across the table. Poirot ran through it,
nodding to himself.
“Made three years ago. Dated March 25, and the time is given
also—eleven a. m.—that is very suggestive. It narrows the field of
search. Assuredly it is another will we have to seek for. A will made
even half an hour later would upset this. _Eh bien_, mademoiselle, it
is a problem charming and ingenious that you have presented to me
here. I shall have all the pleasure in the world in solving it for
you. Granted that your uncle was a man of ability, his gray cells
cannot have been of the quality of Hercule Poirot’s!”
(Really, Poirot’s vanity is blatant!)
“Fortunately, I have nothing of moment on hand at the minute. Hastings
and I will go down to Crabtree Manor tonight. The man and wife who
attended on your uncle are still there, I presume?”
“Yes, their name is Baker.”
* * * * *
The following morning saw us started on the hunt proper. We had
arrived late the night before. Mr. and Mrs. Baker, having received a
telegram from Miss Marsh, were expecting us. They were a pleasant
couple, the man gnarled and pink-cheeked like a shriveled pippin, and
his wife a woman of vast proportions and true Devonshire calm.
Tired with our journey, including an eight-mile drive from the
station, we had retired at once to bed after a supper of roast
chicken, apple pie and Devonshire cream. We had now disposed of an
excellent breakfast, and were sitting in a small paneled room which
had been the late Mr. Marsh’s study and living-room. A roll-top desk
stuffed with papers, all neatly docketed, stood against the wall, and
a big leather armchair showed plainly that it had been its owner’s
constant resting-place. A big chintz-covered settee ran along the
opposite wall, and the deep low window-seats were covered with the
same faded chintz of an old-fashioned pattern.
“_Eh bien, mon ami_,” said Poirot, lighting one of his tiny
cigarettes, “we must map out our plan of campaign. Already I have made
a rough survey of the house, but I am of opinion that any clue will be
found in this room. We shall have to go through the documents in the
desk with meticulous care. Naturally I do not expect to find the will
among them, but it is likely that some apparently innocent paper may
conceal the clue to its hiding-place. But first we must have a little
information. Ring the bell, I pray of you.”
* * * * *
I did so. While we were waiting for it to be answered, Poirot walked
up and down, looking about him approvingly.
“A man of method, this Mr. Marsh. See how neatly the packets of papers
are docketed; and the key to each drawer has its ivory label—so has
the key of the china-cabinet on the wall. And see with what precision
the china within is arranged! It rejoices the heart. Nothing here
offends the eye—”
He came to an abrupt pause, as his eye was caught by the key of the
desk itself, to which a dirty envelope was affixed. Poirot frowned at
it, and withdrew it from the lock. On it were scrawled the words “_Key
of Roll-top Desk_” in a crabbed handwriting quite unlike the neat
superscriptures on the other keys.
“An alien note,” said Poirot, frowning. “I could swear that here we
have no longer the personality of Mr. Marsh. But who else has been in
the house? Only Miss Marsh; and she, if I mistake not, is also a young
lady of method and order.”
Baker came in answer to the bell.
“Will you fetch Madame your wife and answer a few questions?”
Baker departed, and in a few moments returned with Mrs. Baker, wiping
her hands on her apron and beaming all over her face.
In a few clear words, Poirot set forth the object of his mission. The
Bakers were immediately sympathetic.
“Us don’t want to see Miss Violet done out of what’s hers,” declared
the woman. “Cruel hard, ’twould be, for hospitals to get it all.”
Poirot proceeded with his questions. Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Baker
remembered perfectly witnessing the will. Baker had previously been
sent into the neighboring town to get two printed will-forms.
“Two?” said Poirot sharply.
“Yes sir, for safety like, I suppose, in case he should spoil one—and
sure enough, so he did do. Us had signed one—”
“What time of day was that?”
Baker scratched his head, but his wife was quicker.
“Why, to be sure, I’d just put the milk on for the cocoa at eleven.
Don’t ee remember? It had all boiled over on the stove when us got
back to kitchen.”
“And afterward?”
“’Twould be about an hour later. Us had to go in again. ‘I’ve made a
mistake,’ says old Master, ‘—had to tear the whole thing up. I’ll
trouble you to sign again.’ And us did. And afterward Master give us a
tidy sum of money each. ‘I’ve left you nothing in my will,’ says he,
‘but each year I live, you’ll have this to be a nest-egg when I’m
gone;’ and sure enough, so he did.”
Poirot reflected.
“After you had signed the second time, what did Mr. Marsh do? Do you
know?”
“Went out to the village to pay tradesmen’s books.”
* * * * *
That did not seem very promising. Poirot tried another tack. He held
out the key of the desk.
“Is that your master’s writing?”
I may have imagined it, but I fancied that a moment or two elapsed
before Baker replied: “Yes sir, it is.”
“He’s lying,” I thought. “But why?”
“Has your master let the house? Have there been any strangers in it
during the last three years?”
“No sir.”
“No visitors?”
“Only Miss Violet.”
“No strangers of any kind been inside this room?”
“No sir.”
“You forget the workmen, Jim,” his wife reminded him.
“Workmen?” Poirot wheeled round on her. “What workmen?”
The woman explained that about two years and a half ago workmen had
been in the house to do certain repairs. She was quite vague as to
what the repairs were. Her view seemed to be that the whole thing was
a fad of her master’s, and quite unnecessary. Part of the time the
workmen had been in the study, but what they had done there she could
not say, as her master had not let either of them into the room while
the work was in progress. Unfortunately they could not remember the
name of the firm employed, beyond the fact that it was a Plymouth one.
“We progress, Hastings,” said Poirot, rubbing his hands, as the Bakers
left the room. “Clearly he made a second will, and then had workmen
from Plymouth in to make a suitable hiding-place. Instead of wasting
time, taking up the floor and tapping the walls, we will go to
Plymouth.”
* * * * *
With a little trouble we were able to get the information we wanted.
And after one or two essays, we found the firm employed by Mr. Marsh.
Their employees had all been with them many years, and it was easy to
find the two men who had worked under Mr. Marsh’s orders. They
remembered the job perfectly. Among various other minor jobs, they had
taken up one of the bricks of the old-fashioned fireplace, made a
cavity beneath, and so cut the brick that it was impossible to see the
joint. By pressing on the second brick from the end, the whole thing
was raised. It had been quite a complicated piece of work, and the old
gentleman had been very fussy about it. Our informant was a man called
Coghan, a big, gaunt man with a grizzled mustache. He seemed an
intelligent fellow.
We returned to Crabtree Manor in high spirits, and locking the study
door, proceeded to put our newly acquired knowledge into effect. It
was impossible to see any sign on the bricks, but when we pressed in
the manner indicated, a deep cavity was at once disclosed.
Eagerly Poirot plunged in his hand. Suddenly his face fell from
complacent elation to consternation. All he held was a charred
fragment of stiff paper. But for it, the cavity was empty.
“_Sacré_,” cried Poirot angrily. “Some one has been here before us!”
We examined the scrap of paper anxiously. Clearly it was a fragment of
what we sought. A portion of Baker’s signature remained, but no
indication of what the terms of the will had been.
Poirot sat back on his heels.
“I understand it not,” he growled. “Who destroyed this? And what was
their object?”
“The Bakers?” I suggested.
“_Pourquoi?_ Neither will makes any provision for them, and they are
more likely to be kept on with Miss Marsh than if the place became the
property of a hospital. How could it be to anyone’s advantage to
destroy the will? The hospitals benefit, yes; but one cannot suspect
institutions!”
“Perhaps the old man changed his mind and destroyed it himself,” I
suggested.
Poirot rose to his feet, dusting his knees with his usual care.
“That may be,” he admitted. “One of your more sensible observations,
Hastings. Well, we can do no more here. We have done all that mortal
man can do. We have successfully pitted our wits against the late
Andrew Marsh, but unfortunately his niece is no better off for our
success.”
* * * * *
By driving to the station at once, we were just able to catch a train
to London, though not the principal express. Poirot was sad and
dissatisfied. For my part, I was tired and dozed in a corner.
Suddenly, as we were just moving out of Taunton, Poirot uttered a
piercing squeal.
“_Vite_, Hastings! Awake and jump. But jump, I say!”
Before I knew where I was, we were standing on the platform,
bareheaded and minus our valises, while the train disappeared into the
night. I was furious, but Poirot paid no attention.
“Imbecile that I have been!” he cried. “Triple imbecile! Not again
will I vaunt my little gray cells!”
“That’s a good job, at any rate,” I said grumpily. “But what is this
all about?”
As usual, when following out his own ideas, he paid absolutely no
attention to me.
“The tradesmen’s books, I have left them entirely out of account! Yes,
but where? Where? Never mind, I cannot be mistaken. We must return at
once.”
Easier said than done. We managed to get a slow train to Exeter, and
there Poirot hired a car. We arrived back at Crabtree Manor in the
small hours of the morning. I pass over the bewilderment of the Bakers
when we had at last aroused them. Paying no attention to anybody,
Poirot strode at once to the study.
“I have been, not a triple imbecile, but thirty-six times one, my
friend,” he deigned to remark. “Now, behold!”
Going straight to the desk, he drew out the key, and detached the
envelope from it. I stared at him stupidly. How could he possibly hope
to find a big will-form in that tiny envelope? With great care he cut
open the envelope, laying it out flat. Then he lighted the fire and
held the plain inside surface of the envelope to the flame. In a few
minutes faint characters began to appear.
“Look!” cried Poirot in triumph.
I looked. There were just a few lines of faint writing stating briefly
that he left everything to his niece Violet Marsh. It was dated March
25, twelve-thirty p. m., and witnessed by Albert Pike, confectioner,
and Jessie Pike, married woman.
“But is it legal?” I gasped.
“As far as I know, there is no law against writing your will in a
blend of disappearing and sympathetic ink. The intention of the
testator is clear, and the beneficiary is his only living relation.
But the cleverness of him! He foresaw every step that a searcher would
take, that I, miserable imbecile, took! He gets two will-forms, makes
the servants sign twice, then sallies out with his will written on the
inside of a dirty envelope, and a fountain pen containing his little
ink-mixture. On some excuse he gets the confectioner and his wife to
sign their names under his own signature; then he ties it to the key
of his desk and chuckles to himself. If his niece sees through his
little ruse, she will have justified her choice of life and elaborate
education and be thoroughly welcome to his money.”
“She didn’t see through it, did she?” I said slowly. “It seems rather
unfair. The old man really won.”
“But no, Hastings! It is _your_ wits that go astray. Miss Marsh proved
the astuteness of her wits and the value of the higher education for
women by at once putting the matter in _my_ hands. Always employ the
expert! She has amply proved her right to the money.”
I wonder—I very much wonder what old Andrew Marsh would have thought!
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the January, 1925 issue of
The Blue Book Magazine.] | null |
The Clue of the Twisted Candle | Edgar Wallace | 180 | ['John Lexman'] | Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer
THE CLUE OF THE TWISTED CANDLE
By Edgar Wallace
CHAPTER I
The 4.15 from Victoria to Lewes had been held up at Three Bridges in
consequence of a derailment and, though John Lexman was fortunate enough
to catch a belated connection to Beston Tracey, the wagonette which was
the sole communication between the village and the outside world had
gone.
"If you can wait half an hour, Mr. Lexman," said the station-master, "I
will telephone up to the village and get Briggs to come down for you."
John Lexman looked out upon the dripping landscape and shrugged his
shoulders.
"I'll walk," he said shortly and, leaving his bag in the
station-master's care and buttoning his mackintosh to his chin, he
stepped forth resolutely into the rain to negotiate the two miles which
separated the tiny railway station from Little Tracey.
The downpour was incessant and likely to last through the night.
The high hedges on either side of the narrow road were so many leafy
cascades; the road itself was in places ankle deep in mud. He stopped
under the protecting cover of a big tree to fill and light his pipe and
with its bowl turned downwards continued his walk. But for the
driving rain which searched every crevice and found every chink in his
waterproof armor, he preferred, indeed welcomed, the walk.
The road from Beston Tracey to Little Beston was associated in his mind
with some of the finest situations in his novels. It was on this road
that he had conceived "The Tilbury Mystery." Between the station and the
house he had woven the plot which had made "Gregory Standish" the most
popular detective story of the year. For John Lexman was a maker of
cunning plots.
If, in the literary world, he was regarded by superior persons as a
writer of "shockers," he had a large and increasing public who were
fascinated by the wholesome and thrilling stories he wrote, and who
held on breathlessly to the skein of mystery until they came to the
denouement he had planned.
But no thought of books, or plots, or stories filled his troubled mind
as he strode along the deserted road to Little Beston. He had had two
interviews in London, one of which under ordinary circumstances would
have filled him with joy: He had seen T. X. and "T. X." was T. X.
Meredith, who would one day be Chief of the Criminal Investigation
Department and was now an Assistant Commissioner of Police, engaged in
the more delicate work of that department.
In his erratic, tempestuous way, T. X. had suggested the greatest idea
for a plot that any author could desire. But it was not of T. X. that
John Lexman thought as he breasted the hill, on the slope of which was
the tiny habitation known by the somewhat magnificent title of Beston
Priory.
It was the interview he had had with the Greek on the previous day which
filled his mind, and he frowned as he recalled it. He opened the little
wicket gate and went through the plantation to the house, doing his
best to shake off the recollection of the remarkable and unedifying
discussion he had had with the moneylender.
Beston Priory was little more than a cottage, though one of its walls
was an indubitable relic of that establishment which a pious Howard had
erected in the thirteenth century. A small and unpretentious building,
built in the Elizabethan style with quaint gables and high chimneys,
its latticed windows and sunken gardens, its rosary and its tiny meadow,
gave it a certain manorial completeness which was a source of great
pride to its owner.
He passed under the thatched porch, and stood for a moment in the broad
hallway as he stripped his drenching mackintosh.
The hall was in darkness. Grace would probably be changing for dinner,
and he decided that in his present mood he would not disturb her. He
passed through the long passage which led to the big study at the back
of the house. A fire burnt redly in the old-fashioned grate and the snug
comfort of the room brought a sense of ease and relief. He changed his
shoes, and lit the table lamp.
The room was obviously a man's den. The leather-covered chairs, the big
and well-filled bookcase which covered one wall of the room, the
huge, solid-oak writing-desk, covered with books and half-finished
manuscripts, spoke unmistakably of its owner's occupation.
After he had changed his shoes, he refilled his pipe, walked over to the
fire, and stood looking down into its glowing heart.
He was a man a little above medium height, slimly built, with a breadth
of shoulder which was suggestive of the athlete. He had indeed rowed 4
in his boat, and had fought his way into the semi-finals of the
amateur boxing championship of England. His face was strong, lean, yet
well-moulded. His eyes were grey and deep, his eyebrows straight and a
little forbidding. The clean-shaven mouth was big and generous, and the
healthy tan of his cheek told of a life lived in the open air.
There was nothing of the recluse or the student in his appearance. He
was in fact a typical, healthy-looking Britisher, very much like any
other man of his class whom one would meet in the mess-room of the
British army, in the wardrooms of the fleet, or in the far-off posts of
the Empire, where the administrative cogs of the great machine are to be
seen at work.
There was a little tap at the door, and before he could say "Come in" it
was pushed open and Grace Lexman entered.
If you described her as brave and sweet you might secure from that brief
description both her manner and her charm. He half crossed the room to
meet her, and kissed her tenderly.
"I didn't know you were back until--" she said; linking her arm in his.
"Until you saw the horrible mess my mackintosh has made," he smiled. "I
know your methods, Watson!"
She laughed, but became serious again.
"I am very glad you've come back. We have a visitor," she said.
He raised his eyebrows.
"A visitor? Whoever came down on a day like this?"
She looked at him a little strangely.
"Mr. Kara," she said.
"Kara? How long has he been here?"
"He came at four."
There was nothing enthusiastic in her tone.
"I can't understand why you don't like old Kara," rallied her husband.
"There are very many reasons," she replied, a little curtly for her.
"Anyway," said John Lexman, after a moment's thought, "his arrival is
rather opportune. Where is he?"
"He is in the drawing-room."
The Priory drawing-room was a low-ceilinged, rambling apartment,
"all old print and chrysanthemums," to use Lexman's description. Cosy
armchairs, a grand piano, an almost medieval open grate, faced with
dull-green tiles, a well-worn but cheerful carpet and two big silver
candelabras were the principal features which attracted the newcomer.
There was in this room a harmony, a quiet order and a soothing quality
which made it a haven of rest to a literary man with jagged nerves. Two
big bronze bowls were filled with early violets, another blazed like a
pale sun with primroses, and the early woodland flowers filled the room
with a faint fragrance.
A man rose to his feet, as John Lexman entered and crossed the room with
an easy carriage. He was a man possessed of singular beauty of face and
of figure. Half a head taller than the author, he carried himself with
such a grace as to conceal his height.
"I missed you in town," he said, "so I thought I'd run down on the off
chance of seeing you."
He spoke in the well-modulated tone of one who had had a long
acquaintance with the public schools and universities of England. There
was no trace of any foreign accent, yet Remington Kara was a Greek and
had been born and partly educated in the more turbulent area of Albania.
The two men shook hands warmly.
"You'll stay to dinner?"
Kara glanced round with a smile at Grace Lexman. She sat uncomfortably
upright, her hands loosely folded on her lap, her face devoid of
encouragement.
"If Mrs. Lexman doesn't object," said the Greek.
"I should be pleased, if you would," she said, almost mechanically; "it
is a horrid night and you won't get anything worth eating this side of
London and I doubt very much," she smiled a little, "if the meal I can
give you will be worthy of that description."
"What you can give me will be more than sufficient," he said, with a
little bow, and turned to her husband.
In a few minutes they were deep in a discussion of books and places, and
Grace seized the opportunity to make her escape. From books in general
to Lexman's books in particular the conversation flowed.
"I've read every one of them, you know," said Kara.
John made a little face. "Poor devil," he said sardonically.
"On the contrary," said Kara, "I am not to be pitied. There is a great
criminal lost in you, Lexman."
"Thank you," said John.
"I am not being uncomplimentary, am I?" smiled the Greek. "I am merely
referring to the ingenuity of your plots. Sometimes your books baffle
and annoy me. If I cannot see the solution of your mysteries before the
book is half through, it angers me a little. Of course in the majority
of cases I know the solution before I have reached the fifth chapter."
John looked at him in surprise and was somewhat piqued.
"I flatter myself it is impossible to tell how my stories will end until
the last chapter," he said.
Kara nodded.
"That would be so in the case of the average reader, but you forget that
I am a student. I follow every little thread of the clue which you leave
exposed."
"You should meet T. X.," said John, with a laugh, as he rose from his
chair to poke the fire.
"T. X.?"
"T. X. Meredith. He is the most ingenious beggar you could meet. We were
at Caius together, and he is by way of being a great pal of mine. He is
in the Criminal Investigation Department."
Kara nodded. There was the light of interest in his eyes and he would
have pursued the discussion further, but at the moment dinner was
announced.
It was not a particularly cheerful meal because Grace did not as usual
join in the conversation, and it was left to Kara and to her husband
to supply the deficiencies. She was experiencing a curious sense of
depression, a premonition of evil which she could not define. Again and
again in the course of the dinner she took her mind back to the events
of the day to discover the reason for her unease.
Usually when she adopted this method she came upon the trivial causes
in which apprehension was born, but now she was puzzled to find that a
solution was denied her. Her letters of the morning had been pleasant,
neither the house nor the servants had given her any trouble. She was
well herself, and though she knew John had a little money trouble,
since his unfortunate speculation in Roumanian gold shares, and she half
suspected that he had had to borrow money to make good his losses, yet
his prospects were so excellent and the success of his last book
so promising that she, probably seeing with a clearer vision the
unimportance of those money worries, was less concerned about the
problem than he.
"You will have your coffee in the study, I suppose," said Grace, "and
I know you'll excuse me; I have to see Mrs. Chandler on the mundane
subject of laundry."
She favoured Kara with a little nod as she left the room and touched
John's shoulder lightly with her hand in passing.
Kara's eyes followed her graceful figure until she was out of view,
then:
"I want to see you, Kara," said John Lexman, "if you will give me five
minutes."
"You can have five hours, if you like," said the other, easily.
They went into the study together; the maid brought the coffee
and liqueur, and placed them on a little table near the fire and
disappeared.
For a time the conversation was general. Kara, who was a frank admirer
of the comfort of the room and who lamented his own inability to secure
with money the cosiness which John had obtained at little cost, went on
a foraging expedition whilst his host applied himself to a proof which
needed correcting.
"I suppose it is impossible for you to have electric light here," Kara
asked.
"Quite," replied the other.
"Why?"
"I rather like the light of this lamp."
"It isn't the lamp," drawled the Greek and made a little grimace; "I
hate these candles."
He waved his hand to the mantle-shelf where the six tall, white, waxen
candles stood out from two wall sconces.
"Why on earth do you hate candles?" asked the other in surprise.
Kara made no reply for the moment, but shrugged his shoulders. Presently
he spoke.
"If you were ever tied down to a chair and by the side of that chair was
a small keg of black powder and stuck in that powder was a small candle
that burnt lower and lower every minute--my God!"
John was amazed to see the perspiration stand upon the forehead of his
guest.
"That sounds thrilling," he said.
The Greek wiped his forehead with a silk handkerchief and his hand shook
a little.
"It was something more than thrilling," he said.
"And when did this occur?" asked the author curiously.
"In Albania," replied the other; "it was many years ago, but the devils
are always sending me reminders of the fact."
He did not attempt to explain who the devils were or under what
circumstances he was brought to this unhappy pass, but changed the
subject definitely.
Sauntering round the cosy room he followed the bookshelf which filled
one wall and stopped now and again to examine some title. Presently he
drew forth a stout volume.
"'Wild Brazil'," he read, "by George Gathercole-do you know Gathercole?"
John was filling his pipe from a big blue jar on his desk and nodded.
"Met him once--a taciturn devil. Very short of speech and, like all men
who have seen and done things, less inclined to talk about himself than
any man I know."
Kara looked at the book with a thoughtful pucker of brow and turned the
leaves idly.
"I've never seen him," he said as he replaced the book, "yet, in a
sense, his new journey is on my behalf."
The other man looked up.
"On your behalf?"
"Yes--you know he has gone to Patagonia for me. He believes there is
gold there--you will learn as much from his book on the mountain systems
of South America. I was interested in his theories and corresponded
with him. As a result of that correspondence he undertook to make a
geological survey for me. I sent him money for his expenses, and he went
off."
"You never saw him?" asked John Lexman, surprised.
Kara shook his head.
"That was not--?" began his host.
"Not like me, you were going to say. Frankly, it was not, but then I
realized that he was an unusual kind of man. I invited him to dine with
me before he left London, and in reply received a wire from Southampton
intimating that he was already on his way."
Lexman nodded.
"It must be an awfully interesting kind of life," he said. "I suppose he
will be away for quite a long time?"
"Three years," said Kara, continuing his examination of the bookshelf.
"I envy those fellows who run round the world writing books," said John,
puffing reflectively at his pipe. "They have all the best of it."
Kara turned. He stood immediately behind the author and the other
could not see his face. There was, however, in his voice an unusual
earnestness and an unusual quiet vehemence.
"What have you to complain about!" he asked, with that little drawl of
his. "You have your own creative work--the most fascinating branch of
labour that comes to a man. He, poor beggar, is bound to actualities.
You have the full range of all the worlds which your imagination
gives to you. You can create men and destroy them, call into existence
fascinating problems, mystify and baffle ten or twenty thousand people,
and then, at a word, elucidate your mystery."
John laughed.
"There is something in that," he said.
"As for the rest of your life," Kara went on in a lower voice, "I think
you have that which makes life worth living--an incomparable wife."
Lexman swung round in his chair, and met the other's gaze, and there was
something in the set of the other's handsome face which took his breath
away.
"I do not see--" he began.
Kara smiled.
"That was an impertinence, wasn't it!" he said, banteringly. "But then
you mustn't forget, my dear man, that I was very anxious to marry your
wife. I don't suppose it is secret. And when I lost her, I had ideas
about you which are not pleasant to recall."
He had recovered his self-possession and had continued his aimless
stroll about the room.
"You must remember I am a Greek, and the modern Greek is no philosopher.
You must remember, too, that I am a petted child of fortune, and have
had everything I wanted since I was a baby."
"You are a fortunate devil," said the other, turning back to his desk,
and taking up his pen.
For a moment Kara did not speak, then he made as though he would say
something, checked himself, and laughed.
"I wonder if I am," he said.
And now he spoke with a sudden energy.
"What is this trouble you are having with Vassalaro?"
John rose from his chair and walked over to the fire, stood gazing down
into its depths, his legs wide apart, his hands clasped behind him, and
Kara took his attitude to supply an answer to the question.
"I warned you against Vassalaro," he said, stooping by the other's side
to light his cigar with a spill of paper. "My dear Lexman, my fellow
countrymen are unpleasant people to deal with in certain moods."
"He was so obliging at first," said Lexman, half to himself.
"And now he is so disobliging," drawled Kara. "That is a way which
moneylenders have, my dear man; you were very foolish to go to him at
all. I could have lent you the money."
"There were reasons why I should not borrow money from you,", said John,
quietly, "and I think you yourself have supplied the principal reason
when you told me just now, what I already knew, that you wanted to marry
Grace."
"How much is the amount?" asked Kara, examining his well-manicured
finger-nails.
"Two thousand five hundred pounds," replied John, with a short laugh,
"and I haven't two thousand five hundred shillings at this moment."
"Will he wait?"
John Lexman shrugged his shoulders.
"Look here, Kara," he said, suddenly, "don't think I want to reproach
you, but it was through you that I met Vassalaro so that you know the
kind of man he is."
Kara nodded.
"Well, I can tell you he has been very unpleasant indeed," said John,
with a frown, "I had an interview with him yesterday in London and it
is clear that he is going to make a lot of trouble. I depended upon the
success of my play in town giving me enough to pay him off, and I very
foolishly made a lot of promises of repayment which I have been unable
to keep."
"I see," said Kara, and then, "does Mrs. Lexman know about this matter?"
"A little," said the other.
He paced restlessly up and down the room, his hands behind him and his
chin upon his chest.
"Naturally I have not told her the worst, or how beastly unpleasant the
man has been."
He stopped and turned.
"Do you know he threatened to kill me?" he asked.
Kara smiled.
"I can tell you it was no laughing matter," said the other, angrily,
"I nearly took the little whippersnapper by the scruff of the neck and
kicked him."
Kara dropped his hand on the other's arm.
"I am not laughing at you," he said; "I am laughing at the thought of
Vassalaro threatening to kill anybody. He is the biggest coward in the
world. What on earth induced him to take this drastic step?"
"He said he is being hard pushed for money," said the other, moodily,
"and it is possibly true. He was beside himself with anger and anxiety,
otherwise I might have given the little blackguard the thrashing he
deserved."
Kara who had continued his stroll came down the room and halted in front
of the fireplace looking at the young author with a paternal smile.
"You don't understand Vassalaro," he said; "I repeat he is the greatest
coward in the world. You will probably discover he is full of firearms
and threats of slaughter, but you have only to click a revolver to see
him collapse. Have you a revolver, by the way?"
"Oh, nonsense," said the other, roughly, "I cannot engage myself in that
kind of melodrama."
"It is not nonsense," insisted the other, "when you are in Rome, et
cetera, and when you have to deal with a low-class Greek you must use
methods which will at least impress him. If you thrash him, he will
never forgive you and will probably stick a knife into you or your wife.
If you meet his melodrama with melodrama and at the psychological moment
produce your revolver; you will secure the effect you require. Have you
a revolver?"
John went to his desk and, pulling open a drawer, took out a small
Browning.
"That is the extent of my armory," he said, "it has never been fired and
was sent to me by an unknown admirer last Christmas."
"A curious Christmas present," said the other, examining the weapon.
"I suppose the mistaken donor imagined from my books that I lived in
a veritable museum of revolvers, sword sticks and noxious drugs," said
Lexman, recovering some of his good humour; "it was accompanied by a
card."
"Do you know how it works?" asked the other.
"I have never troubled very much about it," replied Lexman, "I know that
it is loaded by slipping back the cover, but as my admirer did not send
ammunition, I never even practised with it."
There was a knock at the door.
"That is the post," explained John.
The maid had one letter on the salver and the author took it up with a
frown.
"From Vassalaro," he said, when the girl had left the room.
The Greek took the letter in his hand and examined it.
"He writes a vile fist," was his only comment as he handed it back to
John.
He slit open the thin, buff envelope and took out half a dozen sheets of
yellow paper, only a single sheet of which was written upon. The letter
was brief:
"I must see you to-night without fail," ran the scrawl; "meet me
at the crossroads between Beston Tracey and the Eastbourne
Road. I shall be there at eleven o'clock, and, if you want to
preserve your life, you had better bring me a substantial
instalment."
It was signed "Vassalaro."
John read the letter aloud. "He must be mad to write a letter like
that," he said; "I'll meet the little devil and teach him such a lesson
in politeness as he is never likely to forget."
He handed the letter to the other and Kara read it in silence.
"Better take your revolver," he said as he handed it back.
John Lexman looked at his watch.
"I have an hour yet, but it will take me the best part of twenty minutes
to reach the Eastbourne Road."
"Will you see him?" asked Kara, in a tone of surprise.
"Certainly," Lexman replied emphatically: "I cannot have him coming up
to the house and making a scene and that is certainly what the little
beast will do."
"Will you pay him?" asked Kara softly.
John made no answer. There was probably 10 pounds in the house and a
cheque which was due on the morrow would bring him another 30 pounds.
He looked at the letter again. It was written on paper of an unusual
texture. The surface was rough almost like blotting paper and in some
places the ink absorbed by the porous surface had run. The blank sheets
had evidently been inserted by a man in so violent a hurry that he had
not noticed the extravagance.
"I shall keep this letter," said John.
"I think you are well advised. Vassalaro probably does not know that he
transgresses a law in writing threatening letters and that should be a
very strong weapon in your hand in certain eventualities."
There was a tiny safe in one corner of the study and this John opened
with a key which he took from his pocket. He pulled open one of the
steel drawers, took out the papers which were in it and put in their
place the letter, pushed the drawer to, and locked it.
All the time Kara was watching him intently as one who found more than
an ordinary amount of interest in the novelty of the procedure.
He took his leave soon afterwards.
"I would like to come with you to your interesting meeting," he said,
"but unfortunately I have business elsewhere. Let me enjoin you to take
your revolver and at the first sign of any bloodthirsty intention on the
part of my admirable compatriot, produce it and click it once or twice,
you won't have to do more."
Grace rose from the piano as Kara entered the little drawing-room and
murmured a few conventional expressions of regret that the visitor's
stay had been so short. That there was no sincerity in that regret Kara,
for one, had no doubt. He was a man singularly free from illusions.
They stayed talking a little while.
"I will see if your chauffeur is asleep," said John, and went out of the
room.
There was a little silence after he had gone.
"I don't think you are very glad to see me," said Kara. His frankness
was a little embarrassing to the girl and she flushed slightly.
"I am always glad to see you, Mr. Kara, or any other of my husband's
friends," she said steadily.
He inclined his head.
"To be a friend of your husband is something," he said, and then as if
remembering something, "I wanted to take a book away with me--I wonder
if your husband would mind my getting it?"
"I will find it for you."
"Don't let me bother you," he protested, "I know my way."
Without waiting for her permission he left the girl with the unpleasant
feeling that he was taking rather much for granted. He was gone less
than a minute and returned with a book under his arm.
"I have not asked Lexman's permission to take it," he said, "but I am
rather interested in the author. Oh, here you are," he turned to John
who came in at that moment. "Might I take this book on Mexico?" he
asked. "I will return it in the morning."
They stood at the door, watching the tail light of the motor disappear
down the drive; and returned in silence to the drawing room.
"You look worried, dear," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder.
He smiled faintly.
"Is it the money?" she asked anxiously.
For a moment he was tempted to tell her of the letter. He stifled the
temptation realizing that she would not consent to his going out if she
knew the truth.
"It is nothing very much," he said. "I have to go down to Beston Tracey
to meet the last train. I am expecting some proofs down."
He hated lying to her, and even an innocuous lie of this character was
repugnant to him.
"I'm afraid you have had a dull evening," he said, "Kara was not very
amusing."
She looked at him thoughtfully.
"He has not changed very much," she said slowly.
"He's a wonderfully handsome chap, isn't he?" he asked in a tone of
admiration. "I can't understand what you ever saw in a fellow like me,
when you had a man who was not only rich, but possibly the best-looking
man in the world."
She shivered a little.
"I have seen a side of Mr. Kara that is not particularly beautiful," she
said. "Oh, John, I am afraid of that man!"
He looked at her in astonishment.
"Afraid?" he asked. "Good heavens, Grace, what a thing to say! Why I
believe he'd do anything for you."
"That is exactly what I am afraid of," she said in a low voice.
She had a reason which she did not reveal. She had first met Remington
Kara in Salonika two years before. She had been doing a tour through the
Balkans with her father--it was the last tour the famous archeologist
made--and had met the man who was fated to have such an influence upon
her life at a dinner given by the American Consul.
Many were the stories which were told about this Greek with his
Jove-like face, his handsome carriage and his limitless wealth. It
was said that his mother was an American lady who had been captured by
Albanian brigands and was sold to one of the Albanian chiefs who fell
in love with her, and for her sake became a Protestant. He had been
educated at Yale and at Oxford, and was known to be the possessor of
vast wealth, and was virtually king of a hill district forty miles out
of Durazzo. Here he reigned supreme, occupying a beautiful house which
he had built by an Italian architect, and the fittings and appointments
of which had been imported from the luxurious centres of the world.
In Albania they called him "Kara Rumo," which meant "The Black Roman,"
for no particular reason so far as any one could judge, for his skin was
as fair as a Saxon's, and his close-cropped curls were almost golden.
He had fallen in love with Grace Terrell. At first his attentions had
amused her, and then there came a time when they frightened her, for the
man's fire and passion had been unmistakable. She had made it plain to
him that he could base no hopes upon her returning his love, and, in a
scene which she even now shuddered to recall, he had revealed something
of his wild and reckless nature. On the following day she did not see
him, but two days later, when returning through the Bazaar from a dance
which had been given by the Governor General, her carriage was stopped,
she was forcibly dragged from its interior, and her cries were stifled
with a cloth impregnated with a scent of a peculiar aromatic sweetness.
Her assailants were about to thrust her into another carriage, when a
party of British bluejackets who had been on leave came upon the scene,
and, without knowing anything of the nationality of the girl, had
rescued her.
In her heart of hearts she did not doubt Kara's complicity in this
medieval attempt to gain a wife, but of this adventure she had told
her husband nothing. Until her marriage she was constantly receiving
valuable presents which she as constantly returned to the only address
she knew--Kara's estate at Lemazo. A few months after her marriage she
had learned through the newspapers that this "leader of Greek society"
had purchased a big house near Cadogan Square, and then, to her
amazement and to her dismay, Kara had scraped an acquaintance with her
husband even before the honeymoon was over.
His visits had been happily few, but the growing intimacy between
John and this strange undisciplined man had been a source of constant
distress to her.
Should she, at this, the eleventh hour, tell her husband all her fears
and her suspicions?
She debated the point for some time. And never was she nearer taking him
into her complete confidence than she was as he sat in the big armchair
by the side of the piano, a little drawn of face, more than a little
absorbed in his own meditations. Had he been less worried she might have
spoken. As it was, she turned the conversation to his last work, the
big mystery story which, if it would not make his fortune, would mean a
considerable increase to his income.
At a quarter to eleven he looked at his watch, and rose. She helped him
on with his coat. He stood for some time irresolutely.
"Is there anything you have forgotten?" she asked.
He asked himself whether he should follow Kara's advice. In any
circumstance it was not a pleasant thing to meet a ferocious little
man who had threatened his life, and to meet him unarmed was tempting
Providence. The whole thing was of course ridiculous, but it was
ridiculous that he should have borrowed, and it was ridiculous that the
borrowing should have been necessary, and yet he had speculated on the
best of advice--it was Kara's advice.
The connection suddenly occurred to him, and yet Kara had not directly
suggested that he should buy Roumanian gold shares, but had merely
spoken glowingly of their prospects. He thought a moment, and then
walked back slowly into the study, pulled open the drawer of his desk,
took out the sinister little Browning, and slipped it into his pocket.
"I shan't be long, dear," he said, and kissing the girl he strode out
into the darkness.
Kara sat back in the luxurious depths of his car, humming a little tune,
as the driver picked his way cautiously over the uncertain road. The
rain was still falling, and Kara had to rub the windows free of the mist
which had gathered on them to discover where he was. From time to time
he looked out as though he expected to see somebody, and then with a
little smile he remembered that he had changed his original plan, and
that he had fixed the waiting room of Lewes junction as his rendezvous.
Here it was that he found a little man muffled up to the ears in a big
top coat, standing before the dying fire. He started as Kara entered and
at a signal followed him from the room.
The stranger was obviously not English. His face was sallow and peaked,
his cheeks were hollow, and the beard he wore was irregular-almost
unkempt.
Kara led the way to the end of the dark platform, before he spoke.
"You have carried out my instructions?" he asked brusquely.
The language he spoke was Arabic, and the other answered him in that
language.
"Everything that you have ordered has been done, Effendi," he said
humbly.
"You have a revolver?"
The man nodded and patted his pocket.
"Loaded?"
"Excellency," asked the other, in surprise, "what is the use of a
revolver, if it is not loaded?"
"You understand, you are not to shoot this man," said Kara. "You are
merely to present the pistol. To make sure, you had better unload it
now."
Wonderingly the man obeyed, and clicked back the ejector.
"I will take the cartridges," said Kara, holding out his hand.
He slipped the little cylinders into his pocket, and after examining the
weapon returned it to its owner.
"You will threaten him," he went on. "Present the revolver straight at
his heart. You need do nothing else."
The man shuffled uneasily.
"I will do as you say, Effendi," he said. "But--"
"There are no 'buts,'" replied the other harshly. "You are to carry out
my instructions without any question. What will happen then you shall
see. I shall be at hand. That I have a reason for this play be assured."
"But suppose he shoots?" persisted the other uneasily.
"He will not shoot," said Kara easily. "Besides, his revolver is not
loaded. Now you may go. You have a long walk before you. You know the
way?"
The man nodded.
"I have been over it before," he said confidently.
Kara returned to the big limousine which had drawn up some distance from
the station. He spoke a word or two to the chauffeur in Greek, and the
man touched his hat.
CHAPTER II
Assistant Commissioner of Police T. X. Meredith did not occupy offices
in New Scotland Yard. It is the peculiarity of public offices that they
are planned with the idea of supplying the margin of space above
all requirements and that on their completion they are found wholly
inadequate to house the various departments which mysteriously come into
progress coincident with the building operations.
"T. X.," as he was known by the police forces of the world, had a big
suite of offices in Whitehall. The house was an old one facing the Board
of Trade and the inscription on the ancient door told passers-by that
this was the "Public Prosecutor, Special Branch."
The duties of T. X. were multifarious. People said of him--and like most
public gossip, this was probably untrue--that he was the head of the
"illegal" department of Scotland Yard. If by chance you lost the keys of
your safe, T. X. could supply you (so popular rumour ran) with a burglar
who would open that safe in half an hour.
If there dwelt in England a notorious individual against whom the police
could collect no scintilla of evidence to justify a prosecution, and if
it was necessary for the good of the community that that person should
be deported, it was T. X. who arrested the obnoxious person, hustled
him into a cab and did not loose his hold upon his victim until he had
landed him on the indignant shores of an otherwise friendly power.
It is very certain that when the minister of a tiny power which shall be
nameless was suddenly recalled by his government and brought to trial
in his native land for putting into circulation spurious bonds, it was
somebody from the department which T. X. controlled, who burgled His
Excellency's house, burnt the locks from his safe and secured the
necessary incriminating evidence.
I say it is fairly certain and here I am merely voicing the opinion of
very knowledgeable people indeed, heads of public departments who speak
behind their hands, mysterious under-secretaries of state who discuss
things in whispers in the remote corners of their clubrooms and the more
frank views of American correspondents who had no hesitation in putting
those views into print for the benefit of their readers.
That T. X. had a more legitimate occupation we know, for it was that
flippant man whose outrageous comment on the Home Office Administration
is popularly supposed to have sent one Home Secretary to his grave, who
traced the Deptford murderers through a labyrinth of perjury and who
brought to book Sir Julius Waglite though he had covered his trail of
defalcation through the balance sheets of thirty-four companies.
On the night of March 3rd, T. X. sat in his inner office interviewing a
disconsolate inspector of metropolitan police, named Mansus.
In appearance T. X. conveyed the impression of extreme youth, for his
face was almost boyish and it was only when you looked at him closely
and saw the little creases about his eyes, the setting of his straight
mouth, that you guessed he was on the way to forty. In his early days
he had been something of a poet, and had written a slight volume
of "Woodland Lyrics," the mention of which at this later stage was
sufficient to make him feel violently unhappy.
In manner he was tactful but persistent, his language was at times
marked by a violent extravagance and he had had the distinction of
having provoked, by certain correspondence which had seen the light,
the comment of a former Home Secretary that "it was unfortunate that
Mr. Meredith did not take his position with the seriousness which was
expected from a public official."
His language was, as I say, under great provocation, violent and
unusual. He had a trick of using words which never were on land or sea,
and illustrating his instruction or his admonition with the quaintest
phraseology.
Now he was tilted back in his office chair at an alarming angle,
scowling at his distressed subordinate who sat on the edge of a chair at
the other side of his desk.
"But, T. X.," protested the Inspector, "there was nothing to be found."
It was the outrageous practice of Mr. Meredith to insist upon his
associates calling him by his initials, a practice which had earnt
disapproval in the highest quarters.
"Nothing is to be found!" he repeated wrathfully. "Curious Mike!"
He sat up with a suddenness which caused the police officer to start
back in alarm.
"Listen," said T. X., grasping an ivory paperknife savagely in his hand
and tapping his blotting-pad to emphasize his words, "you're a pie!"
"I'm a policeman," said the other patiently.
"A policeman!" exclaimed the exasperated T. X. "You're worse than a pie,
you're a slud! I'm afraid I shall never make a detective of you," he
shook his head sorrowfully at the smiling Mansus who had been in the
police force when T. X. was a small boy at school, "you are neither Wise
nor Wily; you combine the innocence of a Baby with the grubbiness of a
County Parson--you ought to be in the choir."
At this outrageous insult Mr. Mansus was silent; what he might have
said, or what further provocation he might have received may be never
known, for at that moment, the Chief himself walked in.
The Chief of the Police in these days was a grey man, rather tired, with
a hawk nose and deep eyes that glared under shaggy eyebrows and he was a
terror to all men of his department save to T. X. who respected nothing
on earth and very little elsewhere. He nodded curtly to Mansus.
"Well, T. X.," he said, "what have you discovered about our friend
Kara?"
He turned from T. X. to the discomforted inspector.
"Very little," said T. X. "I've had Mansus on the job."
"And you've found nothing, eh?" growled the Chief.
"He has found all that it is possible to find," said T. X. "We do not
perform miracles in this department, Sir George, nor can we pick up the
threads of a case at five minutes' notice."
Sir George Haley grunted.
"Mansus has done his best," the other went on easily, "but it is rather
absurd to talk about one's best when you know so little of what you
want."
Sir George dropped heavily into the arm-chair, and stretched out his
long thin legs.
"What I want," he said, looking up at the ceiling and putting his hands
together, "is to discover something about one Remington Kara, a wealthy
Greek who has taken a house in Cadogan Square, who has no particular
position in London society and therefore has no reason for coming
here, who openly expresses his detestation of the climate, who has
a magnificent estate in some wild place in the Balkans, who is an
excellent horseman, a magnificent shot and a passable aviator."
T. X. nodded to Mansus and with something of gratitude in his eyes the
inspector took his leave.
"Now Mansus has departed," said T. X., sitting himself on the edge of
his desk and selecting with great care a cigarette from the case he took
from his pocket, "let me know something of the reason for this sudden
interest in the great ones of the earth."
Sir George smiled grimly.
"I have the interest which is the interest of my department," he said.
"That is to say I want to know a great deal about abnormal people. We
have had an application from him," he went on, "which is rather unusual.
Apparently he is in fear of his life from some cause or other and wants
to know if he can have a private telephone connection between his house
and the central office. We told him that he could always get the nearest
Police Station on the 'phone, but that doesn't satisfy him. He has made
bad friends with some gentleman of his own country who sooner or later,
he thinks, will cut his throat."
T. X. nodded.
"All this I know," he said patiently, "if you will further unfold the
secret dossier, Sir George, I am prepared to be thrilled."
"There is nothing thrilling about it," growled the older man, rising,
"but I remember the Macedonian shooting case in South London and I don't
want a repetition of that sort of thing. If people want to have blood
feuds, let them take them outside the metropolitan area."
"By all means," said T. X., "let them. Personally, I don't care where
they go. But if that is the extent of your information I can supplement
it. He has had extensive alterations made to the house he bought in
Cadogan Square; the room in which he lives is practically a safe."
Sir George raised his eyebrows.
"A safe," he repeated.
T. X. nodded.
"A safe," he said; "its walls are burglar proof, floor and roof are
reinforced concrete, there is one door which in addition to its ordinary
lock is closed by a sort of steel latch which he lets fall when he
retires for the night and which he opens himself personally in the
morning. The window is unreachable, there are no communicating doors,
and altogether the room is planned to stand a siege."
The Chief Commissioner was interested.
"Any more?" he asked.
"Let me think," said T. X., looking up at the ceiling. "Yes, the
interior of his room is plainly furnished, there is a big fireplace,
rather an ornate bed, a steel safe built into the wall and visible from
its outer side to the policeman whose beat is in that neighborhood."
"How do you know all this?" asked the Chief Commissioner.
"Because I've been in the room," said T. X. simply, "having by an
underhand trick succeeded in gaining the misplaced confidence of Kara's
housekeeper, who by the way"--he turned round to his desk and scribbled
a name on the blotting-pad--"will be discharged to-morrow and must be
found a place."
"Is there any--er--?" began the Chief.
"Funny business?" interrupted T. X., "not a bit. House and man are quite
normal save for these eccentricities. He has announced his intention of
spending three months of the year in England and nine months abroad. He
is very rich, has no relations, and has a passion for power."
"Then he'll be hung," said the Chief, rising.
"I doubt it," said the other, "people with lots of money seldom get
hung. You only get hung for wanting money."
"Then you're in some danger, T. X.," smiled the Chief, "for according to
my account you're always more or less broke."
"A genial libel," said T. X., "but talking about people being broke, I
saw John Lexman to-day--you know him!"
The Chief Commissioner nodded.
"I've an idea he's rather hit for money. He was in that Roumanian gold
swindle, and by his general gloom, which only comes to a man when he's
in love (and he can't possibly be in love since he's married) or when
he's in debt, I fear that he is still feeling the effect of that rosy
adventure."
A telephone bell in the corner of the room rang sharply, and T. X.
picked up the receiver. He listened intently.
"A trunk call," he said over his shoulder to the departing commissioner,
"it may be something interesting."
A little pause; then a hoarse voice spoke to him. "Is that you, T. X.?"
"That's me," said the Assistant Commissioner, commonly.
"It's John Lexman speaking."
"I shouldn't have recognized your voice," said T. X., "what is wrong
with you, John, can't you get your plot to went?"
"I want you to come down here at once," said the voice urgently, and
even over the telephone T. X. recognized the distress. "I have shot a
man, killed him!"
T. X. gasped.
"Good Lord," he said, "you are a silly ass!"
CHAPTER III
In the early hours of the morning a tragic little party was assembled in
the study at Beston Priory. John Lexman, white and haggard, sat on the
sofa with his wife by his side. Immediate authority as represented by
a village constable was on duty in the passage outside, whilst T. X.
sitting at the table with a writing pad and a pencil was briefly noting
the evidence.
The author had sketched the events of the day. He had described his
interview with the money-lender the day before and the arrival of the
letter.
"You have the letter!" asked T. X.
John Lexman nodded.
"I am glad of that," said the other with a sigh of relief, "that will
save you from a great deal of unpleasantness, my poor old chap. Tell me
what happened afterward."
"I reached the village," said John Lexman, "and passed through it. There
was nobody about, the rain was still falling very heavily and indeed I
didn't meet a single soul all the evening. I reached the place appointed
about five minutes before time. It was the corner of Eastbourne Road
on the station side and there I found Vassalaro waiting. I was rather
ashamed of myself at meeting him at all under these conditions, but I
was very keen on his not coming to the house for I was afraid it would
upset Grace. What made it all the more ridiculous was this infernal
pistol which was in my pocket banging against my side with every step I
took as though to nudge me to an understanding of my folly."
"Where did you meet Vassalaro?" asked T. X.
"He was on the other side of the Eastbourne Road and crossed the road
to meet me. At first he was very pleasant though a little agitated but
afterward he began to behave in a most extraordinary manner as though he
was lashing himself up into a fury which he didn't feel. I promised him
a substantial amount on account, but he grew worse and worse and then,
suddenly, before I realised what he was doing, he was brandishing a
revolver in my face and uttering the most extraordinary threats. Then it
was I remembered Kara's warning."
"Kara," said T. X. quickly.
"A man I know and who was responsible for introducing me to Vassalaro.
He is immensely wealthy."
"I see," said T. X., "go on."
"I remembered this warning," the other proceeded, "and I thought it
worth while trying it out to see if it had any effect upon the little
man. I pulled the pistol from my pocket and pointed it at him, but that
only seemed to make it--and then I pressed the trigger....
"To my horror four shots exploded before I could recover sufficient
self-possession to loosen my hold of the butt. He fell without a word.
I dropped the revolver and knelt by his side. I could tell he was
dangerously wounded, and indeed I knew at that moment that nothing would
save him. My pistol had been pointed in the region of his heart...."
He shuddered, dropping his face in his hands, and the girl by his side,
encircling his shoulder with a protecting arm, murmured something in his
ear. Presently he recovered.
"He wasn't quite dead. I heard him murmur something but I wasn't able
to distinguish what he said. I went straight to the village and told the
constable and had the body removed."
T. X. rose from the table and walked to the door and opened it.
"Come in, constable," he said, and when the man made his appearance,
"I suppose you were very careful in removing this body, and you took
everything which was lying about in the immediate vicinity'?"
"Yes, sir," replied the man, "I took his hat and his walkingstick, if
that's what you mean."
"And the revolver!" asked T. X.
The man shook his head.
"There warn't any revolver, sir, except the pistol which Mr. Lexman
had."
He fumbled in his pocket and pulled it out gingerly, and T. X. took it
from him.
"I'll look after your prisoner; you go down to the village, get any help
you can and make a most careful search in the place where this man
was killed and bring me the revolver which you will discover. You'll
probably find it in a ditch by the side of the road. I'll give a
sovereign to the man who finds it."
The constable touched his hat and went out.
"It looks rather a weird case to me," said T. X., as he came back to the
table, "can't you see the unusual features yourself, Lexman! It isn't
unusual for you to owe money and it isn't unusual for the usurer to
demand the return of that money, but in this case he is asking for
it before it was due, and further than that he was demanding it with
threats. It is not the practice of the average money lender to go after
his clients with a loaded revolver. Another peculiar thing is that if he
wished to blackmail you, that is to say, bring you into contempt in
the eyes of your friends, why did he choose to meet you in a dark and
unfrequented road, and not in your house where the moral pressure would
be greatest? Also, why did he write you a threatening letter which would
certainly bring him into the grip of the law and would have saved you a
great deal of unpleasantness if he had decided upon taking action!"
He tapped his white teeth with the end of his pencil and then suddenly,
"I think I'll see that letter," he said.
John Lexman rose from the sofa, crossed to the safe, unlocked it and
was unlocking the steel drawer in which he had placed the incriminating
document. His hand was on the key when T. X. noticed the look of
surprise on his face.
"What is it!" asked the detective suddenly.
"This drawer feels very hot," said John,--he looked round as though to
measure the distance between the safe and the fire.
T. X. laid his hand upon the front of the drawer. It was indeed warm.
"Open it," said T. X., and Lexman turned the key and pulled the drawer
open.
As he did so, the whole contents burst up in a quick blaze of flame. It
died down immediately and left only a little coil of smoke that flowed
from the safe into the room.
"Don't touch anything inside," said T. X. quickly.
He lifted the drawer carefully and placed it under the light. In the
bottom was no more than a few crumpled white ashes and a blister of
paint where the flame had caught the side.
"I see," said T. X. slowly.
He saw something more than that handful of ashes, he saw the deadly
peril in which his friend was standing. Here was one half of the
evidence in Lexman's favour gone, irredeemably.
"The letter was written on a paper which was specially prepared by a
chemical process which disintegrated the moment the paper was exposed
to the air. Probably if you delayed putting the letter in the drawer
another five minutes, you would have seen it burn before your eyes. As
it was, it was smouldering before you had turned the key of the box. The
envelope!"
"Kara burnt it," said Lexman in a low voice, "I remember seeing him take
it up from the table and throw it in the fire."
T. X. nodded.
"There remains the other half of the evidence," he said grimly, and when
an hour later, the village constable returned to report that in spite
of his most careful search he had failed to discover the dead man's
revolver, his anticipations were realized.
The next morning John Lexman was lodged in Lewes gaol on a charge of
wilful murder.
A telegram brought Mansus from London to Beston Tracey, and T. X.
received him in the library.
"I sent for you, Mansus, because I suffer from the illusion that you
have more brains than most of the people in my department, and that's
not saying much."
"I am very grateful to you, sir, for putting me right with
Commissioner," began Mansus, but T. X. stopped him.
"It is the duty of every head of departments," he said oracularly, "to
shield the incompetence of his subordinates. It is only by the adoption
of some such method that the decencies of the public life can be
observed. Now get down to this." He gave a sketch of the case from start
to finish in as brief a space of time as possible.
"The evidence against Mr. Lexman is very heavy," he said. "He borrowed
money from this man, and on the man's body were found particulars of the
very Promissory Note which Lexman signed. Why he should have brought it
with him, I cannot say. Anyhow I doubt very much whether Mr. Lexman will
get a jury to accept his version. Our only chance is to find the Greek's
revolver--I don't think there's any very great chance, but if we are to
be successful we must make a search at once."
Before he went out he had an interview with Grace. The dark shadows
under her eyes told of a sleepless night. She was unusually pale and
surprisingly calm.
"I think there are one or two things I ought to tell you," she said, as
she led the way into the drawing room, closing the door behind him.
"And they concern Mr. Kara, I think," said T. X.
She looked at him startled.
"How did you know that?"
"I know nothing."
He hesitated on the brink of a flippant claim of omniscience, but
realizing in time the agony she must be suffering he checked his natural
desire.
"I really know nothing," he continued, "but I guess a lot," and that was
as near to the truth as you might expect T. X. to reach on the spur of
the moment.
She began without preliminary.
"In the first place I must tell you that Mr. Kara once asked me to marry
him, and for reasons which I will give you, I am dreadfully afraid of
him."
She described without reserve the meeting at Salonika and Kara's
extravagant rage and told of the attempt which had been made upon her.
"Does John know this?" asked T. X.
She shook her head sadly.
"I wish I had told him now," she said. "Oh, how I wish I had!" She wrung
her hands in an ecstasy of sorrow and remorse.
T. X. looked at her sympathetically. Then he asked,
"Did Mr. Kara ever discuss your husband's financial position with you!"
"Never."
"How did John Lexman happen to meet Vassalaro!"
"I can tell you that," she answered, "the first time we met Mr. Kara
in England was when we were staying at Babbacombe on a summer
holiday--which was really a prolongation of our honeymoon. Mr. Kara came
to stay at the same hotel. I think Mr. Vassalaro must have been there
before; at any rate they knew one another and after Kara's introduction
to my husband the rest was easy.
"Can I do anything for John!" she asked piteously.
T. X. shook his head.
"So far as your story is concerned, I don't think you will advantage him
by telling it," he said. "There is nothing whatever to connect Kara with
this business and you would only give your husband a great deal of pain.
I'll do the best I can."
He held out his hand and she grasped it and somehow at that moment
there came to T. X. Meredith a new courage, a new faith and a greater
determination than ever to solve this troublesome mystery.
He found Mansus waiting for him in a car outside and in a few minutes
they were at the scene of the tragedy. A curious little knot of
spectators had gathered, looking with morbid interest at the place where
the body had been found. There was a local policeman on duty and to him
was deputed the ungracious task of warning his fellow villagers to keep
their distance. The ground had already been searched very carefully. The
two roads crossed almost at right angles and at the corner of the cross
thus formed, the hedges were broken, admitting to a field which had
evidently been used as a pasture by an adjoining dairy farm. Some rough
attempt had been made to close the gap with barbed wire, but it was
possible to step over the drooping strands with little or no difficulty.
It was to this gap that T. X. devoted his principal attention. All the
fields had been carefully examined without result, the four drains which
were merely the connecting pipes between ditches at the sides of the
crossroads had been swept out and only the broken hedge and its tangle
of bushes behind offered any prospect of the new search being rewarded.
"Hullo!" said Mansus, suddenly, and stooping down he picked up something
from the ground.
T. X. took it in his hand.
It was unmistakably a revolver cartridge. He marked the spot where
it had been found by jamming his walking stick into the ground and
continued his search, but without success.
"I am afraid we shall find nothing more here," said T. X., after half
an hour's further search. He stood with his chin in his hand, a frown on
his face.
"Mansus," he said, "suppose there were three people here, Lexman, the
money lender and a third witness. And suppose this third person for some
reason unknown was interested in what took place between the two men and
he wanted to watch unobserved. Isn't it likely that if he, as I think,
instigated the meeting, he would have chosen this place because this
particular hedge gave him a chance of seeing without being seen?"
Mansus thought.
"He could have seen just as well from either of the other hedges, with
less chance of detection," he said, after a long pause.
T. X. grinned.
"You have the makings of a brain," he said admiringly. "I agree with
you. Always remember that, Mansus. That there was one occasion in your
life when T. X. Meredith and you thought alike."
Mansus smiled a little feebly.
"Of course from the point of view of the observer this was the worst
place possible, so whoever came here, if they did come here, dropping
revolver bullets about, must have chosen the spot because it was
get-at-able from another direction. Obviously he couldn't come down the
road and climb in without attracting the attention of the Greek who was
waiting for Mr. Lexman. We may suppose there is a gate farther along the
road, we may suppose that he entered that gate, came along the field by
the side of the hedge and that somewhere between here and the gate, he
threw away his cigar."
"His cigar!" said Mansus in surprise.
"His cigar," repeated T. X., "if he was alone, he would keep his cigar
alight until the very last moment."
"He might have thrown it into the road," said Mansus.
"Don't jibber," said T. X., and led the way along the hedge. From where
they stood they could see the gate which led on to the road about a
hundred yards further on. Within a dozen yards of that gate, T. X. found
what he had been searching for, a half-smoked cigar. It was sodden with
rain and he picked it up tenderly.
"A good cigar, if I am any judge," he said, "cut with a penknife, and
smoked through a holder."
They reached the gate and passed through. Here they were on the road
again and this they followed until they reached another cross road that
to the left inclining southward to the new Eastbourne Road and that to
the westward looking back to the Lewes-Eastbourne railway. The rain had
obliterated much that T. X. was looking for, but presently he found a
faint indication of a car wheel.
"This is where she turned and backed," he said, and walked slowly to the
road on the left, "and this is where she stood. There is the grease from
her engine."
He stooped down and moved forward in the attitude of a Russian dancer,
"And here are the wax matches which the chauffeur struck," he counted,
"one, two, three, four, five, six, allow three for each cigarette on a
boisterous night like last night, that makes three cigarettes. Here is
a cigarette end, Mansus, Gold Flake brand," he said, as he examined it
carefully, "and a Gold Flake brand smokes for twelve minutes in normal
weather, but about eight minutes in gusty weather. A car was here for
about twenty-four minutes--what do you think of that, Mansus?"
"A good bit of reasoning, T. X.," said the other calmly, "if it happens
to be the car you're looking for."
"I am looking for any old car," said T. X.
He found no other trace of car wheels though he carefully followed
up the little lane until it reached the main road. After that it was
hopeless to search because rain had fallen in the night and in the early
hours of the morning. He drove his assistant to the railway station in
time to catch the train at one o'clock to London.
"You will go straight to Cadogan Square and arrest the chauffeur of Mr.
Kara," he said.
"Upon what charge!" asked Mansus hurriedly.
When it came to the step which T. X. thought fit to take in the
pursuance of his duty, Mansus was beyond surprise.
"You can charge him with anything you like," said T. X., with fine
carelessness, "probably something will occur to you on your way up to
town. As a matter of fact the chauffeur has been called unexpectedly
away to Greece and has probably left by this morning's train for the
Continent. If that is so, we can do nothing, because the boat will have
left Dover and will have landed him at Boulogne, but if by any luck you
get him, keep him busy until I get back."
T. X. himself was a busy man that day, and it was not until night was
falling that he again turned to Beston Tracey to find a telegram waiting
for him. He opened it and read,
"Chauffeur's name, Goole. Formerly waiter English Club, Constantinople.
Left for east by early train this morning, his mother being ill."
"His mother ill," said T. X. contemptuously, "how very feeble,--I should
have thought Kara could have gone one better than that."
He was in John Lexman's study as the door opened and the maid announced,
"Mr. Remington Kara."
CHAPTER IV
T. X. folded the telegram very carefully and slipped it into his
waistcoat pocket.
He favoured the newcomer with a little bow and taking upon himself the
honours of the establishment, pushed a chair to his visitor.
"I think you know my name," said Kara easily, "I am a friend of poor
Lexman's."
"So I am told," said T. X., "but don't let your friendship for Lexman
prevent your sitting down."
For a moment the Greek was nonplussed and then, with a little smile and
bow, he seated himself by the writing table.
"I am very distressed at this happening," he went on, "and I am
more distressed because I feel that as I introduced Lexman to this
unfortunate man, I am in a sense responsible."
"If I were you," said T. X., leaning back in the chair and looking
half questioningly and half earnestly into the face of the other, "I
shouldn't let that fact keep me awake at night. Most people are murdered
as a result of an introduction. The cases where people murder total
strangers are singularly rare. That I think is due to the insularity of
our national character."
Again the other was taken back and puzzled by the flippancy of the man
from whom he had expected at least the official manner.
"When did you see Mr. Vassalaro last?" asked T. X. pleasantly.
Kara raised his eyes as though considering.
"I think it must have been nearly a week ago."
"Think again," said T. X.
For a second the Greek started and again relaxed into a smile.
"I am afraid," he began.
"Don't worry about that," said T. X., "but let me ask you this question.
You were here last night when Mr. Lexman received a letter. That he did
receive a letter, there is considerable evidence," he said as he saw
the other hesitate, "because we have the supporting statements of the
servant and the postman."
"I was here," said the other, deliberately, "and I was present when Mr.
Lexman received a letter."
T. X. nodded.
"A letter written on some brownish paper and rather bulky," he
suggested.
Again there was that momentary hesitation.
"I would not swear to the color of the paper or as to the bulk of the
letter," he said.
"I should have thought you would," suggested T. X., "because you see,
you burnt the envelope, and I presumed you would have noticed that."
"I have no recollection of burning any envelope," said the other easily.
"At any rate," T. X. went on, "when Mr. Lexman read this letter out to
you..."
"To which letter are you referring?" asked the other, with a lift of his
eyebrows.
"Mr. Lexman received a threatening letter," repeated T. X. patiently,
"which he read out to you, and which was addressed to him by Vassalaro.
This letter was handed to you and you also read it. Mr. Lexman to your
knowledge put the letter in his safe--in a steel drawer."
The other shook his head, smiling gently.
"I am afraid you've made a great mistake," he said almost
apologetically, "though I have a recollection of his receiving a letter,
I did not read it, nor was it read to me."
The eyes of T. X. narrowed to the very slits and his voice became
metallic and hard.
"And if I put you into the box, will you swear, that you did not see
that letter, nor read it, nor have it read to you, and that you have no
knowledge whatever of such a letter having been received by Mr. Lexman?"
"Most certainly," said the other coolly.
"Would you swear that you have not seen Vassalaro for a week?"
"Certainly," smiled the Greek.
"That you did not in fact see him last night," persisted T. X., "and
interview him on the station platform at Lewes, that you did not after
leaving him continue on your way to London and then turn your car and
return to the neighbourhood of Beston Tracey?"
The Greek was white to the lips, but not a muscle of his face moved.
"Will you also swear," continued T. X. inexorably, "that you did not
stand at the corner of what is known as Mitre's Lot and re-enter a gate
near to the side where your car was, and that you did not watch the
whole tragedy?"
"I'd swear to that," Kara's voice was strained and cracked.
"Would you also swear as to the hour of your arrival in London?"
"Somewhere in the region of ten or eleven," said the Greek.
T. X. smiled.
"Would you swear that you did not go through Guilford at half-past
twelve and pull up to replenish your petrol?"
The Greek had now recovered his self-possession and rose.
"You are a very clever man, Mr. Meredith--I think that is your name?"
"That is my name," said T. X. calmly. "There has been, no need for me to
change it as often as you have found the necessity."
He saw the fire blazing in the other's eyes and knew that his shot had
gone home.
"I am afraid I must go," said Kara. "I came here intending to see Mrs.
Lexman, and I had no idea that I should meet a policeman."
"My dear Mr. Kara," said T. X., rising and lighting a cigarette, "you
will go through life enduring that unhappy experience."
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I say. You will always be expecting to meet one person, and
meeting another, and unless you are very fortunate indeed, that other
will always be a policeman."
His eyes twinkled for he had recovered from the gust of anger which had
swept through him.
"There are two pieces of evidence I require to save Mr. Lexman from very
serious trouble," he said, "the first of these is the letter which was
burnt, as you know."
"Yes," said Kara.
T. X. leant across the desk.
"How did you know?" he snapped.
"Somebody told me, I don't know who it was."
"That's not true," replied T. X.; "nobody knows except myself and Mrs.
Lexman."
"But my dear good fellow," said Kara, pulling on his gloves, "you have
already asked me whether I didn't burn the letter."
"I said envelope," said T. X., with a little laugh.
"And you were going to say something about the other clue?"
"The other is the revolver," said T. X.
"Mr. Lexman's revolver!" drawled the Greek.
"That we have," said T. X. shortly. "What we want is the weapon which
the Greek had when he threatened Mr. Lexman."
"There, I'm afraid I cannot help you."
Kara walked to the door and T. X. followed.
"I think I will see Mrs. Lexman."
"I think not," said T. X.
The other turned with a sneer.
"Have you arrested her, too?" he asked.
"Pull yourself together!" said T. X. coarsely. He escorted Kara to his
waiting limousine.
"You have a new chauffeur to-night, I observe," he said.
Kara towering with rage stepped daintily into the car.
"If you are writing to the other you might give him my love," said T.
X., "and make most tender enquiries after his mother. I particularly ask
this."
Kara said nothing until the car was out of earshot then he lay back
on the down cushions and abandoned himself to a paroxysm of rage and
blasphemy.
CHAPTER V
Six months later T. X. Meredith was laboriously tracing an elusive line
which occurred on an ordnance map of Sussex when the Chief Commissioner
announced himself.
Sir George described T. X. as the most wholesome corrective a public
official could have, and never missed an opportunity of meeting his
subordinate (as he said) for this reason.
"What are you doing there?" he growled.
"The lesson this morning," said T. X. without looking up, "is maps."
Sir George passed behind his assistant and looked over his shoulder.
"That is a very old map you have got there," he said.
"1876. It shows the course of a number of interesting little streams in
this neighbourhood which have been lost sight of for one reason or
the other by the gentleman who made the survey at a later period. I
am perfectly sure that in one of these streams I shall find what I am
seeking."
"You haven't given up hope, then, in regard to Lexman?"
"I shall never give up hope," said T. X., "until I am dead, and possibly
not then."
"Let me see, what did he get--fifteen years!"
"Fifteen years," repeated T. X., "and a very fortunate man to escape
with his life."
Sir George walked to the window and stared out on to busy Whitehall.
"I am told you are quite friendly with Kara again."
T. X. made a noise which might be taken to indicate his assent to the
statement.
"I suppose you know that gentleman has made a very heroic attempt to get
you fired," he said.
"I shouldn't wonder," said T. X. "I made as heroic an attempt to get him
hung, and one good turn deserves another. What did he do? See ministers
and people?"
"He did," said Sir George.
"He's a silly ass," responded T. X.
"I can understand all that"--the Chief Commissioner turned round--"but
what I cannot understand is your apology to him."
"There are so many things you don't understand, Sir George," said T. X.
tartly, "that I despair of ever cataloguing them."
"You are an insolent cub," growled his Chief. "Come to lunch."
"Where will you take me?" asked T. X. cautiously.
"To my club."
"I'm sorry," said the other, with elaborate politeness, "I have lunched
once at your club. Need I say more?"
He smiled, as he worked after his Chief had gone, at the recollection
of Kara's profound astonishment and the gratification he strove so
desperately to disguise.
Kara was a vain man, immensely conscious of his good looks, conscious of
his wealth. He had behaved most handsomely, for not only had he accepted
the apology, but he left nothing undone to show his desire to create a
good impression upon the man who had so grossly insulted him.
T. X. had accepted an invitation to stay a weekend at Kara's "little
place in the country," and had found there assembled everything that
the heart could desire in the way of fellowship, eminent politicians
who might conceivably be of service to an ambitious young Assistant
Commissioner of Police, beautiful ladies to interest and amuse him. Kara
had even gone to the length of engaging a theatrical company to play
"Sweet Lavender," and for this purpose the big ballroom at Hever Court
had been transformed into a theatre.
As he was undressing for bed that night T. X. remembered that he had
mentioned to Kara that "Sweet Lavender" was his favorite play, and he
realized that the entertainment was got up especially for his benefit.
In a score of other ways Kara had endeavoured to consolidate the
friendship. He gave the young Commissioner advice about a railway
company which was operating in Asia Minor, and the shares of which stood
a little below par. T. X. thanked him for the advice, and did not take
it, nor did he feel any regret when the shares rose 3 pounds in as many
weeks.
T. X. had superintended the disposal of Beston Priory. He had the
furniture removed to London, and had taken a flat for Grace Lexman.
She had a small income of her own, and this, added to the large
royalties which came to her (as she was bitterly conscious) in
increasing volume as the result of the publicity of the trial, placed
her beyond fear of want.
"Fifteen years," murmured T. X., as he worked and whistled.
There had been no hope for John Lexman from the start. He was in debt
to the man he killed. His story of threatening letters was not
substantiated. The revolver which he said had been flourished at him
had never been found. Two people believed implicitly in the story, and a
sympathetic Home Secretary had assured T. X. personally that if he could
find the revolver and associate it with the murder beyond any doubt,
John Lexman would be pardoned.
Every stream in the neighbourhood had been dragged. In one case a small
river had been dammed, and the bed had been carefully dried and sifted,
but there was no trace of the weapon, and T. X. had tried methods more
effective and certainly less legal.
A mysterious electrician had called at 456 Cadogan Square in Kara's
absence, and he was armed with such indisputable authority that he
was permitted to penetrate to Kara's private room, in order to examine
certain fitments.
Kara returning next day thought no more of the matter when it was
reported to him, until going to his safe that night he discovered that
it had been opened and ransacked.
As it happened, most of Kara's valuable and confidential possessions
were at the bank. In a fret of panic and at considerable cost he had
the safe removed and another put in its place of such potency that the
makers offered to indemnify him against any loss from burglary.
T. X. finished his work, washed his hands, and was drying them when
Mansus came bursting into the room. It was not usual for Mansus to
burst into anywhere. He was a slow, methodical, painstaking man, with a
deliberate and an official, manner.
"What's the matter?" asked T. X. quickly.
"We didn't search Vassalaro's lodgings," cried Mansus breathlessly. "It
just occurred to me as I was coming over Westminster Bridge. I was on
top of a bus--"
"Wake up!" said T. X. "You're amongst friends and cut all that 'bus'
stuff out. Of course we searched Vassalaro's lodgings!"
"No, we didn't, sir," said the other triumphantly. "He lived in Great
James Street."
"He lived in the Adelphi," corrected T. X.
"There were two places where he lived," said Mansus.
"When did you learn this?" asked his Chief, dropping his flippancy.
"This morning. I was on a bus coming across Westminster Bridge, and
there were two men in front of me, and I heard the word 'Vassalaro' and
naturally I pricked up my ears."
"It was very unnatural, but proceed," said T. X.
"One of the men--a very respectable person--said, 'That chap Vassalaro
used to lodge in my place, and I've still got a lot of his things. What
do you think I ought to do?'"
"And you said," suggested the other.
"I nearly frightened his life out of him," said Mansus. "I said, 'I am a
police officer and I want you to come along with me.'"
"And of course he shut up and would not say another word," said T. X.
"That's true, sir," said Mansus, "but after awhile I got him to talk.
Vassalaro lived in Great James Street, 604, on the third floor. In fact,
some of his furniture is there still. He had a good reason for keeping
two addresses by all accounts."
T. X. nodded wisely.
"What was her name?" he asked.
"He had a wife," said the other, "but she left him about four months
before he was killed. He used the Adelphi address for business purposes
and apparently he slept two or three nights of the week at Great James
Street. I have told the man to leave everything as it is, and that we
will come round."
Ten minutes later the two officers were in the somewhat gloomy
apartments which Vassalaro had occupied.
The landlord explained that most of the furniture was his, but that
there were certain articles which were the property of the deceased
man. He added, somewhat unnecessarily, that the late tenant owed him six
months' rent.
The articles which had been the property of Vassalaro included a tin
trunk, a small writing bureau, a secretaire bookcase and a few clothes.
The secretaire was locked, as was the writing bureau. The tin box, which
had little or nothing of interest, was unfastened.
The other locks needed very little attention. Without any difficulty
Mansus opened both. The leaf of the bureau, when let down, formed
the desk, and piled up inside was a whole mass of letters opened and
unopened, accounts, note-books and all the paraphernalia which an untidy
man collects.
Letter by letter, T. X. went through the accumulation without finding
anything to help him. Then his eye was attracted by a small tin case
thrust into one of the oblong pigeon holes at the back of the desk. This
he pulled out and opened and found a small wad of paper wrapped in tin
foil.
"Hello, hello!" said T. X., and he was pardonably exhilarated.
CHAPTER VI
A Man stood in the speckless courtyard before the Governor's house at
Dartmoor gaol. He wore the ugly livery of shame which marks the convict.
His head was clipped short, and there was two days' growth of beard upon
his haggard face. Standing with his hands behind him, he waited for the
moment when he would be ordered to his work.
John Lexman--A. O. 43--looked up at the blue sky as he had looked so
many times from the exercise yard, and wondered what the day would bring
forth. A day to him was the beginning and the end of an eternity. He
dare not let his mind dwell upon the long aching years ahead. He dare
not think of the woman he left, or let his mind dwell upon the agony
which she was enduring. He had disappeared from the world, the world he
loved, and the world that knew him, and all that there was in life; all
that was worth while had been crushed and obliterated into the granite
of the Princetown quarries, and its wide horizon shrunken by the gaunt
moorland with its menacing tors.
New interests made up his existence. The quality of the food was one.
The character of the book he would receive from the prison library
another. The future meant Sunday chapel; the present whatever task they
found him. For the day he was to paint some doors and windows of an
outlying cottage. A cottage occupied by a warder who, for some reason,
on the day previous, had spoken to him with a certain kindness and a
certain respect which was unusual.
"Face the wall," growled a voice, and mechanically he turned, his hands
still behind him, and stood staring at the grey wall of the prison
storehouse.
He heard the shuffling feet of the quarry gang, his ears caught the
clink of the chains which bound them together. They were desperate men,
peculiarly interesting to him, and he had watched their faces furtively
in the early period of his imprisonment.
He had been sent to Dartmoor after spending three months in Wormwood
Scrubbs. Old hands had told him variously that he was fortunate or
unlucky. It was usual to have twelve months at the Scrubbs before
testing the life of a convict establishment. He believed there was some
talk of sending him to Parkhurst, and here he traced the influence which
T. X. would exercise, for Parkhurst was a prisoner's paradise.
He heard his warder's voice behind him.
"Right turn, 43, quick march."
He walked ahead of the armed guard, through the great and gloomy gates
of the prison, turned sharply to the right, and walked up the village
street toward the moors, beyond the village of Princetown, and on the
Tavistock Road where were two or three cottages which had been lately
taken by the prison staff; and it was to the decoration of one of these
that A. O. 43 had been sent.
The house was as yet without a tenant.
A paper-hanger under the charge of another warder was waiting for the
arrival of the painter. The two warders exchanged greetings, and the
first went off leaving the other in charge of both men.
For an hour they worked in silence under the eyes of the guard.
Presently the warder went outside, and John Lexman had an opportunity of
examining his fellow sufferer.
He was a man of twenty-four or twenty-five, lithe and alert. By no means
bad looking, he lacked that indefinable suggestion of animalism which
distinguished the majority of the inhabitants at Dartmoor.
They waited until they heard the warder's step clear the passage, and
until his iron-shod boots were tramping over the cobbled path which led
from the door, through the tiny garden to the road, before the second
man spoke.
"What are you in for?" he asked, in a low voice.
"Murder," said John Lexman, laconically.
He had answered the question before, and had noticed with a little
amusement the look of respect which came into the eyes of the
questioner.
"What have you got!"
"Fifteen years," said the other.
"That means 11 years and 9 months," said the first man. "You've never
been here before, I suppose?"
"Hardly," said Lexman, drily.
"I was here when I was a kid," confessed the paper-hanger. "I am going
out next week."
John Lexman looked at him enviously. Had the man told him that he had
inherited a great fortune and a greater title his envy would not have
been so genuine.
Going out!
The drive in the brake to the station, the ride to London in creased,
but comfortable clothing, free as the air, at liberty to go to bed and
rise when he liked, to choose his own dinner, to answer no call save the
call of his conscience, to see--he checked himself.
"What are you in for?" he asked in self-defence.
"Conspiracy and fraud," said the other cheerfully. "I was put away by
a woman after three of us had got clear with 12,000 pounds. Damn rough
luck, wasn't it?"
John nodded.
It was curious, he thought, how sympathetic one grows with these
exponents of crimes. One naturally adopts their point of view and sees
life through their distorted vision.
"I bet I'm not given away with the next lot," the prisoner went on.
"I've got one of the biggest ideas I've ever had, and I've got a real
good man to help me."
"How?" asked John, in surprise.
The man jerked his head in the direction of the prison.
"Larry Green," he said briefly. "He's coming out next month, too, and we
are all fixed up proper. We are going to get the pile and then we're off
to South America, and you won't see us for dust."
Though he employed all the colloquialisms which were common, his tone
was that of a man of education, and yet there was something in his
address which told John as clearly as though the man had confessed as
much, that he had never occupied any social position in life.
The warder's step on the stones outside reduced them to silence.
Suddenly his voice came up the stairs.
"Forty-three," he called sharply, "I want you down here."
John took his paint pot and brush and went clattering down the
uncarpeted stairs.
"Where's the other man?" asked the warder, in a low voice.
"He's upstairs in the back room."
The warder stepped out of the door and looked left and right. Coming up
from Princetown was a big, grey car.
"Put down your paint pot," he said.
His voice was shaking with excitement.
"I am going upstairs. When that car comes abreast of the gate, ask no
questions and jump into it. Get down into the bottom and pull a sack
over you, and do not get up until the car stops."
The blood rushed to John Lexman's head, and he staggered.
"My God!" he whispered.
"Do as I tell you," hissed the warder.
Like an automaton John put down his brushes, and walked slowly to the
gate. The grey car was crawling up the hill, and the face of the driver
was half enveloped in a big rubber mask. Through the two great goggles
John could see little to help him identify the man. As the machine came
up to the gate, he leapt into the tonneau and sank instantly to the
bottom. As he did so he felt the car leap forward underneath him. Now
it was going fast, now faster, now it rocked and swayed as it gathered
speed. He felt it sweeping down hill and up hill, and once he heard a
hollow rumble as it crossed a wooden bridge.
He could not detect from his hiding place in what direction they were
going, but he gathered they had switched off to the left and were making
for one of the wildest parts of the moor. Never once did he feel the car
slacken its pace, until, with a grind of brakes, it stopped suddenly.
"Get out," said a voice.
John Lexman threw off the cover and leapt out and as he did so the car
turned and sped back the way it had come.
For a moment he thought he was alone, and looked around. Far away in
the distance he saw the grey bulk of Princetown Gaol. It was an accident
that he should see it, but it so happened that a ray of the sun fell
athwart it and threw it into relief.
He was alone on the moors! Where could he go?
He turned at the sound of a voice.
He was standing on the slope of a small tor. At the foot there was a
smooth stretch of green sward. It was on this stretch that the people of
Dartmoor held their pony races in the summer months. There was no sign
of horses; but only a great bat-like machine with out-stretched pinions
of taut white canvas, and by that machine a man clad from head to foot
in brown overalls.
John stumbled down the slope. As he neared the machine he stopped and
gasped.
"Kara," he said, and the brown man smiled.
"But, I do not understand. What are you going to do!" asked Lexman, when
he had recovered from his surprise.
"I am going to take you to a place of safety," said the other.
"I have no reason to be grateful to you, as yet, Kara," breathed Lexman.
"A word from you could have saved me."
"I could not lie, my dear Lexman. And honestly, I had forgotten the
existence of the letter; if that is what you are referring to, but I am
trying to do what I can for you and for your wife."
"My wife!"
"She is waiting for you," said the other.
He turned his head, listening.
Across the moor came the dull sullen boom of a gun.
"You haven't time for argument. They discovered your escape," he said.
"Get in."
John clambered up into the frail body of the machine and Kara followed.
"This is a self-starter," he said, "one of the newest models of
monoplanes."
He clicked over a lever and with a roar the big three-bladed tractor
screw spun.
The aeroplane moved forward with a jerk, ran with increasing gait for a
hundred yards, and then suddenly the jerky progress ceased. The machine
swayed gently from side to side, and looking over, the passenger saw the
ground recede beneath him.
Up, up, they climbed in one long sweeping ascent, passing through
drifting clouds till the machine soared like a bird above the blue sea.
John Lexman looked down. He saw the indentations of the coast and
recognized the fringe of white houses that stood for Torquay, but in an
incredibly short space of time all signs of the land were blotted out.
Talking was impossible. The roar of the engines defied penetration.
Kara was evidently a skilful pilot. From time to time he consulted
the compass on the board before him, and changed his course ever so
slightly. Presently he released one hand from the driving wheel, and
scribbling on a little block of paper which was inserted in a pocket at
the side of the seat he passed it back.
John Lexman read:
"If you cannot swim there is a life belt under your seat."
John nodded.
Kara was searching the sea for something, and presently he found it.
Viewed from the height at which they flew it looked no more than a white
speck in a great blue saucer, but presently the machine began to dip,
falling at a terrific rate of speed, which took away the breath of the
man who was hanging on with both hands to the dangerous seat behind.
He was deadly cold, but had hardly noticed the fact. It was all so
incredible, so impossible. He expected to wake up and wondered if the
prison was also part of the dream.
Now he saw the point for which Kara was making.
A white steam yacht, long and narrow of beam, was steaming slowly
westward. He could see the feathery wake in her rear, and as the
aeroplane fell he had time to observe that a boat had been put off. Then
with a jerk the monoplane flattened out and came like a skimming bird to
the surface of the water; her engines stopped.
"We ought to be able to keep afloat for ten minutes," said Kara, "and by
that time they will pick us up."
His voice was high and harsh in the almost painful silence which
followed the stoppage of the engines.
In less than five minutes the boat had come alongside, manned, as Lexman
gathered from a glimpse of the crew, by Greeks. He scrambled aboard
and five minutes later he was standing on the white deck of the yacht,
watching the disappearing tail of the monoplane. Kara was by his side.
"There goes fifteen hundred pounds," said the Greek, with a smile, "add
that to the two thousand I paid the warder and you have a tidy sum-but
some things are worth all the money in the world!"
CHAPTER VII
T. X. came from Downing Street at 11 o'clock one night, and his heart
was filled with joy and gratitude.
He swung his stick to the common danger of the public, but the policeman
on point duty at the end of the street, who saw him, recognized and
saluted him, did not think it fit to issue any official warning.
He ran up the stairs to his office, and found Mansus reading the evening
paper.
"My poor, dumb beast," said T. X. "I am afraid I have kept you waiting
for a very long time, but tomorrow you and I will take a little journey
to Devonshire. It will be good for you, Mansus--where did you get that
ridiculous name, by the way!"
"M. or N.," replied Mansus, laconically.
"I repeat that there is the dawn of an intellect in you," said T. X.,
offensively.
He became more serious as he took from a pocket inside his waistcoat a
long blue envelope containing the paper which had cost him so much to
secure.
"Finding the revolver was a master-stroke of yours, Mansus," he said,
and he was in earnest as he spoke.
The man coloured with pleasure for the subordinates of T. X. loved him,
and a word of praise was almost equal to promotion. It was on the advice
of Mansus that the road from London to Lewes had been carefully covered
and such streams as passed beneath that road had been searched.
The revolver had been found after the third attempt between Gatwick and
Horsley. Its identification was made easier by the fact that Vassalaro's
name was engraved on the butt. It was rather an ornate affair and in its
earlier days had been silver plated; the handle was of mother-o'-pearl.
"Obviously the gift of one brigand to another," was T. X.'s comment.
Armed with this, his task would have been fairly easy, but when to this
evidence he added a rough draft of the threatening letter which he had
found amongst Vassalaro's belongings, and which had evidently been taken
down at dictation, since some of the words were misspelt and had been
corrected by another hand, the case was complete.
But what clinched the matter was the finding of a wad of that peculiar
chemical paper, a number of sheets of which T. X. had ignited for the
information of the Chief Commissioner and the Home Secretary by simply
exposing them for a few seconds to the light of an electric lamp.
Instantly it had filled the Home Secretary's office with a pungent
and most disagreeable smoke, for which he was heartily cursed by his
superiors. But it had rounded off the argument.
He looked at his watch.
"I wonder if it is too late to see Mrs. Lexman," he said.
"I don't think any hour would be too late," suggested Mansus.
"You shall come and chaperon me," said his superior.
But a disappointment awaited. Mrs. Lexman was not in and neither the
ringing at her electric bell nor vigorous applications to the knocker
brought any response. The hall porter of the flats where she lived
was under the impression that Mrs. Lexman had gone out of town. She
frequently went out on Saturdays and returned on the Monday and, he
thought, occasionally on Tuesdays.
It happened that this particular night was a Monday night and T. X.
was faced with a dilemma. The night porter, who had only the vaguest
information on the subject, thought that the day porter might know more,
and aroused him from his sleep.
Yes, Mrs. Lexman had gone. She went on the Sunday, an unusual day to
pay a week-end visit, and she had taken with her two bags. The porter
ventured the opinion that she was rather excited, but when asked to
define the symptoms relapsed into a chaos of incoherent "you-knows" and
"what-I-means."
"I don't like this," said T. X., suddenly. "Does anybody know that we
have made these discoveries?"
"Nobody outside the office," said Mansus, "unless, unless..."
"Unless what?" asked the other, irritably. "Don't be a jimp, Mansus. Get
it off your mind. What is it?"
"I am wondering," said Mansus slowly, "if the landlord at Great James
Street said anything. He knows we have made a search."
"We can easily find that out," said T. X.
They hailed a taxi and drove to Great James Street. That respectable
thoroughfare was wrapped in sleep and it was some time before the
landlord could be aroused. Recognizing T. X. he checked his sarcasm,
which he had prepared for a keyless lodger, and led the way into the
drawing room.
"You didn't tell me not to speak about it, Mr. Meredith," he said, in an
aggrieved tone, "and as a matter of fact I have spoken to nobody except
the gentleman who called the same day."
"What did he want?" asked T. X.
"He said he had only just discovered that Mr. Vassalaro had stayed with
me and he wanted to pay whatever rent was due," replied the other.
"What like of man was he?" asked T. X.
The brief description the man gave sent a cold chill to the
Commissioner's heart.
"Kara for a ducat!" he said, and swore long and variously.
"Cadogan Square," he ordered.
His ring was answered promptly. Mr. Kara was out of town, had indeed
been out of town since Saturday. This much the man-servant explained
with a suspicious eye upon his visitors, remembering that his
predecessor had lost his job from a too confiding friendliness with
spurious electric fitters. He did not know when Mr. Kara would return,
perhaps it would be a long time and perhaps a short time. He might come
back that night or he might not.
"You are wasting your young life," said T. X. bitterly. "You ought to be
a fortune teller."
"This settles the matter," he said, in the cab on the way back. "Find
out the first train for Tavistock in the morning and wire the George
Hotel to have a car waiting."
"Why not go to-night?" suggested the other. "There is the midnight
train. It is rather slow, but it will get you there by six or seven in
the morning."
"Too late," he said, "unless you can invent a method of getting from
here to Paddington in about fifty seconds."
The morning journey to Devonshire was a dispiriting one despite the
fineness of the day. T. X. had an uncomfortable sense that something
distressing had happened. The run across the moor in the fresh spring
air revived him a little.
As they spun down to the valley of the Dart, Mansus touched his arm.
"Look at that," he said, and pointed to the blue heavens where, a mile
above their heads, a white-winged aeroplane, looking no larger than a
very distant dragon fly, shimmered in the sunlight.
"By Jove!" said T. X. "What an excellent way for a man to escape!"
"It's about the only way," said Mansus.
The significance of the aeroplane was borne in upon T. X. a few minutes
later when he was held up by an armed guard. A glance at his card was
enough to pass him.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"A prisoner has escaped," said the sentry.
"Escaped--by aeroplane?" asked T. X.
"I don't know anything about aeroplanes, sir. All I know is that one of
the working party got away."
The car came to the gates of the prison and T. X. sprang out, followed
by his assistant. He had no difficulty in finding the Governor, a
greatly perturbed man, for an escape is a very serious matter.
The official was inclined to be brusque in his manner, but again the
magic card produced a soothing effect.
"I am rather rattled," said the Governor. "One of my men has got away. I
suppose you know that?"
"And I am afraid another of your men is going away, sir," said T. X.,
who had a curious reverence for military authority. He produced his
paper and laid it on the governor's table.
"This is an order for the release of John Lexman, convicted under
sentence of fifteen years penal servitude."
The Governor looked at it.
"Dated last night," he said, and breathed a long sigh of relief. "Thank
the Lord!--that is the man who escaped!"
CHAPTER VIII
Two years after the events just described, T. X. journeying up to London
from Bath was attracted by a paragraph in the Morning Post. It told him
briefly that Mr. Remington Kara, the influential leader of the Greek
Colony, had been the guest of honor at a dinner of the Hellenic Society.
T. X. had only seen Kara for a brief space of time following that
tragic morning, when he had discovered not only that his best friend had
escaped from Dartmoor prison and disappeared, as it were, from the world
at a moment when his pardon had been signed, but that that friend's wife
had also vanished from the face of the earth.
At the same time--it might, as even T. X. admitted, have been the
veriest coincidence that Kara had also cleared out of London to reappear
at the end of six months. Any question addressed to him, concerning the
whereabouts of the two unhappy people, was met with a bland expression
of ignorance as to their whereabouts.
John Lexman was somewhere in the world, hiding as he believed from
justice, and with him was his wife. T. X. had no doubt in his mind as to
this solution of the puzzle. He had caused to be published the story
of the pardon and the circumstances under which that pardon had been
secured, and he had, moreover, arranged for an advertisement to be
inserted in the principal papers of every European country.
It was a moot question amongst the departmental lawyers as to whether
John Lexman was not guilty of a technical and punishable offence for
prison breaking, but this possibility did not keep T. X. awake at
nights. The circumstances of the escape had been carefully examined. The
warder responsible had been discharged from the service, and had almost
immediately purchased for himself a beer house in Falmouth, for a sum
which left no doubt in the official mind that he had been the recipient
of a heavy bribe.
Who had been the guiding spirit in that escape--Mrs. Lexman, or Kara?
It was impossible to connect Kara with the event. The motor car had
been traced to Exeter, where it had been hired by a "foreign-looking
gentleman," but the chauffeur, whoever he was, had made good his
escape. An inspection of Kara's hangars at Wembley showed that his two
monoplanes had not been removed, and T. X. failed entirely to trace
the owner of the machine he had seen flying over Dartmoor on the fatal
morning.
T. X. was somewhat baffled and a little amused by the disinclination
of the authorities to believe that the escape had been effected by
this method at all. All the events of the trial came back to him, as he
watched the landscape spinning past.
He set down the newspaper with a little sigh, put his feet on the
cushions of the opposite seat and gave himself up to reverie. Presently
he returned to his journals and searched them idly for something
to interest him in the final stretch of journey between Newbury and
Paddington.
Presently he found it in a two column article with the uninspiring
title, "The Mineral Wealth of Tierra del Fuego." It was written
brightly with a style which was at once easy and informative. It told of
adventures in the marshes behind St. Sebastian Bay and journeys up the
Guarez Celman river, of nights spent in primeval forests and ended in
a geological survey, wherein the commercial value of syenite, porphyry,
trachite and dialite were severally canvassed.
The article was signed "G. G." It is said of T. X. that his greatest
virtue was his curiosity. He had at the tip of his fingers the names
of all the big explorers and author-travellers, and for some reason he
could not place "G. G." to his satisfaction, in fact he had an absurd
desire to interpret the initials into "George Grossmith." His inability
to identify the writer irritated him, and his first act on reaching his
office was to telephone to one of the literary editors of the Times whom
he knew.
"Not my department," was the chilly reply, "and besides we never give
away the names of our contributors. Speaking as a person outside the
office I should say that 'G. G.' was 'George Gathercole' the explorer
you know, the fellow who had an arm chewed off by a lion or something."
"George Gathercole!" repeated T. X. "What an ass I am."
"Yes," said the voice at the other end the wire, and he had rung off
before T. X. could think of something suitable to say.
Having elucidated this little side-line of mystery, the matter passed
from the young Commissioner's mind. It happened that morning that his
work consisted of dealing with John Lexman's estate.
With the disappearance of the couple he had taken over control of
their belongings. It had not embarrassed him to discover that he was an
executor under Lexman's will, for he had already acted as trustee to the
wife's small estate, and had been one of the parties to the ante-nuptial
contract which John Lexman had made before his marriage.
The estate revenues had increased very considerably. All the vanished
author's books were selling as they had never sold before, and the
executor's work was made the heavier by the fact that Grace Lexman
had possessed an aunt who had most inconsiderately died, leaving a
considerable fortune to her "unhappy niece."
"I will keep the trusteeship another year," he told the solicitor who
came to consult him that morning. "At the end of that time I shall go to
the court for relief."
"Do you think they will ever turn up?" asked the solicitor, an elderly
and unimaginative man.
"Of course, they'll turn up!" said T. X. impatiently; "all the heroes of
Lexman's books turn up sooner or later. He will discover himself to us
at a suitable moment, and we shall be properly thrilled."
That Lexman would return he was sure. It was a faith from which he did
not swerve.
He had as implicit a confidence that one day or other Kara, the
magnificent, would play into his hands.
There were some queer stories in circulation concerning the Greek,
but on the whole they were stories and rumours which were difficult to
separate from the malicious gossip which invariably attaches itself to
the rich and to the successful.
One of these was that Kara desired something more than an Albanian
chieftainship, which he undoubtedly enjoyed. There were whispers of
wider and higher ambitions. Though his father had been born a Greek, he
had indubitably descended in a direct line from one of those old Mprets
of Albania, who had exercised their brief authority over that turbulent
land.
The man's passion was for power. To this end he did not spare himself.
It was said that he utilized his vast wealth for this reason, and none
other, and that whatever might have been the irregularities of his
youth--and there were adduced concrete instances--he was working toward
an end with a singleness of purpose, from which it was difficult to
withhold admiration.
T. X. kept in his locked desk a little red book, steel bound and triple
locked, which he called his "Scandalaria." In this he inscribed in his
own irregular writing the titbits which might not be published, and
which often helped an investigator to light upon the missing threads
of a problem. In truth he scorned no source of information, and was
conscienceless in the compilation of this somewhat chaotic record.
The affairs of John Lexman recalled Kara, and Kara's great reception.
Mansus would have made arrangements to secure a verbatim report of the
speeches which were made, and these would be in his hands by the night.
Mansus did not tell him that Kara was financing some very influential
people indeed, that a certain Under-secretary of State with a great
number of very influential relations had been saved from bankruptcy by
the timely advances which Kara had made. This T. X. had obtained through
sources which might be hastily described as discreditable. Mansus knew
of the baccarat establishment in Albemarle Street, but he did not know
that the neurotic wife of a very great man indeed, no less than the
Minister of Justice, was a frequent visitor to that establishment, and
that she had lost in one night some 6,000 pounds. In these circumstances
it was remarkable, thought T. X., that she should report to the police
so small a matter as the petty pilfering of servants. This, however,
she had done and whilst the lesser officers of Scotland Yard were
interrogating pawnbrokers, the men higher up were genuinely worried by
the lady's own lapses from grace.
It was all sordid but, unfortunately, conventional, because highly
placed people will always do underbred things, where money or women
are concerned, but it was necessary, for the proper conduct of the
department which T. X. directed, that, however sordid and however
conventional might be the errors which the great ones of the earth
committed, they should be filed for reference.
The motto which T. X. went upon in life was, "You never know."
The Minister of Justice was a very important person, for he was a
personal friend of half the monarchs of Europe. A poor man, with two or
three thousand a year of his own, with no very definite political
views and uncommitted to the more violent policies of either party, he
succeeded in serving both, with profit to himself, and without earning
the obloquy of either. Though he did not pursue the blatant policy
of the Vicar of Bray, yet it is fact which may be confirmed from
the reader's own knowledge, that he served in four different
administrations, drawing the pay and emoluments of his office from each,
though the fundamental policies of those four governments were distinct.
Lady Bartholomew, the wife of this adaptable Minister, had recently
departed for San Remo. The newspapers announced the fact and spoke
vaguely of a breakdown which prevented the lady from fulfilling her
social engagements.
T. X., ever a Doubting Thomas, could trace no visit of nerve specialist,
nor yet of the family practitioner, to the official residence in Downing
Street, and therefore he drew conclusions. In his own "Who's Who" T.
X. noted the hobbies of his victims which, by the way, did not always
coincide with the innocent occupations set against their names in the
more pretentious volume. Their follies and their weaknesses found a
place and were recorded at a length (as it might seem to the uninformed
observer) beyond the limit which charity allowed.
Lady Mary Bartholomew's name appeared not once, but many times, in the
erratic records which T. X. kept. There was a plain matter-of-fact and
wholly unobjectionable statement that she was born in 1874, that she was
the seventh daughter of the Earl of Balmorey, that she had one daughter
who rejoiced in the somewhat unpromising name of Belinda Mary, and such
further information as a man might get without going to a great deal of
trouble.
T. X., refreshing his memory from the little red book, wondered what
unexpected tragedy had sent Lady Bartholomew out of London in the middle
of the season. The information was that the lady was fairly well off at
this moment, and this fact made matters all the more puzzling and
almost induced him to believe that, after all, the story was true, and a
nervous breakdown really was the cause of her sudden departure. He sent
for Mansus.
"You saw Lady Bartholomew off at Charing Cross, I suppose?"
Mansus nodded.
"She went alone?"
"She took her maid, but otherwise she was alone. I thought she looked
ill."
"She has been looking ill for months past," said T. X., without any
visible expression of sympathy.
"Did she take Belinda Mary?"
Mansus was puzzled. "Belinda Mary?" he repeated slowly. "Oh, you mean
the daughter. No, she's at a school somewhere in France."
T. X. whistled a snatch of a popular song, closed the little red book
with a snap and replaced it in his desk.
"I wonder where on earth people dig up names like Belinda Mary?" he
mused. "Belinda Mary must be rather a weird little animal--the Lord
forgive me for speaking so about my betters! If heredity counts for
anything she ought to be something between a head waiter and a pack of
cards. Have you lost anything'?"
Mansus was searching his pockets.
"I made a few notes, some questions I wanted to ask you about and
Lady Bartholomew was the subject of one of them. I have had her under
observation for six months; do you want it kept up?"
T. X. thought awhile, then shook his head.
"I am only interested in Lady Bartholomew in so far as Kara is
interested in her. There is a criminal for you, my friend!" he added,
admiringly.
Mansus busily engaged in going through the bundles of letters, slips
of paper and little notebooks he had taken from his pocket, sniffed
audibly.
"Have you a cold?" asked T. X. politely.
"No, sir," was the reply, "only I haven't much opinion of Kara as a
criminal. Besides, what has he got to be a criminal about? He has all
that he requires in the money department, he's one of the most popular
people in London, and certainly one of the best-looking men I've ever
seen in my life. He needs nothing."
T. X. regarded him scornfully.
"You're a poor blind brute," he said, shaking his head; don't you know
that great criminals are never influenced by material desires, or by
the prospect of concrete gains? The man, who robs his employer's till
in order to give the girl of his heart the 25-pearl and ruby brooch her
soul desires, gains nothing but the glow of satisfaction which comes to
the man who is thought well of. The majority of crimes in the world are
committed by people for the same reason--they want to be thought well
of. Here is Doctor X. who murdered his wife because she was a drunkard
and a slut, and he dared not leave her for fear the neighbours would
have doubts as to his respectability. Here is another gentleman who
murders his wives in their baths in order that he should keep up some
sort of position and earn the respect of his friends and his associates.
Nothing roused him more quickly to a frenzy of passion than the
suggestion that he was not respectable. Here is the great financier, who
has embezzled a million and a quarter, not because he needed money,
but because people looked up to him. Therefore, he must build
great mansions, submarine pleasure courts and must lay out huge
estates--because he wished that he should be thought well of.
Mansus sniffed again.
"What about the man who half murders his wife, does he do that to be
well thought of?" he asked, with a tinge of sarcasm.
T. X. looked at him pityingly.
"The low-brow who beats his wife, my poor Mansus," he said, "does so
because she doesn't think well of him. That is our ruling passion,
our national characteristic, the primary cause of most crimes, big or
little. That is why Kara is a bad criminal and will, as I say, end his
life very violently."
He took down his glossy silk hat from the peg and slipped into his
overcoat.
"I am going down to see my friend Kara," he said. "I have a feeling that
I should like to talk with him. He might tell me something."
His acquaintance with Kara's menage had been mere hearsay. He had
interviewed the Greek once after his return, but since all his efforts
to secure information concerning the whereabouts of John Lexman and
his wife--the main reason for his visit--had been in vain, he had not
repeated his visit.
The house in Cadogan Square was a large one, occupying a corner site. It
was peculiarly English in appearance with its window boxes, its discreet
curtains, its polished brass and enamelled doorway. It had been the
town house of Lord Henry Gratham, that eccentric connoisseur of wine and
follower of witless pleasure. It had been built by him "round a
bottle of port," as his friends said, meaning thereby that his first
consideration had been the cellarage of the house, and that when those
cellars had been built and provision made for the safe storage of his
priceless wines, the house had been built without the architect's being
greatly troubled by his lordship. The double cellars of Gratham House
had, in their time, been one of the sights of London. When Henry Gratham
lay under eight feet of Congo earth (he was killed by an elephant
whilst on a hunting trip) his executors had been singularly fortunate
in finding an immediate purchaser. Rumour had it that Kara, who was
no lover of wine, had bricked up the cellars, and their very existence
passed into domestic legendary.
The door was opened by a well-dressed and deferential man-servant and
T. X. was ushered into the hall. A fire burnt cheerily in a bronze grate
and T. X. had a glimpse of a big oil painting of Kara above the marble
mantle-piece.
"Mr. Kara is very busy, sir," said the man.
"Just take in my card," said T. X. "I think he may care to see me."
The man bowed, produced from some mysterious corner a silver salver
and glided upstairs in that manner which well-trained servants have,
a manner which seems to call for no bodily effort. In a minute he
returned.
"Will you come this way, sir," he said, and led the way up a broad
flight of stairs.
At the head of the stairs was a corridor which ran to the left and to
the right. From this there gave four rooms. One at the extreme end of
the passage on the right, one on the left, and two at fairly regular
intervals in the centre.
When the man's hand was on one of the doors, T. X. asked quietly, "I
think I have seen you before somewhere, my friend."
The man smiled.
"It is very possible, sir. I was a waiter at the Constitutional for some
time."
T. X. nodded.
"That is where it must have been," he said.
The man opened the door and announced the visitor.
T. X. found himself in a large room, very handsomely furnished, but just
lacking that sense of cosiness and comfort which is the feature of the
Englishman's home.
Kara rose from behind a big writing table, and came with a smile and a
quick step to greet the visitor.
"This is a most unexpected pleasure," he said, and shook hands warmly.
T. X. had not seen him for a year and found very little change in this
strange young man. He could not be more confident than he had been, nor
bear himself with a more graceful carriage. Whatever social success he
had achieved, it had not spoiled him, for his manner was as genial and
easy as ever.
"I think that will do, Miss Holland," he said, turning to the girl who,
with notebook in hand, stood by the desk.
"Evidently," thought T. X., "our Hellenic friend has a pretty taste in
secretaries."
In that one glance he took her all in--from the bronze-brown of her hair
to her neat foot.
T. X. was not readily attracted by members of the opposite sex. He was
self-confessed a predestined bachelor, finding life and its incidence
too absorbing to give his whole mind to the serious problem of marriage,
or to contract responsibilities and interests which might divert his
attention from what he believed was the greater game. Yet he must be a
man of stone to resist the freshness, the beauty and the youth of this
straight, slender girl; the pink-and-whiteness of her, the aliveness
and buoyancy and the thrilling sense of vitality she carried in her very
presence.
"What is the weirdest name you have ever heard?" asked Kara laughingly.
"I ask you, because Miss Holland and I have been discussing a begging
letter addressed to us by a Maggie Goomer."
The girl smiled slightly and in that smile was paradise, thought T. X.
"The weirdest name?" he repeated, "why I think the worst I have heard
for a long time is Belinda Mary."
"That has a familiar ring," said Kara.
T. X. was looking at the girl.
She was staring at him with a certain languid insolence which made him
curl up inside. Then with a glance at her employer she swept from the
room.
"I ought to have introduced you," said Kara. "That was my secretary,
Miss Holland. Rather a pretty girl, isn't she?"
"Very," said T. X., recovering his breath.
"I like pretty things around me," said Kara, and somehow the complacency
of the remark annoyed the detective more than anything that Kara had
ever said to him.
The Greek went to the mantlepiece, and taking down a silver cigarette
box, opened and offered it to his visitor. Kara was wearing a grey
lounge suit; and although grey is a very trying colour for a foreigner
to wear, this suit fitted his splendid figure and gave him just that
bulk which he needed.
"You are a most suspicious man, Mr. Meredith," he smiled.
"Suspicious! I?" asked the innocent T. X.
Kara nodded.
"I am sure you want to enquire into the character of all my present
staff. I am perfectly satisfied that you will never be at rest until you
learn the antecedents of my cook, my valet, my secretary--"
T. X. held up his hand with a laugh.
"Spare me," he said. "It is one of my failings, I admit, but I have
never gone much farther into your domestic affairs than to pry into the
antecedents of your very interesting chauffeur."
A little cloud passed over Kara's face, but it was only momentary.
"Oh, Brown," he said, airily, with just a perceptible pause between the
two words.
"It used to be Smith," said T. X., "but no matter. His name is really
Poropulos."
"Oh, Poropulos," said Kara gravely, "I dismissed him a long time ago."
"Pensioned hire, too, I understand," said T. X.
The other looked at him awhile, then, "I am very good to my old
servants," he said slowly and, changing the subject; "to what good
fortune do I owe this visit?"
T. X. selected a cigarette before he replied.
"I thought you might be of some service to me," he said, apparently
giving his whole attention to the cigarette.
"Nothing would give me greater pleasure," said Kara, a little eagerly.
"I am afraid you have not been very keen on continuing what I hoped
would have ripened into a valuable friendship, more valuable to me
perhaps," he smiled, "than to you."
"I am a very shy man," said the shameless T. X., "difficult to a fault,
and rather apt to underrate my social attractions. I have come to you
now because you know everybody--by the way, how long have you had your
secretary!" he asked abruptly.
Kara looked up at the ceiling for inspiration.
"Four, no three months," he corrected, "a very efficient young lady
who came to me from one of the training establishments. Somewhat
uncommunicative, better educated than most girls in her position--for
example, she speaks and writes modern Greek fairly well."
"A treasure!" suggested T. X.
"Unusually so," said Kara. "She lives in Marylebone Road, 86a is the
address. She has no friends, spends most of her evenings in her room,
is eminently respectable and a little chilling in her attitude to her
employer."
T. X. shot a swift glance at the other.
"Why do you tell me all this?" he asked.
"To save you the trouble of finding out," replied the other coolly.
"That insatiable curiosity which is one of the equipments of your
profession, would, I feel sure, induce you to conduct investigations for
your own satisfaction."
T. X. laughed.
"May I sit down?" he said.
The other wheeled an armchair across the room and T. X. sank into it.
He leant back and crossed his legs, and was, in a second, the
personification of ease.
"I think you are a very clever man, Monsieur Kara," he said.
The other looked down at him this time without amusement.
"Not so clever that I can discover the object of your visit," he said
pleasantly enough.
"It is very simply explained," said T. X. "You know everybody in town.
You know, amongst other people, Lady Bartholomew."
"I know the lady very well indeed," said Kara, readily,--too readily
in fact, for the rapidity with which answer had followed question,
suggested to T. X. that Kara had anticipated the reason for the call.
"Have you any idea," asked T. X., speaking with deliberation, "as to why
Lady Bartholomew has gone out of town at this particular moment?"
Kara laughed.
"What an extraordinary question to ask me--as though Lady Bartholomew
confided her plans to one who is little more than a chance
acquaintance!"
"And yet," said T. X., contemplating the burning end of his cigarette,
"you know her well enough to hold her promissory note."
"Promissory note?" asked the other.
His tone was one of involuntary surprise and T. X. swore softly to
himself for now he saw the faintest shade of relief in Kara's face. The
Commissioner realized that he had committed an error--he had been far
too definite.
"When I say promissory note," he went on easily, as though he had
noticed nothing, "I mean, of course, the securities which the debtor
invariably gives to one from whom he or she has borrowed large sums of
money."
Kara made no answer, but opening a drawer of his desk he took out a key
and brought it across to where T. X. was sitting.
"Here is the key of my safe," he said quietly. "You are at liberty to go
carefully through its contents and discover for yourself any promissory
note which I hold from Lady Bartholomew. My dear fellow, you don't
imagine I'm a moneylender, do you?" he said in an injured tone.
"Nothing was further from my thoughts," said T. X., untruthfully.
But the other pressed the key upon him.
"I should be awfully glad if you would look for yourself," he said
earnestly. "I feel that in some way you associate Lady Bartholomew's
illness with some horrible act of usury on my part--will you satisfy
yourself and in doing so satisfy me?"
Now any ordinary man, and possibly any ordinary detective, would have
made the conventional answer. He would have protested that he had no
intention of doing anything of the sort; he would have uttered, if
he were a man in the position which T. X. occupied, the conventional
statement that he had no authority to search the private papers, and
that he would certainly not avail himself of the other's kindness.
But T. X. was not an ordinary person. He took the key and balanced it
lightly in the palm of his hand.
"Is this the key of the famous bedroom safe?" he said banteringly.
Kara was looking down at him with a quizzical smile. "It isn't the safe
you opened in my absence, on one memorable occasion, Mr. Meredith," he
said. "As you probably know, I have changed that safe, but perhaps you
don't feel equal to the task?"
"On the contrary," said T. X., calmly, and rising from the chair, "I am
going to put your good faith to the test."
For answer Kara walked to the door and opened it.
"Let me show you the way," he said politely.
He passed along the corridor and entered the apartment at the end. The
room was a large one and lighted by one big square window which was
protected by steel bars. In the grate which was broad and high a huge
fire was burning and the temperature of the room was unpleasantly close
despite the coldness of the day.
"That is one of the eccentricities which you, as an Englishman, will
never excuse in me," said Kara.
Near the foot of the bed, let into, and flush with, the wall, was a big
green door of the safe.
"Here you are, Mr. Meredith," said Kara. "All the precious secrets of
Remington Kara are yours for the seeking."
"I am afraid I've had my trouble for nothing," said T. X., making no
attempt to use the key.
"That is an opinion which I share," said Kara, with a smile.
"Curiously enough," said T. X. "I mean just what you mean."
He handed the key to Kara.
"Won't you open it?" asked the Greek.
T. X. shook his head.
"The safe as far as I can see is a Magnus, the key which you have been
kind enough to give me is legibly inscribed upon the handle 'Chubb.' My
experience as a police officer has taught me that Chubb keys very rarely
open Magnus safes."
Kara uttered an exclamation of annoyance.
"How stupid of me!" he said, "yet now I remember, I sent the key to my
bankers, before I went out of town--I only came back this morning, you
know. I will send for it at once."
"Pray don't trouble," murmured T. X. politely. He took from his pocket
a little flat leather case and opened it. It contained a number of steel
implements of curious shape which were held in position by a leather
loop along the centre of the case. From one of these loops he extracted
a handle, and deftly fitted something that looked like a steel awl
to the socket in the handle. Looking in wonder, and with no little
apprehension, Kara saw that the awl was bent at the head.
"What are you going to do?" he asked, a little alarmed.
"I'll show you," said T. X. pleasantly.
Very gingerly he inserted the instrument in the small keyhole and turned
it cautiously first one way and then the other. There was a sharp click
followed by another. He turned the handle and the door of the safe swung
open.
"Simple, isn't it!" he asked politely.
In that second of time Kara's face had undergone a transformation. The
eyes which met T. X. Meredith's blazed with an almost insane fury. With
a quick stride Kara placed himself before the open safe.
"I think this has gone far enough, Mr. Meredith," he said harshly. "If
you wish to search my safe you must get a warrant."
T. X. shrugged his shoulders, and carefully unscrewing the instrument he
had employed and replacing it in the case, he returned it to his inside
pocket.
"It was at your invitation, my dear Monsieur Kara," he said suavely. "Of
course I knew that you were putting a bluff up on me with the key and
that you had no more intention of letting me see the inside of your safe
than you had of telling me exactly what happened to John Lexman."
The shot went home.
The face which was thrust into the Commissioner's was ridged and veined
with passion. The lips were turned back to show the big white even
teeth, the eyes were narrowed to slits, the jaw thrust out, and almost
every semblance of humanity had vanished from his face.
"You--you--" he hissed, and his clawing hands moved suspiciously
backward.
"Put up your hands," said T. X. sharply, "and be damned quick about it!"
In a flash the hands went up, for the revolver which T. X. held was
pressed uncomfortably against the third button of the Greek's waistcoat.
"That's not the first time you've been asked to put up your hands, I
think," said T. X. pleasantly.
His own left hand slipped round to Kara's hip pocket. He found something
in the shape of a cylinder and drew it out from the pocket. To his
surprise it was not a revolver, not even a knife; it looked like a small
electric torch, though instead of a bulb and a bull's-eye glass, there
was a pepper-box perforation at one end.
He handled it carefully and was about to press the small nickel knob
when a strangled cry of horror broke from Kara.
"For God's sake be careful!" he gasped. "You're pointing it at me! Do
not press that lever, I beg!"
"Will it explode!" asked T. X. curiously.
"No, no!"
T. X. pointed the thing downward to the carpet and pressed the knob
cautiously. As he did so there was a sharp hiss and the floor was
stained with the liquid which the instrument contained. Just one gush
of fluid and no more. T. X. looked down. The bright carpet had already
changed colour, and was smoking. The room was filled with a pungent and
disagreeable scent. T. X. looked from the floor to the white-faced man.
"Vitriol, I believe," he said, shaking his head admiringly. "What a dear
little fellow you are!"
The man, big as he was, was on the point of collapse and mumbled
something about self-defence, and listened without a word, whilst T.
X., labouring under an emotion which was perfectly pardonable, described
Kara, his ancestors and the possibilities of his future estate.
Very slowly the Greek recovered his self-possession.
"I didn't intend using it on you, I swear I didn't," he pleaded.
"I'm surrounded by enemies, Meredith. I had to carry some means of
protection. It is because my enemies know I carry this that they fight
shy of me. I'll swear I had no intention of using it on you. The idea is
too preposterous. I am sorry I fooled you about the safe."
"Don't let that worry you," said T. X. "I am afraid I did all the
fooling. No, I cannot let you have this back again," he said, as the
Greek put out his hand to take the infernal little instrument. "I must
take this back to Scotland Yard; it's quite a long time since we had
anything new in this shape. Compressed air, I presume."
Kara nodded solemnly.
"Very ingenious indeed," said T. X. "If I had a brain like yours," he
paused, "I should do something with it--with a gun," he added, as he
passed out of the room.
CHAPTER IX
"My dear Mr. Meredith,
"I cannot tell you how unhappy and humiliated I feel that my
little joke with you should have had such an uncomfortable
ending. As you know, and as I have given you proof, I have
the greatest admiration in the world for one whose work for
humanity has won such universal recognition.
"I hope that we shall both forget this unhappy morning and
that you will give me an opportunity of rendering to you in
person, the apologies which are due to you. I feel that
anything less will neither rehabilitate me in your esteem,
nor secure for me the remnants of my shattered self-respect.
"I am hoping you will dine with me next week and meet a most
interesting man, George Gathercole, who has just returned
from Patagonia,--I only received his letter this morning--
having made most remarkable discoveries concerning that
country.
"I feel sure that you are large enough minded and too much a
man of the world to allow my foolish fit of temper to
disturb a relationship which I have always hoped would be
mutually pleasant. If you will allow Gathercole, who will
be unconscious of the part he is playing, to act as
peacemaker between yourself and myself, I shall feel that
his trip, which has cost me a large sum of money, will not
have been wasted.
"I am, dear Mr. Meredith,
"Yours very sincerely,
"REMINGTON KARA."
Kara folded the letter and inserted it in its envelope. He rang a bell
on his table and the girl who had so filled T. X. with a sense of awe
came from an adjoining room.
"You will see that this is delivered, Miss Holland."
She inclined her head and stood waiting. Kara rose from his desk and
began to pace the room.
"Do you know T. X. Meredith?" he asked suddenly.
"I have heard of him," said the girl.
"A man with a singular mind," said Kara; "a man against whom my
favourite weapon would fail."
She looked at him with interest in her eyes.
"What is your favourite weapon, Mr. Kara?" she asked.
"Fear," he said.
If he expected her to give him any encouragement to proceed he was
disappointed. Probably he required no such encouragement, for in the
presence of his social inferiors he was somewhat monopolizing.
"Cut a man's flesh and it heals," he said. "Whip a man and the memory
of it passes, frighten him, fill him with a sense of foreboding and
apprehension and let him believe that something dreadful is going to
happen either to himself or to someone he loves--better the latter--and
you will hurt him beyond forgetfulness. Fear is a tyrant and a despot,
more terrible than the rack, more potent than the stake. Fear
is many-eyed and sees horrors where normal vision only sees the
ridiculous."
"Is that your creed?" she asked quietly.
"Part of it, Miss Holland," he smiled.
She played idly with the letter she held in her hand, balancing it on
the edge of the desk, her eyes downcast.
"What would justify the use of such an awful weapon?" she asked.
"It is amply justified to secure an end," he said blandly. "For
example--I want something--I cannot obtain that something through the
ordinary channel or by the employment of ordinary means. It is essential
to me, to my happiness, to my comfort, or my amour-propre, that that
something shall be possessed by me. If I can buy it, well and good. If
I can buy those who can use their influence to secure this thing for me,
so much the better. If I can obtain it by any merit I possess, I utilize
that merit, providing always, that I can secure my object in the time,
otherwise--"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I see," she said, nodding her head quickly. "I suppose that is how
blackmailers feel."
He frowned.
"That is a word I never use, nor do I like to hear it employed," he
said. "Blackmail suggests to me a vulgar attempt to obtain money."
"Which is generally very badly wanted by the people who use it," said
the girl, with a little smile, "and, according to your argument, they
are also justified."
"It is a matter of plane," he said airily. "Viewed from my standpoint,
they are sordid criminals--the sort of person that T. X. meets, I
presume, in the course of his daily work. T. X.," he went on somewhat
oracularly, "is a man for whom I have a great deal of respect. You will
probably meet him again, for he will find an opportunity of asking you a
few questions about myself. I need hardly tell you--"
He lifted his shoulders with a deprecating smile.
"I shall certainly not discuss your business with any person," said the
girl coldly.
"I am paying you 3 pounds a week, I think," he said. "I intend
increasing that to 5 pounds because you suit me most admirably."
"Thank you," said the girl quietly, "but I am already being paid quite
sufficient."
She left him, a little astonished and not a little ruffled.
To refuse the favours of Remington Kara was, by him, regarded
as something of an affront. Half his quarrel with T. X. was that
gentleman's curious indifference to the benevolent attitude which Kara
had persistently adopted in his dealings with the detective.
He rang the bell, this time for his valet.
"Fisher," he said, "I am expecting a visit from a gentleman named
Gathercole--a one-armed gentleman whom you must look after if he comes.
Detain him on some pretext or other because he is rather difficult to
get hold of and I want to see him. I am going out now and I shall be
back at 6.30. Do whatever you can to prevent him going away until
I return. He will probably be interested if you take him into the
library."
"Very good, sir," said the urbane Fisher, "will you change before you go
out?"
Kara shook his head.
"I think I will go as I am," he said. "Get me my fur coat. This beastly
cold kills me," he shivered as he glanced into the bleak street. "Keep
my fire going, put all my private letters in my bedroom, and see that
Miss Holland has her lunch."
Fisher followed him to his car, wrapped the fur rug about his legs,
closed the door carefully and returned to the house. From thence onward
his behaviour was somewhat extraordinary for a well-bred servant. That
he should return to Kara's study and set the papers in order was natural
and proper.
That he should conduct a rapid examination of all the drawers in Kara's
desk might be excused on the score of diligence, since he was, to some
extent, in the confidence of his employer.
Kara was given to making friends of his servants--up to a point. In his
more generous moments he would address his bodyguard as "Fred," and
on more occasions than one, and for no apparent reason, had tipped his
servant over and above his salary.
Mr. Fred Fisher found little to reward him for his search until he came
upon Kara's cheque book which told him that on the previous day the
Greek had drawn 6,000 pounds in cash from the bank. This interested him
mightily and he replaced the cheque book with the tightened lips and
the fixed gaze of a man who was thinking rapidly. He paid a visit to
the library, where the secretary was engaged in making copies of Kara's
correspondence, answering letters appealing for charitable donations,
and in the hack words which fall to the secretaries of the great.
He replenished the fire, asked deferentially for any instructions and
returned again to his quest. This time he made the bedroom the scene of
his investigations. The safe he did not attempt to touch, but there
was a small bureau in which Kara would have placed his private
correspondence of the morning. This however yielded no result.
By the side of the bed on a small table was a telephone, the sight of
which apparently afforded the servant a little amusement. This was
the private 'phone which Kara had been instrumental in having fixed to
Scotland Yard--as he had explained to his servants.
"Rum cove," said Fisher.
He paused for a moment before the closed door of the room and smilingly
surveyed the great steel latch which spanned the door and fitted into
an iron socket securely screwed to the framework. He lifted it
gingerly--there was a little knob for the purpose--and let it fall
gently into the socket which had been made to receive it on the door
itself.
"Rum cove," he said again, and lifting the latch to the hook which held
it up, left the room, closing the door softly behind him. He walked down
the corridor, with a meditative frown, and began to descend the stairs
to the hall.
He was less than half-way down when the one maid of Kara's household
came up to meet him.
"There's a gentleman who wants to see Mr. Kara," she said, "here is his
card."
Fisher took the card from the salver and read, "Mr. George Gathercole,
Junior Travellers' Club."
"I'll see this gentleman," he said, with a sudden brisk interest.
He found the visitor standing in the hall.
He was a man who would have attracted attention, if only from the
somewhat eccentric nature of his dress and his unkempt appearance. He
was dressed in a well-worn overcoat of a somewhat pronounced check, he
had a top-hat, glossy and obviously new, at the back of his head, and
the lower part of his face was covered by a ragged beard. This he was
plucking with nervous jerks, talking to himself the while, and casting a
disparaging eye upon the portrait of Remington Kara which hung above the
marble fireplace. A pair of pince-nez sat crookedly on his nose and
two fat volumes under his arm completed the picture. Fisher, who was an
observer of some discernment, noticed under the overcoat a creased blue
suit, large black boots and a pair of pearl studs.
The newcomer glared round at the valet.
"Take these!" he ordered peremptorily, pointing to the books under his
arm.
Fisher hastened to obey and noted with some wonder that the visitor did
not attempt to assist him either by loosening his hold of the volumes
or raising his hand. Accidentally the valet's hand pressed against the
other's sleeve and he received a shock, for the forearm was clearly an
artificial one. It was against a wooden surface beneath the sleeve
that his knuckles struck, and this view of the stranger's infirmity was
confirmed when the other reached round with his right hand, took hold of
the gloved left hand and thrust it into the pocket of his overcoat.
"Where is Kara?" growled the stranger.
"He will be back very shortly, sir," said the urbane Fisher.
"Out, is he?" boomed the visitor. "Then I shan't wait. What the devil
does he mean by being out? He's had three years to be out!"
"Mr. Kara expects you, sir. He told me he would be in at six o'clock at
the latest."
"Six o'clock, ye gods'." stormed the man impatiently. "What dog am I
that I should wait till six?"
He gave a savage little tug at his beard.
"Six o'clock, eh? You will tell Mr. Kara that I called. Give me those
books."
"But I assure you, sir,--" stammered Fisher.
"Give me those books!" roared the other.
Deftly he lifted his left hand from the pocket, crooked the elbow by
some quick manipulation, and thrust the books, which the valet most
reluctantly handed to him, back to the place from whence he had taken
them.
"Tell Mr. Kara I will call at my own time--do you understand, at my own
time. Good morning to you."
"If you would only wait, sir," pleaded the agonized Fisher.
"Wait be hanged," snarled the other. "I've waited three years, I tell
you. Tell Mr. Kara to expect me when he sees me!"
He went out and most unnecessarily banged the door behind him. Fisher
went back to the library. The girl was sealing up some letters as he
entered and looked up.
"I am afraid, Miss Holland, I've got myself into very serious trouble."
"What is that, Fisher!" asked the girl.
"There was a gentleman coming to see Mr. Kara, whom Mr. Kara
particularly wanted to see."
"Mr. Gathercole," said the girl quickly.
Fisher nodded.
"Yes, miss, I couldn't get him to stay though."
She pursed her lips thoughtfully.
"Mr. Kara will be very cross, but I don't see how you can help it. I
wish you had called me."
"He never gave a chance, miss," said Fisher, with a little smile, "but
if he comes again I'll show him straight up to you."
She nodded.
"Is there anything you want, miss?" he asked as he stood at the door.
"What time did Mr. Kara say he would be back?"
"At six o'clock, miss," the man replied.
"There is rather an important letter here which has to be delivered."
"Shall I ring up for a messenger?"
"No, I don't think that would be advisable. You had better take it
yourself."
Kara was in the habit of employing Fisher as a confidential messenger
when the occasion demanded such employment.
"I will go with pleasure, miss," he said.
It was a heaven-sent opportunity for Fisher, who had been inventing
some excuse for leaving the house. She handed him the letter and he read
without a droop of eyelid the superscription:
"T. X. Meredith, Esq., Special Service Dept., Scotland Yard, Whitehall."
He put it carefully in his pocket and went from the room to change.
Large as the house was Kara did not employ a regular staff of servants.
A maid and a valet comprised the whole of the indoor staff. His cook,
and the other domestics, necessary for conducting an establishment of
that size, were engaged by the day.
Kara had returned from the country earlier than had been anticipated,
and, save for Fisher, the only other person in the house beside the
girl, was the middle-aged domestic who was parlour-maid, serving-maid
and housekeeper in one.
Miss Holland sat at her desk to all appearance reading over the
letters she had typed that afternoon but her mind was very far from the
correspondence before her. She heard the soft thud of the front door
closing, and rising she crossed the room rapidly and looked down through
the window to the street. She watched Fisher until he was out of sight;
then she descended to the hall and to the kitchen.
It was not the first visit she had made to the big underground room with
its vaulted roof and its great ranges--which were seldom used nowadays,
for Kara gave no dinners.
The maid--who was also cook--arose up as the girl entered.
"It's a sight for sore eyes to see you in my kitchen, miss," she smiled.
"I'm afraid you're rather lonely, Mrs. Beale," said the girl
sympathetically.
"Lonely, miss!" cried the maid. "I fairly get the creeps sitting here
hour after hour. It's that door that gives me the hump."
She pointed to the far end of the kitchen to a soiled looking door of
unpainted wood.
"That's Mr. Kara's wine cellar--nobody's been in it but him. I know
he goes in sometimes because I tried a dodge that my brother--who's a
policeman--taught me. I stretched a bit of white cotton across it an' it
was broke the next morning."
"Mr. Kara keeps some of his private papers in there," said the girl
quietly, "he has told me so himself."
"H'm," said the woman doubtfully, "I wish he'd brick it up--the same
as he has the lower cellar--I get the horrors sittin' here at night
expectin' the door to open an' the ghost of the mad lord to come
out--him that was killed in Africa."
Miss Holland laughed.
"I want you to go out now," she said, "I have no stamps."
Mrs. Beale obeyed with alacrity and whilst she was assuming a hat--being
desirous of maintaining her prestige as housekeeper in the eyes of
Cadogan Square, the girl ascended to the upper floor.
Again she watched from the window the disappearing figure.
Once out of sight Miss Holland went to work with a remarkable
deliberation and thoroughness. From her bag she produced a small purse
and opened it. In that case was a new steel key. She passed swiftly down
the corridor to Kara's room and made straight for the safe.
In two seconds it was open and she was examining its contents. It was
a large safe of the usual type. There were four steel drawers fitted at
the back and at the bottom of the strong box. Two of these were unlocked
and contained nothing more interesting than accounts relating to Kara's
estate in Albania.
The top pair were locked. She was prepared for this contingency and a
second key was as efficacious as the first. An examination of the first
drawer did not produce all that she had expected. She returned the
papers to the drawer, pushed it to and locked it. She gave her attention
to the second drawer. Her hand shook a little as she pulled it open. It
was her last chance, her last hope.
There were a number of small jewel-boxes almost filling the drawer. She
took them out one by one and at the bottom she found what she had been
searching for and that which had filled her thoughts for the past three
months.
It was a square case covered in red morocco leather. She inserted her
shaking hand and took it out with a triumphant little cry.
"At last," she said aloud, and then a hand grasped her wrist and in a
panic she turned to meet the smiling face of Kara.
CHAPTER X
She felt her knees shake under her and thought she was going to swoon.
She put out her disengaged hand to steady herself, and if the face which
was turned to him was pale, there was a steadfast resolution in her dark
eyes.
"Let me relieve you of that, Miss Holland," said Kara, in his silkiest
tones.
He wrenched rather than took the box from her hand, replaced it
carefully in the drawer, pushed the drawer to and locked it, examining
the key as he withdrew it. Then he closed the safe and locked that.
"Obviously," he said presently, "I must get a new safe."
He had not released his hold of her wrist nor did he, until he had
led her from the room back to the library. Then he released the girl,
standing between her and the door, with folded arms and that cynical,
quiet, contemptuous smile of his upon his handsome face.
"There are many courses which I can adopt," he said slowly. "I can
send for the police--when my servants whom you have despatched so
thoughtfully have returned, or I can take your punishment into my own
hands."
"So far as I am concerned," said the girl coolly, "you may send for the
police."
She leant back against the edge of the desk, her hands holding the edge,
and faced him without so much as a quaver.
"I do not like the police," mused Kara, when there came a knock at the
door.
Kara turned and opened it and after a low strained conversation he
returned, closing the door and laid a paper of stamps on the girl's
table.
"As I was saying, I do not care for the police, and I prefer my own
method. In this particular instance the police obviously would not serve
me, because you are not afraid of them and in all probability you are
in their pay--am I right in supposing that you are one of Mr. T. X.
Meredith's accomplices!"
"I do not know Mr. T. X. Meredith," she replied calmly, "and I am not in
any way associated with the police."
"Nevertheless," he persisted, "you do not seem to be very scared of them
and that removes any temptation I might have to place you in the hands
of the law. Let me see," he pursed his lips as he applied his mind to
the problem.
She half sat, half stood, watching him without any evidence of
apprehension, but with a heart which began to quake a little. For three
months she had played her part and the strain had been greater than
she had confessed to herself. Now the great moment had come and she had
failed. That was the sickening, maddening thing about it all. It was
not the fear of arrest or of conviction, which brought a sinking to
her heart; it was the despair of failure, added to a sense of her
helplessness against this man.
"If I had you arrested your name would appear in all the papers, of
course," he said, narrowly, "and your photograph would probably adorn
the Sunday journals," he added expectantly.
She laughed.
"That doesn't appeal to me," she said.
"I am afraid it doesn't," he replied, and strolled towards her as though
to pass her on his way to the window. He was abreast of her when he
suddenly swung round and catching her in his arms he caught her close
to him. Before she could realise what he planned, he had stooped swiftly
and kissed her full upon the mouth.
"If you scream, I shall kiss you again," he said, "for I have sent the
maid to buy some more stamps--to the General Post Office."
"Let me go," she gasped.
Now for the first time he saw the terror in her eyes, and there surged
within him that mad sense of triumph, that intoxication of power which
had been associated with the red letter days of his warped life.
"You're afraid!" he bantered her, half whispering the words, "you're
afraid now, aren't you? If you scream I shall kiss you again, do you
hear?"
"For God's sake, let me go," she whispered.
He felt her shaking in his arms, and suddenly he released her with a
little laugh, and she sank trembling from head to foot upon the chair by
her desk.
"Now you're going to tell me who sent you here," he went on harshly,
"and why you came. I never suspected you. I thought you were one of
those strange creatures one meets in England, a gentlewoman who prefers
working for her living to the more simple business of getting married.
And all the time you were spying--clever--very clever!"
The girl was thinking rapidly. In five minutes Fisher would return.
Somehow she had faith in Fisher's ability and willingness to save her
from a situation which she realized was fraught with the greatest danger
to herself. She was horribly afraid. She knew this man far better than
he suspected, realized the treachery and the unscrupulousness of him.
She knew he would stop short of nothing, that he was without honour and
without a single attribute of goodness.
He must have read her thoughts for he came nearer and stood over her.
"You needn't shrink, my young friend," he said with a little chuckle.
"You are going to do just what I want you to do, and your first act will
be to accompany me downstairs. Get up."
He half lifted, half dragged her to her feet and led her from the room.
They descended to the hall together and the girl spoke no word. Perhaps
she hoped that she might wrench herself free and make her escape into
the street, but in this she was disappointed. The grip about her arm was
a grip of steel and she knew safety did not lie in that direction. She
pulled back at the head of the stairs that led down to the kitchen.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked.
"I am going to put you into safe custody," he said. "On the whole I
think it is best that the police take this matter in hand and I shall
lock you into my wine cellar and go out in search of a policeman."
The big wooden door opened, revealing a second door and this Kara
unbolted. She noticed that both doors were sheeted with steel, the outer
on the inside, and the inner door on the outside. She had no time to
make any further observations for Kara thrust her into the darkness. He
switched on a light.
"I will not deny you that," he said, pushing her back as she made a
frantic attempt to escape. He swung the outer door to as she raised her
voice in a piercing scream, and clapping his hand over her mouth held
her tightly for a moment.
"I have warned you," he hissed.
She saw his face distorted with rage. She saw Kara transfigured with
devilish anger, saw that handsome, almost godlike countenance thrust
into hers, flushed and seamed with malignity and a hatefulness beyond
understanding and then her senses left her and she sank limp and
swooning into his arms.
When she recovered consciousness she found herself lying on a plain
stretcher bed. She sat up suddenly. Kara had gone and the door was
closed. The cellar was dry and clean and its walls were enamelled white.
Light was supplied by two electric lamps in the ceiling. There was a
table and a chair and a small washstand, and air was evidently supplied
through unseen ventilators. It was indeed a prison and no less, and in
her first moments of panic she found herself wondering whether Kara had
used this underground dungeon of his before for a similar purpose.
She examined the room carefully. At the farthermost end was another
door and this she pushed gently at first and then vigorously without
producing the slightest impression. She still had her bag, a small
affair of black moire, which hung from her belt, in which was nothing
more formidable than a penknife, a small bottle of smelling salts and
a pair of scissors. The latter she had used for cutting out those
paragraphs from the daily newspapers which referred to Kara's movements.
They would make a formidable weapon, and wrapping her handkerchief round
the handle to give it a better grip she placed it on the table within
reach. She was dimly conscious all the time that she had heard something
about this wine cellar--something which, if she could recollect it,
would be of service to her.
Then in a flash she remembered that there was a lower cellar, which
according to Mrs. Beale was never used and was bricked up. It was
approached from the outside, down a circular flight of stairs. There
might be a way out from that direction and would there not be some
connection between the upper cellar and the lower!
She set to work to make a closer examination of the apartment.
The floor was of concrete, covered with a light rush matting. This she
carefully rolled up, starting at the door. One half of the floor was
uncovered without revealing the existence of any trap. She attempted to
pull the table into the centre of the room, better to roll the matting,
but found it fixed to the wall, and going down on her knees, she
discovered that it had been fixed after the matting had been laid.
Obviously there was no need for the fixture and, she tapped the floor
with her little knuckle. Her heart started racing. The sound her
knocking gave forth was a hollow one. She sprang up, took her bag from
the table, opened the little penknife and cut carefully through the thin
rushes. She might have to replace the matting and it was necessary she
should do her work tidily.
Soon the whole of the trap was revealed. There was an iron ring, which
fitted flush with the top and which she pulled. The trap yielded and
swung back as though there were a counterbalance at the other end, as
indeed there was. She peered down. There was a dim light below--the
reflection of a light in the distance. A flight of steps led down to the
lower level and after a second's hesitation she swung her legs over the
cavity and began her descent.
She was in a cellar slightly smaller than that above her. The light
she had seen came from an inner apartment which would be underneath the
kitchen of the house. She made her way cautiously along, stepping on
tip-toe. The first of the rooms she came to was well-furnished. There
was a thick carpet on the floor, comfortable easy-chairs, a little
bookcase well filled, and a reading lamp. This must be Kara's
underground study, where he kept his precious papers.
A smaller room gave from this and again it was doorless. She looked in
and after her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness she saw that it
was a bathroom handsomely fitted.
The room she was in was also without any light which came from the
farthermost chamber. As the girl strode softly across the well-carpeted
room she trod on something hard. She stooped and felt along the
floor and her fingers encountered a thin steel chain. The girl was
bewildered-almost panic-stricken. She shrunk back from the entrance
of the inner room, fearful of what she would see. And then from the
interior came a sound that made her tingle with horror.
It was a sound of a sigh, long and trembling. She set her teeth and
strode through the doorway and stood for a moment staring with open eyes
and mouth at what she saw.
"My God!" she breathed, "London. . . . in the twentieth century. . . !"
CHAPTER XI
Superintendent Mansus had a little office in Scotland Yard proper,
which, he complained, was not so much a private bureau, as a
waiting-room to which repaired every official of the police service
who found time hanging on his hands. On the afternoon of Miss Holland's
surprising adventure, a plainclothes man of "D" Division brought to
Mr. Mansus's room a very scared domestic servant, voluble, tearful and
agonizingly penitent. It was a mood not wholly unfamiliar to a police
officer of twenty years experience and Mr. Mansus was not impressed.
"If you will kindly shut up," he said, blending his natural politeness
with his employment of the vernacular, "and if you will also answer
a few questions I will save you a lot of trouble. You were Lady
Bartholomew's maid weren't you?"
"Yes, sir," sobbed the red-eyed Mary Ann.
"And you have been detected trying to pawn a gold bracelet, the property
of Lady Bartholomew?"
The maid gulped, nodded and started breathlessly upon a recital of her
wrongs.
"Yes, sir--but she practically gave it to me, sir, and I haven't had my
wages for two months, sir, and she can give that foreigner thousands
and thousands of pounds at a time, sir, but her poor servants she can't
pay--no, she can't. And if Sir William knew especially about my lady's
cards and about the snuffbox, what would he think, I wonder, and I'm
going to have my rights, for if she can pay thousands to a swell like
Mr. Kara she can pay me and--"
Mansus jerked his head.
"Take her down to the cells," he said briefly, and they led her away, a
wailing, woeful figure of amateur larcenist.
In three minutes Mansus was with T. X. and had reduced the girl's
incoherence to something like order.
"This is important," said T. X.; "produce the Abigail."
"The--?" asked the puzzled officer.
"The skivvy--slavey--hired help--get busy," said T. X. impatiently.
They brought her to T. X. in a condition bordering upon collapse.
"Get her a cup of tea," said the wise chief. "Sit down, Mary Ann, and
forget all your troubles."
"Oh, sir, I've never been in this position before," she began, as she
flopped into the chair they put for her.
"Then you've had a very tiring time," said T. X. "Now listen--"
"I've been respectable--"
"Forget it!" said T. X., wearily. "Listen! If you'll tell me the whole
truth about Lady Bartholomew and the money she paid to Mr. Kara--"
"Two thousand pounds--two separate thousand and by all accounts-"
"If you will tell me the truth, I'll compound a felony and let you go
free."
It was a long time before he could prevail upon her to clear her
speech of the ego which insisted upon intruding. There were gaps in her
narrative which he bridged. In the main it was a believable story. Lady
Bartholomew had lost money and had borrowed from Kara. She had given as
security, the snuffbox presented to her husband's father, a doctor, by
one of the Czars for services rendered, and was "all blue enamel and
gold, and foreign words in diamonds." On the question of the amount Lady
Bartholomew had borrowed, Abigail was very vague. All that she knew was
that my lady had paid back two thousand pounds and that she was still
very distressed ("in a fit" was the phrase the girl used), because
apparently Kara refused to restore the box.
There had evidently been terrible scenes in the Bartholomew menage,
hysterics and what not, the principal breakdown having occurred when
Belinda Mary came home from school in France.
"Miss Bartholomew is home then. Where is she?" asked T. X.
Here the girl was more vague than ever. She thought the young lady had
gone back again, anyway Miss Belinda had been very much upset. Miss
Belinda had seen Dr. Williams and advised that her mother should go away
for a change.
"Miss Belinda seems to be a precocious young person," said T. X. "Did
she by any chance see Mr. Kara?"
"Oh, no," explained the girl. "Miss Belinda was above that sort of
person. Miss Belinda was a lady, if ever there was one."
"And how old is this interesting young woman?" asked T. X. curiously.
"She is nineteen," said the girl, and the Commissioner, who had pictured
Belinda in short plaid frocks and long pigtails, and had moreover
visualised her as a freckled little girl with thin legs and snub nose,
was abashed.
He delivered a short lecture on the sacred rights of property, paid the
girl the three months' wages which were due to her--he had no doubt as
to the legality of her claim--and dismissed her with instructions to go
back to the house, pack her box and clear out.
After the girl had gone, T. X. sat down to consider the position. He
might see Kara and since Kara had expressed his contrition and was
probably in a more humble state of mind, he might make reparation. Then
again he might not. Mansus was waiting and T. X. walked back with him to
his little office.
"I hardly know what to make of it," he said in despair.
"If you can give me Kara's motive, sir, I can give you a solution," said
Mansus.
T. X. shook his head.
"That is exactly what I am unable to give you," he said.
He perched himself on Mansus's desk and lit a cigar.
"I have a good mind to go round and see him," he said after a while.
"Why not telephone to him?" asked Mansus. "There is his 'phone straight
into his boudoir."
He pointed to a small telephone in a corner of the room.
"Oh, he persuaded the Commissioner to run the wire, did he?" said T. X.
interested, and walked over to the telephone.
He fingered the receiver for a little while and was about to take it
off, but changed his mind.
"I think not," he said, "I'll go round and see him to-morrow. I don't
hope to succeed in extracting the confidence in the case of Lady
Bartholomew, which he denied me over poor Lexman."
"I suppose you'll never give up hope of seeing Mr. Lexman again," smiled
Mansus, busily arranging a new blotting pad.
Before T. X. could answer there came a knock at the door, and a
uniformed policeman, entered. He saluted T. X.
"They've just sent an urgent letter across from your office, sir. I said
I thought you were here."
He handed the missive to the Commissioner. T. X. took it and glanced at
the typewritten address. It was marked "urgent" and "by hand." He
took up the thin, steel, paper-knife from the desk and slit open the
envelope. The letter consisted of three or four pages of manuscript and,
unlike the envelope, it was handwritten.
"My dear T. X.," it began, and the handwriting was familiar.
Mansus, watching the Commissioner, saw the puzzled frown gather on
his superior's forehead, saw the eyebrows arch and the mouth open
in astonishment, saw him hastily turn to the last page to read the
signature and then:
"Howling apples!" gasped T. X. "It's from John Lexman!"
His hand shook as he turned the closely written pages. The letter was
dated that afternoon. There was no other address than "London."
"My dear T. X.," it began, "I do not doubt that this letter will give
you a little shock, because most of my friends will have believed that I
am gone beyond return. Fortunately or unfortunately that is not so. For
myself I could wish--but I am not going to take a very gloomy view since
I am genuinely pleased at the thought that I shall be meeting you again.
Forgive this letter if it is incoherent but I have only this moment
returned and am writing at the Charing Cross Hotel. I am not staying
here, but I will let you have my address later. The crossing has been
a very severe one so you must forgive me if my letter sounds a little
disjointed. You will be sorry to hear that my dear wife is dead. She
died abroad about six months ago. I do not wish to talk very much about
it so you will forgive me if I do not tell you any more.
"My principal object in writing to you at the moment is an official
one. I suppose I am still amenable to punishment and I have decided to
surrender myself to the authorities to-night. You used to have a most
excellent assistant in Superintendent Mansus, and if it is convenient to
you, as I hope it will be, I will report myself to him at 10.15. At any
rate, my dear T. X., I do not wish to mix you up in my affairs and if
you will let me do this business through Mansus I shall be very much
obliged to you.
"I know there is no great punishment awaiting me, because my pardon was
apparently signed on the night before my escape. I shall not have much
to tell you, because there is not much in the past two years that I
would care to recall. We endured a great deal of unhappiness and death
was very merciful when it took my beloved from me.
"Do you ever see Kara in these days?
"Will you tell Mansus to expect me at between ten and half-past, and if
he will give instructions to the officer on duty in the hall I will come
straight up to his room.
"With affectionate regards, my dear fellow, I am,
"Yours sincerely,
"JOHN LEXMAN."
T. X. read the letter over twice and his eyes were troubled.
"Poor girl," he said softly, and handed the letter to Mansus. "He
evidently wants to see you because he is afraid of using my friendship
to his advantage. I shall be here, nevertheless."
"What will be the formality?" asked Mansus.
"There will be no formality," said the other briskly. "I will secure the
necessary pardon from the Home Secretary and in point of fact I have it
already promised, in writing."
He walked back to Whitehall, his mind fully occupied with the momentous
events of the day. It was a raw February evening, sleet was falling
in the street, a piercing easterly wind drove even through his thick
overcoat. In such doorways as offered protection from the bitter
elements the wreckage of humanity which clings to the West end of
London, as the singed moth flutters about the flame that destroys it,
were huddled for warmth.
T. X. was a man of vast human sympathies.
All his experience with the criminal world, all his disappointments,
all his disillusions had failed to quench the pity for his unfortunate
fellows. He made it a rule on such nights as these, that if, by chance,
returning late to his office he should find such a shivering piece of
jetsam sheltering in his own doorway, he would give him or her the price
of a bed.
In his own quaint way he derived a certain speculative excitement from
this practice. If the doorway was empty he regarded himself as a winner,
if some one stood sheltered in the deep recess which is a feature of the
old Georgian houses in this historic thoroughfare, he would lose to the
extent of a shilling.
He peered forward through the semi-darkness as he neared the door of his
offices.
"I've lost," he said, and stripped his gloves preparatory to groping in
his pocket for a coin.
Somebody was standing in the entrance, but it was obviously a very
respectable somebody. A dumpy, motherly somebody in a seal-skin coat and
a preposterous bonnet.
"Hullo," said T. X. in surprise, "are you trying to get in here?"
"I want to see Mr. Meredith," said the visitor, in the mincing affected
tones of one who excused the vulgar source of her prosperity by
frequently reiterated claims to having seen better days.
"Your longing shall be gratified," said T. X. gravely.
He unlocked the heavy door, passed through the uncarpeted passage--there
are no frills on Government offices--and led the way up the stairs to
the suite on the first floor which constituted his bureau.
He switched on all the lights and surveyed his visitor, a comfortable
person of the landlady type.
"A good sort," thought T. X., "but somewhat overweighted with lorgnettes
and seal-skin."
"You will pardon my coming to see you at this hour of the night," she
began deprecatingly, "but as my dear father used to say, 'Hopi soit qui
mal y pense.'"
"Your dear father being in the garter business?" suggested T. X.
humorously. "Won't you sit down, Mrs. ----"
"Mrs. Cassley," beamed the lady as she seated herself. "He was in the
paper hanging business. But needs must, when the devil drives, as the
saying goes."
"What particular devil is driving you, Mrs. Cassley?" asked T. X.,
somewhat at a loss to understand the object of this visit.
"I may be doing wrong," began the lady, pursing her lips, "and two
blacks will never make a white."
"And all that glitters is not gold," suggested T. X. a little wearily.
"Will you please tell me your business, Mrs. Cassley? I am a very hungry
man."
"Well, it's like this, sir," said Mrs. Cassley, dropping her erudition,
and coming down to bedrock homeliness; "I've got a young lady stopping
with me, as respectable a gel as I've had to deal with. And I know
what respectability is, I might tell you, for I've taken professional
boarders and I have been housekeeper to a doctor."
"You are well qualified to speak," said T. X. with a smile. "And what
about this particular young lady of yours! By the way what is your
address?"
"86a Marylebone Road," said the lady.
T. X. sat up.
"Yes?" he said quickly. "What about your young lady?"
"She works as far as I can understand," said the loquacious landlady,
"with a certain Mr. Kara in the typewriting line. She came to me four
months ago."
"Never mind when she came to you," said T. X. impatiently. "Have you a
message from the lady?"
"Well, it's like this, sir," said Mrs. Cassley, leaning forward
confidentially and speaking in the hollow tone which she had decided
should accompany any revelation to a police officer, "this young lady
said to me, 'If I don't come any night by 8 o'clock you must go to T. X.
and tell him--'!"
She paused dramatically.
"Yes, yes," said T. X. quickly, "for heaven's sake go on, woman."
"'Tell him,'" said Mrs. Cassley, "'that Belinda Mary--'"
He sprang to his feet.
"Belinda Mary!" he breathed, "Belinda Mary!" In a flash he saw it all.
This girl with a knowledge of modern Greek, who was working in Kara's
house, was there for a purpose. Kara had something of her mother's,
something that was vital and which he would not part with, and she
had adopted this method of securing that some thing. Mrs. Cassley
was prattling on, but her voice was merely a haze of sound to him.
It brought a strange glow to his heart that Belinda Mary should have
thought of him.
"Only as a policeman, of course," said the still, small voice of his
official self. "Perhaps!" said the human T. X., defiantly.
He got on the telephone to Mansus and gave a few instructions.
"You stay here," he ordered the astounded Mrs. Cassley; "I am going to
make a few investigations."
Kara was at home, but was in bed. T. X. remembered that this
extraordinary man invariably went to bed early and that it was his
practice to receive visitors in this guarded room of his. He was
admitted almost at once and found Kara in his silk dressing-gown lying
on the bed smoking. The heat of the room was unbearable even on that
bleak February night.
"This is a pleasant surprise," said Kara, sitting up; "I hope you don't
mind my dishabille."
T. X. came straight to the point.
"Where is Miss Holland!" he asked.
"Miss Holland?" Kara's eyebrows advertised his astonishment. "What an
extraordinary question to ask me, my dear man! At her home, or at the
theatre or in a cinema palace--I don't know how these people employ
their evenings."
"She is not at home," said T. X., "and I have reason to believe that she
has not left this house."
"What a suspicious person you are, Mr. Meredith!" Kara rang the bell and
Fisher came in with a cup of coffee on a tray.
"Fisher," drawled Kara. "Mr. Meredith is anxious to know where Miss
Holland is. Will you be good enough to tell him, you know more about her
movements than I do."
"As far as I know, sir," said Fisher deferentially, "she left the house
about 5.30, her usual hour. She sent me out a little before five on a
message and when I came back her hat and her coat had gone, so I presume
she had gone also."
"Did you see her go?" asked T. X.
The man shook his head.
"No, sir, I very seldom see the lady come or go. There has been no
restrictions placed upon the young lady and she has been at liberty to
move about as she likes. I think I am correct in saying that, sir," he
turned to Kara.
Kara nodded.
"You will probably find her at home."
He shook his finger waggishly at T. X.
"What a dog you are," he jibed, "I ought to keep the beauties of my
household veiled, as we do in the East, and especially when I have a
susceptible policeman wandering at large."
T. X. gave jest for jest. There was nothing to be gained by making
trouble here. After a few amiable commonplaces he took his departure. He
found Mrs. Cassley being entertained by Mansus with a wholly fictitious
description of the famous criminals he had arrested.
"I can only suggest that you go home," said T. X. "I will send a police
officer with you to report to me, but in all probability you will find
the lady has returned. She may have had a difficulty in getting a bus on
a night like this."
A detective was summoned from Scotland Yard and accompanied by him Mrs.
Cassley returned to her domicile with a certain importance. T. X. looked
at his watch. It was a quarter to ten.
"Whatever happens, I must see old Lexman," he said. "Tell the best men
we've got in the department to stand by for eventualities. This is going
to be one of my busy days."
CHAPTER XII
Kara lay back on his down pillows with a sneer on his face and his brain
very busy. What started the train of thought he did not know, but at
that moment his mind was very far away. It carried him back a dozen
years to a dirty little peasant's cabin on the hillside outside Durazzo,
to the livid face of a young Albanian chief, who had lost at Kara's whim
all that life held for a man, to the hateful eyes of the girl's father,
who stood with folded arms glaring down at the bound and manacled figure
on the floor, to the smoke-stained rafters of this peasant cottage and
the dancing shadows on the roof, to that terrible hour of waiting when
he sat bound to a post with a candle flickering and spluttering lower
and lower to the little heap of gunpowder that would start the trail
toward the clumsy infernal machine under his chair. He remembered the
day well because it was Candlemas day, and this was the anniversary. He
remembered other things more pleasant. The beat of hoofs on the rocky
roadway, the crash of the door falling in when the Turkish Gendarmes
had battered a way to his rescue. He remembered with a savage joy the
spectacle of his would-be assassins twitching and struggling on the
gallows at Pezara and--he heard the faint tinkle of the front door bell.
Had T. X. returned! He slipped from the bed and went to the door, opened
it slightly and listened. T. X. with a search warrant might be a source
of panic especially if--he shrugged his shoulders. He had satisfied T.
X. and allayed his suspicions. He would get Fisher out of the way that
night and make sure.
The voice from the hall below was loud and gruff. Who could it be! Then
he heard Fisher's foot on the stairs and the valet entered.
"Will you see Mr. Gathercole now!"
"Mr. Gathercole!"
Kara breathed a sigh of relief and his face was wreathed in smiles.
"Why, of course. Tell him to come up. Ask him if he minds seeing me in
my room."
"I told him you were in bed, sir, and he used shocking language," said
Fisher.
Kara laughed.
"Send him up," he said, and then as Fisher was going out of the room he
called him back.
"By the way, Fisher, after Mr. Gathercole has gone, you may go out for
the night. You've got somewhere to go, I suppose, and you needn't come
back until the morning."
"Yes, sir," said the servant.
Such an instruction was remarkably pleasing to him. There was much that
he had to do and that night's freedom would assist him materially.
"Perhaps" Kara hesitated, "perhaps you had better wait until eleven
o'clock. Bring me up some sandwiches and a large glass of milk. Or
better still, place them on a plate in the hall."
"Very good, sir," said the man and withdrew.
Down below, that grotesque figure with his shiny hat and his ragged
beard was walking up and down the tesselated hallway muttering to
himself and staring at the various objects in the hall with a certain
amused antagonism.
"Mr. Kara will see you, sir," said Fisher.
"Oh!" said the other glaring at the unoffending Fisher, "that's very
good of him. Very good of this person to see a scholar and a gentleman
who has been about his dirty business for three years. Grown grey in his
service! Do you understand that, my man!"
"Yes, sir," said Fisher.
"Look here!"
The man thrust out his face.
"Do you see those grey hairs in my beard?"
The embarrassed Fisher grinned.
"Is it grey!" challenged the visitor, with a roar.
"Yes, sir," said the valet hastily.
"Is it real grey?" insisted the visitor. "Pull one out and see!"
The startled Fisher drew back with an apologetic smile.
"I couldn't think of doing a thing like that, sir."
"Oh, you couldn't," sneered the visitor; "then lead on!"
Fisher showed the way up the stairs. This time the traveller carried
no books. His left arm hung limply by his side and Fisher privately
gathered that the hand had got loose from the detaining pocket
without its owner being aware of the fact. He pushed open the door and
announced, "Mr. Gathercole," and Kara came forward with a smile to
meet his agent, who, with top hat still on the top of his head, and his
overcoat dangling about his heels, must have made a remarkable picture.
Fisher closed the door behind them and returned to his duties in the
hall below. Ten minutes later he heard the door opened and the booming
voice of the stranger came down to him. Fisher went up the stairs to
meet him and found him addressing the occupant of the room in his own
eccentric fashion.
"No more Patagonia!" he roared, "no more Tierra del Fuego!" he paused.
"Certainly!" He replied to some question, "but not Patagonia," he paused
again, and Fisher standing at the foot of the stairs wondered what had
occurred to make the visitor so genial.
"I suppose your cheque will be honoured all right?" asked the visitor
sardonically, and then burst into a little chuckle of laughter as he
carefully closed the door.
He came down the corridor talking to himself, and greeted Fisher.
"Damn all Greeks," he said jovially, and Fisher could do no more than
smile reproachfully, the smile being his very own, the reproach being on
behalf of the master who paid him.
The traveller touched the other on the chest with his right hand.
"Never trust a Greek," he said, "always get your money in advance. Is
that clear to you?"
"Yes, sir," said Fisher, "but I think you will always find that Mr. Kara
is always most generous about money."
"Don't you believe it, don't you believe it, my poor man," said the
other, "you--"
At that moment there came from Kara's room a faint "clang."
"What's that?" asked the visitor a little startled.
"Mr. Kara's put down his steel latch," said Fisher with a smile, "which
means that he is not to be disturbed until--" he looked at his watch,
"until eleven o'clock at any rate."
"He's a funk!" snapped the other, "a beastly funk!"
He stamped down the stairs as though testing the weight of every tread,
opened the front door without assistance, slammed it behind him and
disappeared into the night.
Fisher, his hands in his pockets, looked after the departing stranger,
nodding his head in reprobation.
"You're a queer old devil," he said, and looked at his watch again.
It wanted five minutes to ten.
CHAPTER XIII
"IF you would care to come in, sir, I'm sure Lexman would be glad to
see you," said T. X.; "it's very kind of you to take an interest in the
matter."
The Chief Commissioner of Police growled something about being paid to
take an interest in everybody and strolled with T. X. down one of the
apparently endless corridors of Scotland Yard.
"You won't have any bother about the pardon," he said. "I was dining
to-night with old man Bartholomew and he will fix that up in the
morning."
"There will be no necessity to detain Lexman in custody?" asked T. X.
The Chief shook his head.
"None whatever," he said.
There was a pause, then,
"By the way, did Bartholomew mention Belinda Mary!"
The white-haired chief looked round in astonishment.
"And who the devil is Belinda Mary?" he asked.
T. X. went red.
"Belinda Mary," he said a little quickly, "is Bartholomew's daughter."
"By Jove," said the Commissioner, "now you mention it, he did--she is
still in France."
"Oh, is she?" said T. X. innocently, and in his heart of hearts he
wished most fervently that she was. They came to the room which Mansus
occupied and found that admirable man waiting.
Wherever policemen meet, their conversation naturally drifts to "shop"
and in two minutes the three were discussing with some animation and
much difference of opinion, as far as T. X. was concerned, a series
of frauds which had been perpetrated in the Midlands, and which have
nothing to do with this story.
"Your friend is late," said the Chief Commissioner.
"There he is," cried T. X., springing up. He heard a familiar footstep
on the flagged corridor, and sprung out of the room to meet the
newcomer.
For a moment he stood wringing the hand of this grave man, his heart too
full for words.
"My dear chap!" he said at last, "you don't know how glad I am to see
you."
John Lexman said nothing, then,
"I am sorry to bring you into this business, T. X.," he said quietly.
"Nonsense," said the other, "come in and see the Chief."
He took John by the arm and led him into the Superintendent's room.
There was a change in John Lexman. A subtle shifting of balance which
was not readily discoverable. His face was older, the mobile mouth a
little more grimly set, the eyes more deeply lined. He was in evening
dress and looked, as T. X. thought, a typical, clean, English gentleman,
such an one as any self-respecting valet would be proud to say he had
"turned out."
T. X. looking at him carefully could see no great change, save that down
one side of his smooth shaven cheek ran the scar of an old wound; which
could not have been much more than superficial.
"I must apologize for this kit," said John, taking off his overcoat and
laying it across the back of a chair, "but the fact is I was so bored
this evening that I had to do something to pass the time away, so I
dressed and went to the theatre--and was more bored than ever."
T. X. noticed that he did not smile and that when he spoke it was slowly
and carefully, as though he were weighing the value of every word.
"Now," he went on, "I have come to deliver myself into your hands."
"I suppose you have not seen Kara?" said T. X.
"I have no desire to see Kara," was the short reply.
"Well, Mr. Lexman," broke in the Chief, "I don't think you are going to
have any difficulty about your escape. By the way, I suppose it was by
aeroplane?"
Lexman nodded.
"And you had an assistant?"
Again Lexman nodded.
"Unless you press me I would rather not discuss the matter for some
little time, Sir George," he said, "there is much that will happen
before the full story of my escape is made known."
Sir George nodded.
"We will leave it at that," he said cheerily, "and now I hope you have
come back to delight us all with one of your wonderful plots."
"For the time being I have done with wonderful plots," said John Lexman
in that even, deliberate tone of his. "I hope to leave London next week
for New York and take up such of the threads of life as remain. The
greater thread has gone."
The Chief Commissioner understood.
The silence which followed was broken by the loud and insistent ringing
of the telephone bell.
"Hullo," said Mansus rising quickly; "that's Kara's bell."
With two quick strides he was at the telephone and lifted down the
receiver.
"Hullo," he cried. "Hullo," he cried again. There was no reply, only
the continuous buzzing, and when he hung up the receiver again, the bell
continued ringing.
The three policemen looked at one another.
"There's trouble there," said Mansus.
"Take off the receiver," said T. X., "and try again."
Mansus obeyed, but there was no response.
"I am afraid this is not my affair," said John Lexman gathering up his
coat. "What do you wish me to do, Sir George?"
"Come along to-morrow morning and see us, Lexman," said Sir George,
offering his hand.
"Where are you staying!" asked T. X.
"At the Great Midland," replied the other, "at least my bags have gone
on there."
"I'll come along and see you to-morrow morning. It's curious this should
have happened the night you returned," he said, gripping the other's
shoulder affectionately.
John Lexman did not speak for the moment.
"If anything happened to Kara," he said slowly, "if the worst that was
possible happened to him, believe me I should not weep."
T. X. looked down into the other's eyes sympathetically.
"I think he has hurt you pretty badly, old man," he said gently.
John Lexman nodded.
"He has, damn him," he said between his teeth.
The Chief Commissioner's motor car was waiting outside and in this T.
X., Mansus, and a detective-sergeant were whirled off to Cadogan Square.
Fisher was in the hall when they rung the bell and opened the door
instantly.
He was frankly surprised to see his visitors. Mr. Kara was in his room
he explained resentfully, as though T. X. should have been aware of the
fact without being told. He had heard no bell ringing and indeed had not
been summoned to the room.
"I have to see him at eleven o'clock," he said, "and I have had standing
instructions not to go to him unless I am sent for."
T. X. led the way upstairs, and went straight to Kara's room. He
knocked, but there was no reply. He knocked again and on this failing to
evoke any response kicked heavily at the door.
"Have you a telephone downstairs!" he asked.
"Yes, sir," replied Fisher.
T. X. turned to the detective-sergeant.
"'Phone to the Yard," he said, "and get a man up with a bag of tools. We
shall have to pick this lock and I haven't got my case with me."
"Picking the lock would be no good, sir," said Fisher, an interested
spectator, "Mr. Kara's got the latch down."
"I forgot that," said T. X. "Tell him to bring his saw, we'll have to
cut through the panel here."
While they were waiting for the arrival of the police officer T. X.
strove to attract the attention of the inmates of the room, but without
success.
"Does he take opium or anything!" asked Mansus.
Fisher shook his head.
"I've never known him to take any of that kind of stuff," he said.
T. X. made a rapid survey of the other rooms on that floor. The room
next to Kara's was the library, beyond that was a dressing room which,
according to Fisher, Miss Holland had used, and at the farthermost end
of the corridor was the dining room.
Facing the dining room was a small service lift and by its side a
storeroom in which were a number of trunks, including a very large one
smothered in injunctions in three different languages to "handle with
care." There was nothing else of interest on this floor and the upper
and lower floors could wait. In a quarter of an hour the carpenter had
arrived from Scotland Yard, and had bored a hole in the rosewood panel
of Kara's room and was busily applying his slender saw.
Through the hole he cut T. X. could see no more than that the room was
in darkness save for the glow of a blazing fire. He inserted his hand,
groped for the knob of the steel latch, which he had remarked on his
previous visit to the room, lifted it and the door swung open.
"Keep outside, everybody," he ordered.
He felt for the switch of the electric, found it and instantly the room
was flooded with light. The bed was hidden by the open door. T. X. took
one stride into the room and saw enough. Kara was lying half on and half
off the bed. He was quite dead and the blood-stained patch above his
heart told its own story.
T. X. stood looking down at him, saw the frozen horror on the dead man's
face, then drew his eyes away and slowly surveyed the room. There in the
middle of the carpet he found his clue, a bent and twisted little candle
such as you find on children's Christmas trees.
CHAPTER XIV
It was Mansus who found the second candle, a stouter affair. It lay
underneath the bed. The telephone, which stood on a fairly large-sized
table by the side of the bed, was overturned and the receiver was on the
floor. By its side were two books, one being the "Balkan Question,"
by Villari, and the other "Travels and Politics in the Near East," by
Miller. With them was a long, ivory paper-knife.
There was nothing else on the bedside-table save a silver cigarette
box. T. X. drew on a pair of gloves and examined the bright surface for
finger-prints, but a superficial view revealed no such clue.
"Open the window," said T. X., "the heat here is intolerable. Be very
careful, Mansus. By the way, is the window fastened?"
"Very well fastened," said the superintendent after a careful scrutiny.
He pushed back the fastenings, lifted the window and as he did, a harsh
bell rang in the basement.
"That is the burglar alarm, I suppose," said T. X.; "go down and stop
that bell."
He addressed Fisher, who stood with a troubled face at the door. When
he had disappeared T. X. gave a significant glance to one of the waiting
officers and the man sauntered after the valet.
Fisher stopped the bell and came back to the hall and stood before the
hall fire, a very troubled man. Near the fire was a big, oaken writing
table and on this there lay a small envelope which he did not remember
having seen before, though it might have been there for some time, for
he had spent a greater portion of the evening in the kitchen with the
cook.
He picked up the envelope, and, with a start, recognised that it was
addressed to himself. He opened it and took out a card. There were only
a few words written upon it, but they were sufficient to banish all the
colour from his face and set his hands shaking. He took the envelope and
card and flung them into the fire.
It so happened that, at that moment, Mansus had called from upstairs,
and the officer, who had been told off to keep the valet under
observation, ran up in answer to the summons. For a moment Fisher
hesitated, then hatless and coatless as he was, he crept to the door,
opened it, leaving it ajar behind him and darting down the steps, ran
like a hare from the house.
The doctor, who came a little later, was cautious as to the hour of
death.
"If you got your telephone message at 10.25, as you say, that was
probably the hour he was killed," he said. "I could not tell within half
an hour. Obviously the man who killed him gripped his throat with his
left hand--there are the bruises on his neck--and stabbed him with the
right."
It was at this time that the disappearance of Fisher was noticed, but
the cross-examination of the terrified Mrs. Beale removed any doubt that
T. X. had as to the man's guilt.
"You had better send out an 'All Stations' message and pull him in,"
said T. X. "He was with the cook from the moment the visitor left until
a few minutes before we rang. Besides which it is obviously impossible
for anybody to have got into this room or out again. Have you searched
the dead man?"
Mansus produced a tray on which Kara's belongings had been disposed.
The ordinary keys Mrs. Beale was able to identify. There were one or two
which were beyond her. T. X. recognised one of these as the key of the
safe, but two smaller keys baffled him not a little, and Mrs. Beale was
at first unable to assist him.
"The only thing I can think of, sir," she said, "is the wine cellar."
"The wine cellar?" said T. X. slowly. "That must be--" he stopped.
The greater tragedy of the evening, with all its mystifying aspects had
not banished from his mind the thought of the girl--that Belinda Mary,
who had called upon him in her hour of danger as he divined. Perhaps--he
descended into the kitchen and was brought face to face with the
unpainted door.
"It looks more like a prison than a wine cellar," he said.
"That's what I've always thought, sir," said Mrs. Beale, "and sometimes
I've had a horrible feeling of fear."
He cut short her loquacity by inserting one of the keys in the lock--it
did not turn, but he had more success with the second. The lock snapped
back easily and he pulled the door back. He found the inner door bolted
top and bottom. The bolts slipped back in their well-oiled sockets
without any effort. Evidently Kara used this place pretty frequently,
thought T. X.
He pushed the door open and stopped with an exclamation of surprise. The
cellar apartment was brilliantly lit--but it was unoccupied.
"This beats the band," said T. X.
He saw something on the table and lifted it up. It was a pair of
long-bladed scissors and about the handle was wound a handkerchief. It
was not this fact which startled him, but that the scissors' blades were
dappled with blood and blood, too, was on the handkerchief. He unwound
the flimsy piece of cambric and stared at the monogram "B. M. B."
He looked around. Nobody had seen the weapon and he dropped it in his
overcoat pocket, and walked from the cellar to the kitchen where Mrs.
Beale and Mansus awaited him.
"There is a lower cellar, is there not!" he asked in a strained voice.
"That was bricked up when Mr. Kara took the house," explained the woman.
"There is nothing more to look for here," he said.
He walked slowly up the stairs to the library, his mind in a whirl. That
he, an accredited officer of police, sworn to the business of criminal
detection, should attempt to screen one who was conceivably a criminal
was inexplicable. But if the girl had committed this crime, how had she
reached Kara's room and why had she returned to the locked cellar!
He sent for Mrs. Beale to interrogate her. She had heard nothing and
she had been in the kitchen all the evening. One fact she did reveal,
however, that Fisher had gone from the kitchen and had been absent a
quarter of an hour and had returned a little agitated.
"Stay here," said T. X., and went down again to the cellar to make a
further search.
"Probably there is some way out of this subterranean jail," he thought
and a diligent search of the room soon revealed it.
He found the iron trap, pulled it open, and slipped down the stairs. He,
too, was puzzled by the luxurious character of the vault. He passed from
room to room and finally came to the inner chamber where a light was
burning.
The light, as he discovered, proceeded from a small reading lamp which
stood by the side of a small brass bedstead. The bed had recently been
slept in, but there was no sign of any occupant. T. X. conducted a very
careful search and had no difficulty in finding the bricked up door.
Other exits there were none.
The floor was of wood block laid on concrete, the ventilation was
excellent and in one of the recesses which had evidently held at so
time or other, a large wine bin, there was a prefect electrical cooking
plant. In a small larder were a number of baskets, bearing the name of
a well-known caterer, one of them containing an excellent assortment of
cold and potted meats, preserves, etc.
T. X. went back to the bedroom and took the little lamp from the table
by the side of the bed and began a more careful examination. Presently
he found traces of blood, and followed an irregular trail to the outer
room. He lost it suddenly at the foot of stairs leading down from the
upper cellar. Then he struck it again. He had reached the end of his
electric cord and was now depending upon an electric torch he had taken
from his pocket.
There were indications of something heavy having been dragged across the
room and he saw that it led to a small bathroom. He had made a cursory
examination of this well-appointed apartment, and now he proceeded to
make a close investigation and was well rewarded.
The bathroom was the only apartment which possess anything resembling a
door--a two-fold screen and--as he pressed this back, he felt some
thing which prevented its wider extension. He slipped into the room and
flashed his lamp in the space behind the screen. There stiff in death
with glazed eyes and lolling tongue lay a great gaunt dog, his yellow
fangs exposed in a last grimace.
About the neck was a collar and attached to that, a few links of broken
chain. T. X. mounted the steps thoughtfully and passed out to the
kitchen.
Did Belinda Mary stab Kara or kill the dog? That she killed one hound or
the other was certain. That she killed both was possible.
CHAPTER XV
After a busy and sleepless night he came down to report to the Chief
Commissioner the next morning. The evening newspaper bills were filled
with the "Chelsea Sensation" but the information given was of a meagre
character.
Since Fisher had disappeared, many of the details which could have
been secured by the enterprising pressmen were missing. There was no
reference to the visit of Mr. Gathercole and in self-defence the press
had fallen back upon a statement, which at an earlier period had crept
into the newspapers in one of those chatty paragraphs which begin "I saw
my friend Kara at Giros" and end with a brief but inaccurate summary of
his hobbies. The paragraph had been to the effect that Mr. Kara had been
in fear of his life for some time, as a result of a blood feud which
existed between himself and another Albanian family. Small wonder,
therefore, the murder was everywhere referred to as "the political crime
of the century."
"So far," reported T. X. to his superior, "I have been unable to trace
either Gathercole or the valet. The only thing we know about Gathercole
is that he sent his article to The Times with his card. The servants of
his Club are very vague as to his whereabouts. He is a very eccentric
man, who only comes in occasionally, and the steward whom I interviewed
says that it frequently happened that Gathercole arrived and departed
without anybody being aware of the fact. We have been to his old
lodgings in Lincoln's Inn, but apparently he sold up there before he
went away to the wilds of Patagonia and relinquished his tenancy.
"The only clue I have is that a man answering to some extent to his
description left by the eleven o'clock train for Paris last night."
"You have seen the secretary of course," said the Chief.
It was a question which T. X. had been dreading.
"Gone too," he answered shortly; "in fact she has not been seen since
5:30 yesterday evening."
Sir George leant back in his chair and rumpled his thick grey hair.
"The only person who seems to have remained," he said with heavy
sarcasm, "was Kara himself. Would you like me to put somebody else on
this case--it isn't exactly your job--or will you carry it on?"
"I prefer to carry it on, sir," said T. X. firmly.
"Have you found out anything more about Kara?"
T. X. nodded.
"All that I have discovered about him is eminently discreditable,"
he said. "He seems to have had an ambition to occupy a very important
position in Albania. To this end he had bribed and subsidized the
Turkish and Albanian officials and had a fairly large following in that
country. Bartholomew tells me that Kara had already sounded him as to
the possibility of the British Government recognising a fait accompli in
Albania and had been inducing him to use his influence with the Cabinet
to recognize the consequence of any revolution. There is no doubt
whatever that Kara has engineered all the political assassinations which
have been such a feature in the news from Albania during this past year.
We also found in the house very large sums of money and documents which
we have handed over to the Foreign Office for decoding."
Sir George thought for a long time.
Then he said, "I have an idea that if you find your secretary you will
be half way to solving the mystery."
T. X. went out from the office in anything but a joyous mood. He was
on his way to lunch when he remembered his promise to call upon John
Lexman.
Could Lexman supply a key which would unravel this tragic tangle? He
leant out of his taxi-cab and redirected the driver. It happened that
the cab drove up to the door of the Great Midland Hotel as John Lexman
was coming out.
"Come and lunch with me," said T. X. "I suppose you've heard all the
news."
"I read about Kara being killed, if that's what you mean," said the
other. "It was rather a coincidence that I should have been discussing
the matter last night at the very moment when his telephone bell rang--I
wish to heaven you hadn't been in this," he said fretfully.
"Why?" asked the astonished Assistant Commissioner, "and what do you
mean by 'in it'?"
"In the concrete sense I wish you had not been present when I returned,"
said the other moodily, "I wanted to be finished with the whole sordid
business without in any way involving my friends."
"I think you are too sensitive," laughed the other, clapping him on the
shoulder. "I want you to unburden yourself to me, my dear chap, and tell
me anything you can that will help me to clear up this mystery."
John Lexman looked straight ahead with a worried frown.
"I would do almost anything for you, T. X.," he said quietly, "the more
so since I know how good you were to Grace, but I can't help you in this
matter. I hated Kara living, I hate him dead," he cried, and there was
a passion in his voice which was unmistakable; "he was the vilest thing
that ever drew the breath of life. There was no villainy too despicable,
no cruelty so horrid but that he gloried in it. If ever the devil were
incarnate on earth he took the shape and the form of Remington Kara. He
died too merciful a death by all accounts. But if there is a God, this
man will suffer for his crimes in hell through all eternity."
T. X. looked at him in astonishment. The hate in the man's face took
his breath away. Never before had he experienced or witnessed such a
vehemence of loathing.
"What did Kara do to you?" he demanded.
The other looked out of the window.
"I am sorry," he said in a milder tone; "that is my weakness. Some day I
will tell you the whole story but for the moment it were better that
it were not told. I will tell you this," he turned round and faced the
detective squarely, "Kara tortured and killed my wife."
T. X. said no more.
Half way through lunch he returned indirectly to the subject.
"Do you know Gathercole?" he asked.
T. X. nodded.
"I think you asked me that question once before, or perhaps it was
somebody else. Yes, I know him, rather an eccentric man with an
artificial arm."
"That's the cove," said T. X. with a little sigh; "he's one of the few
men I want to meet just now."
"Why?"
"Because he was apparently the last man to see Kara alive."
John Lexman looked at the other with an impatient jerk of his shoulders.
"You don't suspect Gathercole, do you?" he asked.
"Hardly," said the other drily; "in the first place the man that
committed this murder had two hands and needed them both. No, I only
want to ask that gentleman the subject of his conversation. I also want
to know who was in the room with Kara when Gathercole went in."
"H'm," said John Lexman.
"Even if I found who the third person was, I am still puzzled as to how
they got out and fastened the heavy latch behind them. Now in the old
days, Lexman," he said good humouredly, "you would have made a fine
mystery story out of this. How would you have made your man escape?"
Lexman thought for a while.
"Have you examined the safe!" he asked.
"Yes," said the other.
"Was there very much in it?"
T. X. looked at him in astonishment.
"Just the ordinary books and things. Why do you ask?"
"Suppose there were two doors to that safe, one on the outside of the
room and one on the inside, would it be possible to pass through the
safe and go down the wall?"
"I have thought of that," said T. X.
"Of course," said Lexman, leaning back and toying with a salt-spoon,
"in writing a story where one hasn't got to deal with the absolute
possibilities, one could always have made Kara have a safe of that
character in order to make his escape in the event of danger. He might
keep a rope ladder stored inside, open the back door, throw out his
ladder to a friend and by some trick arrangement could detach the ladder
and allow the door to swing to again."
"A very ingenious idea," said T. X., "but unfortunately it doesn't work
in this case. I have seen the makers of the safe and there is nothing
very eccentric about it except the fact that it is mounted as it is. Can
you offer another suggestion?"
John Lexman thought again.
"I will not suggest trap doors, or secret panels or anything so banal,"
he said, "nor mysterious springs in the wall which, when touched, reveal
secret staircases."
He smiled slightly.
"In my early days, I must confess, I was rather keen upon that sort
of thing, but age has brought experience and I have discovered the
impossibility of bringing an architect to one's way of thinking even in
so commonplace a matter as the position of a scullery. It would be much
more difficult to induce him to construct a house with double walls and
secret chambers."
T. X. waited patiently.
"There is a possibility, of course," said Lexman slowly, "that the
steel latch may have been raised by somebody outside by some ingenious
magnetic arrangement and lowered in a similar manner."
"I have thought about it," said T. X. triumphantly, "and I have made the
most elaborate tests only this morning. It is quite impossible to raise
the steel latch because once it is dropped it cannot be raised again
except by means of the knob, the pulling of which releases the catch
which holds the bar securely in its place. Try another one, John."
John Lexman threw back his head in a noiseless laugh.
"Why I should be helping you to discover the murderer of Kara is beyond
my understanding," he said, "but I will give you another theory, at the
same time warning you that I may be putting you off the track. For God
knows I have more reason to murder Kara than any man in the world."
He thought a while.
"The chimney was of course impossible?"
"There was a big fire burning in the grate," explained T. X.; "so big
indeed that the room was stifling."
John Lexman nodded.
"That was Kara's way," he said; "as a matter of fact I know the
suggestion about magnetism in the steel bar was impossible, because I
was friendly with Kara when he had that bar put in and pretty well know
the mechanism, although I had forgotten it for the moment. What is your
own theory, by the way?"
T. X. pursed his lips.
"My theory isn't very clearly formed," he said cautiously, "but so far
as it goes, it is that Kara was lying on the bed probably reading one
of the books which were found by the bedside when his assailant suddenly
came upon him. Kara seized the telephone to call for assistance and was
promptly killed."
Again there was silence.
"That is a theory," said John Lexman, with his curious deliberation
of speech, "but as I say I refuse to be definite--have you found the
weapon?"
T. X. shook his head.
"Were there any peculiar features about the room which astonished you,
and which you have not told me?"
T. X. hesitated.
"There were two candles," he said, "one in the middle of the room and
one under the bed. That in the middle of the room was a small Christmas
candle, the one under the bed was the ordinary candle of commerce
evidently roughly cut and probably cut in the room. We found traces of
candle chips on the floor and it is evident to me that the portion which
was cut off was thrown into the fire, for here again we have a trace of
grease."
Lexman nodded.
"Anything further?" he asked.
"The smaller candle was twisted into a sort of corkscrew shape."
"The Clue of the Twisted Candle," mused John Lexman "that's a very good
title--Kara hated candles."
"Why?"
Lexman leant back in his chair, selected a cigarette from a silver case.
"In my wanderings," he said, "I have been to many strange places. I
have been to the country which you probably do not know, and which the
traveller who writes books about countries seldom visits. There are
queer little villages perched on the spurs of the bleakest hills you
ever saw. I have lived with communities which acknowledge no king and
no government. These have their laws handed down to them from father to
son--it is a nation without a written language. They administer
their laws rigidly and drastically. The punishments they award are
cruel--inhuman. I have seen, the woman taken in adultery stoned to death
as in the best Biblical traditions, and I have seen the thief blinded."
T. X. shivered.
"I have seen the false witness stand up in a barbaric market place
whilst his tongue was torn from him. Sometimes the Turks or the piebald
governments of the state sent down a few gendarmes and tried a sort
of sporadic administration of the country. It usually ended in the
representative of the law lapsing into barbarism, or else disappearing
from the face of the earth, with a whole community of murderers eager
to testify, with singular unanimity, to the fact that he had either
committed suicide or had gone off with the wife of one of the townsmen.
"In some of these communities the candle plays a big part. It is not the
candle of commerce as you know it, but a dip made from mutton fat. Strap
three between the fingers of your hands and keep the hand rigid with two
flat pieces of wood; then let the candles burn down lower and lower--can
you imagine? Or set a candle in a gunpowder trail and lead the trail to
a well-oiled heap of shavings thoughtfully heaped about your naked feet.
Or a candle fixed to the shaved head of a man--there are hundreds of
variations and the candle plays a part in all of them. I don't know
which Kara had cause to hate the worst, but I know one or two that he
has employed."
"Was he as bad as that?" asked T. X.
John Lexman laughed.
"You don't know how bad he was," he said.
Towards the end of the luncheon the waiter brought a note in to T. X.
which had been sent on from his office.
"Dear Mr. Meredith,
"In answer to your enquiry I believe my daughter is in London, but I did
not know it until this morning. My banker informs me that my daughter
called at the bank this morning and drew a considerable sum of money
from her private account, but where she has gone and what she is doing
with the money I do not know. I need hardly tell you that I am very
worried about this matter and I should be glad if you could explain what
it is all about."
It was signed "William Bartholomew."
T. X. groaned.
"If I had only had the sense to go to the bank this morning, I should
have seen her," he said. "I'm going to lose my job over this."
The other looked troubled.
"You don't seriously mean that."
"Not exactly," smiled T. X., "but I don't think the Chief is very
pleased with me just now. You see I have butted into this business
without any authority--it isn't exactly in my department. But you have
not given me your theory about the candles."
"I have no theory to offer," said the other, folding up his serviette;
"the candles suggest a typical Albanian murder. I do not say that it
was so, I merely say that by their presence they suggest a crime of this
character."
With this T. X. had to be content.
If it were not his business to interest himself in commonplace
murder--though this hardly fitted such a description--it was part of
the peculiar function which his department exercised to restore to Lady
Bartholomew a certain very elaborate snuff-box which he discovered in
the safe.
Letters had been found amongst his papers which made clear the part
which Kara had played. Though he had not been a vulgar blackmailer he
had retained his hold, not only upon this particular property of Lady
Bartholomew, but upon certain other articles which were discovered,
with no other object, apparently, than to compel influence from quarters
likely to be of assistance to him in his schemes.
The inquest on the murdered man which the Assistant Commissioner
attended produced nothing in the shape of evidence and the coroner's
verdict of "murder against some person or persons unknown" was only to
be expected.
T. X. spent a very busy and a very tiring week tracing elusive clues
which led him nowhere. He had a letter from John Lexman announcing the
fact that he intended leaving for the United States. He had received a
very good offer from a firm of magazine publishers in New York and was
going out to take up the appointment.
Meredith's plans were now in fair shape. He had decided upon the line
of action he would take and in the pursuance of this he interviewed his
Chief and the Minister of Justice.
"Yes, I have heard from my daughter," said that great man uncomfortably,
"and really she has placed me in a most embarrassing position. I cannot
tell you, Mr. Meredith, exactly in what manner she has done this, but I
can assure you she has."
"Can I see her letter or telegram?" asked T. X.
"I am afraid that is impossible," said the other solemnly; "she begged
me to keep her communication very secret. I have written to my wife and
asked her to come home. I feel the constant strain to which I am being
subjected is more than human can endure."
"I suppose," said T. X. patiently, "it is impossible for you to tell me
to what address you have replied?"
"To no address," answered the other and corrected himself hurriedly;
"that is to say I only received the telegram--the message this morning
and there is no address--to reply to."
"I see," said T. X.
That afternoon he instructed his secretary.
"I want a copy of all the agony advertisements in to-morrow's papers
and in the last editions of the evening papers--have them ready for me
tomorrow morning when I come."
They were waiting for him when he reached the office at nine o'clock
the next day and he went through them carefully. Presently he found the
message he was seeking.
B. M. You place me awkward position. Very thoughtless. Have
received package addressed your mother which have placed in mother's
sitting-room. Cannot understand why you want me to go away week-end
and give servants holiday but have done so. Shall require very full
explanation. Matter gone far enough. Father.
"This," said T. X. exultantly, as he read the advertisement, "is where I
get busy."
CHAPTER XVI
February as a rule is not a month of fogs, but rather a month of
tempestuous gales, of frosts and snowfalls, but the night of February
17th, 19--, was one of calm and mist. It was not the typical London fog
so dreaded by the foreigner, but one of those little patchy mists which
smoke through the streets, now enshrouding and making the nearest object
invisible, now clearing away to the finest diaphanous filament of pale
grey.
Sir William Bartholomew had a house in Portman Place, which is a wide
thoroughfare, filled with solemn edifices of unlovely and forbidding
exterior, but remarkably comfortable within. Shortly before eleven on
the night of February 17th, a taxi drew up at the junction of Sussex
Street and Portman Place, and a girl alighted. The fog at that moment
was denser than usual and she hesitated a moment before she left the
shelter which the cab afforded.
She gave the driver a few instructions and walked on with a firm step,
turning abruptly and mounting the steps of Number 173. Very quickly she
inserted her key in the lock, pushed the door open and closed it behind
her. She switched on the hall light. The house sounded hollow and
deserted, a fact which afforded her considerable satisfaction. She
turned the light out and found her way up the broad stairs to the first
floor, paused for a moment to switch on another light which she knew
would not be observable from the street outside and mounted the second
flight.
Miss Belinda Mary Bartholomew congratulated herself upon the success of
her scheme, and the only doubt that was in her mind now was whether
the boudoir had been locked, but her father was rather careless in such
matters and Jacks the butler was one of those dear, silly, old men who
never locked anything, and, in consequence, faced every audit with a
long face and a longer tale of the peculations of occasional servants.
To her immense relief the handle turned and the door opened to her
touch. Somebody had had the sense to pull down the blinds and the
curtains were drawn. She switched on the light with a sigh of relief.
Her mother's writing table was covered with unopened letters, but she
brushed these aside in her search for the little parcel. It was not
there and her heart sank. Perhaps she had put it in one of the drawers.
She tried them all without result.
She stood by the desk a picture of perplexity, biting a finger
thoughtfully.
"Thank goodness!" she said with a jump, for she saw the parcel on the
mantel shelf, crossed the room and took it down.
With eager hands she tore off the covering and came to the familiar
leather case. Not until she had opened the padded lid and had seen the
snuffbox reposing in a bed of cotton wool did she relapse into a long
sigh of relief.
"Thank heaven for that," she said aloud.
"And me," said a voice.
She sprang up and turned round with a look of terror.
"Mr.--Mr. Meredith," she stammered.
T. X. stood by the window curtains from whence he had made his dramatic
entry upon the scene.
"I say you have to thank me also, Miss Bartholomew," he said presently.
"How do you know my name?" she asked with some curiosity.
"I know everything in the world," he answered, and she smiled. Suddenly
her face went serious and she demanded sharply,
"Who sent you after me--Mr. Kara?"
"Mr. Kara?" he repeated, in wonder.
"He threatened to send for the police," she went on rapidly, "and I told
him he might do so. I didn't mind the police--it was Kara I was afraid
of. You know what I went for, my mother's property."
She held the snuff-box in her outstretched hand.
"He accused me of stealing and was hateful, and then he put me
downstairs in that awful cellar and--"
"And?" suggested T. X.
"That's all," she replied with tightened lips; "what are you going to do
now?"
"I am going to ask you a few questions if I may," he said. "In the first
place have you not heard anything about Mr. Kara since you went away?"
She shook her head.
"I have kept out of his way," she said grimly.
"Have you seen the newspapers?" he asked.
She nodded.
"I have seen the advertisement column--I wired asking Papa to reply to
my telegram."
"I know--I saw it," he smiled; "that is what brought me here."
"I was afraid it would," she said ruefully; "father is awfully
loquacious in print--he makes speeches you know. All I wanted him to say
was yes or no. What do you mean about the newspapers?" she went on. "Is
anything wrong with mother?"
He shook his head.
"So far as I know Lady Bartholomew is in the best of health and is on
her way home."
"Then what do you mean by asking me about the newspapers!" she demanded;
"why should I see the newspapers--what is there for me to see?"
"About Kara?" he suggested.
She shook her head in bewilderment.
"I know and want to know nothing about Kara. Why do you say this to me?"
"Because," said T. X. slowly, "on the night you disappeared from Cadogan
Square, Remington Kara was murdered."
"Murdered," she gasped.
He nodded.
"He was stabbed to the heart by some person or persons unknown."
T. X. took his hand from his pocket and pulled something out which was
wrapped in tissue paper. This he carefully removed and the girl watched
with fascinated gaze, and with an awful sense of apprehension. Presently
the object was revealed. It was a pair of scissors with the handle
wrapped about with a small handkerchief dappled with brown stains. She
took a step backward, raising her hands to her cheeks.
"My scissors," she said huskily; "you won't think--"
She stared up at him, fear and indignation struggling for mastery.
"I don't think you committed the murder," he smiled; "if that's what
you mean to ask me, but if anybody else found those scissors and had
identified this handkerchief you would have been in rather a fix, my
young friend."
She looked at the scissors and shuddered.
"I did kill something," she said in a low voice, "an awful dog... I
don't know how I did it, but the beastly thing jumped at me and I just
stabbed him and killed him, and I am glad," she nodded many times and
repeated, "I am glad."
"So I gather--I found the dog and now perhaps you'll explain why I
didn't find you?"
Again she hesitated and he felt that she was hiding something from him.
"I don't know why you didn't find me," she said; "I was there."
"How did you get out?"
"How did you get out?" she challenged him boldly.
"I got out through the door," he confessed; "it seems a ridiculously
commonplace way of leaving but that's the only way I could see."
"And that's how I got out," she answered, with a little smile.
"But it was locked."
She laughed.
"I see now," she said; "I was in the cellar. I heard your key in the
lock and bolted down the trap, leaving those awful scissors behind. I
thought it was Kara with some of his friends and then the voices died
away and I ventured to come up and found you had left the door open.
So--so I--"
These queer little pauses puzzled T. X. There was something she was not
telling him. Something she had yet to reveal.
"So I got away you see," she went on. "I came out into the kitchen;
there was nobody there, and I passed through the area door and up the
steps and just round the corner I found a taxicab, and that is all."
She spread out her hands in a dramatic little gesture.
"And that is all, is it?" said T. X.
"That is all," she repeated; "now what are you going to do?"
T. X. looked up at the ceiling and stroked his chin.
"I suppose that I ought to arrest you. I feel that something is due from
me. May I ask if you were sleeping in the bed downstairs?"
"In the lower cellar?" she demanded,--a little pause and then, "Yes, I
was sleeping in the cellar downstairs."
There was that interval of hesitation almost between each word.
"What are you going to do?" she asked again.
She was feeling more sure of herself and had suppressed the panic which
his sudden appearance had produced in her. He rumpled his hair, a gross
imitation, did she but know it, of one of his chief's mannerisms and she
observed that his hair was very thick and inclined to curl. She saw also
that he was passably good looking, had fine grey eyes, a straight nose
and a most firm chin.
"I think," she suggested gently, "you had better arrest me."
"Don't be silly," he begged.
She stared at him in amazement.
"What did you say?" she asked wrathfully.
"I said 'don't be silly,'" repeated the calm young man.
"Do you know that you're being very rude?" she asked.
He seemed interested and surprised at this novel view of his conduct.
"Of course," she went on carefully smoothing her dress and avoiding his
eye, "I know you think I am silly and that I've got a most comic name."
"I have never said your name was comic," he replied coldly; "I would not
take so great a liberty."
"You said it was 'weird' which was worse," she claimed.
"I may have said it was 'weird,"' he admitted, "but that's rather
different to saying it was 'comic.' There is dignity in weird things.
For example, nightmares aren't comic but they're weird."
"Thank you," she said pointedly.
"Not that I mean your name is anything approaching a nightmare." He made
this concession with a most magnificent sweep of hand as though he were
a king conceding her the right to remain covered in his presence. "I
think that Belinda Ann--"
"Belinda Mary," she corrected.
"Belinda Mary, I was going to say, or as a matter of fact," he
floundered, "I was going to say Belinda and Mary."
"You were going to say nothing of the kind," she corrected him.
"Anyway, I think Belinda Mary is a very pretty name."
"You think nothing of the sort."
She saw the laughter in his eyes and felt an insane desire to laugh.
"You said it was a weird name and you think it is a weird name, but I
really can't be bothered considering everybody's views. I think it's a
weird name, too. I was named after an aunt," she added in self-defence.
"There you have the advantage of me," he inclined his head politely; "I
was named after my father's favourite dog."
"What does T. X. stand for?" she asked curiously.
"Thomas Xavier," he said, and she leant back in the big chair on
the edge of which a few minutes before she had perched herself in
trepidation and dissolved into a fit of immoderate laughter.
"It is comic, isn't it?" he asked.
"Oh, I am sorry I'm so rude," she gasped. "Fancy being called Tommy
Xavier--I mean Thomas Xavier."
"You may call me Tommy if you wish--most of my friends do."
"Unfortunately I'm not your friend," she said, still smiling and wiping
the tears from her eyes, "so I shall go on calling you Mr. Meredith if
you don't mind."
She looked at her watch.
"If you are not going to arrest me I'm going," she said.
"I have certainly no intention of arresting you," said he, "but I am
going to see you home!"
She jumped up smartly.
"You're not," she commanded.
She was so definite in this that he was startled.
"My dear child," he protested.
"Please don't 'dear child' me," she said seriously; "you're going to be
a good little Tommy and let me go home by myself."
She held out her hand frankly and the laughing appeal in her eyes was
irresistible.
"Well, I'll see you to a cab," he insisted.
"And listen while I give the driver instructions where he is to take
me?"
She shook her head reprovingly.
"It must be an awful thing to be a policeman."
He stood back with folded arms, a stern frown on his face.
"Don't you trust me?" he asked.
"No," she replied.
"Quite right," he approved; "anyway I'll see you to the cab and you can
tell the driver to go to Charing Cross station and on your way you can
change your direction."
"And you promise you won't follow me?" she asked.
"On my honour," he swore; "on one condition though."
"I will make no conditions," she replied haughtily.
"Please come down from your great big horse," he begged, "and listen
to reason. The condition I make is that I can always bring you to an
appointed rendezvous whenever I want you. Honestly, this is necessary,
Belinda Mary."
"Miss Bartholomew," she corrected, coldly.
"It is necessary," he went on, "as you will understand. Promise me that,
if I put an advertisement in the agonies of either an evening paper
which I will name or in the Morning Port, you will keep the appointment
I fix, if it is humanly possible."
She hesitated a moment, then held out her hand.
"I promise," she said.
"Good for you, Belinda Mary," said he, and tucking her arm in his he
led her out of the room switching off the light and racing her down the
stairs.
If there was a lot of the schoolgirl left in Belinda Mary Bartholomew,
no less of the schoolboy was there in this Commissioner of Police. He
would have danced her through the fog, contemptuous of the proprieties,
but he wasn't so very anxious to get her to her cab and to lose sight of
her.
"Good-night," he said, holding her hand.
"That's the third time you've shaken hands with me to-night," she
interjected.
"Don't let us have any unpleasantness at the last," he pleaded, "and
remember."
"I have promised," she replied.
"And one day," he went on, "you will tell me all that happened in that
cellar."
"I have told you," she said in a low voice.
"You have not told me everything, child."
He handed her into the cab. He shut the door behind her and leant
through the open window.
"Victoria or Marble Arch?" he asked politely.
"Charing Cross," she replied, with a little laugh.
He watched the cab drive away and then suddenly it stopped and a figure
lent out from the window beckoning him frantically. He ran up to her.
"Suppose I want you," she asked.
"Advertise," he said promptly, "beginning your advertisement 'Dear
Tommy."'
"I shall put 'T. X.,'" she said indignantly.
"Then I shall take no notice of your advertisement," he replied and
stood in the middle of the street, his hat in his hand, to the intense
annoyance of a taxi-cab driver who literally all but ran him down and in
a figurative sense did so until T. X. was out of earshot.
CHAPTER XVII
Thomas Xavier Meredith was a shrewd young man. It was said of him by
Signor Paulo Coselli, the eminent criminologist, that he had a gift of
intuition which was abnormal. Probably the mystery of the twisted candle
was solved by him long before any other person in the world had the
dimmest idea that it was capable of solution.
The house in Cadogan Square was still in the hands of the police. To
this house and particularly to Kara's bedroom T. X. from time to
time repaired, and reproduced as far as possible the conditions which
obtained on the night of the murder. He had the same stifling fire, the
same locked door. The latch was dropped in its socket, whilst T. X.,
with a stop watch in his hand, made elaborate calculations and acted
certain parts which he did not reveal to a soul.
Three times, accompanied by Mansus, he went to the house, three times
went to the death chamber and was alone on one occasion for an hour and
a half whilst the patient Mansus waited outside. Three times he emerged
looking graver on each occasion, and after the third visit he called
into consultation John Lexman.
Lexman had been spending some time in the country, having deferred his
trip to the United States.
"This case puzzles me more and more, John," said T. X., troubled out
of his usual boisterous self, "and thank heaven it worries other people
besides me. De Mainau came over from France the other day and brought
all his best sleuths, whilst O'Grady of the New York central office paid
a flying visit just to get hold of the facts. Not one of them has
given me the real solution, though they've all been rather
ingenious. Gathercole has vanished and is probably on his way to some
undiscoverable region, and our people have not yet traced the valet."
"He should be the easiest for you," said John Lexman, reflectively.
"Why Gathercole should go off I can't understand," T. X. continued.
"According to the story which was told me by Fisher, his last words to
Kara were to the effect that he was expecting a cheque or that he had
received a cheque. No cheque has been presented or drawn and apparently
Gathercole has gone off without waiting for any payment. An examination
of Kara's books show nothing against the Gathercole account save the
sum of 600 pounds which was originally advanced, and now to upset all my
calculations, look at this."
He took from his pocketbook a newspaper cutting and pushed it across the
table, for they were dining together at the Carlton. John Lexman picked
up the slip and read. It was evidently from a New York paper:
"Further news has now come to hand by the Antarctic Trading Company's
steamer, Cyprus, concerning the wreck of the City of the Argentine. It
is believed that this ill-fated vessel, which called at South American
ports, lost her propellor and drifted south out of the track of
shipping. This theory is now confirmed. Apparently the ship struck an
iceberg on December 23rd and foundered with all aboard save a few men
who were able to launch a boat and who were picked up by the Cyprus. The
following is the passenger list."
John Lexman ran down the list until he came upon the name which was
evidently underlined in ink by T. X. That name was George Gathercole and
after it in brackets (Explorer).
"If that were true, then, Gathercole could not have come to London."
"He may have taken another boat," said T. X., "and I cabled to the
Steamship Company without any great success. Apparently Gathercole was
an eccentric sort of man and lived in terror of being overcrowded.
It was a habit of his to make provisional bookings by every available
steamer. The company can tell me no more than that he had booked, but
whether he shipped on the City of the Argentine or not, they do not
know."
"I can tell you this about Gathercole," said John slowly and
thoughtfully, "that he was a man who would not hurt a fly. He was
incapable of killing any man, being constitutionally averse to taking
life in any shape. For this reason he never made collections of
butterflies or of bees, and I believe has never shot an animal in
his life. He carried his principles to such an extent that he was a
vegetarian--poor old Gathercole!" he said, with the first smile which T.
X. had seen on his face since he came back.
"If you want to sympathize with anybody," said T. X. gloomily,
"sympathize with me."
On the following day T. X. was summoned to the Home Office and went
steeled for a most unholy row. The Home Secretary, a large and worthy
gentleman, given to the making of speeches on every excuse, received
him, however, with unusual kindness.
"I've sent for you, Mr. Meredith," he said, "about this unfortunate
Greek. I've had all his private papers looked into and translated and in
some cases decoded, because as you are probably aware his diaries and
a great deal of his correspondence were in a code which called for the
attention of experts."
T. X. had not troubled himself greatly about Kara's private papers but
had handed them over, in accordance with instructions, to the proper
authorities.
"Of course, Mr. Meredith," the Home Secretary went on, beaming across
his big table, "we expect you to continue your search for the murderer,
but I must confess that your prisoner when you secure him will have a
very excellent case to put to a jury."
"That I can well believe, sir," said T. X.
"Seldom in my long career at the bar," began the Home Secretary in
his best oratorical manner, "have I examined a record so utterly
discreditable as that of the deceased man."
Here he advanced a few instances which surprised even T. X.
"The man was a lunatic," continued the Home Secretary, "a vicious, evil
man who loved cruelty for cruelty's sake. We have in this diary alone
sufficient evidence to convict him of three separate murders, one of
which was committed in this country."
T. X. looked his astonishment.
"You will remember, Mr. Meredith, as I saw in one of your reports, that
he had a chauffeur, a Greek named Poropulos."
T. X. nodded.
"He went to Greece on the day following the shooting of Vassalaro," he
said.
The Home Secretary shook his head.
"He was killed on the same night," said the Minister, "and you will have
no difficulty in finding what remains of his body in the disused house
which Kara rented for his own purpose on the Portsmouth Road. That he
has killed a number of people in Albania you may well suppose. Whole
villages have been wiped out to provide him with a little excitement.
The man was a Nero without any of Nero's amiable weaknesses. He was
obsessed with the idea that he himself was in danger of assassination,
and saw an enemy even in his trusty servant. Undoubtedly the chauffeur
Poropulos was in touch with several Continental government circles. You
understand," said the Minister in conclusion, "that I am telling you
this, not with the idea of expecting you, to relax your efforts to find
the murderer and clear up the mystery, but in order that you may know
something of the possible motive for this man's murder."
T. X. spent an hour going over the decoded diary and documents and left
the Home Office a little shakily. It was inconceivable, incredible. Kara
was a lunatic, but the directing genius was a devil.
T. X. had a flat in Whitehall Gardens and thither he repaired to change
for dinner. He was half dressed when the evening paper arrived and
he glanced as was his wont first at the news' page and then at the
advertisement column. He looked down the column marked "Personal"
without expecting to find anything of particular interest to himself,
but saw that which made him drop the paper and fly round the room in a
frenzy to complete his toilet.
"Tommy X.," ran the brief announcement, "most urgent, Marble Arch 8."
He had five minutes to get there but it seemed like five hours. He
was held up at almost every crossing and though he might have used his
authority to obtain right of way, it was a step which his curious sense
of honesty prevented him taking. He leapt out of the cab before it
stopped, thrust the fare into the driver's hands and looked round for
the girl. He saw her at last and walked quickly towards her. As he
approached her, she turned about and with an almost imperceptible
beckoning gesture walked away. He followed her along the Bayswater Road
and gradually drew level.
"I am afraid I have been watched," she said in a low voice. "Will you
call a cab?"
He hailed a passing taxi, helped her in and gave at random the first
place that suggested itself to him, which was Finsbury Park.
"I am very worried," she said, "and I don't know anybody who can help me
except you."
"Is it money?" he asked.
"Money," she said scornfully, "of course it isn't money. I want to show
you a letter," she said after a while.
She took it from her bag and gave it to him and he struck a match and
read it with difficulty.
It was written in a studiously uneducated hand.
"Dear Miss,
"I know who you are. You are wanted by the police but I
will not give you away. Dear Miss. I am very hard up and
20 pounds will be very useful to me and I shall not trouble
you again. Dear Miss. Put the money on the window sill of
your room. I know you sleep on the ground floor and I will
come in and take it. And if not--well, I don't want to make
any trouble.
"Yours truly,
"A FRIEND."
"When did you get this?" he asked.
"This morning," she replied. "I sent the Agony to the paper by telegram,
I knew you would come."
"Oh, you did, did you?" he said.
Her assurance was very pleasing to him. The faith that her words implied
gave him an odd little feeling of comfort and happiness.
"I can easily get you out of this," he added; "give me your address and
when the gentleman comes--"
"That is impossible," she replied hurriedly. "Please don't think I'm
ungrateful, and don't think I'm being silly--you do think I'm being
silly, don't you!"
"I have never harboured such an unworthy thought," he said virtuously.
"Yes, you have," she persisted, "but really I can't tell you where I am
living. I have a very special reason for not doing so. It's not myself
that I'm thinking about, but there's a life involved."
This was a somewhat dramatic statement to make and she felt she had gone
too far.
"Perhaps I don't mean that," she said, "but there is some one I care
for--" she dropped her voice.
"Oh," said T. X. blankly.
He came down from his rosy heights into the shadow and darkness of a
sunless valley.
"Some one you care for," he repeated after a while.
"Yes."
There was another long silence, then,
"Oh, indeed," said T. X.
Again the unbroken interval of quiet and after a while she said in a low
voice, "Not that way."
"Not what way!" asked T. X. huskily, his spirits doing a little
mountaineering.
"The way you mean," she said.
"Oh," said T. X.
He was back again amidst the rosy snows of dawn, was in fact climbing
a dizzy escalier on the topmost height of hope's Mont Blanc when she
pulled the ladder from under him.
"I shall, of course, never marry," she said with a certain prim
decision.
T. X. fell with a dull sickening thud, discovering that his rosy snows
were not unlike cold, hard ice in their lack of resilience.
"Who said you would?" he asked somewhat feebly, but in self defence.
"You did," she said, and her audacity took his breath away.
"Well, how am I to help you!" he asked after a while.
"By giving me some advice," she said; "do you think I ought to put the
money there!"
"Indeed I do not," said T. X., recovering some of his natural dominance;
"apart from the fact that you would be compounding a felony, you would
merely be laying out trouble for yourself in the future. If he can get
20 pounds so easily, he will come for 40 pounds. But why do you stay
away, why don't you return home? There's no charge and no breath of
suspicion against you."
"Because I have something to do which I have set my mind to," she said,
with determination in her tones.
"Surely you can trust me with your address," he urged her, "after all
that has passed between us, Belinda Mary--after all the years we have
known one another."
"I shall get out and leave you," she said steadily.
"But how the dickens am I going to help you?" he protested.
"Don't swear," she could be very severe indeed; "the only way you can
help me is by being kind and sympathetic."
"Would you like me to burst into tears?" he asked sarcastically.
"I ask you to do nothing more painful or repugnant to your natural
feelings than to be a gentleman," she said.
"Thank you very kindly," said T. X., and leant back in the cab with an
air of supreme resignation.
"I believe you're making faces in the dark," she accused him.
"God forbid that I should do anything so low," said he hastily; "what
made you think that?"
"Because I was putting my tongue out at you," she admitted, and the taxi
driver heard the shrieks of laughter in the cab behind him above the
wheezing of his asthmatic engine.
At twelve that night in a certain suburb of London an overcoated man
moved stealthily through a garden. He felt his way carefully along the
wall of the house and groped with hope, but with no great certainty,
along the window sill. He found an envelope which his fingers, somewhat
sensitive from long employment in nefarious uses, told him contained
nothing more substantial than a letter.
He went back through the garden and rejoined his companion, who was
waiting under an adjacent lamp-post.
"Did she drop?" asked the other eagerly.
"I don't know yet," growled the man from the garden.
He opened the envelope and read the few lines.
"She hasn't got the money," he said, "but she's going to get it. I must
meet her to-morrow afternoon at the corner of Oxford Street and Regent
Street."
"What time!" asked the other.
"Six o'clock," said the first man. "The chap who takes the money must
carry a copy of the Westminster Gazette in his hand."
"Oh, then it's a plant," said the other with conviction.
The other laughed.
"She won't work any plants. I bet she's scared out of her life."
The second man bit his nails and looked up and down the road,
apprehensively.
"It's come to something," he said bitterly; "we went out to make our
thousands and we've come down to 'chanting' for 20 pounds."
"It's the luck," said the other philosophically, "and I haven't done
with her by any means. Besides we've still got a chance of pulling of
the big thing, Harry. I reckon she's good for a hundred or two, anyway."
At six o'clock on the following afternoon, a man dressed in a dark
overcoat, with a soft felt hat pulled down over his eyes stood
nonchalantly by the curb near where the buses stop at Regent Street
slapping his hand gently with a folded copy of the Westminster Gazette.
That none should mistake his Liberal reading, he stood as near as
possible to a street lamp and so arranged himself and his attitude that
the minimum of light should fall upon his face and the maximum upon
that respectable organ of public opinion. Soon after six he saw the girl
approaching, out of the tail of his eye, and strolled off to meet her.
To his surprise she passed him by and he was turning to follow when an
unfriendly hand gripped him by the arm.
"Mr. Fisher, I believe," said a pleasant voice.
"What do you mean?" said the man, struggling backward.
"Are you going quietly!" asked the pleasant Superintendent Mansus, "or
shall I take my stick to you'?"
Mr. Fisher thought awhile.
"It's a cop," he confessed, and allowed himself to be hustled into the
waiting cab.
He made his appearance in T. X.'s office and that urbane gentleman
greeted him as a friend.
"And how's Mr. Fisher!" he asked; "I suppose you are Mr. Fisher still
and not Mr. Harry Gilcott, or Mr. George Porten."
Fisher smiled his old, deferential, deprecating smile.
"You will always have your joke, sir. I suppose the young lady gave me
away."
"You gave yourself away, my poor Fisher," said T. X., and put a strip
of paper before him; "you may disguise your hand, and in your extreme
modesty pretend to an ignorance of the British language, which is
not creditable to your many attainments, but what you must be awfully
careful in doing in future when you write such epistles," he said, "is
to wash your hands."
"Wash my hands!" repeated the puzzled Fisher.
T. X. nodded.
"You see you left a little thumb print, and we are rather whales on
thumb prints at Scotland Yard, Fisher."
"I see. What is the charge now, sir!"
"I shall make no charge against you except the conventional one of being
a convict under license and failing to report."
Fisher heaved a sigh.
"That'll only mean twelve months. Are you going to charge me with this
business?" he nodded to the paper.
T. X. shook his head.
"I bear you no ill-will although you tried to frighten Miss Bartholomew.
Oh yes, I know it is Miss Bartholomew, and have known all the time. The
lady is there for a reason which is no business of yours or of mine.
I shall not charge you with attempt to blackmail and in reward for my
leniency I hope you are going to tell me all you know about the Kara
murder. You wouldn't like me to charge you with that, would you by any
chance!"
Fisher drew a long breath.
"No, sir, but if you did I could prove my innocence," he said earnestly.
"I spent the whole of the evening in the kitchen."
"Except a quarter of an hour," said T. X.
The man nodded.
"That's true, sir, I went out to see a pal of mine."
"The man who is in this!" asked T. X.
Fisher hesitated.
"Yes, sir. He was with me in this but there was nothing wrong about the
business--as far as we went. I don't mind admitting that I was planning
a Big Thing. I'm not going to blow on it, if it's going to get me into
trouble, but if you'll promise me that it won't, I'll tell you the whole
story."
"Against whom was this coup of yours planned?"
"Against Mr. Kara, sir," said Fisher.
"Go on with your story," nodded T. X.
The story was a short and commonplace one. Fisher had met a man who knew
another man who was either a Turk or an Albanian. They had learnt that
Kara was in the habit of keeping large sums of money in the house and
they had planned to rob him. That was the story in a nutshell. Somewhere
the plan miscarried. It was when he came to the incidents that occurred
on the night of the murder that T. X. followed him with the greatest
interest.
"The old gentleman came in," said Fisher, "and I saw him up to the
room. I heard him coming out and I went up and spoke to him while he was
having a chat with Mr. Kara at the open door."
"Did you hear Mr. Kara speak?"
"I fancy I did, sir," said Fisher; "anyway the old gentleman was quite
pleased with himself."
"Why do you say 'old gentleman'!" asked T. X.; "he was not an old man."
"Not exactly, sir," said Fisher, "but he had a sort of fussy irritable
way that old gentlemen sometimes have and I somehow got it fixed in my
mind that he was old. As a matter of fact, he was about forty-five, he
may have been fifty."
"You have told me all this before. Was there anything peculiar about
him!"
Fisher hesitated.
"Nothing, sir, except the fact that one of his arms was a game one."
"Meaning that it was--"
"Meaning that it was an artificial one, sir, so far as I can make out."
"Was it his right or his left arm that was game!" interrupted T. X.
"His left arm, sir."
"You're sure?"
"I'd swear to it, sir."
"Very well, go on."
"He came downstairs and went out and I never saw him again. When you
came and the murder was discovered and knowing as I did that I had my
own scheme on and that one of your splits might pinch me, I got a bit
rattled. I went downstairs to the hall and the first thing I saw lying
on the table was a letter. It was addressed to me."
He paused and T. X. nodded.
"Go on," he said again.
"I couldn't understand how it came to be there, but as I'd been in the
kitchen most of the evening except when I was seeing my pal outside to
tell him the job was off for that night, it might have been there before
you came. I opened the letter. There were only a few words on it and I
can tell you those few words made my heart jump up into my mouth, and
made me go cold all over."
"What were they!" asked T. X.
"I shall not forget them, sir. They're sort of permanently fixed in my
brain," said the man earnestly; "the note started with just the figures
'A. C. 274.'"
"What was that!" asked T. X.
"My convict number when I was in Dartmoor Prison, sir."
"What did the note say?"
"'Get out of here quick'--I don't know who had put it there, but I'd
evidently been spotted and I was taking no chances. That's the whole
story from beginning to end. I accidentally happened to meet the young
lady, Miss Holland--Miss Bartholomew as she is--and followed her to her
house in Portman Place. That was the night you were there."
T. X. found himself to his intense annoyance going very red.
"And you know no more?" he asked.
"No more, sir--and if I may be struck dead--"
"Keep all that sabbath talk for the chaplain," commended T. X., and they
took away Mr. Fisher, not an especially dissatisfied man.
That night T. X. interviewed his prisoner at Cannon Row police station
and made a few more enquiries.
"There is one thing I would like to ask you," said the girl when he met
her next morning in Green Park.
"If you were going to ask whether I made enquiries as to where your
habitation was," he warned her, "I beg of you to refrain."
She was looking very beautiful that morning, he thought. The keen air
had brought a colour to her face and lent a spring to her gait, and, as
she strode along by his side with the free and careless swing of youth,
she was an epitome of the life which even now was budding on every tree
in the park.
"Your father is back in town, by the way," he said, "and he is most
anxious to see you."
She made a little grimace.
"I hope you haven't been round talking to father about me."
"Of course I have," he said helplessly; "I have also had all the
reporters up from Fleet Street and given them a full description of your
escapades."
She looked round at him with laughter in her eyes.
"You have all the manners of an early Christian martyr," she said. "Poor
soul! Would you like to be thrown to the lions?"
"I should prefer being thrown to the demnition ducks and drakes," he
said moodily.
"You're such a miserable man," she chided him, "and yet you have
everything to make life worth living."
"Ha, ha!" said T. X.
"You have, of course you have! You have a splendid position. Everybody
looks up to you and talks about you. You have got a wife and family who
adore you--"
He stopped and looked at her as though she were some strange insect.
"I have a how much?" he asked credulously.
"Aren't you married?" she asked innocently.
He made a strange noise in his throat.
"Do you know I have always thought of you as married," she went on; "I
often picture you in your domestic circle reading to the children from
the Daily Megaphone those awfully interesting stories about Little
Willie Waterbug."
He held on to the railings for support.
"May we sit down?" he asked faintly.
She sat by his side, half turned to him, demure and wholly adorable.
"Of course you are right in one respect," he said at last, "but you're
altogether wrong about the children."
"Are you married!" she demanded with no evidence of amusement.
"Didn't you know?" he asked.
She swallowed something.
"Of course it's no business of mine and I'm sure I hope you are very
happy."
"Perfectly happy," said T. X. complacently. "You must come out and see
me one Saturday afternoon when I am digging the potatoes. I am a perfect
devil when they let me loose in the vegetable garden."
"Shall we go on?" she said.
He could have sworn there were tears in her eyes and manlike he thought
she was vexed with him at his fooling.
"I haven't made you cross, have I?" he asked.
"Oh no," she replied.
"I mean you don't believe all this rot about my being married and that
sort of thing?"
"I'm not interested," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "not very
much. You've been very kind to me and I should be an awful boor if I
wasn't grateful. Of course, I don't care whether you're married or not,
it's nothing to do with me, is it?"
"Naturally it isn't," he replied. "I suppose you aren't married by any
chance?"
"Married," she repeated bitterly; "why, you will make my fourth!"
She had hardy got the words out of her mouth before she realized her
terrible error. A second later she was in his arms and he was kissing
her to the scandal of one aged park keeper, one small and dirty-faced
little boy and a moulting duck who seemed to sneer at the proceedings
which he watched through a yellow and malignant eye.
"Belinda Mary," said T. X. at parting, "you have got to give up your
little country establishment, wherever it may be and come back to the
discomforts of Portman Place. Oh, I know you can't come back yet. That
'somebody' is there, and I can pretty well guess who it is."
"Who?" she challenged.
"I rather fancy your mother has come back," he suggested.
A look of scorn dawned into her pretty face.
"Good lord, Tommy!" she said in disgust, "you don't think I should keep
mother in the suburbs without her telling the world all about it!"
"You're an undutiful little beggar," he said.
They had reached the Horse Guards at Whitehall and he was saying
good-bye to her.
"If it comes to a matter of duty," she answered, "perhaps you will do
your duty and hold up the traffic for me and let me cross this road."
"My dear girl," he protested, "hold up the traffic?"
"Of course," she said indignantly, "you're a policeman."
"Only when I am in uniform," he said hastily, and piloted her across the
road.
It was a new man who returned to the gloomy office in Whitehall. A man
with a heart that swelled and throbbed with the pride and joy of life's
most precious possession.
CHAPTER XVIII
T. X. sat at his desk, his chin in his hands, his mind remarkably busy.
Grave as the matter was which he was considering, he rose with alacrity
to meet the smiling girl who was ushered through the door by Mansus,
preternaturally solemn and mysterious.
She was radiant that day. Her eyes were sparkling with an unusual
brightness.
"I've got the most wonderful thing to tell you," she said, "and I can't
tell you."
"That's a very good beginning," said T. X., taking her muff from her
hand.
"Oh, but it's really wonderful," she cried eagerly, "more wonderful than
anything you have ever heard about."
"We are interested," said T. X. blandly.
"No, no, you mustn't make fun," she begged, "I can't tell you now, but
it is something that will make you simply--" she was at a loss for a
simile.
"Jump out of my skin?" suggested T. X.
"I shall astonish you," she nodded her head solemnly.
"I take a lot of astonishing, I warn you," he smiled; "to know you is to
exhaust one's capacity for surprise."
"That can be either very, very nice or very, very nasty," she said
cautiously.
"But accept it as being very, very nice," he laughed. "Now come, out
with this tale of yours."
She shook her head very vigorously.
"I can't possibly tell you anything," she said.
"Then why the dickens do you begin telling anything for?" he complained,
not without reason.
"Because I just want you to know that I do know something."
"Oh, Lord!" he groaned. "Of course you know everything. Belinda Mary,
you're really the most wonderful child."
He sat on the edge of her arm-chair and laid his hand on her shoulder.
"And you've come to take me out to lunch!"
"What were you worrying about when I came in?" she asked.
He made a little gesture as if to dismiss the subject.
"Nothing very much. You've heard me speak of John Lexman?"
She bent her head.
"Lexman's the writer of a great many mystery stories, but you've
probably read his books."
She nodded again, and again T. X. noticed the suppressed eagerness in
her eyes.
"You're not ill or sickening for anything, are you?" he asked anxiously;
"measles, or mumps or something?"
"Don't be silly," she said; "go on and tell me something about Mr.
Lexman."
"He's going to America," said T. X., "and before he goes he wants to
give a little lecture."
"A lecture?"
"It sounds rum, doesn't it, but that's just what he wants to do."
"Why is he doing it!" she asked.
T. X. made a gesture of despair.
"That is one of the mysteries which may never be revealed to me,
except--" he pursed his lips and looked thoughtfully at the girl. "There
are times," he said, "when there is a great struggle going on inside
a man between all the human and better part of him and the baser
professional part of him. One side of me wants to hear this lecture of
John Lexman's very much, the other shrinks from the ordeal."
"Let us talk it over at lunch," she said practically, and carried him
off.
CHAPTER XIX
One would not readily associate the party of top-booted sewermen who
descend nightly to the subterranean passages of London with the stout
viceconsul at Durazzo. Yet it was one unimaginative man who lived in
Lambeth and had no knowledge that there was such a place as Durazzo who
was responsible for bringing this comfortable official out of his bed in
the early hours of the morning causing him--albeit reluctantly and with
violent and insubordinate language--to conduct certain investigations in
the crowded bazaars.
At first he was unsuccessful because there were many Hussein Effendis
in Durazzo. He sent an invitation to the American Consul to come over to
tiffin and help him.
"Why the dickens the Foreign Office should suddenly be interested in
Hussein Effendi, I cannot for the life of me understand."
"The Foreign Department has to be interested in something, you know,"
said the genial American. "I receive some of the quaintest requests
from Washington; I rather fancy they only wire you to find if they are
there."
"Why are you doing this!"
"I've seen Hakaat Bey," said the English official. "I wonder what
this fellow has been doing? There is probably a wigging for me in the
offing."
At about the same time the sewerman in the bosom of his own family was
taking loud and noisy sips from a big mug of tea.
"Don't you be surprised," he said to his admiring better half, "if I
have to go up to the Old Bailey to give evidence."
"Lord! Joe!" she said with interest, "what has happened!"
The sewer man filled his pipe and told the story with a wealth of
rambling detail. He gave particulars of the hour he had descended the
Victoria Street shaft, of what Bill Morgan had said to him as they were
going down, of what he had said to Harry Carter as they splashed along
the low-roofed tunnel, of how he had a funny feeling that he was going
to make a discovery, and so on and so forth until he reached his long
delayed climax.
T. X. waited up very late that night and at twelve o'clock his patience
was rewarded, for the Foreign Office messenger brought a telegram to
him. It was addressed to the Chief Secretary and ran:
"No. 847. Yours 63952 of yesterday's date. Begins. Hussein Effendi a
prosperous merchant of this city left for Italy to place his daughter in
convent Marie Theressa, Florence Hussein being Christian. He goes on to
Paris. Apply Ralli Theokritis et Cie., Rue de l'Opera. Ends."
Half an hour later T. X. had a telephone connection through to Paris
and was instructing the British police agent in that city. He received a
further telephone report from Paris the next morning and one which
gave him infinite satisfaction. Very slowly but surely he was gathering
together the pieces of this baffling mystery and was fitting them
together. Hussein Effendi would probably supply the last missing
segments.
At eight o'clock that night the door opened and the man who represented
T. X. in Paris came in carrying a travelling ulster on his arm. T.
X. gave him a nod and then, as the newcomer stood with the door open,
obviously waiting for somebody to follow him, he said,
"Show him in--I will see him alone."
There walked into his office, a tall man wearing a frock coat and a red
fez. He was a man from fifty-five to sixty, powerfully built, with a
grave dark face and a thin fringe of white beard. He salaamed as he
entered.
"You speak French, I believe," said T. X. presently.
The other bowed.
"My agent has explained to you," said T. X. in French, "that I desire
some information for the purpose of clearing up a crime which has
been committed in this country. I have given you my assurance, if that
assurance was necessary, that you would come to no harm as a result of
anything you might tell me."
"That I understand, Effendi," said the tall Turk; "the Americans and the
English have always been good friends of mine and I have been frequently
in London. Therefore, I shall be very pleased to be of any help to you."
T. X. walked to a closed bookcase on one side of the room, unlocked it,
took out an object wrapped in white tissue paper. He laid this on the
table, the Turk watching the proceedings with an impassive face. Very
slowly the Commissioner unrolled the little bundle and revealed at
last a long, slim knife, rusted and stained, with a hilt, which in its
untarnished days had evidently been of chased silver. He lifted the
dagger from the table and handed it to the Turk.
"This is yours, I believe," he said softly.
The man turned it over, stepping nearer the table that he might secure
the advantage of a better light. He examined the blade near the hilt and
handed the weapon back to T. X.
"That is my knife," he said.
T. X. smiled.
"You understand, of course, that I saw 'Hussein Effendi of Durazzo'
inscribed in Arabic near the hilt."
The Turk inclined his head.
"With this weapon," T. X. went on, speaking with slow emphasis, "a
murder was committed in this town."
There was no sign of interest or astonishment, or indeed of any emotion
whatever.
"It is the will of God," he said calmly; "these things happen even in a
great city like London."
"It was your knife," suggested T. X.
"But my hand was in Durazzo, Effendi," said the Turk.
He looked at the knife again.
"So the Black Roman is dead, Effendi."
"The Black Roman?" asked T. X., a little puzzled.
"The Greek they call Kara," said the Turk; "he was a very wicked man."
T. X. was up on his feet now, leaning across the table and looking at
the other with narrowed eyes.
"How did you know it was Kara?" he asked quickly.
The Turk shrugged his shoulders.
"Who else could it be?" he said; "are not your newspapers filled with
the story?"
T. X. sat back again, disappointed and a little annoyed with himself.
"That is true, Hussein Effendi, but I did not think you read the
papers."
"Neither do I, master," replied the other coolly, "nor did I know that
Kara had been killed until I saw this knife. How came this in your
possession!"
"It was found in a rain sewer," said T. X., "into which the murderer had
apparently dropped it. But if you have not read the newspapers, Effendi,
then you admit that you know who committed this murder."
The Turk raised his hands slowly to a level with his shoulders.
"Though I am a Christian," he said, "there are many wise sayings of my
father's religion which I remember. And one of these, Effendi, was, 'the
wicked must die in the habitations of the just, by the weapons of the
worthy shall the wicked perish.' Your Excellency, I am a worthy man,
for never have I done a dishonest thing in my life. I have traded fairly
with Greeks, with Italians, have with Frenchmen and with Englishmen,
also with Jews. I have never sought to rob them nor to hurt them. If I
have killed men, God knows it was not because I desired their death, but
because their lives were dangerous to me and to mine. Ask the blade all
your questions and see what answer it gives. Until it speaks I am as
dumb as the blade, for it is also written that 'the soldier is the
servant of his sword,' and also, 'the wise servant is dumb about his
master's affairs.'"
T. X. laughed helplessly.
"I had hoped that you might be able to help me, hoped and feared," he
said; "if you cannot speak it is not my business to force you either by
threat or by act. I am grateful to you for having come over, although
the visit has been rather fruitless so far as I am concerned."
He smiled again and offered his hand.
"Excellency," said the old Turk soberly, "there are some things in life
that are well left alone and there are moments when justice should be so
blind that she does not see guilt; here is such a moment."
And this ended the interview, one on which T. X. had set very high
hopes. His gloom carried to Portman Place, where he had arranged to meet
Belinda Mary.
"Where is Mr. Lexman going to give this famous lecture of his?" was the
question with which she greeted him, "and, please, what is the subject?"
"It is on a subject which is of supreme interest to me;" he said
gravely; "he has called his lecture 'The Clue of the Twisted Candle.'
There is no clearer brain being employed in the business of criminal
detection than John Lexman's. Though he uses his genius for the
construction of stories, were it employed in the legitimate business
of police work, I am certain he would make a mark second to none in
the world. He is determined on giving this lecture and he has issued a
number of invitations. These include the Chiefs of the Secret Police of
nearly all the civilized countries of the world. O'Grady is on his way
from America, he wirelessed me this morning to that effect. Even the
Chief of the Russian police has accepted the invitation, because, as you
know, this murder has excited a great deal of interest in police circles
everywhere. John Lexman is not only going to deliver this lecture," he
said slowly, "but he is going to tell us who committed the murder and
how it was committed."
She thought a moment.
"Where will it be delivered!"
"I don't know," he said in astonishment; "does that matter?"
"It matters a great deal," she said emphatically, "especially if I want
it delivered in a certain place. Would you induce Mr. Lexman to lecture
at my house?"
"At Portman Place!" he asked.
She shook her head.
"No, I have a house of my own. A furnished house I have rented at
Blackheath. Will you induce Mr. Lexman to give the lecture there?"
"But why?" he asked.
"Please don't ask questions," she pleaded, "do this for me, Tommy."
He saw she was in earnest.
"I'll write to old Lexman this afternoon," he promised.
John Lexman telephoned his reply.
"I should prefer somewhere out of London," he said, "and since Miss
Bartholomew has some interest in the matter, may I extend my invitation
to her? I promise she shall not be any more shocked than a good woman
need be."
And so it came about that the name of Belinda Mary Bartholomew was added
to the selected list of police chiefs, who were making for London at
that moment to hear from the man who had guaranteed the solution of
the story of Kara and his killing; the unravelment of the mystery which
surrounded his death, and the significance of the twisted candles, which
at that moment were reposing in the Black Museum at Scotland Yard.
CHAPTER XX
The room was a big one and most of the furniture had been cleared out
to admit the guests who had come from the ends of the earth to learn the
story of the twisted candles, and to test John Lexman's theory by their
own.
They sat around chatting cheerfully of men and crimes, of great coups
planned and frustrated, of strange deeds committed and undetected.
Scraps of their conversation came to Belinda Mary as she stood in the
chintz-draped doorway which led from the drawing-room to the room she
used as a study.
"... do you remember, Sir George, the Bolbrook case! I took the man at
Odessa...."
"... the curious thing was that I found no money on the body, only a
small gold charm set with a single emerald, so I knew it was the girl
with the fur bonnet who had..."
"... Pinot got away after putting three bullets into me, but I dragged
myself to the window and shot him dead--it was a real good shot...!"
They rose to meet her and T. X. introduced her to the men. It was at
that moment that John Lexman was announced.
He looked tired, but returned the Commissioner's greeting with a
cheerful mien. He knew all the men present by name, as they knew him. He
had a few sheets of notes, which he laid on the little table which had
been placed for him, and when the introductions were finished he went to
this and with scarcely any preliminary began.
CHAPTER XXI
THE NARRATIVE OF JOHN LEXMAN
"I am, as you may all know, a writer of stories which depend for their
success upon the creation and unravelment of criminological mysteries.
The Chief Commissioner has been good enough to tell you that my stories
were something more than a mere seeking after sensation, and that I
endeavoured in the course of those narratives to propound obscure but
possible situations, and, with the ingenuity that I could command, to
offer to those problems a solution acceptable, not only to the general
reader, but to the police expert.
"Although I did not regard my earlier work with any great seriousness
and indeed only sought after exciting situations and incidents, I can
see now, looking back, that underneath the work which seemed at the time
purposeless, there was something very much like a scheme of studies.
"You must forgive this egotism in me because it is necessary that
I should make this explanation and you, who are in the main police
officers of considerable experience and discernment, should appreciate
the fact that as I was able to get inside the minds of the fictitious
criminals I portrayed, so am I now able to follow the mind of the man
who committed this murder, or if not to follow his mind, to recreate the
psychology of the slayer of Remington Kara.
"In the possession of most of you are the vital facts concerning this
man. You know the type of man he was, you have instances of his terrible
ruthlessness, you know that he was a blot upon God's earth, a vicious
wicked ego, seeking the gratification of that strange blood-lust and
pain-lust, which is to be found in so few criminals."
John Lexman went on to describe the killing of Vassalaro.
"I know now how that occurred," he said. "I had received on the previous
Christmas eve amongst other presents, a pistol from an unknown admirer.
That unknown admirer was Kara, who had planned this murder some three
months ahead. He it was, who sent me the Browning, knowing as he did
that I had never used such a weapon and that therefore I would be chary
about using it. I might have put the pistol away in a cupboard out
of reach and the whole of his carefully thought out plan would have
miscarried.
"But Kara was systematic in all things. Three weeks after I received the
weapon, a clumsy attempt was made to break into my house in the middle
of the night. It struck me at the time it was clumsy, because the
burglar made a tremendous amount of noise and disappeared soon after
he began his attempt, doing no more damage than to break a window in
my dining-room. Naturally my mind went to the possibility of a further
attempt of this kind, as my house stood on the outskirts of the village,
and it was only natural that I should take the pistol from one of my
boxes and put it somewhere handy. To make doubly sure, Kara came down
the next day and heard the full story of the outrage.
"He did not speak of pistols, but I remember now, though I did not
remember at the time, that I mentioned the fact that I had a handy
weapon. A fortnight later a second attempt was made to enter the house.
I say an attempt, but again I do not believe that the intention was at
all serious. The outrage was designed to keep that pistol of mine in a
get-at-able place.
"And again Kara came down to see us on the day following the burglary,
and again I must have told him, though I have no distinct recollection
of the fact, of what had happened the previous night. It would have been
unnatural if I had not mentioned the fact, as it was a matter which had
formed a subject of discussion between myself, my wife and the servants.
"Then came the threatening letter, with Kara providentially at hand. On
the night of the murder, whilst Kara was still in my house, I went out
to find his chauffeur. Kara remained a few minutes with my wife and
then on some excuse went into the library. There he loaded the pistol,
placing one cartridge in the chamber, and trusting to luck that I did
not pull the trigger until I had it pointed at my victim. Here he took
his biggest chance, because, before sending the weapon to me, he had had
the spring of the Browning so eased that the slightest touch set it
off and, as you know, the pistol being automatic, the explosion of one
cartridge, reloading and firing the next and so on, it was probably
that a chance touch would have brought his scheme to nought--probably me
also.
"Of what happened on that night you are aware."
He went on to tell of his trial and conviction and skimmed over the life
he led until that morning on Dartmoor.
"Kara knew my innocence had been proved and his hatred for me being
his great obsession, since I had the thing he had wanted but no longer
wanted, let that be understood--he saw the misery he had planned for
me and my dear wife being brought to a sudden end. He had, by the
way, already planned and carried his plan into execution, a system of
tormenting her.
"You did not know," he turned to T. X., "that scarcely a month passed,
but some disreputable villain called at her flat, with a story that he
had been released from Portland or Wormwood Scrubbs that morning and
that he had seen me. The story each messenger brought was one sufficient
to break the heart of any but the bravest woman. It was a story of
ill-treatment by brutal officials, of my illness, of my madness, of
everything calculated to harrow the feelings of a tender-hearted and
faithful wife.
"That was Kara's scheme. Not to hurt with the whip or with the knife,
but to cut deep at the heart with his evil tongue, to cut to the raw
places of the mind. When he found that I was to be released,--he may
have guessed, or he may have discovered by some underhand method; that a
pardon was about to be signed,--he conceived his great plan. He had less
than two days to execute it.
"Through one of his agents he discovered a warder who had been in some
trouble with the authorities, a man who was avaricious and was even then
on the brink of being discharged from the service for trafficking with
prisoners. The bribe he offered this man was a heavy one and the warder
accepted.
"Kara had purchased a new monoplane and as you know he was an excellent
aviator. With this new machine he flew to Devon and arrived at dawn in
one of the unfrequented parts of the moor.
"The story of my own escape needs no telling. My narrative really begins
from the moment I put my foot upon the deck of the Mpret. The first
person I asked to see was, naturally, my wife. Kara, however, insisted
on my going to the cabin he had prepared and changing my clothes, and
until then I did not realise I was still in my convict's garb. A
clean change was waiting for me, and the luxury of soft shirts and
well-fitting garments after the prison uniform I cannot describe.
"After I was dressed I was taken by the Greek steward to the larger
stateroom and there I found my darling waiting for me."
His voice sank almost to a whisper, and it was a minute or two before he
had mastered his emotions.
"She had been suspicious of Kara, but he had been very insistent. He had
detailed the plans and shown her the monoplane, but even then she would
not trust herself on board, and she had been waiting in a motor-boat,
moving parallel with the yacht, until she saw the landing and realized,
as she thought, that Kara was not playing her false. The motor-boat had
been hired by Kara and the two men inside were probably as well-bribed
as the warder.
"The joy of freedom can only be known to those who have suffered the
horrors of restraint. That is a trite enough statement, but when one is
describing elemental things there is no room for subtlety. The voyage
was a fairly eventless one. We saw very little of Kara, who did not
intrude himself upon us, and our main excitement lay in the apprehension
that we should be held up by a British destroyer or, that when we
reached Gibraltar, we should be searched by the Brit's authorities. Kara
had foreseen that possibility and had taken in enough coal to last him
for the run.
"We had a fairly stormy passage in the Mediterranean, but after that
nothing happened until we arrived at Durazzo. We had to go ashore in
disguise, because Kara told us that the English Consul might see us and
make some trouble. We wore Turkish dresses, Grace heavily veiled and I
wearing a greasy old kaftan which, with my somewhat emaciated face and
my unshaven appearance, passed me without comment.
"Kara's home was and is about eighteen miles from Durazzo. It is not on
the main road, but it is reached by following one of the rocky mountain
paths which wind and twist among the hills to the south-east of the
town. The country is wild and mainly uncultivated. We had to pass
through swamps and skirt huge lagoons as we mounted higher and higher
from terrace to terrace and came to the roads which crossed the
mountains.
"Kara's, palace, you could call it no less, is really built within sight
of the sea. It is on the Acroceraunian Peninsula near Cape Linguetta.
Hereabouts the country is more populated and better cultivated. We
passed great slopes entirely covered with mulberry and olive trees,
whilst in the valleys there were fields of maize and corn. The palazzo
stands on a lofty plateau. It is approached by two paths, which can be
and have been well defended in the past against the Sultan's troops
or against the bands which have been raised by rival villages with the
object of storming and plundering this stronghold.
"The Skipetars, a blood-thirsty crowd without pity or remorse, were
faithful enough to their chief, as Kara was. He paid them so well that
it was not profitable to rob him; moreover he kept their own turbulent
elements fully occupied with the little raids which he or his agents
organized from time to time. The palazzo was built rather in the Moorish
than in the Turkish style.
"It was a sort of Eastern type to which was grafted an Italian
architecture--a house of white-columned courts, of big paved yards,
fountains and cool, dark rooms.
"When I passed through the gates I realized for the first time something
of Kara's importance. There were a score of servants, all Eastern,
perfectly trained, silent and obsequious. He led us to his own room.
"It was a big apartment with divans running round the wall, the most
ornate French drawing room suite and an enormous Persian carpet, one of
the finest of the kind that has ever been turned out of Shiraz. Here,
let me say, that throughout the trip his attitude to me had been
perfectly friendly and towards Grace all that I could ask of my best
friend, considerate and tactful.
"'We had hardly reached his room before he said to me with that bonhomie
which he had observed throughout the trip, 'You would like to see your
room?'
"I expressed a wish to that effect. He clapped his hands and a big
Albanian servant came through the curtained doorway, made the usual
salaam, and Kara spoke to him a few words in a language which I presume
was Turkish.
"'He will show you the way,' said Kara with his most genial smile.
"I followed the servant through the curtains which had hardly fallen
behind me before I was seized by four men, flung violently on the
ground, a filthy tarbosch was thrust into my mouth and before I knew
what was happening I was bound hand and foot.
"As I realised the gross treachery of the man, my first frantic thoughts
were of Grace and her safety. I struggled with the strength of three
men, but they were too many for me and I was dragged along the passage,
a door was opened and I was flung into a bare room. I must have been
lying on the floor for half an hour when they came for me, this time
accompanied by a middle-aged man named Savolio, who was either an
Italian or a Greek.
"He spoke English fairly well and he made it clear to me that I had to
behave myself. I was led back to the room from whence I had come and
found Kara sitting in one of those big armchairs which he affected,
smoking a cigarette. Confronting him, still in her Turkish dress, was
poor Grace. She was not bound I was pleased to see, but when on
my entrance she rose and made as if to come towards me, she was
unceremoniously thrown back by the guardian who stood at her side.
"'Mr. John Lexman,' drawled Kara, 'you are at the beginning of a great
disillusionment. I have a few things to tell you which will make you
feel rather uncomfortable.' It was then that I heard for the first time
that my pardon had been signed and my innocence discovered.
"'Having taken a great deal of trouble to get you in prison,' said Kara,
'it isn't likely that I'm going to allow all my plans to be undone, and
my plan is to make you both extremely uncomfortable.'
"He did not raise his voice, speaking still in the same conversational
tone, suave and half amused.
"'I hate you for two things,' he said, and ticked them off on his
fingers: 'the first is that you took the woman that I wanted. To a man
of my temperament that is an unpardonable crime. I have never wanted
women either as friends or as amusement. I am one of the few people in
the world who are self-sufficient. It happened that I wanted your wife
and she rejected me because apparently she preferred you.'
"He looked at me quizzically.
"'You are thinking at this moment,' he went on slowly, 'that I want her
now, and that it is part of my revenge that I shall put her straight in
my harem. Nothing is farther from my desires or my thoughts. The Black
Roman is not satisfied with the leavings of such poor trash as you. I
hate you both equally and for both of you there is waiting an experience
more terrible than even your elastic imagination can conjure. You
understand what that means!' he asked me still retaining his calm.
"I did not reply. I dared not look at Grace, to whom he turned.
"'I believe you love your husband, my friend,' he said; 'your love will
be put to a very severe test. You shall see him the mere wreckage of the
man he is. You shall see him brutalized below the level of the cattle
in the field. I will give you both no joys, no ease of mind. From this
moment you are slaves, and worse than slaves.'
"He clapped his hands. The interview was ended and from that moment I
only saw Grace once."
John Lexman stopped and buried his face in his hands.
"They took me to an underground dungeon cut in the solid rock. In many
ways it resembled the dungeon of the Chateau of Chillon, in that its
only window looked out upon a wild, storm-swept lake and its floor was
jagged rock. I have called it underground, as indeed it was on that
side, for the palazzo was built upon a steep slope running down from the
spur of the hills.
"They chained me by the legs and left me to my own devices. Once a day
they gave me a little goat flesh and a pannikin of water and once a week
Kara would come in and outside the radius of my chain he would open a
little camp stool and sitting down smoke his cigarette and talk. My
God! the things that man said! The things he described! The horrors he
related! And always it was Grace who was the centre of his description.
And he would relate the stories he was telling to her about myself. I
cannot describe them. They are beyond repetition."
John Lexman shuddered and closed his eyes.
"That was his weapon. He did not confront me with the torture of my
darling, he did not bring tangible evidence of her suffering--he just
sat and talked, describing with a remarkable clarity of language which
seemed incredible in a foreigner, the 'amusements' which he himself had
witnessed.
"I thought I should go mad. Twice I sprang at him and twice the chain
about my legs threw me headlong on that cruel floor. Once he brought the
jailer in to whip me, but I took the whipping with such phlegm that it
gave him no satisfaction. I told you I had seen Grace only once and this
is how it happened.
"It was after the flogging, and Kara, who was a veritable demon in his
rage, planned to have his revenge for my indifference. They brought
Grace out upon a boat and rowed the boat to where I could see it from my
window. There the whip which had been applied to me was applied to her.
I can't tell you any more about that," he said brokenly, "but I wish,
you don't know how fervently, that I had broken down and given the dog
the satisfaction he wanted. My God! It was horrible!
"When the winter came they used to take me out with chains on my legs
to gather in wood from the forest. There was no reason why I should be
given this work, but the truth was, as I discovered from Salvolio, that
Kara thought my dungeon was too warm. It was sheltered from the winds
by the hill behind and even on the coldest days and nights it was not
unbearable. Then Kara went away for some time. I think he must have gone
to England, and he came back in a white fury. One of his big plans had
gone wrong and the mental torture he inflicted upon me was more acute
than ever.
"In the old days he used to come once a week; now he came almost every
day. He usually arrived in the afternoon and I was surprised one night
to be awakened from my sleep to see him standing at the door, a lantern
in his hand, his inevitable cigarette in his mouth. He always wore the
Albanian costume when he was in the country, those white kilted skirts
and zouave jackets which the hillsmen affect and, if anything, it added
to his demoniacal appearance. He put down the lantern and leant against
the wall.
"'I'm afraid that wife of yours is breaking up, Lexman,' he drawled;
'she isn't the good, stout, English stuff that I thought she was.'
"I made no reply. I had found by bitter experience that if I intruded
into the conversation, I should only suffer the more.
"'I have sent down to Durazzo to get a doctor,' he went on; 'naturally
having taken all this trouble I don't want to lose you by death. She
is breaking up,' he repeated with relish and yet with an undertone of
annoyance in his voice; 'she asked for you three times this morning.'
"I kept myself under control as I had never expected that a man so
desperately circumstanced could do.
"'Kara,' I said as quietly as I could, 'what has she done that she
should deserve this hell in which she has lived?'
"He sent out a long ring of smoke and watched its progress across the
dungeon.
"'What has she done?' he said, keeping his eye on the ring--I shall
always remember every look, every gesture, and every intonation of his
voice. 'Why, she has done all that a woman can do for a man like me. She
has made me feel little. Until I had a rebuff from her, I had all the
world at my feet, Lexman. I did as I liked. If I crooked my little
finger, people ran after me and that one experience with her has broken
me. Oh, don't think,' he went on quickly, 'that I am broken in love. I
never loved her very much, it was just a passing passion, but she killed
my self-confidence. After then, whenever I came to a crucial moment
in my affairs, when the big manner, the big certainty was absolutely
necessary for me to carry my way, whenever I was most confident of
myself and my ability and my scheme, a vision of this damned girl rose
and I felt that momentary weakening, that memory of defeat, which made
all the difference between success and failure.
"'I hated her and I hate her still,' he said with vehemence; 'if
she dies I shall hate her more because she will remain everlastingly
unbroken to menace my thoughts and spoil my schemes through all
eternity.'
"He leant forward, his elbows on his knees, his clenched fist under his
chin--how well I can see him!--and stared at me.
"'I could have been king here in this land,' he said, waving his hand
toward the interior, 'I could have bribed and shot my way to the throne
of Albania. Don't you realize what that means to a man like me? There is
still a chance and if I could keep your wife alive, if I could see her
broken in reason and in health, a poor, skeleton, gibbering thing that
knelt at my feet when I came near her I should recover the mastery of
myself. Believe me,' he said, nodding his head, 'your wife will have the
best medical advice that it is possible to obtain.'
"Kara went out and I did not see him again for a very long time. He sent
word, just a scrawled note in the morning, to say my wife had died."
John Lexman rose up from his seat, and paced the apartment, his head
upon his breast.
"From that moment," he said, "I lived only for one thing, to punish
Remington Kara. And gentlemen, I punished him."
He stood in the centre of the room and thumped his broad chest with his
clenched hand.
"I killed Remington Kara," he said, and there was a little gasp of
astonishment from every man present save one. That one was T. X.
Meredith, who had known all the time.
CHAPTER XXII
After a while Lexman resumed his story.
"I told you that there was a man at the palazzo named Salvolio. Salvolio
was a man who had been undergoing a life sentence in one of the prisons
of southern Italy. In some mysterious fashion he escaped and got across
the Adriatic in a small boat. How Kara found him I don't know. Salvolio
was a very uncommunicative person. I was never certain whether he was
a Greek or an Italian. All that I am sure about is that he was the most
unmitigated villain next to his master that I have ever met.
"He was a quick man with his knife and I have seen him kill one of the
guards whom he had thought was favouring me in the matter of diet with
less compunction than you would kill a rat.
"It was he who gave me this scar," John Lexman pointed to his cheek.
"In his master's absence he took upon himself the task of conducting
a clumsy imitation of Kara's persecution. He gave me, too, the only
glimpse I ever had of the torture poor Grace underwent. She hated dogs,
and Kara must have come to know this and in her sleeping room--she was
apparently better accommodated than I--he kept four fierce beasts so
chained that they could almost reach her.
"Some reference to my wife from this low brute maddened me beyond
endurance and I sprang at him. He whipped out his knife and struck at
me as I fell and I escaped by a miracle. He evidently had orders not to
touch me, for he was in a great panic of mind, as he had reason to be,
because on Kara's return he discovered the state of my face, started
an enquiry and had Salvolio taken to the courtyard in the true eastern
style and bastinadoed until his feet were pulp.
"You may be sure the man hated me with a malignity which almost rivalled
his employer's. After Grace's death Kara went away suddenly and I was
left to the tender mercy of this man. Evidently he had been given a
fairly free hand. The principal object of Kara's hate being dead,
he took little further interest in me, or else wearied of his hobby.
Salvolio began his persecutions by reducing my diet. Fortunately I ate
very little. Nevertheless the supplies began to grow less and less, and
I was beginning to feel the effects of this starvation system when there
happened a thing which changed the whole course of my life and opened to
me a way to freedom and to vengeance.
"Salvolio did not imitate the austerity of his master and in Kara's
absence was in the habit of having little orgies of his own. He would
bring up dancing girls from Durazzo for his amusement and invite
prominent men in the neighbourhood to his feasts and entertainments, for
he was absolutely lord of the palazzo when Kara was away and could do
pretty well as he liked. On this particular night the festivities had
been more than usually prolonged, for as near as I could judge by the
day-light which was creeping in through my window it was about four
o'clock in the morning when the big steel-sheeted door was opened and
Salvolio came in, more than a little drunk. He brought with him, as I
judged, one of his dancing girls, who apparently was privileged to see
the sights of the palace.
"For a long time he stood in the doorway talking incoherently in a
language which I think must have been Turkish, for I caught one or two
words.
"Whoever the girl was, she seemed a little frightened, I could see that,
because she shrank back from him though his arm was about her shoulders
and he was half supporting his weight upon her. There was fear, not only
in the curious little glances she shot at me from time to time, but also
in the averted face. Her story I was to learn. She was not of the class
from whence Salvolio found the dancers who from time to time came up to
the palace for his amusement and the amusement of his guests. She was
the daughter of a Turkish merchant of Scutari who had been received into
the Catholic Church.
"Her father had gone down to Durazzo during the first Balkan war and
then Salvolio had seen the girl unknown to her parent, and there had
been some rough kind of courtship which ended in her running away on
this very day and joining her ill-favoured lover at the palazzo. I tell
you this because the fact had some bearing on my own fate.
"As I say, the girl was frightened and made as though to go from the
dungeon. She was probably scared both by the unkempt prisoner and by the
drunken man at her side. He, however, could not leave without showing to
her something of his authority. He came lurching over near where I lay,
his long knife balanced in his hand ready for emergencies, and broke
into a string of vituperations of the character to which I was quite
hardened.
"Then he took a flying kick at me and got home in my ribs, but again I
experienced neither a sense of indignity nor any great hurt. Salvolio
had treated me like this before and I had survived it. In the midst of
the tirade, looking past him, I was a new witness to an extraordinary
scene.
"The girl stood in the open doorway, shrinking back against the door,
looking with distress and pity at the spectacle which Salvolio's
brutality afforded. Then suddenly there appeared beside her a tall Turk.
He was grey-bearded and forbidding. She looked round and saw him, and
her mouth opened to utter a cry, but with a gesture he silenced her and
pointed to the darkness outside.
"Without a word she cringed past him, her sandalled feet making no
noise. All this time Salvolio was continuing his stream of abuse, but he
must have seen the wonder in my eyes for he stopped and turned.
"The old Turk took one stride forward, encircled his body with his left
arm, and there they stood grotesquely like a couple who were going to
start to waltz. The Turk was a head taller than Salvolio and, as I could
see, a man of immense strength.
"They looked at one another, face to face, Salvolio rapidly recovering
his senses... and then the Turk gave him a gentle punch in the ribs.
That is what it seemed like to me, but Salvolio coughed horribly, went
limp in the other's arms and dropped with a thud to the ground. The Turk
leant down soberly and wiped his long knife on the other's jacket before
he put it back in the sash at his waist.
"Then with a glance at me he turned to go, but stopped at the door and
looked back thoughtfully. He said something in Turkish which I could not
understand, then he spoke in French.
"'Who are you?' he asked.
"In as few words as possible I explained. He came over and looked at the
manacle about my leg and shook his head.
"'You will never be able to get that undone,' he said.
"He caught hold of the chain, which was a fairly long one, bound it
twice round his arm and steadying his arm across his thigh, he turned
with a sudden jerk. There was a smart 'snap' as the chain parted. He
caught me by the shoulder and pulled me to my feet. 'Put the chain
about your waist, Effendi,' he said, and he took a revolver from his
belt and handed it to me.
"'You may need this before we get back to Durazzo,' he said. His belt
was literally bristling with weapons--I saw three revolvers beside the
one I possessed--and he had, evidently come prepared for trouble. We
made our way from the dungeon into the clean-smelling world without.
"It was the second time I had been in the open air for eighteen months
and my knees were trembling under me with weakness and excitement. The
old man shut the prison door behind us and walked on until we came up to
the girl waiting for us by the lakeside. She was weeping softly and he
spoke to her a few words in a low voice and her weeping ceased.
"'This daughter of mine will show us the way,' he said, 'I do not know
this part of the country--she knows it too well.'
"To cut a long story short," said Lexman, "we reached Durazzo in the
afternoon. There was no attempt made to follow us up and neither my
absence nor the body of Salvolio were discovered until late in the
afternoon. You must remember that nobody but Salvolio was allowed
into my prison and therefore nobody had the courage to make any
investigations.
"The old man got me to his house without being observed, and brought a
brother-in-law or some relative of his to remove the anklet. The name of
my host was Hussein Effendi.
"That same night we left with a little caravan to visit some of the old
man's relatives. He was not certain what would be the consequence of
his act, and for safety's sake took this trip, which would enable him
if need be to seek sanctuary with some of the wilder Turkish tribes, who
would give him protection.
"In that three months I saw Albania as it is--it was an experience never
to be forgotten!
"If there is a better man in God's world than Hiabam Hussein Effendi,
I have yet to meet him. It was he who provided me with money to leave
Albania. I begged from him, too, the knife with which he had killed
Salvolio. He had discovered that Kara was in England and told me
something of the Greek's occupation which I had not known before. I
crossed to Italy and went on to Milan. There it was that I learnt that
an eccentric Englishman who had arrived a few days previously on one of
the South American boats at Genoa, was in my hotel desperately ill.
"My hotel I need hardly tell you was not a very expensive one and we
were evidently the only two Englishmen in the place. I could do no less
than go up and see what I could do for the poor fellow who was pretty
well gone when I saw him. I seemed to remember having seen him before
and when looking round for some identification I discovered his name I
readily recalled the circumstance.
"It was George Gathercole, who had returned from South America. He was
suffering from malarial fever and blood poisoning and for a week, with
an Italian doctor, I fought as hard as any man could fight for his
life. He was a trying patient," John Lexman smiled suddenly at the
recollection, "vitriolic in his language, impatient and imperious in his
attitude to his friends. He was, for example, terribly sensitive about
his lost arm and would not allow either the doctor or my-self to enter
the room until he was covered to the neck, nor would he eat or drink in
our presence. Yet he was the bravest of the brave, careless of himself
and only fretful because he had not time to finish his new book. His
indomitable spirit did not save him. He died on the 17th of January of
this year. I was in Genoa at the time, having gone there at his request
to save his belongings. When I returned he had been buried. I went
through his papers and it was then that I conceived my idea of how I
might approach Kara.
"I found a letter from the Greek, which had been addressed to Buenos
Ayres, to await arrival, and then I remembered in a flash, how Kara had
told me he had sent George Gathercole to South America to report upon
possible gold formations. I was determined to kill Kara, and determined
to kill him in such a way that I myself would cover every trace of my
complicity.
"Even as he had planned my downfall, scheming every step and covering
his trail, so did I plan to bring about his death that no suspicion
should fall on me.
"I knew his house. I knew something of his habits. I knew the fear in
which he went when he was in England and away from the feudal guards who
had surrounded him in Albania. I knew of his famous door with its steel
latch and I was planning to circumvent all these precautions and bring
to him not only the death he deserved, but a full knowledge of his fate
before he died.
"Gathercole had some money,--about 140 pounds--I took 100 pounds of
this for my own use, knowing that I should have sufficient in London
to recompense his heirs, and the remainder of the money with all such
documents as he had, save those which identified him with Kara, I handed
over to the British Consul.
"I was not unlike the dead man. My beard had grown wild and I knew
enough of Gathercole's eccentricities to live the part. The first step
I took was to announce my arrival by inference. I am a fairly good
journalist with a wide general knowledge and with this, corrected by
reference to the necessary books which I found in the British Museum
library, I was able to turn out a very respectable article on Patagonia.
"This I sent to The Times with one of Gathercole's cards and, as you
know, it was printed. My next step was to find suitable lodgings between
Chelsea and Scotland Yard. I was fortunate in being able to hire a
furnished flat, the owner of which was going to the south of France for
three months. I paid the rent in advance and since I dropped all the
eccentricities I had assumed to support the character of Gathercole, I
must have impressed the owner, who took me without references.
"I had several suits of new clothes made, not in London," he smiled,
"but in Manchester, and again I made myself as trim as possible to avoid
after-identification. When I had got these together in my flat, I
chose my day. In the morning I sent two trunks with most of my personal
belongings to the Great Midland Hotel.
"In the afternoon I went to Cadogan Square and hung about until I saw
Kara drive off. It was my first view of him since I had left Albania and
it required all my self-control to prevent me springing at him in the
street and tearing at him with my hands.
"Once he was out of sight I went to the house adopting all the style and
all the mannerisms of poor Gathercole. My beginning was unfortunate for,
with a shock, I recognised in the valet a fellow-convict who had
been with me in the warder's cottage on the morning of my escape from
Dartmoor. There was no mistaking him, and when I heard his voice I was
certain. Would he recognise me I wondered, in spite of my beard and my
eye-glasses?
"Apparently he did not. I gave him every chance. I thrust my face into
his and on my second visit challenged him, in the eccentric way which
poor old Gathercole had, to test the grey of my beard. For the moment
however, I was satisfied with my brief experiment and after a reasonable
interval I went away, returning to my place off Victoria Street and
waiting till the evening.
"In my observation of the house, whilst I was waiting for Kara to
depart, I had noticed that there were two distinct telephone wires
running down to the roof. I guessed, rather than knew, that one of these
telephones was a private wire and, knowing something of Kara's fear, I
presumed that that wire would lead to a police office, or at any rate
to a guardian of some kind or other. Kara had the same arrangement in
Albania, connecting the palazzo with the gendarme posts at Alesso. This
much Hussein told me.
"That night I made a reconnaissance of the house and saw Kara's window
was lit and at ten minutes past ten I rang the bell and I think it was
then that I applied the test of the beard. Kara was in his room, the
valet told me, and led the way upstairs. I had come prepared to deal
with this valet for I had an especial reason for wishing that he should
not be interrogated by the police. On a plain card I had written the
number he bore in Dartmoor and had added the words, 'I know you, get out
of here quick.'
"As he turned to lead the way upstairs I flung the envelope containing
the card on the table in the hall. In an inside pocket, as near to my
body as I could put them, I had the two candles. How I should use them
both I had already decided. The valet ushered me into Kara's room and
once more I stood in the presence of the man who had killed my girl and
blotted out all that was beautiful in life for me."
There was a breathless silence when he paused. T. X. leaned back in his
chair, his head upon his breast, his arms folded, his eyes watching the
other intently.
The Chief Commissioner, with a heavy frown and pursed lips, sat stroking
his moustache and looking under his shaggy eyebrows at the speaker. The
French police officer, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his head
on one side, was taking in every word eagerly. The sallow-faced Russian,
impassive of face, might have been a carved ivory mask. O'Grady,
the American, the stump of a dead cigar between his teeth, shifted
impatiently with every pause as though he would hurry forward the
denouement.
Presently John Lexman went on.
"He slipped from the bed and came across to meet me as I closed the door
behind me.
"'Ah, Mr. Gathercole,' he said, in that silky tone of his, and held out
his hand.
"I did not speak. I just looked at him with a sort of fierce joy in my
heart the like of which I had never before experienced.
"'And then he saw in my eyes the truth and half reached for the
telephone.
"But at that moment I was on him. He was a child in my hands. All the
bitter anguish he had brought upon me, all the hardships of starved days
and freezing nights had strengthened and hardened me. I had come back to
London disguised with a false arm and this I shook free. It was merely a
gauntlet of thin wood which I had had made for me in Paris.
"I flung him back on the bed and half knelt, half laid on him.
"'Kara,' I said, 'you are going to die, a more merciful death than my
wife died.'
"He tried to speak. His soft hands gesticulated wildly, but I was half
lying on one arm and held the other.
"I whispered in his ear:
"'Nobody will know who killed you, Kara, think of that! I shall go scot
free--and you will be the centre of a fine mystery! All your letters
will be read, all your life will be examined and the world will know you
for what you are!'
"I released his arm for just as long as it took to draw my knife and
strike. I think he died instantly," John Lexman said simply.
"I left him where he was and went to the door. I had not much time to
spare. I took the candles from my pocket. They were already ductile from
the heat of my body.
"I lifted up the steel latch of the door and propped up the latch with
the smaller of the two candles, one end of which was on the middle
socket and the other beneath the latch. The heat of the room I knew
would still further soften the candle and let the latch down in a short
time.
"I was prepared for the telephone by his bedside though I did not
know to whither it led. The presence of the paper-knife decided me. I
balanced it across the silver cigarette box so that one end came under
the telephone receiver; under the other end I put the second candle
which I had to cut to fit. On top of the paper-knife at the candle end
I balanced the only two books I could find in the room, and fortunately
they were heavy.
"I had no means of knowing how long it would take to melt the candle
to a state of flexion which would allow the full weight of the books to
bear upon the candle end of the paper-knife and fling off the receiver.
I was hoping that Fisher had taken my warning and had gone. When I
opened the door softly, I heard his footsteps in the hall below. There
was nothing to do but to finish the play.
"I turned and addressed an imaginary conversation to Kara. It was
horrible, but there was something about it which aroused in me a curious
sense of humour and I wanted to laugh and laugh and laugh!
"I heard the man coming up the stairs and closed the door gingerly. What
length of time would it take for the candle to bend!
"To completely establish the alibi I determined to hold Fisher in
conversation and this was all the easier since apparently he had not
seen the envelope I had left on the table downstairs. I had not long
to wait for suddenly with a crash I heard the steel latch fall in its
place. Under the effect of the heat the candle had bent sooner than I
had expected. I asked Fisher what was the meaning of the sound and he
explained. I passed down the stairs talking all the time. I found a cab
at Sloane Square and drove to my lodgings. Underneath my overcoat I was
partly dressed in evening kit.
"Ten minutes after I entered the door of my flat I came out a beardless
man about town, not to be distinguished from the thousand others who
would be found that night walking the promenade of any of the great
music-halls. From Victoria Street I drove straight to Scotland Yard. It
was no more than a coincidence that whilst I should have been speaking
with you all, the second candle should have bent and the alarm be given
in the very office in which I was sitting.
"I assure you all in all earnestness that I did not suspect the cause of
that ringing until Mr. Mansus spoke.
"There, gentlemen, is my story!" He threw out his arms.
"You may do with me as you will. Kara was a murderer, dyed a hundred
times in innocent blood. I have done all that I set myself to do--that
and no more--that and no less. I had thought to go away to America, but
the nearer the day of my departure approached, the more vivid became
the memory of the plans which she and I had formed, my girl... my poor
martyred girl!"
He sat at the little table, his hands clasped before him, his face lined
and white.
"And that is the end!" he said suddenly, with a wry smile.
"Not quite!" T. X. swung round with a gasp. It was Belinda Mary who
spoke.
"I can carry it on," she said.
She was wonderfully self-possessed, thought T. X., but then T. X. never
thought anything of her but that she was "wonderfully" something or the
other.
"Most of your story is true, Mr. Lexman," said this astonishing girl,
oblivious of the amazed eyes that were staring at her, "but Kara
deceived you in one respect."
"What do you mean?" asked John Lexman, rising unsteadily to his feet.
For answer she rose and walked back to the door with the chintz curtains
and flung it open: There was a wait which seemed an eternity, and then
through the doorway came a girl, slim and grave and beautiful.
"My God!" whispered T. X. "Grace Lexman!"
CHAPTER XXIII
They went out and left them alone, two people who found in this moment
a heaven which is not beyond the reach of humanity, but which is seldom
attained to. Belinda Mary had an eager audience all to her very self.
"Of course she didn't die," she said scornfully. "Kara was playing on
his fears all the time. He never even harmed her--in the way Mr. Lexman
feared. He told Mrs. Lexman that her husband was dead just as he told
John Lexman his wife was gone. What happened was that he brought her
back to England--"
"Who?" asked T. X., incredulously.
"Grace Lexman," said the girl, with a smile. "You wouldn't think it
possible, but when you realize that he had a yacht of his own and that
he could travel up from whatever landing place he chose to his house in
Cadogan Square by motorcar and that he could take her straight away into
his cellar without disturbing his household, you'll understand that the
only difficulty he had was in landing her. It was in the lower cellar
that I found her."
"You found her in the cellar?" demanded the Chief Commissioner.
The girl nodded.
"I found her and the dog--you heard how Kara terrified her--and I
killed the dog with my own hands," she said a little proudly, and then
shivered. "It was very beastly," she admitted.
"And she's been living with you all this time and you've said nothing!"
asked T. X., incredulously. Belinda Mary nodded.
"And that is why you didn't want me to know where you were living?" She
nodded again.
"You see she was very ill," she said, "and I had to nurse her up, and of
course I knew that it was Lexman who had killed Kara and I couldn't tell
you about Grace Lexman without betraying him. So when Mr. Lexman decided
to tell his story, I thought I'd better supply the grand denouement."
The men looked at one another.
"What are you going to do about Lexman?" asked the Chief Commissioner,
"and, by the way, T. X., how does all this fit your theories!"
"Fairly well," replied T. X. coolly; "obviously the man who committed
the murder was the man introduced into the room as Gathercole and as
obviously it was not Gathercole, although to all appearance, he had lost
his left arm."
"Why obvious?" asked the Chief Commissioner.
"Because," answered T. X. Meredith, "the real Gathercole had lost his
right arm--that was the one error Lexman made."
"H'm," the Chief pulled at his moustache and looked enquiringly round
the room, "we have to make up our minds very quickly about Lexman," he
said. "What do you think, Carlneau?"
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
"For my part I should not only importune your Home Secretary to pardon
him, but I should recommend him for a pension," he said flippantly.
"What do you think, Savorsky?"
The Russian smiled a little.
"It is a very impressive story," he said dispassionately; "it occurs to
me that if you intend bringing your M. Lexman to judgment you are likely
to expose some very pretty scandals. Incidentally," he said, stroking
his trim little moustache, "I might remark that any exposure which drew
attention to the lawless conditions of Albania would not be regarded by
my government with favour."
The Chief Commissioner's eyes twinkled and he nodded.
"That is also my view," said the Chief of the Italian bureau; "naturally
we are greatly interested in all that happens on the Adriatic littoral.
It seems to me that Kara has come to a very merciful end and I am not
inclined to regard a prosecution of Mr. Lexman with equanimity."
"Well, I guess the political aspect of the case doesn't affect us very
much," said O'Grady, "but as one who was once mighty near asphyxiated
by stirring up the wrong kind of mud, I should leave the matter where it
is."
The Chief Commissioner was deep in thought and Belinda Mary eyed him
anxiously.
"Tell them to come in," he said bluntly.
The girl went and brought John Lexman and his wife, and they came in
hand in hand supremely and serenely happy whatever the future might hold
for them. The Chief Commissioner cleared his throat.
"Lexman, we're all very much obliged to you," he said, "for a very
interesting story and a most interesting theory. What you have done, as
I understand the matter," he proceeded deliberately, "is to put yourself
in the murderer's place and advance a theory not only as to how the
murder was actually committed, but as to the motive for that murder. It
is, I might say, a remarkable piece of reconstruction," he spoke very
deliberately, and swept away John Lexman's astonished interruption with
a stern hand, "please wait and do not speak until I am out of hearing,"
he growled. "You have got into the skin of the actual assassin and have
spoken most convincingly. One might almost think that the man who
killed Remington Kara was actually standing before us. For that piece
of impersonation we are all very grateful;" he glared round over
his spectacles at his understanding colleagues and they murmured
approvingly.
He looked at his watch.
"Now I am afraid I must be off," he crossed the room and put out his
hand to John Lexman. "I wish you good luck," he said, and took both
Grace Lexman's hands in his. "One of these days," he said paternally, "I
shall come down to Beston Tracey and your husband shall tell me another
and a happier story."
He paused at the door as he was going out and looking back caught the
grateful eyes of Lexman.
"By the way, Mr. Lexman," he said hesitatingly, "I don't think I should
ever write a story called 'The Clue of the Twisted Candle,' if I were
you."
John Lexman shook his head.
"It will never be written," he said, "--by me."
End of Project Gutenberg's The Clue of the Twisted Candle, by Edgar Wallace | null |
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box | Arthur Conan Doyle | 14 | ['Jim Browner'] |
In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable
mental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have
endeavoured, as far as possible, to select those which presented
the minimum of sensationalism, while offering a fair field for
his talents. It is, however, unfortunately impossible entirely to
separate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is
left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which
are essential to his statement and so give a false impression of
the problem, or he must use matter which chance, and not choice,
has provided him with. With this short preface I shall turn to my
notes of what proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly
terrible, chain of events.
It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an
oven, and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of
the house across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to
believe that these were the same walls which loomed so gloomily
through the fogs of winter. Our blinds were half-drawn, and
Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and re-reading a letter
which he had received by the morning post. For myself, my term of
service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold,
and a thermometer at ninety was no hardship. But the morning
paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen. Everybody was out
of town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest or the
shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account had caused me to
postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the country
nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved
to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his
filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to
every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation
of nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only
change was when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town
to track down his brother of the country.
Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had
tossed aside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair I
fell into a brown study. Suddenly my companion’s voice broke in
upon my thoughts:
“You are right, Watson,” said he. “It does seem a most
preposterous way of settling a dispute.”
“Most preposterous!” I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how
he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair
and stared at him in blank amazement.
“What is this, Holmes?” I cried. “This is beyond anything which I
could have imagined.”
He laughed heartily at my perplexity.
“You remember,” he said, “that some little time ago when I read
you the passage in one of Poe’s sketches in which a close
reasoner follows the unspoken thoughts of his companion, you were
inclined to treat the matter as a mere _tour-de-force_ of the
author. On my remarking that I was constantly in the habit of
doing the same thing you expressed incredulity.”
“Oh, no!”
“Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with
your eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter
upon a train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity
of reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof
that I had been in rapport with you.”
But I was still far from satisfied. “In the example which you
read to me,” said I, “the reasoner drew his conclusions from the
actions of the man whom he observed. If I remember right, he
stumbled over a heap of stones, looked up at the stars, and so
on. But I have been seated quietly in my chair, and what clues
can I have given you?”
“You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as
the means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are
faithful servants.”
“Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my
features?”
“Your features and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot
yourself recall how your reverie commenced?”
“No, I cannot.”
“Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was
the action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a
minute with a vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves
upon your newly framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by
the alteration in your face that a train of thought had been
started. But it did not lead very far. Your eyes flashed across
to the unframed portrait of Henry Ward Beecher which stands upon
the top of your books. Then you glanced up at the wall, and of
course your meaning was obvious. You were thinking that if the
portrait were framed it would just cover that bare space and
correspond with Gordon’s picture over there.”
“You have followed me wonderfully!” I exclaimed.
“So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts
went back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were
studying the character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to
pucker, but you continued to look across, and your face was
thoughtful. You were recalling the incidents of Beecher’s career.
I was well aware that you could not do this without thinking of
the mission which he undertook on behalf of the North at the time
of the Civil War, for I remember your expressing your passionate
indignation at the way in which he was received by the more
turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about it that I
knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking of that
also. When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the
picture, I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil
War, and when I observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled,
and your hands clenched I was positive that you were indeed
thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both sides in that
desperate struggle. But then, again, your face grew sadder; you
shook your head. You were dwelling upon the sadness and horror
and useless waste of life. Your hand stole towards your own old
wound and a smile quivered on your lips, which showed me that the
ridiculous side of this method of settling international
questions had forced itself upon your mind. At this point I
agreed with you that it was preposterous and was glad to find
that all my deductions had been correct.”
“Absolutely!” said I. “And now that you have explained it, I
confess that I am as amazed as before.”
“It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should
not have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some
incredulity the other day. But I have in my hands here a little
problem which may prove to be more difficult of solution than my
small essay in thought reading. Have you observed in the paper a
short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet
sent through the post to Miss Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?”
“No, I saw nothing.”
“Ah! then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me.
Here it is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be good
enough to read it aloud.”
I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the
paragraph indicated. It was headed, “A Gruesome Packet.”
“Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been
made the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly
revolting practical joke unless some more sinister meaning should
prove to be attached to the incident. At two o’clock yesterday
afternoon a small packet, wrapped in brown paper, was handed in
by the postman. A cardboard box was inside, which was filled with
coarse salt. On emptying this, Miss Cushing was horrified to find
two human ears, apparently quite freshly severed. The box had
been sent by parcel post from Belfast upon the morning before.
There is no indication as to the sender, and the matter is the
more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of fifty,
has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances or
correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive
anything through the post. Some years ago, however, when she
resided at Penge, she let apartments in her house to three young
medical students, whom she was obliged to get rid of on account
of their noisy and irregular habits. The police are of opinion
that this outrage may have been perpetrated upon Miss Cushing by
these youths, who owed her a grudge and who hoped to frighten her
by sending her these relics of the dissecting-rooms. Some
probability is lent to the theory by the fact that one of these
students came from the north of Ireland, and, to the best of Miss
Cushing’s belief, from Belfast. In the meantime, the matter is
being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very
smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case.”
“So much for the _Daily Chronicle_,” said Holmes as I finished
reading. “Now for our friend Lestrade. I had a note from him this
morning, in which he says: ‘I think that this case is very much
in your line. We have every hope of clearing the matter up, but
we find a little difficulty in getting anything to work upon. We
have, of course, wired to the Belfast post-office, but a large
number of parcels were handed in upon that day, and they have no
means of identifying this particular one, or of remembering the
sender. The box is a half-pound box of honeydew tobacco and does
not help us in any way. The medical student theory still appears
to me to be the most feasible, but if you should have a few hours
to spare I should be very happy to see you out here. I shall be
either at the house or in the police-station all day.’ What say
you, Watson? Can you rise superior to the heat and run down to
Croydon with me on the off chance of a case for your annals?”
“I was longing for something to do.”
“You shall have it then. Ring for our boots and tell them to
order a cab. I’ll be back in a moment when I have changed my
dressing-gown and filled my cigar-case.”
A shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat
was far less oppressive in Croydon than in town. Holmes had sent
on a wire, so that Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as
ferret-like as ever, was waiting for us at the station. A walk of
five minutes took us to Cross Street, where Miss Cushing resided.
It was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and
prim, with whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned
women gossiping at the doors. Halfway down, Lestrade stopped and
tapped at a door, which was opened by a small servant girl. Miss
Cushing was sitting in the front room, into which we were
ushered. She was a placid-faced woman, with large, gentle eyes,
and grizzled hair curving down over her temples on each side. A
worked antimacassar lay upon her lap and a basket of coloured
silks stood upon a stool beside her.
“They are in the outhouse, those dreadful things,” said she as
Lestrade entered. “I wish that you would take them away
altogether.”
“So I shall, Miss Cushing. I only kept them here until my friend,
Mr. Holmes, should have seen them in your presence.”
“Why in my presence, sir?”
“In case he wished to ask any questions.”
“What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know
nothing whatever about it?”
“Quite so, madam,” said Holmes in his soothing way. “I have no
doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over
this business.”
“Indeed, I have, sir. I am a quiet woman and live a retired life.
It is something new for me to see my name in the papers and to
find the police in my house. I won’t have those things in here,
Mr. Lestrade. If you wish to see them you must go to the
outhouse.”
It was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran behind the
house. Lestrade went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box,
with a piece of brown paper and some string. There was a bench at
the end of the path, and we all sat down while Holmes examined,
one by one, the articles which Lestrade had handed to him.
“The string is exceedingly interesting,” he remarked, holding it
up to the light and sniffing at it. “What do you make of this
string, Lestrade?”
“It has been tarred.”
“Precisely. It is a piece of tarred twine. You have also, no
doubt, remarked that Miss Cushing has cut the cord with a
scissors, as can be seen by the double fray on each side. This is
of importance.”
“I cannot see the importance,” said Lestrade.
“The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact,
and that this knot is of a peculiar character.”
“It is very neatly tied. I had already made a note to that
effect,” said Lestrade complacently.
“So much for the string, then,” said Holmes, smiling, “now for
the box wrapper. Brown paper, with a distinct smell of coffee.
What, did you not observe it? I think there can be no doubt of
it. Address printed in rather straggling characters: ‘Miss S.
Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.’ Done with a broad-pointed pen,
probably a J, and with very inferior ink. The word ‘Croydon’ has
been originally spelled with an ‘i,’ which has been changed to
‘y.’ The parcel was directed, then, by a man—the printing is
distinctly masculine—of limited education and unacquainted with
the town of Croydon. So far, so good! The box is a yellow
half-pound honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save two thumb
marks at the left bottom corner. It is filled with rough salt of
the quality used for preserving hides and other of the coarser
commercial purposes. And embedded in it are these very singular
enclosures.”
He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across
his knee he examined them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending
forward on each side of him, glanced alternately at these
dreadful relics and at the thoughtful, eager face of our
companion. Finally he returned them to the box once more and sat
for a while in deep meditation.
“You have observed, of course,” said he at last, “that the ears
are not a pair.”
“Yes, I have noticed that. But if this were the practical joke of
some students from the dissecting-rooms, it would be as easy for
them to send two odd ears as a pair.”
“Precisely. But this is not a practical joke.”
“You are sure of it?”
“The presumption is strongly against it. Bodies in the
dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears
bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been cut
off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a
student had done it. Again, carbolic or rectified spirits would
be the preservatives which would suggest themselves to the
medical mind, certainly not rough salt. I repeat that there is no
practical joke here, but that we are investigating a serious
crime.”
A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion’s
words and saw the stern gravity which had hardened his features.
This brutal preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange and
inexplicable horror in the background. Lestrade, however, shook
his head like a man who is only half convinced.
“There are objections to the joke theory, no doubt,” said he,
“but there are much stronger reasons against the other. We know
that this woman has led a most quiet and respectable life at
Penge and here for the last twenty years. She has hardly been
away from her home for a day during that time. Why on earth,
then, should any criminal send her the proofs of his guilt,
especially as, unless she is a most consummate actress, she
understands quite as little of the matter as we do?”
“That is the problem which we have to solve,” Holmes answered,
“and for my part I shall set about it by presuming that my
reasoning is correct, and that a double murder has been
committed. One of these ears is a woman’s, small, finely formed,
and pierced for an earring. The other is a man’s, sun-burned,
discoloured, and also pierced for an earring. These two people
are presumably dead, or we should have heard their story before
now. To-day is Friday. The packet was posted on Thursday morning.
The tragedy, then, occurred on Wednesday or Tuesday or earlier.
If the two people were murdered, who but their murderer would
have sent this sign of his work to Miss Cushing? We may take it
that the sender of the packet is the man whom we want. But he
must have some strong reason for sending Miss Cushing this
packet. What reason then? It must have been to tell her that the
deed was done! or to pain her, perhaps. But in that case she
knows who it is. Does she know? I doubt it. If she knew, why
should she call the police in? She might have buried the ears,
and no one would have been the wiser. That is what she would have
done if she had wished to shield the criminal. But if she does
not wish to shield him she would give his name. There is a tangle
here which needs straightening out.” He had been talking in a
high, quick voice, staring blankly up over the garden fence, but
now he sprang briskly to his feet and walked towards the house.
“I have a few questions to ask Miss Cushing,” said he.
“In that case I may leave you here,” said Lestrade, “for I have
another small business on hand. I think that I have nothing
further to learn from Miss Cushing. You will find me at the
police-station.”
“We shall look in on our way to the train,” answered Holmes. A
moment later he and I were back in the front room, where the
impassive lady was still quietly working away at her
antimacassar. She put it down on her lap as we entered and looked
at us with her frank, searching blue eyes.
“I am convinced, sir,” she said, “that this matter is a mistake,
and that the parcel was never meant for me at all. I have said
this several times to the gentleman from Scotland Yard, but he
simply laughs at me. I have not an enemy in the world, as far as
I know, so why should anyone play me such a trick?”
“I am coming to be of the same opinion, Miss Cushing,” said
Holmes, taking a seat beside her. “I think that it is more than
probable——” he paused, and I was surprised, on glancing round to
see that he was staring with singular intentness at the lady’s
profile. Surprise and satisfaction were both for an instant to be
read upon his eager face, though when she glanced round to find
out the cause of his silence he had become as demure as ever. I
stared hard myself at her flat, grizzled hair, her trim cap, her
little gilt earrings, her placid features; but I could see
nothing which could account for my companion’s evident
excitement.
“There were one or two questions——”
“Oh, I am weary of questions!” cried Miss Cushing impatiently.
“You have two sisters, I believe.”
“How could you know that?”
“I observed the very instant that I entered the room that you
have a portrait group of three ladies upon the mantelpiece, one
of whom is undoubtedly yourself, while the others are so
exceedingly like you that there could be no doubt of the
relationship.”
“Yes, you are quite right. Those are my sisters, Sarah and Mary.”
“And here at my elbow is another portrait, taken at Liverpool, of
your younger sister, in the company of a man who appears to be a
steward by his uniform. I observe that she was unmarried at the
time.”
“You are very quick at observing.”
“That is my trade.”
“Well, you are quite right. But she was married to Mr. Browner a
few days afterwards. He was on the South American line when that
was taken, but he was so fond of her that he couldn’t abide to
leave her for so long, and he got into the Liverpool and London
boats.”
“Ah, the _Conqueror_, perhaps?”
“No, the _May Day_, when last I heard. Jim came down here to see
me once. That was before he broke the pledge; but afterwards he
would always take drink when he was ashore, and a little drink
would send him stark, staring mad. Ah! it was a bad day that ever
he took a glass in his hand again. First he dropped me, then he
quarrelled with Sarah, and now that Mary has stopped writing we
don’t know how things are going with them.”
It was evident that Miss Cushing had come upon a subject on which
she felt very deeply. Like most people who lead a lonely life,
she was shy at first, but ended by becoming extremely
communicative. She told us many details about her brother-in-law
the steward, and then wandering off on the subject of her former
lodgers, the medical students, she gave us a long account of
their delinquencies, with their names and those of their
hospitals. Holmes listened attentively to everything, throwing in
a question from time to time.
“About your second sister, Sarah,” said he. “I wonder, since you
are both maiden ladies, that you do not keep house together.”
“Ah! you don’t know Sarah’s temper or you would wonder no more. I
tried it when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two
months ago, when we had to part. I don’t want to say a word
against my own sister, but she was always meddlesome and hard to
please, was Sarah.”
“You say that she quarrelled with your Liverpool relations.”
“Yes, and they were the best of friends at one time. Why, she
went up there to live in order to be near them. And now she has
no word hard enough for Jim Browner. The last six months that she
was here she would speak of nothing but his drinking and his
ways. He had caught her meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit
of his mind, and that was the start of it.”
“Thank you, Miss Cushing,” said Holmes, rising and bowing. “Your
sister Sarah lives, I think you said, at New Street Wallington?
Good-bye, and I am very sorry that you should have been troubled
over a case with which, as you say, you have nothing whatever to
do.”
There was a cab passing as we came out, and Holmes hailed it.
“How far to Wallington?” he asked.
“Only about a mile, sir.”
“Very good. Jump in, Watson. We must strike while the iron is
hot. Simple as the case is, there have been one or two very
instructive details in connection with it. Just pull up at a
telegraph office as you pass, cabby.”
Holmes sent off a short wire and for the rest of the drive lay
back in the cab, with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the
sun from his face. Our driver pulled up at a house which was not
unlike the one which we had just quitted. My companion ordered
him to wait, and had his hand upon the knocker, when the door
opened and a grave young gentleman in black, with a very shiny
hat, appeared on the step.
“Is Miss Cushing at home?” asked Holmes.
“Miss Sarah Cushing is extremely ill,” said he. “She has been
suffering since yesterday from brain symptoms of great severity.
As her medical adviser, I cannot possibly take the responsibility
of allowing anyone to see her. I should recommend you to call
again in ten days.” He drew on his gloves, closed the door, and
marched off down the street.
“Well, if we can’t we can’t,” said Holmes, cheerfully.
“Perhaps she could not or would not have told you much.”
“I did not wish her to tell me anything. I only wanted to look at
her. However, I think that I have got all that I want. Drive us
to some decent hotel, cabby, where we may have some lunch, and
afterwards we shall drop down upon friend Lestrade at the
police-station.”
We had a pleasant little meal together, during which Holmes would
talk about nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation
how he had purchased his own Stradivarius, which was worth at
least five hundred guineas, at a Jew broker’s in Tottenham Court
Road for fifty-five shillings. This led him to Paganini, and we
sat for an hour over a bottle of claret while he told me anecdote
after anecdote of that extraordinary man. The afternoon was far
advanced and the hot glare had softened into a mellow glow before
we found ourselves at the police-station. Lestrade was waiting
for us at the door.
“A telegram for you, Mr. Holmes,” said he.
“Ha! It is the answer!” He tore it open, glanced his eyes over
it, and crumpled it into his pocket. “That’s all right,” said he.
“Have you found out anything?”
“I have found out everything!”
“What!” Lestrade stared at him in amazement. “You are joking.”
“I was never more serious in my life. A shocking crime has been
committed, and I think I have now laid bare every detail of it.”
“And the criminal?”
Holmes scribbled a few words upon the back of one of his visiting
cards and threw it over to Lestrade.
“That is the name,” he said. “You cannot effect an arrest until
to-morrow night at the earliest. I should prefer that you do not
mention my name at all in connection with the case, as I choose
to be only associated with those crimes which present some
difficulty in their solution. Come on, Watson.” We strode off
together to the station, leaving Lestrade still staring with a
delighted face at the card which Holmes had thrown him.
“The case,” said Sherlock Holmes as we chatted over our cigars
that night in our rooms at Baker Street, “is one where, as in the
investigations which you have chronicled under the names of ‘A
Study in Scarlet’ and of ‘The Sign of Four,’ we have been
compelled to reason backward from effects to causes. I have
written to Lestrade asking him to supply us with the details
which are now wanting, and which he will only get after he has
secured his man. That he may be safely trusted to do, for
although he is absolutely devoid of reason, he is as tenacious as
a bulldog when he once understands what he has to do, and,
indeed, it is just this tenacity which has brought him to the top
at Scotland Yard.”
“Your case is not complete, then?” I asked.
“It is fairly complete in essentials. We know who the author of
the revolting business is, although one of the victims still
escapes us. Of course, you have formed your own conclusions.”
“I presume that this Jim Browner, the steward of a Liverpool
boat, is the man whom you suspect?”
“Oh! it is more than a suspicion.”
“And yet I cannot see anything save very vague indications.”
“On the contrary, to my mind nothing could be more clear. Let me
run over the principal steps. We approached the case, you
remember, with an absolutely blank mind, which is always an
advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply there to
observe and to draw inferences from our observations. What did we
see first? A very placid and respectable lady, who seemed quite
innocent of any secret, and a portrait which showed me that she
had two younger sisters. It instantly flashed across my mind that
the box might have been meant for one of these. I set the idea
aside as one which could be disproved or confirmed at our
leisure. Then we went to the garden, as you remember, and we saw
the very singular contents of the little yellow box.
“The string was of the quality which is used by sailmakers aboard
ship, and at once a whiff of the sea was perceptible in our
investigation. When I observed that the knot was one which is
popular with sailors, that the parcel had been posted at a port,
and that the male ear was pierced for an earring which is so much
more common among sailors than landsmen, I was quite certain that
all the actors in the tragedy were to be found among our
seafaring classes.
“When I came to examine the address of the packet I observed that
it was to Miss S. Cushing. Now, the oldest sister would, of
course, be Miss Cushing, and although her initial was ‘S’ it
might belong to one of the others as well. In that case we should
have to commence our investigation from a fresh basis altogether.
I therefore went into the house with the intention of clearing up
this point. I was about to assure Miss Cushing that I was
convinced that a mistake had been made when you may remember that
I came suddenly to a stop. The fact was that I had just seen
something which filled me with surprise and at the same time
narrowed the field of our inquiry immensely.
“As a medical man, you are aware, Watson, that there is no part
of the body which varies so much as the human ear. Each ear is as
a rule quite distinctive and differs from all other ones. In last
year’s _Anthropological Journal_ you will find two short
monographs from my pen upon the subject. I had, therefore,
examined the ears in the box with the eyes of an expert and had
carefully noted their anatomical peculiarities. Imagine my
surprise, then, when on looking at Miss Cushing I perceived that
her ear corresponded exactly with the female ear which I had just
inspected. The matter was entirely beyond coincidence. There was
the same shortening of the pinna, the same broad curve of the
upper lobe, the same convolution of the inner cartilage. In all
essentials it was the same ear.
“Of course I at once saw the enormous importance of the
observation. It was evident that the victim was a blood relation
and probably a very close one. I began to talk to her about her
family, and you remember that she at once gave us some
exceedingly valuable details.
“In the first place, her sister’s name was Sarah, and her address
had until recently been the same, so that it was quite obvious
how the mistake had occurred and for whom the packet was meant.
Then we heard of this steward, married to the third sister, and
learned that he had at one time been so intimate with Miss Sarah
that she had actually gone up to Liverpool to be near the
Browners, but a quarrel had afterwards divided them. This quarrel
had put a stop to all communications for some months, so that if
Browner had occasion to address a packet to Miss Sarah, he would
undoubtedly have done so to her old address.
“And now the matter had begun to straighten itself out
wonderfully. We had learned of the existence of this steward, an
impulsive man, of strong passions—you remember that he threw up
what must have been a very superior berth in order to be nearer
to his wife—subject, too, to occasional fits of hard drinking. We
had reason to believe that his wife had been murdered, and that a
man—presumably a seafaring man—had been murdered at the same
time. Jealousy, of course, at once suggests itself as the motive
for the crime. And why should these proofs of the deed be sent to
Miss Sarah Cushing? Probably because during her residence in
Liverpool she had some hand in bringing about the events which
led to the tragedy. You will observe that this line of boats
calls at Belfast, Dublin, and Waterford; so that, presuming that
Browner had committed the deed and had embarked at once upon his
steamer, the _May Day_, Belfast would be the first place at which
he could post his terrible packet.
“A second solution was at this stage obviously possible, and
although I thought it exceedingly unlikely, I was determined to
elucidate it before going further. An unsuccessful lover might
have killed Mr. and Mrs. Browner, and the male ear might have
belonged to the husband. There were many grave objections to this
theory, but it was conceivable. I therefore sent off a telegram
to my friend Algar, of the Liverpool force, and asked him to find
out if Mrs. Browner were at home, and if Browner had departed in
the _May Day_. Then we went on to Wallington to visit Miss Sarah.
“I was curious, in the first place, to see how far the family ear
had been reproduced in her. Then, of course, she might give us
very important information, but I was not sanguine that she
would. She must have heard of the business the day before, since
all Croydon was ringing with it, and she alone could have
understood for whom the packet was meant. If she had been willing
to help justice she would probably have communicated with the
police already. However, it was clearly our duty to see her, so
we went. We found that the news of the arrival of the packet—for
her illness dated from that time—had such an effect upon her as
to bring on brain fever. It was clearer than ever that she
understood its full significance, but equally clear that we
should have to wait some time for any assistance from her.
“However, we were really independent of her help. Our answers
were waiting for us at the police-station, where I had directed
Algar to send them. Nothing could be more conclusive. Mrs.
Browner’s house had been closed for more than three days, and the
neighbours were of opinion that she had gone south to see her
relatives. It had been ascertained at the shipping offices that
Browner had left aboard of the _May Day_, and I calculate that
she is due in the Thames to-morrow night. When he arrives he will
be met by the obtuse but resolute Lestrade, and I have no doubt
that we shall have all our details filled in.”
Sherlock Holmes was not disappointed in his expectations. Two
days later he received a bulky envelope, which contained a short
note from the detective, and a typewritten document, which
covered several pages of foolscap.
“Lestrade has got him all right,” said Holmes, glancing up at me.
“Perhaps it would interest you to hear what he says.
“My dear Mr. Holmes,—In accordance with the scheme which we had
formed in order to test our theories”—“the ‘we’ is rather fine,
Watson, is it not?”—“I went down to the Albert Dock yesterday at
6 P.M., and boarded the S.S. _May Day_, belonging to the
Liverpool, Dublin, and London Steam Packet Company. On inquiry, I
found that there was a steward on board of the name of James
Browner and that he had acted during the voyage in such an
extraordinary manner that the captain had been compelled to
relieve him of his duties. On descending to his berth, I found
him seated upon a chest with his head sunk upon his hands,
rocking himself to and fro. He is a big, powerful chap,
clean-shaven, and very swarthy— something like Aldridge, who
helped us in the bogus laundry affair. He jumped up when he heard
my business, and I had my whistle to my lips to call a couple of
river police, who were round the corner, but he seemed to have no
heart in him, and he held out his hands quietly enough for the
darbies. We brought him along to the cells, and his box as well,
for we thought there might be something incriminating; but, bar a
big sharp knife such as most sailors have, we got nothing for our
trouble. However, we find that we shall want no more evidence,
for on being brought before the inspector at the station he asked
leave to make a statement, which was, of course, taken down, just
as he made it, by our shorthand man. We had three copies
typewritten, one of which I enclose. The affair proves, as I
always thought it would, to be an extremely simple one, but I am
obliged to you for assisting me in my investigation. With kind
regards, yours very truly,—G. Lestrade.”
“Hum! The investigation really was a very simple one,” remarked
Holmes, “but I don’t think it struck him in that light when he
first called us in. However, let us see what Jim Browner has to
say for himself. This is his statement as made before Inspector
Montgomery at the Shadwell Police Station, and it has the
advantage of being verbatim.”
“Have I anything to say? Yes, I have a deal to say. I have to
make a clean breast of it all. You can hang me, or you can leave
me alone. I don’t care a plug which you do. I tell you I’ve not
shut an eye in sleep since I did it, and I don’t believe I ever
will again until I get past all waking. Sometimes it’s his face,
but most generally it’s hers. I’m never without one or the other
before me. He looks frowning and black-like, but she has a kind
o’ surprise upon her face. Ay, the white lamb, she might well be
surprised when she read death on a face that had seldom looked
anything but love upon her before.
“But it was Sarah’s fault, and may the curse of a broken man put
a blight on her and set the blood rotting in her veins! It’s not
that I want to clear myself. I know that I went back to drink,
like the beast that I was. But she would have forgiven me; she
would have stuck as close to me as a rope to a block if that
woman had never darkened our door. For Sarah Cushing loved
me—that’s the root of the business—she loved me until all her
love turned to poisonous hate when she knew that I thought more
of my wife’s footmark in the mud than I did of her whole body and
soul.
“There were three sisters altogether. The old one was just a good
woman, the second was a devil, and the third was an angel. Sarah
was thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I married. We
were just as happy as the day was long when we set up house
together, and in all Liverpool there was no better woman than my
Mary. And then we asked Sarah up for a week, and the week grew
into a month, and one thing led to another, until she was just
one of ourselves.
“I was blue ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little
money by, and all was as bright as a new dollar. My God, whoever
would have thought that it could have come to this? Whoever would
have dreamed it?
“I used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes if
the ship were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at a
time, and in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah.
She was a fine tall woman, black and quick and fierce, with a
proud way of carrying her head, and a glint from her eye like a
spark from a flint. But when little Mary was there I had never a
thought of her, and that I swear as I hope for God’s mercy.
“It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with
me, or to coax me out for a walk with her, but I had never
thought anything of that. But one evening my eyes were opened. I
had come up from the ship and found my wife out, but Sarah at
home. ‘Where’s Mary?’ I asked. ‘Oh, she has gone to pay some
accounts.’ I was impatient and paced up and down the room. ‘Can’t
you be happy for five minutes without Mary, Jim?’ says she. ‘It’s
a bad compliment to me that you can’t be contented with my
society for so short a time.’ ‘That’s all right, my lass,’ said
I, putting out my hand towards her in a kindly way, but she had
it in both hers in an instant, and they burned as if they were in
a fever. I looked into her eyes and I read it all there. There
was no need for her to speak, nor for me either. I frowned and
drew my hand away. Then she stood by my side in silence for a
bit, and then put up her hand and patted me on the shoulder.
‘Steady old Jim!’ said she, and with a kind o’ mocking laugh, she
ran out of the room.
“Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her whole heart and
soul, and she is a woman who can hate, too. I was a fool to let
her go on biding with us—a besotted fool—but I never said a word
to Mary, for I knew it would grieve her. Things went on much as
before, but after a time I began to find that there was a bit of
a change in Mary herself. She had always been so trusting and so
innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting to
know where I had been and what I had been doing, and whom my
letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, and a thousand
such follies. Day by day she grew queerer and more irritable, and
we had ceaseless rows about nothing. I was fairly puzzled by it
all. Sarah avoided me now, but she and Mary were just
inseparable. I can see now how she was plotting and scheming and
poisoning my wife’s mind against me, but I was such a blind
beetle that I could not understand it at the time. Then I broke
my blue ribbon and began to drink again, but I think I should not
have done it if Mary had been the same as ever. She had some
reason to be disgusted with me now, and the gap between us began
to be wider and wider. And then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in,
and things became a thousand times blacker.
“It was to see Sarah that he came to my house first, but soon it
was to see us, for he was a man with winning ways, and he made
friends wherever he went. He was a dashing, swaggering chap,
smart and curled, who had seen half the world and could talk of
what he had seen. He was good company, I won’t deny it, and he
had wonderful polite ways with him for a sailor man, so that I
think there must have been a time when he knew more of the poop
than the forecastle. For a month he was in and out of my house,
and never once did it cross my mind that harm might come of his
soft, tricky ways. And then at last something made me suspect,
and from that day my peace was gone forever.
“It was only a little thing, too. I had come into the parlour
unexpected, and as I walked in at the door I saw a light of
welcome on my wife’s face. But as she saw who it was it faded
again, and she turned away with a look of disappointment. That
was enough for me. There was no one but Alec Fairbairn whose step
she could have mistaken for mine. If I could have seen him then I
should have killed him, for I have always been like a madman when
my temper gets loose. Mary saw the devil’s light in my eyes, and
she ran forward with her hands on my sleeve. ‘Don’t, Jim, don’t!’
says she. ‘Where’s Sarah?’ I asked. ‘In the kitchen,’ says she.
‘Sarah,’ says I as I went in, ‘this man Fairbairn is never to
darken my door again.’ ‘Why not?’ says she. ‘Because I order it.’
‘Oh!’ says she, ‘if my friends are not good enough for this
house, then I am not good enough for it either.’ ‘You can do what
you like,’ says I, ‘but if Fairbairn shows his face here again
I’ll send you one of his ears for a keepsake.’ She was frightened
by my face, I think, for she never answered a word, and the same
evening she left my house.
“Well, I don’t know now whether it was pure devilry on the part
of this woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me
against my wife by encouraging her to misbehave. Anyway, she took
a house just two streets off and let lodgings to sailors.
Fairbairn used to stay there, and Mary would go round to have tea
with her sister and him. How often she went I don’t know, but I
followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door Fairbairn got
away over the back garden wall, like the cowardly skunk that he
was. I swore to my wife that I would kill her if I found her in
his company again, and I led her back with me, sobbing and
trembling, and as white as a piece of paper. There was no trace
of love between us any longer. I could see that she hated me and
feared me, and when the thought of it drove me to drink, then she
despised me as well.
“Well, Sarah found that she could not make a living in Liverpool,
so she went back, as I understand, to live with her sister in
Croydon, and things jogged on much the same as ever at home. And
then came this last week and all the misery and ruin.
“It was in this way. We had gone on the _May Day_ for a round
voyage of seven days, but a hogshead got loose and started one of
our plates, so that we had to put back into port for twelve
hours. I left the ship and came home, thinking what a surprise it
would be for my wife, and hoping that maybe she would be glad to
see me so soon. The thought was in my head as I turned into my
own street, and at that moment a cab passed me, and there she
was, sitting by the side of Fairbairn, the two chatting and
laughing, with never a thought for me as I stood watching them
from the footpath.
“I tell you, and I give you my word for it, that from that moment
I was not my own master, and it is all like a dim dream when I
look back on it. I had been drinking hard of late, and the two
things together fairly turned my brain. There’s something
throbbing in my head now, like a docker’s hammer, but that
morning I seemed to have all Niagara whizzing and buzzing in my
ears.
“Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab. I had a heavy
oak stick in my hand, and I tell you I saw red from the first;
but as I ran I got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see
them without being seen. They pulled up soon at the railway
station. There was a good crowd round the booking-office, so I
got quite close to them without being seen. They took tickets for
New Brighton. So did I, but I got in three carriages behind them.
When we reached it they walked along the Parade, and I was never
more than a hundred yards from them. At last I saw them hire a
boat and start for a row, for it was a very hot day, and they
thought, no doubt, that it would be cooler on the water.
“It was just as if they had been given into my hands. There was a
bit of a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred
yards. I hired a boat for myself, and I pulled after them. I
could see the blur of their craft, but they were going nearly as
fast as I, and they must have been a long mile from the shore
before I caught them up. The haze was like a curtain all round
us, and there were we three in the middle of it. My God, shall I
ever forget their faces when they saw who was in the boat that
was closing in upon them? She screamed out. He swore like a
madman and jabbed at me with an oar, for he must have seen death
in my eyes. I got past it and got one in with my stick that
crushed his head like an egg. I would have spared her, perhaps,
for all my madness, but she threw her arms round him, crying out
to him, and calling him ‘Alec.’ I struck again, and she lay
stretched beside him. I was like a wild beast then that had
tasted blood. If Sarah had been there, by the Lord, she should
have joined them. I pulled out my knife, and—well, there! I’ve
said enough. It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how
Sarah would feel when she had such signs as these of what her
meddling had brought about. Then I tied the bodies into the boat,
stove a plank, and stood by until they had sunk. I knew very well
that the owner would think that they had lost their bearings in
the haze, and had drifted off out to sea. I cleaned myself up,
got back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a
suspicion of what had passed. That night I made up the packet for
Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent it from Belfast.
“There you have the whole truth of it. You can hang me, or do
what you like with me, but you cannot punish me as I have been
punished already. I cannot shut my eyes but I see those two faces
staring at me—staring at me as they stared when my boat broke
through the haze. I killed them quick, but they are killing me
slow; and if I have another night of it I shall be either mad or
dead before morning. You won’t put me alone into a cell, sir? For
pity’s sake don’t, and may you be treated in your day of agony as
you treat me now.’
“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” said Holmes solemnly as he
laid down the paper. “What object is served by this circle of
misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else
our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what
end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human
reason is as far from an answer as ever.”
III.
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The Adventure of the Speckled Band | Arthur Conan Doyle | 13 | ['Grimesby Roylott'] |
On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have
during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock
Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange,
but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his
art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself
with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even
the fantastic. Of all these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any
which presented more singular features than that which was associated
with the well-known Surrey family of the Roylotts of Stoke Moran. The
events in question occurred in the early days of my association with
Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in Baker Street. It is
possible that I might have placed them upon record before, but a
promise of secrecy was made at the time, from which I have only been
freed during the last month by the untimely death of the lady to whom
the pledge was given. It is perhaps as well that the facts should now
come to light, for I have reasons to know that there are widespread
rumours as to the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the
matter even more terrible than the truth.
It was early in April in the year ’83 that I woke one morning to find
Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my bed. He was
a late riser, as a rule, and as the clock on the mantelpiece showed me
that it was only a quarter-past seven, I blinked up at him in some
surprise, and perhaps just a little resentment, for I was myself
regular in my habits.
“Very sorry to knock you up, Watson,” said he, “but it’s the common lot
this morning. Mrs. Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon me,
and I on you.”
“What is it, then—a fire?”
“No; a client. It seems that a young lady has arrived in a considerable
state of excitement, who insists upon seeing me. She is waiting now in
the sitting-room. Now, when young ladies wander about the metropolis at
this hour of the morning, and knock sleepy people up out of their beds,
I presume that it is something very pressing which they have to
communicate. Should it prove to be an interesting case, you would, I am
sure, wish to follow it from the outset. I thought, at any rate, that I
should call you and give you the chance.”
“My dear fellow, I would not miss it for anything.”
I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional
investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as
intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis with which he
unravelled the problems which were submitted to him. I rapidly threw on
my clothes and was ready in a few minutes to accompany my friend down
to the sitting-room. A lady dressed in black and heavily veiled, who
had been sitting in the window, rose as we entered.
“Good-morning, madam,” said Holmes cheerily. “My name is Sherlock
Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before
whom you can speak as freely as before myself. Ha! I am glad to see
that Mrs. Hudson has had the good sense to light the fire. Pray draw up
to it, and I shall order you a cup of hot coffee, for I observe that
you are shivering.”
“It is not cold which makes me shiver,” said the woman in a low voice,
changing her seat as requested.
“What, then?”
“It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror.” She raised her veil as she
spoke, and we could see that she was indeed in a pitiable state of
agitation, her face all drawn and grey, with restless frightened eyes,
like those of some hunted animal. Her features and figure were those of
a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature grey, and her
expression was weary and haggard. Sherlock Holmes ran her over with one
of his quick, all-comprehensive glances.
“You must not fear,” said he soothingly, bending forward and patting
her forearm. “We shall soon set matters right, I have no doubt. You
have come in by train this morning, I see.”
“You know me, then?”
“No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of
your left glove. You must have started early, and yet you had a good
drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached the
station.”
The lady gave a violent start and stared in bewilderment at my
companion.
“There is no mystery, my dear madam,” said he, smiling. “The left arm
of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The
marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which
throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left-hand
side of the driver.”
“Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct,” said she. “I
started from home before six, reached Leatherhead at twenty past, and
came in by the first train to Waterloo. Sir, I can stand this strain no
longer; I shall go mad if it continues. I have no one to turn to—none,
save only one, who cares for me, and he, poor fellow, can be of little
aid. I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes; I have heard of you from Mrs.
Farintosh, whom you helped in the hour of her sore need. It was from
her that I had your address. Oh, sir, do you not think that you could
help me, too, and at least throw a little light through the dense
darkness which surrounds me? At present it is out of my power to reward
you for your services, but in a month or six weeks I shall be married,
with the control of my own income, and then at least you shall not find
me ungrateful.”
Holmes turned to his desk and, unlocking it, drew out a small
case-book, which he consulted.
“Farintosh,” said he. “Ah yes, I recall the case; it was concerned with
an opal tiara. I think it was before your time, Watson. I can only say,
madam, that I shall be happy to devote the same care to your case as I
did to that of your friend. As to reward, my profession is its own
reward; but you are at liberty to defray whatever expenses I may be put
to, at the time which suits you best. And now I beg that you will lay
before us everything that may help us in forming an opinion upon the
matter.”
“Alas!” replied our visitor, “the very horror of my situation lies in
the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions depend so
entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to another, that
even he to whom of all others I have a right to look for help and
advice looks upon all that I tell him about it as the fancies of a
nervous woman. He does not say so, but I can read it from his soothing
answers and averted eyes. But I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can
see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart. You may
advise me how to walk amid the dangers which encompass me.”
“I am all attention, madam.”
“My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my stepfather, who is
the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in England, the
Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of Surrey.”
Holmes nodded his head. “The name is familiar to me,” said he.
“The family was at one time among the richest in England, and the
estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, and
Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, four successive
heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, and the family ruin
was eventually completed by a gambler in the days of the Regency.
Nothing was left save a few acres of ground, and the
two-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under a heavy
mortgage. The last squire dragged out his existence there, living the
horrible life of an aristocratic pauper; but his only son, my
stepfather, seeing that he must adapt himself to the new conditions,
obtained an advance from a relative, which enabled him to take a
medical degree and went out to Calcutta, where, by his professional
skill and his force of character, he established a large practice. In a
fit of anger, however, caused by some robberies which had been
perpetrated in the house, he beat his native butler to death and
narrowly escaped a capital sentence. As it was, he suffered a long term
of imprisonment and afterwards returned to England a morose and
disappointed man.
“When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner, the
young widow of Major-General Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery. My sister
Julia and I were twins, and we were only two years old at the time of
my mother’s re-marriage. She had a considerable sum of money—not less
than £ 1000 a year—and this she bequeathed to Dr. Roylott entirely
while we resided with him, with a provision that a certain annual sum
should be allowed to each of us in the event of our marriage. Shortly
after our return to England my mother died—she was killed eight years
ago in a railway accident near Crewe. Dr. Roylott then abandoned his
attempts to establish himself in practice in London and took us to live
with him in the old ancestral house at Stoke Moran. The money which my
mother had left was enough for all our wants, and there seemed to be no
obstacle to our happiness.
“But a terrible change came over our stepfather about this time.
Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with our neighbours,
who had at first been overjoyed to see a Roylott of Stoke Moran back in
the old family seat, he shut himself up in his house and seldom came
out save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might cross his
path. Violence of temper approaching to mania has been hereditary in
the men of the family, and in my stepfather’s case it had, I believe,
been intensified by his long residence in the tropics. A series of
disgraceful brawls took place, two of which ended in the police-court,
until at last he became the terror of the village, and the folks would
fly at his approach, for he is a man of immense strength, and
absolutely uncontrollable in his anger.
“Last week he hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet into a stream,
and it was only by paying over all the money which I could gather
together that I was able to avert another public exposure. He had no
friends at all save the wandering gipsies, and he would give these
vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few acres of bramble-covered land
which represent the family estate, and would accept in return the
hospitality of their tents, wandering away with them sometimes for
weeks on end. He has a passion also for Indian animals, which are sent
over to him by a correspondent, and he has at this moment a cheetah and
a baboon, which wander freely over his grounds and are feared by the
villagers almost as much as their master.
“You can imagine from what I say that my poor sister Julia and I had no
great pleasure in our lives. No servant would stay with us, and for a
long time we did all the work of the house. She was but thirty at the
time of her death, and yet her hair had already begun to whiten, even
as mine has.”
“Your sister is dead, then?”
“She died just two years ago, and it is of her death that I wish to
speak to you. You can understand that, living the life which I have
described, we were little likely to see anyone of our own age and
position. We had, however, an aunt, my mother’s maiden sister, Miss
Honoria Westphail, who lives near Harrow, and we were occasionally
allowed to pay short visits at this lady’s house. Julia went there at
Christmas two years ago, and met there a half-pay major of marines, to
whom she became engaged. My stepfather learned of the engagement when
my sister returned and offered no objection to the marriage; but within
a fortnight of the day which had been fixed for the wedding, the
terrible event occurred which has deprived me of my only companion.”
Sherlock Holmes had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed
and his head sunk in a cushion, but he half opened his lids now and
glanced across at his visitor.
“Pray be precise as to details,” said he.
“It is easy for me to be so, for every event of that dreadful time is
seared into my memory. The manor-house is, as I have already said, very
old, and only one wing is now inhabited. The bedrooms in this wing are
on the ground floor, the sitting-rooms being in the central block of
the buildings. Of these bedrooms the first is Dr. Roylott’s, the second
my sister’s, and the third my own. There is no communication between
them, but they all open out into the same corridor. Do I make myself
plain?”
“Perfectly so.”
“The windows of the three rooms open out upon the lawn. That fatal
night Dr. Roylott had gone to his room early, though we knew that he
had not retired to rest, for my sister was troubled by the smell of the
strong Indian cigars which it was his custom to smoke. She left her
room, therefore, and came into mine, where she sat for some time,
chatting about her approaching wedding. At eleven o’clock she rose to
leave me, but she paused at the door and looked back.
“‘Tell me, Helen,’ said she, ‘have you ever heard anyone whistle in the
dead of the night?’
“‘Never,’ said I.
“‘I suppose that you could not possibly whistle, yourself, in your
sleep?’
“‘Certainly not. But why?’
“‘Because during the last few nights I have always, about three in the
morning, heard a low, clear whistle. I am a light sleeper, and it has
awakened me. I cannot tell where it came from—perhaps from the next
room, perhaps from the lawn. I thought that I would just ask you
whether you had heard it.’
“‘No, I have not. It must be those wretched gipsies in the plantation.’
“‘Very likely. And yet if it were on the lawn, I wonder that you did
not hear it also.’
“‘Ah, but I sleep more heavily than you.’
“‘Well, it is of no great consequence, at any rate.’ She smiled back at
me, closed my door, and a few moments later I heard her key turn in the
lock.”
“Indeed,” said Holmes. “Was it your custom always to lock yourselves in
at night?”
“Always.”
“And why?”
“I think that I mentioned to you that the Doctor kept a cheetah and a
baboon. We had no feeling of security unless our doors were locked.”
“Quite so. Pray proceed with your statement.”
“I could not sleep that night. A vague feeling of impending misfortune
impressed me. My sister and I, you will recollect, were twins, and you
know how subtle are the links which bind two souls which are so closely
allied. It was a wild night. The wind was howling outside, and the rain
was beating and splashing against the windows. Suddenly, amid all the
hubbub of the gale, there burst forth the wild scream of a terrified
woman. I knew that it was my sister’s voice. I sprang from my bed,
wrapped a shawl round me, and rushed into the corridor. As I opened my
door I seemed to hear a low whistle, such as my sister described, and a
few moments later a clanging sound, as if a mass of metal had fallen.
As I ran down the passage, my sister’s door was unlocked, and revolved
slowly upon its hinges. I stared at it horror-stricken, not knowing
what was about to issue from it. By the light of the corridor-lamp I
saw my sister appear at the opening, her face blanched with terror, her
hands groping for help, her whole figure swaying to and fro like that
of a drunkard. I ran to her and threw my arms round her, but at that
moment her knees seemed to give way and she fell to the ground. She
writhed as one who is in terrible pain, and her limbs were dreadfully
convulsed. At first I thought that she had not recognised me, but as I
bent over her she suddenly shrieked out in a voice which I shall never
forget, ‘Oh, my God! Helen! It was the band! The speckled band!’ There
was something else which she would fain have said, and she stabbed with
her finger into the air in the direction of the Doctor’s room, but a
fresh convulsion seized her and choked her words. I rushed out, calling
loudly for my stepfather, and I met him hastening from his room in his
dressing-gown. When he reached my sister’s side she was unconscious,
and though he poured brandy down her throat and sent for medical aid
from the village, all efforts were in vain, for she slowly sank and
died without having recovered her consciousness. Such was the dreadful
end of my beloved sister.”
“One moment,” said Holmes, “are you sure about this whistle and
metallic sound? Could you swear to it?”
“That was what the county coroner asked me at the inquiry. It is my
strong impression that I heard it, and yet, among the crash of the gale
and the creaking of an old house, I may possibly have been deceived.”
“Was your sister dressed?”
“No, she was in her night-dress. In her right hand was found the
charred stump of a match, and in her left a match-box.”
“Showing that she had struck a light and looked about her when the
alarm took place. That is important. And what conclusions did the
coroner come to?”
“He investigated the case with great care, for Dr. Roylott’s conduct
had long been notorious in the county, but he was unable to find any
satisfactory cause of death. My evidence showed that the door had been
fastened upon the inner side, and the windows were blocked by
old-fashioned shutters with broad iron bars, which were secured every
night. The walls were carefully sounded, and were shown to be quite
solid all round, and the flooring was also thoroughly examined, with
the same result. The chimney is wide, but is barred up by four large
staples. It is certain, therefore, that my sister was quite alone when
she met her end. Besides, there were no marks of any violence upon
her.”
“How about poison?”
“The doctors examined her for it, but without success.”
“What do you think that this unfortunate lady died of, then?”
“It is my belief that she died of pure fear and nervous shock, though
what it was that frightened her I cannot imagine.”
“Were there gipsies in the plantation at the time?”
“Yes, there are nearly always some there.”
“Ah, and what did you gather from this allusion to a band—a speckled
band?”
“Sometimes I have thought that it was merely the wild talk of delirium,
sometimes that it may have referred to some band of people, perhaps to
these very gipsies in the plantation. I do not know whether the spotted
handkerchiefs which so many of them wear over their heads might have
suggested the strange adjective which she used.”
Holmes shook his head like a man who is far from being satisfied.
“These are very deep waters,” said he; “pray go on with your
narrative.”
“Two years have passed since then, and my life has been until lately
lonelier than ever. A month ago, however, a dear friend, whom I have
known for many years, has done me the honour to ask my hand in
marriage. His name is Armitage—Percy Armitage—the second son of Mr.
Armitage, of Crane Water, near Reading. My stepfather has offered no
opposition to the match, and we are to be married in the course of the
spring. Two days ago some repairs were started in the west wing of the
building, and my bedroom wall has been pierced, so that I have had to
move into the chamber in which my sister died, and to sleep in the very
bed in which she slept. Imagine, then, my thrill of terror when last
night, as I lay awake, thinking over her terrible fate, I suddenly
heard in the silence of the night the low whistle which had been the
herald of her own death. I sprang up and lit the lamp, but nothing was
to be seen in the room. I was too shaken to go to bed again, however,
so I dressed, and as soon as it was daylight I slipped down, got a
dog-cart at the Crown Inn, which is opposite, and drove to Leatherhead,
from whence I have come on this morning with the one object of seeing
you and asking your advice.”
“You have done wisely,” said my friend. “But have you told me all?”
“Yes, all.”
“Miss Roylott, you have not. You are screening your stepfather.”
“Why, what do you mean?”
For answer Holmes pushed back the frill of black lace which fringed the
hand that lay upon our visitor’s knee. Five little livid spots, the
marks of four fingers and a thumb, were printed upon the white wrist.
“You have been cruelly used,” said Holmes.
The lady coloured deeply and covered over her injured wrist. “He is a
hard man,” she said, “and perhaps he hardly knows his own strength.”
There was a long silence, during which Holmes leaned his chin upon his
hands and stared into the crackling fire.
“This is a very deep business,” he said at last. “There are a thousand
details which I should desire to know before I decide upon our course
of action. Yet we have not a moment to lose. If we were to come to
Stoke Moran to-day, would it be possible for us to see over these rooms
without the knowledge of your stepfather?”
“As it happens, he spoke of coming into town to-day upon some most
important business. It is probable that he will be away all day, and
that there would be nothing to disturb you. We have a housekeeper now,
but she is old and foolish, and I could easily get her out of the way.”
“Excellent. You are not averse to this trip, Watson?”
“By no means.”
“Then we shall both come. What are you going to do yourself?”
“I have one or two things which I would wish to do now that I am in
town. But I shall return by the twelve o’clock train, so as to be there
in time for your coming.”
“And you may expect us early in the afternoon. I have myself some small
business matters to attend to. Will you not wait and breakfast?”
“No, I must go. My heart is lightened already since I have confided my
trouble to you. I shall look forward to seeing you again this
afternoon.” She dropped her thick black veil over her face and glided
from the room.
“And what do you think of it all, Watson?” asked Sherlock Holmes,
leaning back in his chair.
“It seems to me to be a most dark and sinister business.”
“Dark enough and sinister enough.”
“Yet if the lady is correct in saying that the flooring and walls are
sound, and that the door, window, and chimney are impassable, then her
sister must have been undoubtedly alone when she met her mysterious
end.”
“What becomes, then, of these nocturnal whistles, and what of the very
peculiar words of the dying woman?”
“I cannot think.”
“When you combine the ideas of whistles at night, the presence of a
band of gipsies who are on intimate terms with this old doctor, the
fact that we have every reason to believe that the doctor has an
interest in preventing his stepdaughter’s marriage, the dying allusion
to a band, and, finally, the fact that Miss Helen Stoner heard a
metallic clang, which might have been caused by one of those metal bars
that secured the shutters falling back into its place, I think that
there is good ground to think that the mystery may be cleared along
those lines.”
“But what, then, did the gipsies do?”
“I cannot imagine.”
“I see many objections to any such theory.”
“And so do I. It is precisely for that reason that we are going to
Stoke Moran this day. I want to see whether the objections are fatal,
or if they may be explained away. But what in the name of the devil!”
The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the fact that our
door had been suddenly dashed open, and that a huge man had framed
himself in the aperture. His costume was a peculiar mixture of the
professional and of the agricultural, having a black top-hat, a long
frock-coat, and a pair of high gaiters, with a hunting-crop swinging in
his hand. So tall was he that his hat actually brushed the cross bar of
the doorway, and his breadth seemed to span it across from side to
side. A large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow with
the sun, and marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the
other of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and his high, thin,
fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird
of prey.
“Which of you is Holmes?” asked this apparition.
“My name, sir; but you have the advantage of me,” said my companion
quietly.
“I am Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of Stoke Moran.”
“Indeed, Doctor,” said Holmes blandly. “Pray take a seat.”
“I will do nothing of the kind. My stepdaughter has been here. I have
traced her. What has she been saying to you?”
“It is a little cold for the time of the year,” said Holmes.
“What has she been saying to you?” screamed the old man furiously.
“But I have heard that the crocuses promise well,” continued my
companion imperturbably.
“Ha! You put me off, do you?” said our new visitor, taking a step
forward and shaking his hunting-crop. “I know you, you scoundrel! I
have heard of you before. You are Holmes, the meddler.”
My friend smiled.
“Holmes, the busybody!”
His smile broadened.
“Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office!”
Holmes chuckled heartily. “Your conversation is most entertaining,”
said he. “When you go out close the door, for there is a decided
draught.”
“I will go when I have had my say. Don’t you dare to meddle with my
affairs. I know that Miss Stoner has been here. I traced her! I am a
dangerous man to fall foul of! See here.” He stepped swiftly forward,
seized the poker, and bent it into a curve with his huge brown hands.
“See that you keep yourself out of my grip,” he snarled, and hurling
the twisted poker into the fireplace he strode out of the room.
“He seems a very amiable person,” said Holmes, laughing. “I am not
quite so bulky, but if he had remained I might have shown him that my
grip was not much more feeble than his own.” As he spoke he picked up
the steel poker and, with a sudden effort, straightened it out again.
“Fancy his having the insolence to confound me with the official
detective force! This incident gives zest to our investigation,
however, and I only trust that our little friend will not suffer from
her imprudence in allowing this brute to trace her. And now, Watson, we
shall order breakfast, and afterwards I shall walk down to Doctors’
Commons, where I hope to get some data which may help us in this
matter.”
It was nearly one o’clock when Sherlock Holmes returned from his
excursion. He held in his hand a sheet of blue paper, scrawled over
with notes and figures.
“I have seen the will of the deceased wife,” said he. “To determine its
exact meaning I have been obliged to work out the present prices of the
investments with which it is concerned. The total income, which at the
time of the wife’s death was little short of £ 1,100, is now, through
the fall in agricultural prices, not more than £ 750. Each daughter can
claim an income of £ 250, in case of marriage. It is evident,
therefore, that if both girls had married, this beauty would have had a
mere pittance, while even one of them would cripple him to a very
serious extent. My morning’s work has not been wasted, since it has
proved that he has the very strongest motives for standing in the way
of anything of the sort. And now, Watson, this is too serious for
dawdling, especially as the old man is aware that we are interesting
ourselves in his affairs; so if you are ready, we shall call a cab and
drive to Waterloo. I should be very much obliged if you would slip your
revolver into your pocket. An Eley’s No. 2 is an excellent argument
with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a
tooth-brush are, I think, all that we need.”
At Waterloo we were fortunate in catching a train for Leatherhead,
where we hired a trap at the station inn and drove for four or five
miles through the lovely Surrey lanes. It was a perfect day, with a
bright sun and a few fleecy clouds in the heavens. The trees and
wayside hedges were just throwing out their first green shoots, and the
air was full of the pleasant smell of the moist earth. To me at least
there was a strange contrast between the sweet promise of the spring
and this sinister quest upon which we were engaged. My companion sat in
the front of the trap, his arms folded, his hat pulled down over his
eyes, and his chin sunk upon his breast, buried in the deepest thought.
Suddenly, however, he started, tapped me on the shoulder, and pointed
over the meadows.
“Look there!” said he.
A heavily timbered park stretched up in a gentle slope, thickening into
a grove at the highest point. From amid the branches there jutted out
the grey gables and high roof-tree of a very old mansion.
“Stoke Moran?” said he.
“Yes, sir, that be the house of Dr. Grimesby Roylott,” remarked the
driver.
“There is some building going on there,” said Holmes; “that is where we
are going.”
“There’s the village,” said the driver, pointing to a cluster of roofs
some distance to the left; “but if you want to get to the house, you’ll
find it shorter to get over this stile, and so by the footpath over the
fields. There it is, where the lady is walking.”
“And the lady, I fancy, is Miss Stoner,” observed Holmes, shading his
eyes. “Yes, I think we had better do as you suggest.”
We got off, paid our fare, and the trap rattled back on its way to
Leatherhead.
“I thought it as well,” said Holmes as we climbed the stile, “that this
fellow should think we had come here as architects, or on some definite
business. It may stop his gossip. Good-afternoon, Miss Stoner. You see
that we have been as good as our word.”
Our client of the morning had hurried forward to meet us with a face
which spoke her joy. “I have been waiting so eagerly for you,” she
cried, shaking hands with us warmly. “All has turned out splendidly.
Dr. Roylott has gone to town, and it is unlikely that he will be back
before evening.”
“We have had the pleasure of making the Doctor’s acquaintance,” said
Holmes, and in a few words he sketched out what had occurred. Miss
Stoner turned white to the lips as she listened.
“Good heavens!” she cried, “he has followed me, then.”
“So it appears.”
“He is so cunning that I never know when I am safe from him. What will
he say when he returns?”
“He must guard himself, for he may find that there is someone more
cunning than himself upon his track. You must lock yourself up from him
to-night. If he is violent, we shall take you away to your aunt’s at
Harrow. Now, we must make the best use of our time, so kindly take us
at once to the rooms which we are to examine.”
The building was of grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high central
portion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on
each side. In one of these wings the windows were broken and blocked
with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a picture of
ruin. The central portion was in little better repair, but the
right-hand block was comparatively modern, and the blinds in the
windows, with the blue smoke curling up from the chimneys, showed that
this was where the family resided. Some scaffolding had been erected
against the end wall, and the stone-work had been broken into, but
there were no signs of any workmen at the moment of our visit. Holmes
walked slowly up and down the ill-trimmed lawn and examined with deep
attention the outsides of the windows.
“This, I take it, belongs to the room in which you used to sleep, the
centre one to your sister’s, and the one next to the main building to
Dr. Roylott’s chamber?”
“Exactly so. But I am now sleeping in the middle one.”
“Pending the alterations, as I understand. By the way, there does not
seem to be any very pressing need for repairs at that end wall.”
“There were none. I believe that it was an excuse to move me from my
room.”
“Ah! that is suggestive. Now, on the other side of this narrow wing
runs the corridor from which these three rooms open. There are windows
in it, of course?”
“Yes, but very small ones. Too narrow for anyone to pass through.”
“As you both locked your doors at night, your rooms were unapproachable
from that side. Now, would you have the kindness to go into your room
and bar your shutters?”
Miss Stoner did so, and Holmes, after a careful examination through the
open window, endeavoured in every way to force the shutter open, but
without success. There was no slit through which a knife could be
passed to raise the bar. Then with his lens he tested the hinges, but
they were of solid iron, built firmly into the massive masonry. “Hum!”
said he, scratching his chin in some perplexity, “my theory certainly
presents some difficulties. No one could pass these shutters if they
were bolted. Well, we shall see if the inside throws any light upon the
matter.”
A small side door led into the whitewashed corridor from which the
three bedrooms opened. Holmes refused to examine the third chamber, so
we passed at once to the second, that in which Miss Stoner was now
sleeping, and in which her sister had met with her fate. It was a
homely little room, with a low ceiling and a gaping fireplace, after
the fashion of old country-houses. A brown chest of drawers stood in
one corner, a narrow white-counterpaned bed in another, and a
dressing-table on the left-hand side of the window. These articles,
with two small wicker-work chairs, made up all the furniture in the
room save for a square of Wilton carpet in the centre. The boards round
and the panelling of the walls were of brown, worm-eaten oak, so old
and discoloured that it may have dated from the original building of
the house. Holmes drew one of the chairs into a corner and sat silent,
while his eyes travelled round and round and up and down, taking in
every detail of the apartment.
“Where does that bell communicate with?” he asked at last pointing to a
thick bell-rope which hung down beside the bed, the tassel actually
lying upon the pillow.
“It goes to the housekeeper’s room.”
“It looks newer than the other things?”
“Yes, it was only put there a couple of years ago.”
“Your sister asked for it, I suppose?”
“No, I never heard of her using it. We used always to get what we
wanted for ourselves.”
“Indeed, it seemed unnecessary to put so nice a bell-pull there. You
will excuse me for a few minutes while I satisfy myself as to this
floor.” He threw himself down upon his face with his lens in his hand
and crawled swiftly backward and forward, examining minutely the cracks
between the boards. Then he did the same with the wood-work with which
the chamber was panelled. Finally he walked over to the bed and spent
some time in staring at it and in running his eye up and down the wall.
Finally he took the bell-rope in his hand and gave it a brisk tug.
“Why, it’s a dummy,” said he.
“Won’t it ring?”
“No, it is not even attached to a wire. This is very interesting. You
can see now that it is fastened to a hook just above where the little
opening for the ventilator is.”
“How very absurd! I never noticed that before.”
“Very strange!” muttered Holmes, pulling at the rope. “There are one or
two very singular points about this room. For example, what a fool a
builder must be to open a ventilator into another room, when, with the
same trouble, he might have communicated with the outside air!”
“That is also quite modern,” said the lady.
“Done about the same time as the bell-rope?” remarked Holmes.
“Yes, there were several little changes carried out about that time.”
“They seem to have been of a most interesting character—dummy
bell-ropes, and ventilators which do not ventilate. With your
permission, Miss Stoner, we shall now carry our researches into the
inner apartment.”
Dr. Grimesby Roylott’s chamber was larger than that of his
step-daughter, but was as plainly furnished. A camp-bed, a small wooden
shelf full of books, mostly of a technical character, an armchair
beside the bed, a plain wooden chair against the wall, a round table,
and a large iron safe were the principal things which met the eye.
Holmes walked slowly round and examined each and all of them with the
keenest interest.
“What’s in here?” he asked, tapping the safe.
“My stepfather’s business papers.”
“Oh! you have seen inside, then?”
“Only once, some years ago. I remember that it was full of papers.”
“There isn’t a cat in it, for example?”
“No. What a strange idea!”
“Well, look at this!” He took up a small saucer of milk which stood on
the top of it.
“No; we don’t keep a cat. But there is a cheetah and a baboon.”
“Ah, yes, of course! Well, a cheetah is just a big cat, and yet a
saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, I daresay.
There is one point which I should wish to determine.” He squatted down
in front of the wooden chair and examined the seat of it with the
greatest attention.
“Thank you. That is quite settled,” said he, rising and putting his
lens in his pocket. “Hullo! Here is something interesting!”
The object which had caught his eye was a small dog lash hung on one
corner of the bed. The lash, however, was curled upon itself and tied
so as to make a loop of whipcord.
“What do you make of that, Watson?”
“It’s a common enough lash. But I don’t know why it should be tied.”
“That is not quite so common, is it? Ah, me! it’s a wicked world, and
when a clever man turns his brains to crime it is the worst of all. I
think that I have seen enough now, Miss Stoner, and with your
permission we shall walk out upon the lawn.”
I had never seen my friend’s face so grim or his brow so dark as it was
when we turned from the scene of this investigation. We had walked
several times up and down the lawn, neither Miss Stoner nor myself
liking to break in upon his thoughts before he roused himself from his
reverie.
“It is very essential, Miss Stoner,” said he, “that you should
absolutely follow my advice in every respect.”
“I shall most certainly do so.”
“The matter is too serious for any hesitation. Your life may depend
upon your compliance.”
“I assure you that I am in your hands.”
“In the first place, both my friend and I must spend the night in your
room.”
Both Miss Stoner and I gazed at him in astonishment.
“Yes, it must be so. Let me explain. I believe that that is the village
inn over there?”
“Yes, that is the Crown.”
“Very good. Your windows would be visible from there?”
“Certainly.”
“You must confine yourself to your room, on pretence of a headache,
when your stepfather comes back. Then when you hear him retire for the
night, you must open the shutters of your window, undo the hasp, put
your lamp there as a signal to us, and then withdraw quietly with
everything which you are likely to want into the room which you used to
occupy. I have no doubt that, in spite of the repairs, you could manage
there for one night.”
“Oh, yes, easily.”
“The rest you will leave in our hands.”
“But what will you do?”
“We shall spend the night in your room, and we shall investigate the
cause of this noise which has disturbed you.”
“I believe, Mr. Holmes, that you have already made up your mind,” said
Miss Stoner, laying her hand upon my companion’s sleeve.
“Perhaps I have.”
“Then, for pity’s sake, tell me what was the cause of my sister’s
death.”
“I should prefer to have clearer proofs before I speak.”
“You can at least tell me whether my own thought is correct, and if she
died from some sudden fright.”
“No, I do not think so. I think that there was probably some more
tangible cause. And now, Miss Stoner, we must leave you for if Dr.
Roylott returned and saw us our journey would be in vain. Good-bye, and
be brave, for if you will do what I have told you, you may rest assured
that we shall soon drive away the dangers that threaten you.”
Sherlock Holmes and I had no difficulty in engaging a bedroom and
sitting-room at the Crown Inn. They were on the upper floor, and from
our window we could command a view of the avenue gate, and of the
inhabited wing of Stoke Moran Manor House. At dusk we saw Dr. Grimesby
Roylott drive past, his huge form looming up beside the little figure
of the lad who drove him. The boy had some slight difficulty in undoing
the heavy iron gates, and we heard the hoarse roar of the Doctor’s
voice and saw the fury with which he shook his clinched fists at him.
The trap drove on, and a few minutes later we saw a sudden light spring
up among the trees as the lamp was lit in one of the sitting-rooms.
“Do you know, Watson,” said Holmes as we sat together in the gathering
darkness, “I have really some scruples as to taking you to-night. There
is a distinct element of danger.”
“Can I be of assistance?”
“Your presence might be invaluable.”
“Then I shall certainly come.”
“It is very kind of you.”
“You speak of danger. You have evidently seen more in these rooms than
was visible to me.”
“No, but I fancy that I may have deduced a little more. I imagine that
you saw all that I did.”
“I saw nothing remarkable save the bell-rope, and what purpose that
could answer I confess is more than I can imagine.”
“You saw the ventilator, too?”
“Yes, but I do not think that it is such a very unusual thing to have a
small opening between two rooms. It was so small that a rat could
hardly pass through.”
“I knew that we should find a ventilator before ever we came to Stoke
Moran.”
“My dear Holmes!”
“Oh, yes, I did. You remember in her statement she said that her sister
could smell Dr. Roylott’s cigar. Now, of course that suggested at once
that there must be a communication between the two rooms. It could only
be a small one, or it would have been remarked upon at the coroner’s
inquiry. I deduced a ventilator.”
“But what harm can there be in that?”
“Well, there is at least a curious coincidence of dates. A ventilator
is made, a cord is hung, and a lady who sleeps in the bed dies. Does
not that strike you?”
“I cannot as yet see any connection.”
“Did you observe anything very peculiar about that bed?”
“No.”
“It was clamped to the floor. Did you ever see a bed fastened like that
before?”
“I cannot say that I have.”
“The lady could not move her bed. It must always be in the same
relative position to the ventilator and to the rope—or so we may call
it, since it was clearly never meant for a bell-pull.”
“Holmes,” I cried, “I seem to see dimly what you are hinting at. We are
only just in time to prevent some subtle and horrible crime.”
“Subtle enough and horrible enough. When a doctor does go wrong he is
the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge. Palmer and
Pritchard were among the heads of their profession. This man strikes
even deeper, but I think, Watson, that we shall be able to strike
deeper still. But we shall have horrors enough before the night is
over; for goodness’ sake let us have a quiet pipe and turn our minds
for a few hours to something more cheerful.”
About nine o’clock the light among the trees was extinguished, and all
was dark in the direction of the Manor House. Two hours passed slowly
away, and then, suddenly, just at the stroke of eleven, a single bright
light shone out right in front of us.
“That is our signal,” said Holmes, springing to his feet; “it comes
from the middle window.”
As we passed out he exchanged a few words with the landlord, explaining
that we were going on a late visit to an acquaintance, and that it was
possible that we might spend the night there. A moment later we were
out on the dark road, a chill wind blowing in our faces, and one yellow
light twinkling in front of us through the gloom to guide us on our
sombre errand.
There was little difficulty in entering the grounds, for unrepaired
breaches gaped in the old park wall. Making our way among the trees, we
reached the lawn, crossed it, and were about to enter through the
window when out from a clump of laurel bushes there darted what seemed
to be a hideous and distorted child, who threw itself upon the grass
with writhing limbs and then ran swiftly across the lawn into the
darkness.
“My God!” I whispered; “did you see it?”
Holmes was for the moment as startled as I. His hand closed like a vice
upon my wrist in his agitation. Then he broke into a low laugh and put
his lips to my ear.
“It is a nice household,” he murmured. “That is the baboon.”
I had forgotten the strange pets which the Doctor affected. There was a
cheetah, too; perhaps we might find it upon our shoulders at any
moment. I confess that I felt easier in my mind when, after following
Holmes’ example and slipping off my shoes, I found myself inside the
bedroom. My companion noiselessly closed the shutters, moved the lamp
onto the table, and cast his eyes round the room. All was as we had
seen it in the daytime. Then creeping up to me and making a trumpet of
his hand, he whispered into my ear again so gently that it was all that
I could do to distinguish the words:
“The least sound would be fatal to our plans.”
I nodded to show that I had heard.
“We must sit without light. He would see it through the ventilator.”
I nodded again.
“Do not go asleep; your very life may depend upon it. Have your pistol
ready in case we should need it. I will sit on the side of the bed, and
you in that chair.”
I took out my revolver and laid it on the corner of the table.
Holmes had brought up a long thin cane, and this he placed upon the bed
beside him. By it he laid the box of matches and the stump of a candle.
Then he turned down the lamp, and we were left in darkness.
How shall I ever forget that dreadful vigil? I could not hear a sound,
not even the drawing of a breath, and yet I knew that my companion sat
open-eyed, within a few feet of me, in the same state of nervous
tension in which I was myself. The shutters cut off the least ray of
light, and we waited in absolute darkness.
From outside came the occasional cry of a night-bird, and once at our
very window a long drawn catlike whine, which told us that the cheetah
was indeed at liberty. Far away we could hear the deep tones of the
parish clock, which boomed out every quarter of an hour. How long they
seemed, those quarters! Twelve struck, and one and two and three, and
still we sat waiting silently for whatever might befall.
Suddenly there was the momentary gleam of a light up in the direction
of the ventilator, which vanished immediately, but was succeeded by a
strong smell of burning oil and heated metal. Someone in the next room
had lit a dark-lantern. I heard a gentle sound of movement, and then
all was silent once more, though the smell grew stronger. For half an
hour I sat with straining ears. Then suddenly another sound became
audible—a very gentle, soothing sound, like that of a small jet of
steam escaping continually from a kettle. The instant that we heard it,
Holmes sprang from the bed, struck a match, and lashed furiously with
his cane at the bell-pull.
“You see it, Watson?” he yelled. “You see it?”
But I saw nothing. At the moment when Holmes struck the light I heard a
low, clear whistle, but the sudden glare flashing into my weary eyes
made it impossible for me to tell what it was at which my friend lashed
so savagely. I could, however, see that his face was deadly pale and
filled with horror and loathing. He had ceased to strike and was gazing
up at the ventilator when suddenly there broke from the silence of the
night the most horrible cry to which I have ever listened. It swelled
up louder and louder, a hoarse yell of pain and fear and anger all
mingled in the one dreadful shriek. They say that away down in the
village, and even in the distant parsonage, that cry raised the
sleepers from their beds. It struck cold to our hearts, and I stood
gazing at Holmes, and he at me, until the last echoes of it had died
away into the silence from which it rose.
“What can it mean?” I gasped.
“It means that it is all over,” Holmes answered. “And perhaps, after
all, it is for the best. Take your pistol, and we will enter Dr.
Roylott’s room.”
With a grave face he lit the lamp and led the way down the corridor.
Twice he struck at the chamber door without any reply from within. Then
he turned the handle and entered, I at his heels, with the cocked
pistol in my hand.
It was a singular sight which met our eyes. On the table stood a
dark-lantern with the shutter half open, throwing a brilliant beam of
light upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar. Beside this
table, on the wooden chair, sat Dr. Grimesby Roylott clad in a long
grey dressing-gown, his bare ankles protruding beneath, and his feet
thrust into red heelless Turkish slippers. Across his lap lay the short
stock with the long lash which we had noticed during the day. His chin
was cocked upward and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful, rigid stare at
the corner of the ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow
band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round
his head. As we entered he made neither sound nor motion.
“The band! the speckled band!” whispered Holmes.
I took a step forward. In an instant his strange headgear began to
move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat
diamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent.
“It is a swamp adder!” cried Holmes; “the deadliest snake in India. He
has died within ten seconds of being bitten. Violence does, in truth,
recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he
digs for another. Let us thrust this creature back into its den, and we
can then remove Miss Stoner to some place of shelter and let the county
police know what has happened.”
As he spoke he drew the dog-whip swiftly from the dead man’s lap, and
throwing the noose round the reptile’s neck he drew it from its horrid
perch and, carrying it at arm’s length, threw it into the iron safe,
which he closed upon it.
Such are the true facts of the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of Stoke
Moran. It is not necessary that I should prolong a narrative which has
already run to too great a length by telling how we broke the sad news
to the terrified girl, how we conveyed her by the morning train to the
care of her good aunt at Harrow, of how the slow process of official
inquiry came to the conclusion that the doctor met his fate while
indiscreetly playing with a dangerous pet. The little which I had yet
to learn of the case was told me by Sherlock Holmes as we travelled
back next day.
“I had,” said he, “come to an entirely erroneous conclusion which
shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from
insufficient data. The presence of the gipsies, and the use of the word
‘band,’ which was used by the poor girl, no doubt, to explain the
appearance which she had caught a hurried glimpse of by the light of
her match, were sufficient to put me upon an entirely wrong scent. I
can only claim the merit that I instantly reconsidered my position
when, however, it became clear to me that whatever danger threatened an
occupant of the room could not come either from the window or the door.
My attention was speedily drawn, as I have already remarked to you, to
this ventilator, and to the bell-rope which hung down to the bed. The
discovery that this was a dummy, and that the bed was clamped to the
floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the rope was there as
a bridge for something passing through the hole and coming to the bed.
The idea of a snake instantly occurred to me, and when I coupled it
with my knowledge that the doctor was furnished with a supply of
creatures from India, I felt that I was probably on the right track.
The idea of using a form of poison which could not possibly be
discovered by any chemical test was just such a one as would occur to a
clever and ruthless man who had had an Eastern training. The rapidity
with which such a poison would take effect would also, from his point
of view, be an advantage. It would be a sharp-eyed coroner, indeed, who
could distinguish the two little dark punctures which would show where
the poison fangs had done their work. Then I thought of the whistle. Of
course he must recall the snake before the morning light revealed it to
the victim. He had trained it, probably by the use of the milk which we
saw, to return to him when summoned. He would put it through this
ventilator at the hour that he thought best, with the certainty that it
would crawl down the rope and land on the bed. It might or might not
bite the occupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but
sooner or later she must fall a victim.
“I had come to these conclusions before ever I had entered his room. An
inspection of his chair showed me that he had been in the habit of
standing on it, which of course would be necessary in order that he
should reach the ventilator. The sight of the safe, the saucer of milk,
and the loop of whipcord were enough to finally dispel any doubts which
may have remained. The metallic clang heard by Miss Stoner was
obviously caused by her stepfather hastily closing the door of his safe
upon its terrible occupant. Having once made up my mind, you know the
steps which I took in order to put the matter to the proof. I heard the
creature hiss as I have no doubt that you did also, and I instantly lit
the light and attacked it.”
“With the result of driving it through the ventilator.”
“And also with the result of causing it to turn upon its master at the
other side. Some of the blows of my cane came home and roused its
snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person it saw. In this
way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr. Grimesby Roylott’s
death, and I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon my
conscience.”
IX.
| null |
The Adventure of the Empty House | Arthur Conan Doyle | 18 | ['Sebastian Moran'] |
It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was
interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of
the Honourable Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable
circumstances. The public has already learned those particulars
of the crime which came out in the police investigation, but a
good deal was suppressed upon that occasion, since the case for
the prosecution was so overwhelmingly strong that it was not
necessary to bring forward all the facts. Only now, at the end of
nearly ten years, am I allowed to supply those missing links
which make up the whole of that remarkable chain. The crime was
of interest in itself, but that interest was as nothing to me
compared to the inconceivable sequel, which afforded me the
greatest shock and surprise of any event in my adventurous life.
Even now, after this long interval, I find myself thrilling as I
think of it, and feeling once more that sudden flood of joy,
amazement, and incredulity which utterly submerged my mind. Let
me say to that public, which has shown some interest in those
glimpses which I have occasionally given them of the thoughts and
actions of a very remarkable man, that they are not to blame me
if I have not shared my knowledge with them, for I should have
considered it my first duty to do so, had I not been barred by a
positive prohibition from his own lips, which was only withdrawn
upon the third of last month.
It can be imagined that my close intimacy with Sherlock Holmes
had interested me deeply in crime, and that after his
disappearance I never failed to read with care the various
problems which came before the public. And I even attempted, more
than once, for my own private satisfaction, to employ his methods
in their solution, though with indifferent success. There was
none, however, which appealed to me like this tragedy of Ronald
Adair. As I read the evidence at the inquest, which led up to a
verdict of willful murder against some person or persons unknown,
I realized more clearly than I had ever done the loss which the
community had sustained by the death of Sherlock Holmes. There
were points about this strange business which would, I was sure,
have specially appealed to him, and the efforts of the police
would have been supplemented, or more probably anticipated, by
the trained observation and the alert mind of the first criminal
agent in Europe. All day, as I drove upon my round, I turned over
the case in my mind and found no explanation which appeared to me
to be adequate. At the risk of telling a twice-told tale, I will
recapitulate the facts as they were known to the public at the
conclusion of the inquest.
The Honourable Ronald Adair was the second son of the Earl of
Maynooth, at that time governor of one of the Australian
colonies. Adair’s mother had returned from Australia to undergo
the operation for cataract, and she, her son Ronald, and her
daughter Hilda were living together at 427, Park Lane. The youth
moved in the best society—had, so far as was known, no enemies
and no particular vices. He had been engaged to Miss Edith
Woodley, of Carstairs, but the engagement had been broken off by
mutual consent some months before, and there was no sign that it
had left any very profound feeling behind it. For the rest, the
man’s life moved in a narrow and conventional circle, for his
habits were quiet and his nature unemotional. Yet it was upon
this easy-going young aristocrat that death came, in most strange
and unexpected form, between the hours of ten and eleven-twenty
on the night of March 30, 1894.
Ronald Adair was fond of cards—playing continually, but never for
such stakes as would hurt him. He was a member of the Baldwin,
the Cavendish, and the Bagatelle card clubs. It was shown that,
after dinner on the day of his death, he had played a rubber of
whist at the latter club. He had also played there in the
afternoon. The evidence of those who had played with him—Mr.
Murray, Sir John Hardy, and Colonel Moran—showed that the game
was whist, and that there was a fairly equal fall of the cards.
Adair might have lost five pounds, but not more. His fortune was
a considerable one, and such a loss could not in any way affect
him. He had played nearly every day at one club or other, but he
was a cautious player, and usually rose a winner. It came out in
evidence that, in partnership with Colonel Moran, he had actually
won as much as four hundred and twenty pounds in a sitting, some
weeks before, from Godfrey Milner and Lord Balmoral. So much for
his recent history as it came out at the inquest.
On the evening of the crime, he returned from the club exactly at
ten. His mother and sister were out spending the evening with a
relation. The servant deposed that she heard him enter the front
room on the second floor, generally used as his sitting-room. She
had lit a fire there, and as it smoked she had opened the window.
No sound was heard from the room until eleven-twenty, the hour of
the return of Lady Maynooth and her daughter. Desiring to say
good-night, she attempted to enter her son’s room. The door was
locked on the inside, and no answer could be got to their cries
and knocking. Help was obtained, and the door forced. The
unfortunate young man was found lying near the table. His head
had been horribly mutilated by an expanding revolver bullet, but
no weapon of any sort was to be found in the room. On the table
lay two banknotes for ten pounds each and seventeen pounds ten in
silver and gold, the money arranged in little piles of varying
amount. There were some figures also upon a sheet of paper, with
the names of some club friends opposite to them, from which it
was conjectured that before his death he was endeavouring to make
out his losses or winnings at cards.
A minute examination of the circumstances served only to make the
case more complex. In the first place, no reason could be given
why the young man should have fastened the door upon the inside.
There was the possibility that the murderer had done this, and
had afterwards escaped by the window. The drop was at least
twenty feet, however, and a bed of crocuses in full bloom lay
beneath. Neither the flowers nor the earth showed any sign of
having been disturbed, nor were there any marks upon the narrow
strip of grass which separated the house from the road.
Apparently, therefore, it was the young man himself who had
fastened the door. But how did he come by his death? No one could
have climbed up to the window without leaving traces. Suppose a
man had fired through the window, he would indeed be a remarkable
shot who could with a revolver inflict so deadly a wound. Again,
Park Lane is a frequented thoroughfare; there is a cab stand
within a hundred yards of the house. No one had heard a shot. And
yet there was the dead man and there the revolver bullet, which
had mushroomed out, as soft-nosed bullets will, and so inflicted
a wound which must have caused instantaneous death. Such were the
circumstances of the Park Lane Mystery, which were further
complicated by entire absence of motive, since, as I have said,
young Adair was not known to have any enemy, and no attempt had
been made to remove the money or valuables in the room.
All day I turned these facts over in my mind, endeavouring to hit
upon some theory which could reconcile them all, and to find that
line of least resistance which my poor friend had declared to be
the starting-point of every investigation. I confess that I made
little progress. In the evening I strolled across the Park, and
found myself about six o’clock at the Oxford Street end of Park
Lane. A group of loafers upon the pavements, all staring up at a
particular window, directed me to the house which I had come to
see. A tall, thin man with coloured glasses, whom I strongly
suspected of being a plain-clothes detective, was pointing out
some theory of his own, while the others crowded round to listen
to what he said. I got as near him as I could, but his
observations seemed to me to be absurd, so I withdrew again in
some disgust. As I did so I struck against an elderly, deformed
man, who had been behind me, and I knocked down several books
which he was carrying. I remember that as I picked them up, I
observed the title of one of them, _The Origin of Tree Worship_,
and it struck me that the fellow must be some poor bibliophile,
who, either as a trade or as a hobby, was a collector of obscure
volumes. I endeavoured to apologize for the accident, but it was
evident that these books which I had so unfortunately maltreated
were very precious objects in the eyes of their owner. With a
snarl of contempt he turned upon his heel, and I saw his curved
back and white side-whiskers disappear among the throng.
My observations of No. 427, Park Lane did little to clear up the
problem in which I was interested. The house was separated from
the street by a low wall and railing, the whole not more than
five feet high. It was perfectly easy, therefore, for anyone to
get into the garden, but the window was entirely inaccessible,
since there was no waterpipe or anything which could help the
most active man to climb it. More puzzled than ever, I retraced
my steps to Kensington. I had not been in my study five minutes
when the maid entered to say that a person desired to see me. To
my astonishment it was none other than my strange old book
collector, his sharp, wizened face peering out from a frame of
white hair, and his precious volumes, a dozen of them at least,
wedged under his right arm.
“You’re surprised to see me, sir,” said he, in a strange,
croaking voice.
I acknowledged that I was.
“Well, I’ve a conscience, sir, and when I chanced to see you go
into this house, as I came hobbling after you, I thought to
myself, I’ll just step in and see that kind gentleman, and tell
him that if I was a bit gruff in my manner there was not any harm
meant, and that I am much obliged to him for picking up my
books.”
“You make too much of a trifle,” said I. “May I ask how you knew
who I was?”
“Well, sir, if it isn’t too great a liberty, I am a neighbour of
yours, for you’ll find my little bookshop at the corner of Church
Street, and very happy to see you, I am sure. Maybe you collect
yourself, sir. Here’s _British Birds_, and _Catullus_, and _The
Holy War_—a bargain, every one of them. With five volumes you
could just fill that gap on that second shelf. It looks untidy,
does it not, sir?”
I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me. When I turned
again, Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study
table. I rose to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter
amazement, and then it appears that I must have fainted for the
first and the last time in my life. Certainly a grey mist swirled
before my eyes, and when it cleared I found my collar-ends undone
and the tingling after-taste of brandy upon my lips. Holmes was
bending over my chair, his flask in his hand.
“My dear Watson,” said the well-remembered voice, “I owe you a
thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected.”
I gripped him by the arms.
“Holmes!” I cried. “Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you
are alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of
that awful abyss?”
“Wait a moment,” said he. “Are you sure that you are really fit
to discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my
unnecessarily dramatic reappearance.”
“I am all right, but indeed, Holmes, I can hardly believe my
eyes. Good heavens! to think that you—you of all men—should be
standing in my study.” Again I gripped him by the sleeve, and
felt the thin, sinewy arm beneath it. “Well, you’re not a spirit
anyhow,” said I. “My dear chap, I’m overjoyed to see you. Sit
down, and tell me how you came alive out of that dreadful chasm.”
He sat opposite to me, and lit a cigarette in his old, nonchalant
manner. He was dressed in the seedy frockcoat of the book
merchant, but the rest of that individual lay in a pile of white
hair and old books upon the table. Holmes looked even thinner and
keener than of old, but there was a dead-white tinge in his
aquiline face which told me that his life recently had not been a
healthy one.
“I am glad to stretch myself, Watson,” said he. “It is no joke
when a tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several
hours on end. Now, my dear fellow, in the matter of these
explanations, we have, if I may ask for your cooperation, a hard
and dangerous night’s work in front of us. Perhaps it would be
better if I gave you an account of the whole situation when that
work is finished.”
“I am full of curiosity. I should much prefer to hear now.”
“You’ll come with me to-night?”
“When you like and where you like.”
“This is, indeed, like the old days. We shall have time for a
mouthful of dinner before we need go. Well, then, about that
chasm. I had no serious difficulty in getting out of it, for the
very simple reason that I never was in it.”
“You never were in it?”
“No, Watson, I never was in it. My note to you was absolutely
genuine. I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my
career when I perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late
Professor Moriarty standing upon the narrow pathway which led to
safety. I read an inexorable purpose in his grey eyes. I
exchanged some remarks with him, therefore, and obtained his
courteous permission to write the short note which you afterwards
received. I left it with my cigarette-box and my stick, and I
walked along the pathway, Moriarty still at my heels. When I
reached the end I stood at bay. He drew no weapon, but he rushed
at me and threw his long arms around me. He knew that his own
game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself upon me. We
tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some
knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of
wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I
slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked
madly for a few seconds, and clawed the air with both his hands.
But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he
went. With my face over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way.
Then he struck a rock, bounded off, and splashed into the water.”
I listened with amazement to this explanation, which Holmes
delivered between the puffs of his cigarette.
“But the tracks!” I cried. “I saw, with my own eyes, that two
went down the path and none returned.”
“It came about in this way. The instant that the Professor had
disappeared, it struck me what a really extraordinarily lucky
chance Fate had placed in my way. I knew that Moriarty was not
the only man who had sworn my death. There were at least three
others whose desire for vengeance upon me would only be increased
by the death of their leader. They were all most dangerous men.
One or other would certainly get me. On the other hand, if all
the world was convinced that I was dead they would take
liberties, these men, they would soon lay themselves open, and
sooner or later I could destroy them. Then it would be time for
me to announce that I was still in the land of the living. So
rapidly does the brain act that I believe I had thought this all
out before Professor Moriarty had reached the bottom of the
Reichenbach Fall.
“I stood up and examined the rocky wall behind me. In your
picturesque account of the matter, which I read with great
interest some months later, you assert that the wall was sheer.
That was not literally true. A few small footholds presented
themselves, and there was some indication of a ledge. The cliff
is so high that to climb it all was an obvious impossibility, and
it was equally impossible to make my way along the wet path
without leaving some tracks. I might, it is true, have reversed
my boots, as I have done on similar occasions, but the sight of
three sets of tracks in one direction would certainly have
suggested a deception. On the whole, then, it was best that I
should risk the climb. It was not a pleasant business, Watson.
The fall roared beneath me. I am not a fanciful person, but I
give you my word that I seemed to hear Moriarty’s voice screaming
at me out of the abyss. A mistake would have been fatal. More
than once, as tufts of grass came out in my hand or my foot
slipped in the wet notches of the rock, I thought that I was
gone. But I struggled upward, and at last I reached a ledge
several feet deep and covered with soft green moss, where I could
lie unseen, in the most perfect comfort. There I was stretched,
when you, my dear Watson, and all your following were
investigating in the most sympathetic and inefficient manner the
circumstances of my death.
“At last, when you had all formed your inevitable and totally
erroneous conclusions, you departed for the hotel, and I was left
alone. I had imagined that I had reached the end of my
adventures, but a very unexpected occurrence showed me that there
were surprises still in store for me. A huge rock, falling from
above, boomed past me, struck the path, and bounded over into the
chasm. For an instant I thought that it was an accident, but a
moment later, looking up, I saw a man’s head against the
darkening sky, and another stone struck the very ledge upon which
I was stretched, within a foot of my head. Of course, the meaning
of this was obvious. Moriarty had not been alone. A
confederate—and even that one glance had told me how dangerous a
man that confederate was—had kept guard while the Professor had
attacked me. From a distance, unseen by me, he had been a witness
of his friend’s death and of my escape. He had waited, and then
making his way round to the top of the cliff, he had endeavoured
to succeed where his comrade had failed.
“I did not take long to think about it, Watson. Again I saw that
grim face look over the cliff, and I knew that it was the
precursor of another stone. I scrambled down on to the path. I
don’t think I could have done it in cold blood. It was a hundred
times more difficult than getting up. But I had no time to think
of the danger, for another stone sang past me as I hung by my
hands from the edge of the ledge. Halfway down I slipped, but, by
the blessing of God, I landed, torn and bleeding, upon the path.
I took to my heels, did ten miles over the mountains in the
darkness, and a week later I found myself in Florence, with the
certainty that no one in the world knew what had become of me.
“I had only one confidant—my brother Mycroft. I owe you many
apologies, my dear Watson, but it was all-important that it
should be thought I was dead, and it is quite certain that you
would not have written so convincing an account of my unhappy end
had you not yourself thought that it was true. Several times
during the last three years I have taken up my pen to write to
you, but always I feared lest your affectionate regard for me
should tempt you to some indiscretion which would betray my
secret. For that reason I turned away from you this evening when
you upset my books, for I was in danger at the time, and any show
of surprise and emotion upon your part might have drawn attention
to my identity and led to the most deplorable and irreparable
results. As to Mycroft, I had to confide in him in order to
obtain the money which I needed. The course of events in London
did not run so well as I had hoped, for the trial of the Moriarty
gang left two of its most dangerous members, my own most
vindictive enemies, at liberty. I travelled for two years in
Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhassa, and
spending some days with the head lama. You may have read of the
remarkable explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am
sure that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news
of your friend. I then passed through Persia, looked in at Mecca,
and paid a short but interesting visit to the Khalifa at Khartoum
the results of which I have communicated to the Foreign Office.
Returning to France, I spent some months in a research into the
coal-tar derivatives, which I conducted in a laboratory at
Montpellier, in the south of France. Having concluded this to my
satisfaction and learning that only one of my enemies was now
left in London, I was about to return when my movements were
hastened by the news of this very remarkable Park Lane Mystery,
which not only appealed to me by its own merits, but which seemed
to offer some most peculiar personal opportunities. I came over
at once to London, called in my own person at Baker Street, threw
Mrs. Hudson into violent hysterics, and found that Mycroft had
preserved my rooms and my papers exactly as they had always been.
So it was, my dear Watson, that at two o’clock to-day I found
myself in my old armchair in my own old room, and only wishing
that I could have seen my old friend Watson in the other chair
which he has so often adorned.”
Such was the remarkable narrative to which I listened on that
April evening—a narrative which would have been utterly
incredible to me had it not been confirmed by the actual sight of
the tall, spare figure and the keen, eager face, which I had
never thought to see again. In some manner he had learned of my
own sad bereavement, and his sympathy was shown in his manner
rather than in his words. “Work is the best antidote to sorrow,
my dear Watson,” said he; “and I have a piece of work for us both
to-night which, if we can bring it to a successful conclusion,
will in itself justify a man’s life on this planet.” In vain I
begged him to tell me more. “You will hear and see enough before
morning,” he answered. “We have three years of the past to
discuss. Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start
upon the notable adventure of the empty house.”
It was indeed like old times when, at that hour, I found myself
seated beside him in a hansom, my revolver in my pocket, and the
thrill of adventure in my heart. Holmes was cold and stern and
silent. As the gleam of the street-lamps flashed upon his austere
features, I saw that his brows were drawn down in thought and his
thin lips compressed. I knew not what wild beast we were about to
hunt down in the dark jungle of criminal London, but I was well
assured, from the bearing of this master huntsman, that the
adventure was a most grave one—while the sardonic smile which
occasionally broke through his ascetic gloom boded little good
for the object of our quest.
I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street, but Holmes
stopped the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square. I observed
that as he stepped out he gave a most searching glance to right
and left, and at every subsequent street corner he took the
utmost pains to assure that he was not followed. Our route was
certainly a singular one. Holmes’s knowledge of the byways of
London was extraordinary, and on this occasion he passed rapidly
and with an assured step through a network of mews and stables,
the very existence of which I had never known. We emerged at last
into a small road, lined with old, gloomy houses, which led us
into Manchester Street, and so to Blandford Street. Here he
turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through a wooden
gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the back
door of a house. We entered together, and he closed it behind us.
The place was pitch dark, but it was evident to me that it was an
empty house. Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare
planking, and my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the
paper was hanging in ribbons. Holmes’s cold, thin fingers closed
round my wrist and led me forward down a long hall, until I dimly
saw the murky fanlight over the door. Here Holmes turned suddenly
to the right and we found ourselves in a large, square, empty
room, heavily shadowed in the corners, but faintly lit in the
centre from the lights of the street beyond. There was no lamp
near, and the window was thick with dust, so that we could only
just discern each other’s figures within. My companion put his
hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my ear.
“Do you know where we are?” he whispered.
“Surely that is Baker Street,” I answered, staring through the
dim window.
“Exactly. We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our
own old quarters.”
“But why are we here?”
“Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque
pile. Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little
nearer to the window, taking every precaution not to show
yourself, and then to look up at our old rooms—the starting-point
of so many of your little fairy-tales? We will see if my three
years of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise
you.”
I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window. As my
eyes fell upon it, I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement. The
blind was down, and a strong light was burning in the room. The
shadow of a man who was seated in a chair within was thrown in
hard, black outline upon the luminous screen of the window. There
was no mistaking the poise of the head, the squareness of the
shoulders, the sharpness of the features. The face was turned
half-round, and the effect was that of one of those black
silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame. It was a
perfect reproduction of Holmes. So amazed was I that I threw out
my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me.
He was quivering with silent laughter.
“Well?” said he.
“Good heavens!” I cried. “It is marvellous.”
“I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite
variety,” said he, and I recognized in his voice the joy and
pride which the artist takes in his own creation. “It really is
rather like me, is it not?”
“I should be prepared to swear that it was you.”
“The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of
Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding. It is a bust
in wax. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker
Street this afternoon.”
“But why?”
“Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for
wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was
really elsewhere.”
“And you thought the rooms were watched?”
“I _knew_ that they were watched.”
“By whom?”
“By my old enemies, Watson. By the charming society whose leader
lies in the Reichenbach Fall. You must remember that they knew,
and only they knew, that I was still alive. Sooner or later they
believed that I should come back to my rooms. They watched them
continuously, and this morning they saw me arrive.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I recognized their sentinel when I glanced out of my
window. He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a
garroter by trade, and a remarkable performer upon the
jew’s-harp. I cared nothing for him. But I cared a great deal for
the much more formidable person who was behind him, the bosom
friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff,
the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London. That is the
man who is after me to-night Watson, and that is the man who is
quite unaware that we are after _him_.”
My friend’s plans were gradually revealing themselves. From this
convenient retreat, the watchers were being watched and the
trackers tracked. That angular shadow up yonder was the bait, and
we were the hunters. In silence we stood together in the darkness
and watched the hurrying figures who passed and repassed in front
of us. Holmes was silent and motionless; but I could tell that he
was keenly alert, and that his eyes were fixed intently upon the
stream of passers-by. It was a bleak and boisterous night and the
wind whistled shrilly down the long street. Many people were
moving to and fro, most of them muffled in their coats and
cravats. Once or twice it seemed to me that I had seen the same
figure before, and I especially noticed two men who appeared to
be sheltering themselves from the wind in the doorway of a house
some distance up the street. I tried to draw my companion’s
attention to them; but he gave a little ejaculation of
impatience, and continued to stare into the street. More than
once he fidgeted with his feet and tapped rapidly with his
fingers upon the wall. It was evident to me that he was becoming
uneasy, and that his plans were not working out altogether as he
had hoped. At last, as midnight approached and the street
gradually cleared, he paced up and down the room in
uncontrollable agitation. I was about to make some remark to him,
when I raised my eyes to the lighted window, and again
experienced almost as great a surprise as before. I clutched
Holmes’s arm, and pointed upward.
“The shadow has moved!” I cried.
It was indeed no longer the profile, but the back, which was
turned towards us.
Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his
temper or his impatience with a less active intelligence than his
own.
“Of course it has moved,” said he. “Am I such a farcical bungler,
Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy, and expect that
some of the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it? We
have been in this room two hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made some
change in that figure eight times, or once in every quarter of an
hour. She works it from the front, so that her shadow may never
be seen. Ah!” He drew in his breath with a shrill, excited
intake. In the dim light I saw his head thrown forward, his whole
attitude rigid with attention. Outside the street was absolutely
deserted. Those two men might still be crouching in the doorway,
but I could no longer see them. All was still and dark, save only
that brilliant yellow screen in front of us with the black figure
outlined upon its centre. Again in the utter silence I heard that
thin, sibilant note which spoke of intense suppressed excitement.
An instant later he pulled me back into the blackest corner of
the room, and I felt his warning hand upon my lips. The fingers
which clutched me were quivering. Never had I known my friend
more moved, and yet the dark street still stretched lonely and
motionless before us.
But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had
already distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not
from the direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very
house in which we lay concealed. A door opened and shut. An
instant later steps crept down the passage—steps which were meant
to be silent, but which reverberated harshly through the empty
house. Holmes crouched back against the wall, and I did the same,
my hand closing upon the handle of my revolver. Peering through
the gloom, I saw the vague outline of a man, a shade blacker than
the blackness of the open door. He stood for an instant, and then
he crept forward, crouching, menacing, into the room. He was
within three yards of us, this sinister figure, and I had braced
myself to meet his spring, before I realized that he had no idea
of our presence. He passed close beside us, stole over to the
window, and very softly and noiselessly raised it for half a
foot. As he sank to the level of this opening, the light of the
street, no longer dimmed by the dusty glass, fell full upon his
face. The man seemed to be beside himself with excitement. His
two eyes shone like stars, and his features were working
convulsively. He was an elderly man, with a thin, projecting
nose, a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache. An
opera hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening
dress shirt-front gleamed out through his open overcoat. His face
was gaunt and swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines. In his
hand he carried what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it
down upon the floor it gave a metallic clang. Then from the
pocket of his overcoat he drew a bulky object, and he busied
himself in some task which ended with a loud, sharp click, as if
a spring or bolt had fallen into its place. Still kneeling upon
the floor he bent forward and threw all his weight and strength
upon some lever, with the result that there came a long,
whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful click.
He straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in his
hand was a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. He
opened it at the breech, put something in, and snapped the
breech-lock. Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the
barrel upon the ledge of the open window, and I saw his long
moustache droop over the stock and his eye gleam as it peered
along the sights. I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he
cuddled the butt into his shoulder; and saw that amazing target,
the black man on the yellow ground, standing clear at the end of
his foresight. For an instant he was rigid and motionless. Then
his finger tightened on the trigger. There was a strange, loud
whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass. At that instant
Holmes sprang like a tiger on to the marksman’s back, and hurled
him flat upon his face. He was up again in a moment, and with
convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the throat, but I struck
him on the head with the butt of my revolver, and he dropped
again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him my
comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was the clatter
of running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform,
with one plain-clothes detective, rushed through the front
entrance and into the room.
“That you, Lestrade?” said Holmes.
“Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It’s good to see you
back in London, sir.”
“I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected
murders in one year won’t do, Lestrade. But you handled the
Molesey Mystery with less than your usual—that’s to say, you
handled it fairly well.”
We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a
stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a few loiterers
had begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up to the
window, closed it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade had produced
two candles, and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns. I
was able at last to have a good look at our prisoner.
It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was
turned towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the
jaw of a sensualist below, the man must have started with great
capacities for good or for evil. But one could not look upon his
cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the
fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow,
without reading Nature’s plainest danger-signals. He took no heed
of any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes’s face with an
expression in which hatred and amazement were equally blended.
“You fiend!” he kept on muttering. “You clever, clever fiend!”
“Ah, Colonel!” said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar.
“‘Journeys end in lovers’ meetings,’ as the old play says. I
don’t think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you
favoured me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge above the
Reichenbach Fall.”
The colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance.
“You cunning, cunning fiend!” was all that he could say.
“I have not introduced you yet,” said Holmes. “This, gentlemen,
is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty’s Indian Army,
and the best heavy-game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever
produced. I believe I am correct Colonel, in saying that your bag
of tigers still remains unrivalled?”
The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my
companion. With his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was
wonderfully like a tiger himself.
“I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a
_shikari_,” said Holmes. “It must be very familiar to you. Have
you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with
your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger? This
empty house is my tree, and you are my tiger. You have possibly
had other guns in reserve in case there should be several tigers,
or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim failing you.
These,” he pointed around, “are my other guns. The parallel is
exact.”
Colonel Moran sprang forward with a snarl of rage, but the
constables dragged him back. The fury upon his face was terrible
to look at.
“I confess that you had one small surprise for me,” said Holmes.
“I did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this
empty house and this convenient front window. I had imagined you
as operating from the street, where my friend, Lestrade and his
merry men were awaiting you. With that exception, all has gone as
I expected.”
Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.
“You may or may not have just cause for arresting me,” said he,
“but at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the
gibes of this person. If I am in the hands of the law, let things
be done in a legal way.”
“Well, that’s reasonable enough,” said Lestrade. “Nothing further
you have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?”
Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor, and was
examining its mechanism.
“An admirable and unique weapon,” said he, “noiseless and of
tremendous power: I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic,
who constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty.
For years I have been aware of its existence though I have never
before had the opportunity of handling it. I commend it very
specially to your attention, Lestrade and also the bullets which
fit it.”
“You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade,
as the whole party moved towards the door. “Anything further to
say?”
“Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?”
“What charge, sir? Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr.
Sherlock Holmes.”
“Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the matter at
all. To you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the
remarkable arrest which you have effected. Yes, Lestrade, I
congratulate you! With your usual happy mixture of cunning and
audacity, you have got him.”
“Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?”
“The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain—Colonel
Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an
expanding bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the
second-floor front of No. 427, Park Lane, upon the thirtieth of
last month. That’s the charge, Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you
can endure the draught from a broken window, I think that half an
hour in my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable
amusement.”
Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision
of Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson. As I
entered I saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old
landmarks were all in their place. There were the chemical corner
and the acid-stained, deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was
the row of formidable scrap-books and books of reference which
many of our fellow-citizens would have been so glad to burn. The
diagrams, the violin-case, and the pipe-rack—even the Persian
slipper which contained the tobacco—all met my eyes as I glanced
round me. There were two occupants of the room—one, Mrs. Hudson,
who beamed upon us both as we entered—the other, the strange
dummy which had played so important a part in the evening’s
adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of my friend, so
admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood on a
small pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes’s so
draped round it that the illusion from the street was absolutely
perfect.
“I hope you observed all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?” said Holmes.
“I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me.”
“Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe
where the bullet went?”
“Yes, sir. I’m afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it
passed right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. I
picked it up from the carpet. Here it is!”
Holmes held it out to me. “A soft revolver bullet, as you
perceive, Watson. There’s genius in that, for who would expect to
find such a thing fired from an airgun? All right, Mrs. Hudson. I
am much obliged for your assistance. And now, Watson, let me see
you in your old seat once more, for there are several points
which I should like to discuss with you.”
He had thrown off the seedy frockcoat, and now he was the Holmes
of old in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his
effigy.
“The old _shikari’s_ nerves have not lost their steadiness, nor
his eyes their keenness,” said he, with a laugh, as he inspected
the shattered forehead of his bust.
“Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through
the brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there
are few better in London. Have you heard the name?”
“No, I have not.”
“Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember right, you
had not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one
of the great brains of the century. Just give me down my index of
biographies from the shelf.”
He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and
blowing great clouds from his cigar.
“My collection of M’s is a fine one,” said he. “Moriarty himself
is enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the
poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who
knocked out my left canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross,
and, finally, here is our friend of to-night.”
He handed over the book, and I read:
_Moran_, _Sebastian_, _Colonel_. Unemployed. Formerly 1st
Bangalore Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran,
C.B., once British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford.
Served in Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab
(despatches), Sherpur, and Cabul. Author of _Heavy Game of the
Western Himalayas_ (1881); _Three Months in the Jungle_ (1884).
Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The Anglo-Indian, the
Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club.
On the margin was written, in Holmes’s precise hand:
The second most dangerous man in London.
“This is astonishing,” said I, as I handed back the volume. “The
man’s career is that of an honourable soldier.”
“It is true,” Holmes answered. “Up to a certain point he did
well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still
told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded
man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a
certain height, and then suddenly develop some unsightly
eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have a theory
that the individual represents in his development the whole
procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good
or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line
of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of
the history of his own family.”
“It is surely rather fanciful.”
“Well, I don’t insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran
began to go wrong. Without any open scandal, he still made India
too hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again
acquired an evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out
by Professor Moriarty, to whom for a time he was chief of the
staff. Moriarty supplied him liberally with money, and used him
only in one or two very high-class jobs, which no ordinary
criminal could have undertaken. You may have some recollection of
the death of Mrs. Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887. Not? Well, I am
sure Moran was at the bottom of it, but nothing could be proved.
So cleverly was the colonel concealed that, even when the
Moriarty gang was broken up, we could not incriminate him. You
remember at that date, when I called upon you in your rooms, how
I put up the shutters for fear of air-guns? No doubt you thought
me fanciful. I knew exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the
existence of this remarkable gun, and I knew also that one of the
best shots in the world would be behind it. When we were in
Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty, and it was undoubtedly
he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach ledge.
“You may think that I read the papers with some attention during
my sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying
him by the heels. So long as he was free in London, my life would
really not have been worth living. Night and day the shadow would
have been over me, and sooner or later his chance must have come.
What could I do? I could not shoot him at sight, or I should
myself be in the dock. There was no use appealing to a
magistrate. They cannot interfere on the strength of what would
appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So I could do nothing. But
I watched the criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I
should get him. Then came the death of this Ronald Adair. My
chance had come at last. Knowing what I did, was it not certain
that Colonel Moran had done it? He had played cards with the lad,
he had followed him home from the club, he had shot him through
the open window. There was not a doubt of it. The bullets alone
are enough to put his head in a noose. I came over at once. I was
seen by the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct the colonel’s
attention to my presence. He could not fail to connect my sudden
return with his crime, and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure
that he would make an attempt to get me out of the way _at once_,
and would bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose. I
left him an excellent mark in the window, and, having warned the
police that they might be needed—by the way, Watson, you spotted
their presence in that doorway with unerring accuracy—I took up
what seemed to me to be a judicious post for observation, never
dreaming that he would choose the same spot for his attack. Now,
my dear Watson, does anything remain for me to explain?”
“Yes,” said I. “You have not made it clear what was Colonel
Moran’s motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair?”
“Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of
conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may
form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is
as likely to be correct as mine.”
“You have formed one, then?”
“I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. It came
out in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had, between
them, won a considerable amount of money. Now, Moran undoubtedly
played foul—of that I have long been aware. I believe that on the
day of the murder Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating.
Very likely he had spoken to him privately, and had threatened to
expose him unless he voluntarily resigned his membership of the
club, and promised not to play cards again. It is unlikely that a
youngster like Adair would at once make a hideous scandal by
exposing a well-known man so much older than himself. Probably he
acted as I suggest. The exclusion from his clubs would mean ruin
to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten card-gains. He therefore
murdered Adair, who at the time was endeavouring to work out how
much money he should himself return, since he could not profit by
his partner’s foul play. He locked the door lest the ladies
should surprise him and insist upon knowing what he was doing
with these names and coins. Will it pass?”
“I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth.”
“It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come
what may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more. The famous
air-gun of Von Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum,
and once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to
examining those interesting little problems which the complex
life of London so plentifully presents.”
| null |
The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton | Arthur Conan Doyle | 17 | ['Charles Augustus Milverton'] |
It is years since the incidents of which I speak took place, and
yet it is with diffidence that I allude to them. For a long time,
even with the utmost discretion and reticence, it would have been
impossible to make the facts public, but now the principal person
concerned is beyond the reach of human law, and with due
suppression the story may be told in such fashion as to injure no
one. It records an absolutely unique experience in the career
both of Mr. Sherlock Holmes and of myself. The reader will excuse
me if I conceal the date or any other fact by which he might
trace the actual occurrence.
We had been out for one of our evening rambles, Holmes and I, and
had returned about six o’clock on a cold, frosty winter’s
evening. As Holmes turned up the lamp the light fell upon a card
on the table. He glanced at it, and then, with an ejaculation of
disgust, threw it on the floor. I picked it up and read:
CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON,
Appledore Towers,
Hampstead.
_Agent_.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“The worst man in London,” Holmes answered, as he sat down and
stretched his legs before the fire. “Is anything on the back of
the card?”
I turned it over.
“Will call at 6:30—C.A.M.,” I read.
“Hum! He’s about due. Do you feel a creeping, shrinking
sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo,
and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their
deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces? Well, that’s how
Milverton impresses me. I’ve had to do with fifty murderers in my
career, but the worst of them never gave me the repulsion which I
have for this fellow. And yet I can’t get out of doing business
with him—indeed, he is here at my invitation.”
“But who is he?”
“I’ll tell you, Watson. He is the king of all the blackmailers.
Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and
reputation come into the power of Milverton! With a smiling face
and a heart of marble, he will squeeze and squeeze until he has
drained them dry. The fellow is a genius in his way, and would
have made his mark in some more savoury trade. His method is as
follows: He allows it to be known that he is prepared to pay very
high sums for letters which compromise people of wealth and
position. He receives these wares not only from treacherous
valets or maids, but frequently from genteel ruffians, who have
gained the confidence and affection of trusting women. He deals
with no niggard hand. I happen to know that he paid seven hundred
pounds to a footman for a note two lines in length, and that the
ruin of a noble family was the result. Everything which is in the
market goes to Milverton, and there are hundreds in this great
city who turn white at his name. No one knows where his grip may
fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning to work from
hand to mouth. He will hold a card back for years in order to
play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning. I
have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you
how could one compare the ruffian, who in hot blood bludgeons his
mate, with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures
the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already
swollen money-bags?”
I had seldom heard my friend speak with such intensity of
feeling.
“But surely,” said I, “the fellow must be within the grasp of the
law?”
“Technically, no doubt, but practically not. What would it profit
a woman, for example, to get him a few months’ imprisonment if
her own ruin must immediately follow? His victims dare not hit
back. If ever he blackmailed an innocent person, then indeed we
should have him, but he is as cunning as the Evil One. No, no, we
must find other ways to fight him.”
“And why is he here?”
“Because an illustrious client has placed her piteous case in my
hands. It is the Lady Eva Blackwell, the most beautiful
_débutante_ of last season. She is to be married in a fortnight
to the Earl of Dovercourt. This fiend has several imprudent
letters—imprudent, Watson, nothing worse—which were written to an
impecunious young squire in the country. They would suffice to
break off the match. Milverton will send the letters to the Earl
unless a large sum of money is paid him. I have been commissioned
to meet him, and—to make the best terms I can.”
At that instant there was a clatter and a rattle in the street
below. Looking down I saw a stately carriage and pair, the
brilliant lamps gleaming on the glossy haunches of the noble
chestnuts. A footman opened the door, and a small, stout man in a
shaggy astrakhan overcoat descended. A minute later he was in the
room.
Charles Augustus Milverton was a man of fifty, with a large,
intellectual head, a round, plump, hairless face, a perpetual
frozen smile, and two keen grey eyes, which gleamed brightly from
behind broad, gold-rimmed glasses. There was something of Mr.
Pickwick’s benevolence in his appearance, marred only by the
insincerity of the fixed smile and by the hard glitter of those
restless and penetrating eyes. His voice was as smooth and suave
as his countenance, as he advanced with a plump little hand
extended, murmuring his regret for having missed us at his first
visit. Holmes disregarded the outstretched hand and looked at him
with a face of granite. Milverton’s smile broadened, he shrugged
his shoulders removed his overcoat, folded it with great
deliberation over the back of a chair, and then took a seat.
“This gentleman?” said he, with a wave in my direction. “Is it
discreet? Is it right?”
“Dr. Watson is my friend and partner.”
“Very good, Mr. Holmes. It is only in your client’s interests
that I protested. The matter is so very delicate——”
“Dr. Watson has already heard of it.”
“Then we can proceed to business. You say that you are acting for
Lady Eva. Has she empowered you to accept my terms?”
“What are your terms?”
“Seven thousand pounds.”
“And the alternative?”
“My dear sir, it is painful for me to discuss it, but if the
money is not paid on the 14th, there certainly will be no
marriage on the 18th.” His insufferable smile was more complacent
than ever.
Holmes thought for a little.
“You appear to me,” he said, at last, “to be taking matters too
much for granted. I am, of course, familiar with the contents of
these letters. My client will certainly do what I may advise. I
shall counsel her to tell her future husband the whole story and
to trust to his generosity.”
Milverton chuckled.
“You evidently do not know the Earl,” said he.
From the baffled look upon Holmes’s face, I could see clearly
that he did.
“What harm is there in the letters?” he asked.
“They are sprightly—very sprightly,” Milverton answered. “The
lady was a charming correspondent. But I can assure you that the
Earl of Dovercourt would fail to appreciate them. However, since
you think otherwise, we will let it rest at that. It is purely a
matter of business. If you think that it is in the best interests
of your client that these letters should be placed in the hands
of the Earl, then you would indeed be foolish to pay so large a
sum of money to regain them.” He rose and seized his astrakhan
coat.
Holmes was grey with anger and mortification.
“Wait a little,” he said. “You go too fast. We should certainly
make every effort to avoid scandal in so delicate a matter.”
Milverton relapsed into his chair.
“I was sure that you would see it in that light,” he purred.
“At the same time,” Holmes continued, “Lady Eva is not a wealthy
woman. I assure you that two thousand pounds would be a drain
upon her resources, and that the sum you name is utterly beyond
her power. I beg, therefore, that you will moderate your demands,
and that you will return the letters at the price I indicate,
which is, I assure you, the highest that you can get.”
Milverton’s smile broadened and his eyes twinkled humorously.
“I am aware that what you say is true about the lady’s
resources,” said he. “At the same time you must admit that the
occasion of a lady’s marriage is a very suitable time for her
friends and relatives to make some little effort upon her behalf.
They may hesitate as to an acceptable wedding present. Let me
assure them that this little bundle of letters would give more
joy than all the candelabra and butter-dishes in London.”
“It is impossible,” said Holmes.
“Dear me, dear me, how unfortunate!” cried Milverton, taking out
a bulky pocketbook. “I cannot help thinking that ladies are
ill-advised in not making an effort. Look at this!” He held up a
little note with a coat-of-arms upon the envelope. “That belongs
to—well, perhaps it is hardly fair to tell the name until
to-morrow morning. But at that time it will be in the hands of
the lady’s husband. And all because she will not find a beggarly
sum which she could get by turning her diamonds into paste. It
_is_ such a pity! Now, you remember the sudden end of the
engagement between the Honourable Miss Miles and Colonel Dorking?
Only two days before the wedding, there was a paragraph in the
_Morning Post_ to say that it was all off. And why? It is almost
incredible, but the absurd sum of twelve hundred pounds would
have settled the whole question. Is it not pitiful? And here I
find you, a man of sense, boggling about terms, when your
client’s future and honour are at stake. You surprise me, Mr.
Holmes.”
“What I say is true,” Holmes answered. “The money cannot be
found. Surely it is better for you to take the substantial sum
which I offer than to ruin this woman’s career, which can profit
you in no way?”
“There you make a mistake, Mr. Holmes. An exposure would profit
me indirectly to a considerable extent. I have eight or ten
similar cases maturing. If it was circulated among them that I
had made a severe example of the Lady Eva, I should find all of
them much more open to reason. You see my point?”
Holmes sprang from his chair.
“Get behind him, Watson! Don’t let him out! Now, sir, let us see
the contents of that notebook.”
Milverton had glided as quick as a rat to the side of the room
and stood with his back against the wall.
“Mr. Holmes, Mr. Holmes,” he said, turning the front of his coat
and exhibiting the butt of a large revolver, which projected from
the inside pocket. “I have been expecting you to do something
original. This has been done so often, and what good has ever
come from it? I assure you that I am armed to the teeth, and I am
perfectly prepared to use my weapons, knowing that the law will
support me. Besides, your supposition that I would bring the
letters here in a notebook is entirely mistaken. I would do
nothing so foolish. And now, gentlemen, I have one or two little
interviews this evening, and it is a long drive to Hampstead.” He
stepped forward, took up his coat, laid his hand on his revolver,
and turned to the door. I picked up a chair, but Holmes shook his
head, and I laid it down again. With bow, a smile, and a twinkle,
Milverton was out of the room, and a few moments after we heard
the slam of the carriage door and the rattle of the wheels as he
drove away.
Holmes sat motionless by the fire, his hands buried deep in his
trouser pockets, his chin sunk upon his breast, his eyes fixed
upon the glowing embers. For half an hour he was silent and
still. Then, with the gesture of a man who has taken his
decision, he sprang to his feet and passed into his bedroom. A
little later a rakish young workman, with a goatee beard and a
swagger, lit his clay pipe at the lamp before descending into the
street. “I’ll be back some time, Watson,” said he, and vanished
into the night. I understood that he had opened his campaign
against Charles Augustus Milverton, but I little dreamed the
strange shape which that campaign was destined to take.
For some days Holmes came and went at all hours in this attire,
but beyond a remark that his time was spent at Hampstead, and
that it was not wasted, I knew nothing of what he was doing. At
last, however, on a wild, tempestuous evening, when the wind
screamed and rattled against the windows, he returned from his
last expedition, and having removed his disguise he sat before
the fire and laughed heartily in his silent inward fashion.
“You would not call me a marrying man, Watson?”
“No, indeed!”
“You’ll be interested to hear that I’m engaged.”
“My dear fellow! I congrat——”
“To Milverton’s housemaid.”
“Good heavens, Holmes!”
“I wanted information, Watson.”
“Surely you have gone too far?”
“It was a most necessary step. I am a plumber with a rising
business, Escott, by name. I have walked out with her each
evening, and I have talked with her. Good heavens, those talks!
However, I have got all I wanted. I know Milverton’s house as I
know the palm of my hand.”
“But the girl, Holmes?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“You can’t help it, my dear Watson. You must play your cards as
best you can when such a stake is on the table. However, I
rejoice to say that I have a hated rival, who will certainly cut
me out the instant that my back is turned. What a splendid night
it is!”
“You like this weather?”
“It suits my purpose. Watson, I mean to burgle Milverton’s house
to-night.”
I had a catching of the breath, and my skin went cold at the
words, which were slowly uttered in a tone of concentrated
resolution. As a flash of lightning in the night shows up in an
instant every detail of a wild landscape, so at one glance I
seemed to see every possible result of such an action—the
detection, the capture, the honoured career ending in irreparable
failure and disgrace, my friend himself lying at the mercy of the
odious Milverton.
“For heaven’s sake, Holmes, think what you are doing,” I cried.
“My dear fellow, I have given it every consideration. I am never
precipitate in my actions, nor would I adopt so energetic and,
indeed, so dangerous a course, if any other were possible. Let us
look at the matter clearly and fairly. I suppose that you will
admit that the action is morally justifiable, though technically
criminal. To burgle his house is no more than to forcibly take
his pocketbook—an action in which you were prepared to aid me.”
I turned it over in my mind.
“Yes,” I said, “it is morally justifiable so long as our object
is to take no articles save those which are used for an illegal
purpose.”
“Exactly. Since it is morally justifiable, I have only to
consider the question of personal risk. Surely a gentleman should
not lay much stress upon this, when a lady is in most desperate
need of his help?”
“You will be in such a false position.”
“Well, that is part of the risk. There is no other possible way
of regaining these letters. The unfortunate lady has not the
money, and there are none of her people in whom she could
confide. To-morrow is the last day of grace, and unless we can
get the letters to-night, this villain will be as good as his
word and will bring about her ruin. I must, therefore, abandon my
client to her fate or I must play this last card. Between
ourselves, Watson, it’s a sporting duel between this fellow
Milverton and me. He had, as you saw, the best of the first
exchanges, but my self-respect and my reputation are concerned to
fight it to a finish.”
“Well, I don’t like it, but I suppose it must be,” said I. “When
do we start?”
“You are not coming.”
“Then you are not going,” said I. “I give you my word of
honour—and I never broke it in my life—that I will take a cab
straight to the police-station and give you away, unless you let
me share this adventure with you.”
“You can’t help me.”
“How do you know that? You can’t tell what may happen. Anyway, my
resolution is taken. Other people besides you have self-respect,
and even reputations.”
Holmes had looked annoyed, but his brow cleared, and he clapped
me on the shoulder.
“Well, well, my dear fellow, be it so. We have shared this same
room for some years, and it would be amusing if we ended by
sharing the same cell. You know, Watson, I don’t mind confessing
to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a
highly efficient criminal. This is the chance of my lifetime in
that direction. See here!” He took a neat little leather case out
of a drawer, and opening it he exhibited a number of shining
instruments. “This is a first-class, up-to-date burgling kit,
with nickel-plated jemmy, diamond-tipped glass-cutter, adaptable
keys, and every modern improvement which the march of
civilization demands. Here, too, is my dark lantern. Everything
is in order. Have you a pair of silent shoes?”
“I have rubber-soled tennis shoes.”
“Excellent! And a mask?”
“I can make a couple out of black silk.”
“I can see that you have a strong, natural turn for this sort of
thing. Very good, do you make the masks. We shall have some cold
supper before we start. It is now nine-thirty. At eleven we shall
drive as far as Church Row. It is a quarter of an hour’s walk
from there to Appledore Towers. We shall be at work before
midnight. Milverton is a heavy sleeper, and retires punctually at
ten-thirty. With any luck we should be back here by two, with the
Lady Eva’s letters in my pocket.”
Holmes and I put on our dress-clothes, so that we might appear to
be two theatre-goers homeward bound. In Oxford Street we picked
up a hansom and drove to an address in Hampstead. Here we paid
off our cab, and with our great coats buttoned up, for it was
bitterly cold, and the wind seemed to blow through us, we walked
along the edge of the heath.
“It’s a business that needs delicate treatment,” said Holmes.
“These documents are contained in a safe in the fellow’s study,
and the study is the ante-room of his bed-chamber. On the other
hand, like all these stout, little men who do themselves well, he
is a plethoric sleeper. Agatha—that’s my _fiancée_—says it is a
joke in the servants’ hall that it’s impossible to wake the
master. He has a secretary who is devoted to his interests, and
never budges from the study all day. That’s why we are going at
night. Then he has a beast of a dog which roams the garden. I met
Agatha late the last two evenings, and she locks the brute up so
as to give me a clear run. This is the house, this big one in its
own grounds. Through the gate—now to the right among the laurels.
We might put on our masks here, I think. You see, there is not a
glimmer of light in any of the windows, and everything is working
splendidly.”
With our black silk face-coverings, which turned us into two of
the most truculent figures in London, we stole up to the silent,
gloomy house. A sort of tiled veranda extended along one side of
it, lined by several windows and two doors.
“That’s his bedroom,” Holmes whispered. “This door opens straight
into the study. It would suit us best, but it is bolted as well
as locked, and we should make too much noise getting in. Come
round here. There’s a greenhouse which opens into the
drawing-room.”
The place was locked, but Holmes removed a circle of glass and
turned the key from the inside. An instant afterwards he had
closed the door behind us, and we had become felons in the eyes
of the law. The thick, warm air of the conservatory and the rich,
choking fragrance of exotic plants took us by the throat. He
seized my hand in the darkness and led me swiftly past banks of
shrubs which brushed against our faces. Holmes had remarkable
powers, carefully cultivated, of seeing in the dark. Still
holding my hand in one of his, he opened a door, and I was
vaguely conscious that we had entered a large room in which a
cigar had been smoked not long before. He felt his way among the
furniture, opened another door, and closed it behind us. Putting
out my hand I felt several coats hanging from the wall, and I
understood that I was in a passage. We passed along it and Holmes
very gently opened a door upon the right-hand side. Something
rushed out at us and my heart sprang into my mouth, but I could
have laughed when I realized that it was the cat. A fire was
burning in this new room, and again the air was heavy with
tobacco smoke. Holmes entered on tiptoe, waited for me to follow,
and then very gently closed the door. We were in Milverton’s
study, and a _portière_ at the farther side showed the entrance
to his bedroom.
It was a good fire, and the room was illuminated by it. Near the
door I saw the gleam of an electric switch, but it was
unnecessary, even if it had been safe, to turn it on. At one side
of the fireplace was a heavy curtain which covered the bay window
we had seen from outside. On the other side was the door which
communicated with the veranda. A desk stood in the centre, with a
turning-chair of shining red leather. Opposite was a large
bookcase, with a marble bust of Athene on the top. In the corner,
between the bookcase and the wall, there stood a tall, green
safe, the firelight flashing back from the polished brass knobs
upon its face. Holmes stole across and looked at it. Then he
crept to the door of the bedroom, and stood with slanting head
listening intently. No sound came from within. Meanwhile it had
struck me that it would be wise to secure our retreat through the
outer door, so I examined it. To my amazement, it was neither
locked nor bolted. I touched Holmes on the arm, and he turned his
masked face in that direction. I saw him start, and he was
evidently as surprised as I.
“I don’t like it,” he whispered, putting his lips to my very ear.
“I can’t quite make it out. Anyhow, we have no time to lose.”
“Can I do anything?”
“Yes, stand by the door. If you hear anyone come, bolt it on the
inside, and we can get away as we came. If they come the other
way, we can get through the door if our job is done, or hide
behind these window curtains if it is not. Do you understand?”
I nodded, and stood by the door. My first feeling of fear had
passed away, and I thrilled now with a keener zest than I had
ever enjoyed when we were the defenders of the law instead of its
defiers. The high object of our mission, the consciousness that
it was unselfish and chivalrous, the villainous character of our
opponent, all added to the sporting interest of the adventure.
Far from feeling guilty, I rejoiced and exulted in our dangers.
With a glow of admiration I watched Holmes unrolling his case of
instruments and choosing his tool with the calm, scientific
accuracy of a surgeon who performs a delicate operation. I knew
that the opening of safes was a particular hobby with him, and I
understood the joy which it gave him to be confronted with this
green and gold monster, the dragon which held in its maw the
reputations of many fair ladies. Turning up the cuffs of his
dress-coat—he had placed his overcoat on a chair—Holmes laid out
two drills, a jemmy, and several skeleton keys. I stood at the
centre door with my eyes glancing at each of the others, ready
for any emergency, though, indeed, my plans were somewhat vague
as to what I should do if we were interrupted. For half an hour,
Holmes worked with concentrated energy, laying down one tool,
picking up another, handling each with the strength and delicacy
of the trained mechanic. Finally I heard a click, the broad green
door swung open, and inside I had a glimpse of a number of paper
packets, each tied, sealed, and inscribed. Holmes picked one out,
but it was as hard to read by the flickering fire, and he drew
out his little dark lantern, for it was too dangerous, with
Milverton in the next room, to switch on the electric light.
Suddenly I saw him halt, listen intently, and then in an instant
he had swung the door of the safe to, picked up his coat, stuffed
his tools into the pockets, and darted behind the window curtain,
motioning me to do the same.
It was only when I had joined him there that I heard what had
alarmed his quicker senses. There was a noise somewhere within
the house. A door slammed in the distance. Then a confused, dull
murmur broke itself into the measured thud of heavy footsteps
rapidly approaching. They were in the passage outside the room.
They paused at the door. The door opened. There was a sharp snick
as the electric light was turned on. The door closed once more,
and the pungent reek of a strong cigar was borne to our nostrils.
Then the footsteps continued backward and forward, backward and
forward, within a few yards of us. Finally there was a creak from
a chair, and the footsteps ceased. Then a key clicked in a lock,
and I heard the rustle of papers.
So far I had not dared to look out, but now I gently parted the
division of the curtains in front of me and peeped through. From
the pressure of Holmes’s shoulder against mine, I knew that he
was sharing my observations. Right in front of us, and almost
within our reach, was the broad, rounded back of Milverton. It
was evident that we had entirely miscalculated his movements,
that he had never been to his bedroom, but that he had been
sitting up in some smoking or billiard room in the farther wing
of the house, the windows of which we had not seen. His broad,
grizzled head, with its shining patch of baldness, was in the
immediate foreground of our vision. He was leaning far back in
the red leather chair, his legs outstretched, a long, black cigar
projecting at an angle from his mouth. He wore a semi-military
smoking jacket, claret-coloured, with a black velvet collar. In
his hand he held a long, legal document which he was reading in
an indolent fashion, blowing rings of tobacco smoke from his lips
as he did so. There was no promise of a speedy departure in his
composed bearing and his comfortable attitude.
I felt Holmes’s hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring
shake, as if to say that the situation was within his powers, and
that he was easy in his mind. I was not sure whether he had seen
what was only too obvious from my position, that the door of the
safe was imperfectly closed, and that Milverton might at any
moment observe it. In my own mind I had determined that if I were
sure, from the rigidity of his gaze, that it had caught his eye,
I would at once spring out, throw my great coat over his head,
pinion him, and leave the rest to Holmes. But Milverton never
looked up. He was languidly interested by the papers in his hand,
and page after page was turned as he followed the argument of the
lawyer. At least, I thought, when he has finished the document
and the cigar he will go to his room, but before he had reached
the end of either, there came a remarkable development, which
turned our thoughts into quite another channel.
Several times I had observed that Milverton looked at his watch,
and once he had risen and sat down again, with a gesture of
impatience. The idea, however, that he might have an appointment
at so strange an hour never occurred to me until a faint sound
reached my ears from the veranda outside. Milverton dropped his
papers and sat rigid in his chair. The sound was repeated, and
then there came a gentle tap at the door. Milverton rose and
opened it.
“Well,” said he, curtly, “you are nearly half an hour late.”
So this was the explanation of the unlocked door and of the
nocturnal vigil of Milverton. There was the gentle rustle of a
woman’s dress. I had closed the slit between the curtains as
Milverton’s face had turned in our direction, but now I ventured
very carefully to open it once more. He had resumed his seat, the
cigar still projecting at an insolent angle from the corner of
his mouth. In front of him, in the full glare of the electric
light, there stood a tall, slim, dark woman, a veil over her
face, a mantle drawn round her chin. Her breath came quick and
fast, and every inch of the lithe figure was quivering with
strong emotion.
“Well,” said Milverton, “you made me lose a good night’s rest, my
dear. I hope you’ll prove worth it. You couldn’t come any other
time—eh?”
The woman shook her head.
“Well, if you couldn’t you couldn’t. If the Countess is a hard
mistress, you have your chance to get level with her now. Bless
the girl, what are you shivering about? That’s right. Pull
yourself together. Now, let us get down to business.” He took a
notebook from the drawer of his desk. “You say that you have five
letters which compromise the Countess d’Albert. You want to sell
them. I want to buy them. So far so good. It only remains to fix
a price. I should want to inspect the letters, of course. If they
are really good specimens—Great heavens, is it you?”
The woman, without a word, had raised her veil and dropped the
mantle from her chin. It was a dark, handsome, clear-cut face
which confronted Milverton—a face with a curved nose, strong,
dark eyebrows shading hard, glittering eyes, and a straight,
thin-lipped mouth set in a dangerous smile.
“It is I,” she said, “the woman whose life you have ruined.”
Milverton laughed, but fear vibrated in his voice. “You were so
very obstinate,” said he. “Why did you drive me to such
extremities? I assure you I wouldn’t hurt a fly of my own accord,
but every man has his business, and what was I to do? I put the
price well within your means. You would not pay.”
“So you sent the letters to my husband, and he—the noblest
gentleman that ever lived, a man whose boots I was never worthy
to lace—he broke his gallant heart and died. You remember that
last night, when I came through that door, I begged and prayed
you for mercy, and you laughed in my face as you are trying to
laugh now, only your coward heart cannot keep your lips from
twitching. Yes, you never thought to see me here again, but it
was that night which taught me how I could meet you face to face,
and alone. Well, Charles Milverton, what have you to say?”
“Don’t imagine that you can bully me,” said he, rising to his
feet. “I have only to raise my voice and I could call my servants
and have you arrested. But I will make allowance for your natural
anger. Leave the room at once as you came, and I will say no
more.”
The woman stood with her hand buried in her bosom, and the same
deadly smile on her thin lips.
“You will ruin no more lives as you have ruined mine. You will
wring no more hearts as you wrung mine. I will free the world of
a poisonous thing. Take that, you hound—and that!—and that!—and
that!”
She had drawn a little gleaming revolver, and emptied barrel
after barrel into Milverton’s body, the muzzle within two feet of
his shirt front. He shrank away and then fell forward upon the
table, coughing furiously and clawing among the papers. Then he
staggered to his feet, received another shot, and rolled upon the
floor. “You’ve done me,” he cried, and lay still. The woman
looked at him intently, and ground her heel into his upturned
face. She looked again, but there was no sound or movement. I
heard a sharp rustle, the night air blew into the heated room,
and the avenger was gone.
No interference upon our part could have saved the man from his
fate, but, as the woman poured bullet after bullet into
Milverton’s shrinking body I was about to spring out, when I felt
Holmes’s cold, strong grasp upon my wrist. I understood the whole
argument of that firm, restraining grip—that it was no affair of
ours, that justice had overtaken a villain, that we had our own
duties and our own objects, which were not to be lost sight of.
But hardly had the woman rushed from the room when Holmes, with
swift, silent steps, was over at the other door. He turned the
key in the lock. At the same instant we heard voices in the house
and the sound of hurrying feet. The revolver shots had roused the
household. With perfect coolness Holmes slipped across to the
safe, filled his two arms with bundles of letters, and poured
them all into the fire. Again and again he did it, until the safe
was empty. Someone turned the handle and beat upon the outside of
the door. Holmes looked swiftly round. The letter which had been
the messenger of death for Milverton lay, all mottled with his
blood, upon the table. Holmes tossed it in among the blazing
papers. Then he drew the key from the outer door, passed through
after me, and locked it on the outside. “This way, Watson,” said
he, “we can scale the garden wall in this direction.”
I could not have believed that an alarm could have spread so
swiftly. Looking back, the huge house was one blaze of light. The
front door was open, and figures were rushing down the drive. The
whole garden was alive with people, and one fellow raised a
view-halloa as we emerged from the veranda and followed hard at
our heels. Holmes seemed to know the grounds perfectly, and he
threaded his way swiftly among a plantation of small trees, I
close at his heels, and our foremost pursuer panting behind us.
It was a six-foot wall which barred our path, but he sprang to
the top and over. As I did the same I felt the hand of the man
behind me grab at my ankle, but I kicked myself free and
scrambled over a grass-strewn coping. I fell upon my face among
some bushes, but Holmes had me on my feet in an instant, and
together we dashed away across the huge expanse of Hampstead
Heath. We had run two miles, I suppose, before Holmes at last
halted and listened intently. All was absolute silence behind us.
We had shaken off our pursuers and were safe.
We had breakfasted and were smoking our morning pipe on the day
after the remarkable experience which I have recorded, when Mr.
Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, very solemn and impressive, was
ushered into our modest sitting-room.
“Good-morning, Mr. Holmes,” said he; “good-morning. May I ask if
you are very busy just now?”
“Not too busy to listen to you.”
“I thought that, perhaps, if you had nothing particular on hand,
you might care to assist us in a most remarkable case, which
occurred only last night at Hampstead.”
“Dear me!” said Holmes. “What was that?”
“A murder—a most dramatic and remarkable murder. I know how keen
you are upon these things, and I would take it as a great favour
if you would step down to Appledore Towers, and give us the
benefit of your advice. It is no ordinary crime. We have had our
eyes upon this Mr. Milverton for some time, and, between
ourselves, he was a bit of a villain. He is known to have held
papers which he used for blackmailing purposes. These papers have
all been burned by the murderers. No article of value was taken,
as it is probable that the criminals were men of good position,
whose sole object was to prevent social exposure.”
“Criminals?” said Holmes. “Plural?”
“Yes, there were two of them. They were as nearly as possible
captured red-handed. We have their footmarks, we have their
description, it’s ten to one that we trace them. The first fellow
was a bit too active, but the second was caught by the
under-gardener, and only got away after a struggle. He was a
middle-sized, strongly built man—square jaw, thick neck,
moustache, a mask over his eyes.”
“That’s rather vague,” said Sherlock Holmes. “My, it might be a
description of Watson!”
“It’s true,” said the inspector, with amusement. “It might be a
description of Watson.”
“Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you, Lestrade,” said Holmes. “The
fact is that I knew this fellow Milverton, that I considered him
one of the most dangerous men in London, and that I think there
are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which
therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge. No, it’s no
use arguing. I have made up my mind. My sympathies are with the
criminals rather than with the victim, and I will not handle this
case.”
Holmes had not said one word to me about the tragedy which we had
witnessed, but I observed all the morning that he was in his most
thoughtful mood, and he gave me the impression, from his vacant
eyes and his abstracted manner, of a man who is striving to
recall something to his memory. We were in the middle of our
lunch, when he suddenly sprang to his feet. “By Jove, Watson,
I’ve got it!” he cried. “Take your hat! Come with me!” He hurried
at his top speed down Baker Street and along Oxford Street, until
we had almost reached Regent Circus. Here, on the left hand,
there stands a shop window filled with photographs of the
celebrities and beauties of the day. Holmes’s eyes fixed
themselves upon one of them, and following his gaze I saw the
picture of a regal and stately lady in Court dress, with a high
diamond tiara upon her noble head. I looked at that delicately
curved nose, at the marked eyebrows, at the straight mouth, and
the strong little chin beneath it. Then I caught my breath as I
read the time-honoured title of the great nobleman and statesman
whose wife she had been. My eyes met those of Holmes, and he put
his finger to his lips as we turned away from the window.
| null |
The Teeth of the Tiger | Maurice Leblanc | 192 | ['Jean Vernocq'] | Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
THE TEETH OF THE TIGER
An Adventure Story
BY MAURICE LEBLANC
Author of "Arsène Lupin," "The Hollow Needle," "The Crystal Stopper"
1914
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. D'ARTAGNAN, PORTHOS ... AND MONTE CRISTO
II. A MAN DEAD
III. A MAN DOOMED
IV. THE CLOUDED TURQUOISE
V. THE IRON CURTAIN
VI. THE MAN WITH THE EBONY WALKING-STICK
VII. SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS, VOLUME VIII
VIII. THE DEVIL'S POST-OFFICE
IX. LUPIN'S ANGER
X. GASTON SAUVERAND EXPLAINS
XI. ROUTED
XII. "HELP!"
XIII. THE EXPLOSION
XIV. THE "HATER"
XV. THE HEIR TO THE HUNDRED MILLIONS
XVI. WEBER TAKES HIS REVENGE
XVII. OPEN SESAME!
XVIII. ARSÈNE I EMPEROR OF MAURETANIA
XIX. "THE SNARE IS LAID. BEWARE, LUPIN!"
XX. FLORENCE'S SECRET
XXI. LUPIN'S LUPINS
The Teeth of the Tiger
CHAPTER ONE
D'ARTAGNAN, PORTHOS ... AND MONTE CRISTO
It was half-past four; M. Desmalions, the Prefect of Police, was not yet
back at the office. His private secretary laid on the desk a bundle of
letters and reports which he had annotated for his chief, rang the bell
and said to the messenger who entered by the main door:
"Monsieur le Préfet has sent for a number of people to see him at five
o'clock. Here are their names. Show them into separate waiting-rooms, so
that they can't communicate with one another, and let me have their cards
when they come."
The messenger went out. The secretary was turning toward the small door
that led to his room, when the main door opened once more and admitted a
man who stopped and leaned swaying over the back of a chair.
"Why, it's you, Vérot!" said the secretary. "But what's happened? What's
the matter?"
Inspector Vérot was a very stout, powerfully built man, with a big neck
and shoulders and a florid complexion. He had obviously been upset by
some violent excitement, for his face, streaked with red veins and
usually so apoplectic, seemed almost pale.
"Oh, nothing, Monsieur le Secrétaire!" he said.
"Yes, yes; you're not looking your usual self. You're gray in the
face.... And the way you're perspiring...."
Inspector Vérot wiped his forehead and, pulling himself together, said:
"It's just a little tiredness.... I've been overworking myself lately: I
was very keen on clearing up a case which Monsieur Desmalions had put in
my hands. All the same, I have a funny sort of feeling--"
"Will you have a pick-me-up?"
"No, no; I'm more thirsty."
"A glass of water?"
"No, thank you."
"What then?"
"I should like--I should like--"
His voice faltered. He wore a troubled look, as if he had suddenly lost
his power of getting out another word. But he recovered himself with an
effort and asked:
"Isn't Monsieur Desmalions here?"
"No; he won't be back till five, when he has an important meeting."
"Yes ... I know ... most important. That's what I'm here for. But
I should have liked to see him first. I should so much have liked
to see him!"
The secretary stared at Vérot and said:
"What a state you're in! Is your message so urgent as all that?"
"It's very urgent, indeed. It has to do with a crime that took place a
month ago, to the day. And, above all, it's a matter of preventing two
murders which are the outcome of that other crime and which are to be
committed to-night. Yes, to-night, inevitably, unless we take the
necessary steps."
"Sit down, Vérot, won't you?"
"You see, the whole thing has been planned in such an infernal manner!
You would never have imagined--"
"Still, Vérot, as you know about it beforehand, and as Monsieur le Préfet
is sure to give you full powers--"
"Yes, of course, of course. But, all the same, it's terrible to think
that I might miss him. So I wrote him this letter, telling him all I know
about the business. I thought it safer."
He handed the secretary a large yellow envelope and added:
"And here's a little box as well; I'll leave it on this table. It
contains something that will serve to complete and explain the contents
of the letter."
"But why don't you keep all that by you?"
"I'm afraid to. They're watching me. They're trying to get rid of
me. I shan't be easy in my mind until some one besides myself knows
the secret."
"Have no fear, Vérot. Monsieur le Préfet is bound to be back soon.
Meanwhile, I advise you to go to the infirmary and ask for a pick-me-up."
The inspector seemed undecided what to do. Once more he wiped away the
perspiration that was trickling down his forehead. Then, drawing himself
up, he left the office. When he was gone the secretary slipped the letter
into a big bundle of papers that lay on the Prefect's desk and went out
by the door leading to his own room.
He had hardly closed it behind him when the other door opened once again
and the inspector returned, spluttering:
"Monsieur le Secrétaire ... it'd be better if I showed you--"
The unfortunate man was as white as a sheet. His teeth were chattering.
When he saw that the secretary was gone, he tried to walk across to his
private room. But he was seized with an attack of weakness and sank into
a chair, where he remained for some minutes, moaning helplessly:
"What's the matter with me? ... Have I been poisoned, too? ... Oh, I
don't like this; I don't like the look of this!"
The desk stood within reach of his hand. He took a pencil, drew a
writing-pad toward him and began to scribble a few characters. But he
next stammered:
"Why, no, it's not worth while. The Prefect will be reading my
letter.... What on earth's the matter with me. I don't like this at all!"
Suddenly he rose to his feet and called out:
"Monsieur le Secrétaire, we've got ... we've got to ... It's for
to-night. Nothing can prevent--"
Stiffening himself with an effort of his whole will, he made for the door
of the secretary's room with little short steps, like an automaton. But
he reeled on the way--and had to sit down a second time.
A mad terror shook him from head to foot; and he uttered cries which were
too faint, unfortunately, to be heard. He realized this and looked round
for a bell, for a gong; but he was no longer able to distinguish
anything. A veil of darkness seemed to weigh upon his eyes.
Then he dropped on his knees and crawled to the wall, beating the air
with one hand, like a blind man, until he ended by touching some
woodwork. It was the partition-wall.
He crept along this; but, as ill-luck would have it, his bewildered brain
showed him a false picture of the room, so that, instead of turning to
the left as he should have done, he followed the wall to the right,
behind a screen which concealed a third door.
His fingers touched the handle of this door and he managed to open it. He
gasped, "Help! Help!" and fell at his full length in a sort of cupboard
or closet which the Prefect of Police used as a dressing-room.
"To-night!" he moaned, believing that he was making himself heard and
that he was in the secretary's room. "To-night! The job is fixed for
to-night! You'll see ... The mark of the teeth! ... It's awful! ... Oh,
the pain I'm in! ... It's the poison! Save me! Help!"
The voice died away. He repeated several times, as though in a nightmare:
"The teeth! the teeth! They're closing!"
Then his voice grew fainter still; and inarticulate sounds issued from
his pallid lips. His mouth munched the air like the mouth of one of those
old men who seem to be interminably chewing the cud. His head sank lower
and lower on his breast. He heaved two or three sighs; a great shiver
passed through his body; and he moved no more.
And the death-rattle began in his throat, very softly and rhythmically,
broken only by interruptions in which a last instinctive effort appeared
to revive the flickering life of the intelligence, and to rouse fitful
gleams of consciousness in the dimmed eyes.
The Prefect of Police entered his office at ten minutes to five. M.
Desmalions, who had filled his post for the past three years with an
authority that made him generally respected, was a heavily built man of
fifty with a shrewd and intelligent face. His dress, consisting of a gray
jacket-suit, white spats, and a loosely flowing tie, in no way suggested
the public official. His manners were easy, simple, and full of
good-natured frankness.
He touched a bell, and when his secretary entered, asked:
"Are the people whom I sent for here?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, and I gave orders that they were to wait in
different rooms."
"Oh, it would not have mattered if they had met! However, perhaps it's
better as it is. I hope that the American Ambassador did not trouble to
come in person?"
"No, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Have you their cards?"
"Yes."
The Prefect of Police took the five visiting cards which his secretary
handed him and read:
"Mr. Archibald Bright, First Secretary United States Embassy; Maître
Lepertuis, Solicitor; Juan Caceres, Attaché to the Peruvian Legation;
Major Comte d'Astrignac, retired."
The fifth card bore merely a name, without address or quality of
any kind--
DON LUIS PERENNA
"That's the one I'm curious to see!" said M. Desmalions. "He interests me
like the very devil! Did you read the report of the Foreign Legion?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, and I confess that this gentleman
puzzles me, too."
"He does, eh? Did you ever hear of such pluck? A sort of heroic madman,
something absolutely wonderful! And then there's that nickname of Arsène
Lupin which he earned among his messmates for the way in which he used
to boss them and astound them! ... How long is it since the death of
Arsène Lupin?"
"It happened two years before your appointment, Monsieur le Préfet. His
corpse and Mme. Kesselbach's were discovered under the ruins of a little
chalet which was burnt down close to the Luxemburg frontier. It was found
at the inquest that he had strangled that monster, Mrs. Kesselbach, whose
crimes came to light afterward, and that he hanged himself after setting
fire to the chalet."
"It was a fitting end for that--rascal," said M. Desmalions, "and I
confess that I, for my part, much prefer not having him to fight against.
Let's see, where were we? Are the papers of the Mornington inheritance
ready for me?"
"On your desk, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Good. But I was forgetting: is Inspector Vérot here?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. I expect he's in the infirmary getting
something to pull him together."
"Why, what's the matter with him?"
"He struck me as being in a queer state--rather ill."
"How do you mean?"
The secretary described his interview with Inspector Vérot.
"And you say he left a letter for me?" said M. Desmalions with a worried
air. "Where is it?"
"Among the papers, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Very odd: it's all very odd. Vérot is a first-rate inspector, a very
sober-minded fellow; and he doesn't get frightened easily. You might go
and fetch him. Meanwhile, I'll look through my letters."
The secretary hurried away. When he returned, five minutes later,
he stated, with an air of astonishment, that he had not seen
Inspector Vérot.
"And what's more curious still," he added, "is that the messenger who saw
him leave this room saw him come in again almost at once and did not see
him go out a second time."
"Perhaps he only passed through here to go to you."
"To me, Monsieur le Préfet? I was in my room all the time."
"Then it's incomprehensible."
"Yes ... unless we conclude that the messenger's attention was distracted
for a second, as Vérot is neither here nor next door."
"That must be it. I expect he's gone to get some air outside; and he'll
be back at any moment. For that matter, I shan't want him to start with."
The Prefect looked at his watch.
"Ten past five. You might tell the messenger to show those gentlemen
in.... Wait, though--"
M. Desmalions hesitated. In turning over the papers he had found Vérot's
letter. It was a large, yellow, business envelope, with "Café du
Pont-Neuf" printed at the top.
The secretary suggested:
"In view of Vérot's absence, Monsieur le Préfet, and of what he said, it
might be as well for you to see what's in the letter first."
M. Desmalions paused to reflect.
"Perhaps you're right."
And, making up his mind, he inserted a paper-knife into the envelope and
cut it open. A cry escaped him.
"Oh, I say, this is a little too much!"
"What is it, Monsieur le Préfet?"
"Why, look here, a blank ... sheet of paper! That's all the envelope
contains!"
"Impossible!"
"See for yourself--a plain sheet folded in four, with not a word on it."
"But Vérot told me in so many words that he had said in that letter all
that he knew about the case."
"He told you so, no doubt, but there you are! Upon my word, if I
didn't know Inspector Vérot, I should think he was trying to play a
game with me."
"It's a piece of carelessness, Monsieur le Préfet, at the worst."
"No doubt, a piece of carelessness, but I'm surprised at him. It doesn't
do to be careless when the lives of two people are at stake. For he must
have told you that there is a double murder planned for to-night?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, and under particularly alarming conditions;
infernal was the word he used."
M. Desmalions was walking up and down the room, with his hands behind his
back. He stopped at a small table.
"What's this little parcel addressed to me? 'Monsieur le Préfet de
Police--to be opened in case of accident.'"
"Oh, yes," said the secretary, "I was forgetting! That's from Inspector
Vérot, too; something of importance, he said, and serving to complete and
explain the contents of the letter."
"Well," said M. Desmalions, who could not help laughing, "the letter
certainly needs explaining; and, though there's no question of
'accident,' I may as well open the parcel."
As he spoke, he cut the string and discovered, under the paper, a box, a
little cardboard box, which might have come from a druggist, but which
was soiled and spoiled by the use to which it had been put.
He raised the lid. Inside the box were a few layers of cotton wool, which
were also rather dirty, and in between these layers was half a cake of
chocolate.
"What the devil does this mean?" growled the Prefect in surprise.
He took the chocolate, looked at it, and at once perceived what was
peculiar about this cake of chocolate, which was also undoubtedly the
reason why Inspector Vérot had kept it. Above and below, it bore the
prints of teeth, very plainly marked, very plainly separated one from the
other, penetrating to a depth of a tenth of an inch or so into the
chocolate. Each possessed its individual shape and width, and each was
divided from its neighbours by a different interval. The jaws which had
started eating the cake of chocolate had dug into it the mark of four
upper and five lower teeth.
M. Desmalions remained wrapped in thought and, with his head sunk on his
chest, for some minutes resumed his walk up and down the room, muttering:
"This is queer ... There's a riddle here to which I should like to know
the answer. That sheet of paper, the marks of those teeth: what does it
all mean?"
But he was not the man to waste much time over a mystery which was bound
to be cleared up presently, as Inspector Vérot must be either at the
police office or somewhere just outside; and he said to his secretary:
"I can't keep those five gentlemen waiting any longer. Please have them
shown in now. If Inspector Vérot arrives while they are here, as he is
sure to do, let me know at once. I want to see him as soon as he comes.
Except for that, see that I'm not disturbed on any pretext, won't you?"
* * * * *
Two minutes later the messenger showed in Maître Lepertuis, a stout,
red-faced man, with whiskers and spectacles, followed by Archibald
Bright, the Secretary of Embassy, and Caceres, the Peruvian attaché. M.
Desmalions, who knew all three of them, chatted to them until he stepped
forward to receive Major Comte d'Astrignac, the hero of La Chouïa, who
had been forced into premature retirement by his glorious wounds. The
Prefect was complimenting him warmly on his gallant conduct in Morocco
when the door opened once more.
"Don Luis Perenna, I believe?" said the Prefect, offering his hand to a
man of middle height and rather slender build, wearing the military medal
and the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour.
The newcomer's face and expression, his way of holding himself, and his
very youthful movements inclined one to look upon him as a man of forty,
though there were wrinkles at the corners of the eyes and on the
forehead, which perhaps pointed to a few years more. He bowed.
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Is that you, Perenna?" cried Comte d'Astrignae. "So you are still among
the living?"
"Yes, Major, and delighted to see you again."
"Perenna alive! Why, we had lost all sight of you when I left Morocco! We
thought you dead."
"I was a prisoner, that's all."
"A prisoner of the tribesmen; the same thing!"
"Not quite, Major; one can escape from anywhere. The proof stands
before you."
The Prefect of Police, yielding to an irresistible attraction to resist,
spent some seconds in examining that powerful face, with the smiling
glance, the frank and resolute eyes, and the bronzed complexion, which
looked as if it had been baked and baked again by the sun.
Then, motioning to his visitors to take chairs around his desk, M.
Desmalions himself sat down and made a preliminary statement in clear and
deliberate tones:
"The summons, gentlemen, which I addressed to each of you, must have
appeared to you rather peremptory and mysterious. And the manner in which
I propose to open our conversation is not likely to diminish your
surprise. But if you will attach a little credit to my method, you will
soon realize that the whole thing is very simple and very natural. I will
be as brief as I can."
He spread before him the bundle of documents prepared for him by his
secretary and, consulting his notes as he spoke, continued:
"Over fifty years ago, in 1860, three sisters, three orphans, Ermeline,
Elizabeth, and Armande Roussel, aged twenty-two, twenty, and eighteen
respectively, were living at Saint-Etienne with a cousin named Victor,
who was a few years younger. The eldest, Ermeline, was the first to leave
Saint-Etienne. She went to London, where she married an Englishman of the
name Mornington, by whom she had a son, who was christened Cosmo.
"The family was very poor and went through hard times. Ermeline
repeatedly wrote to her sisters to ask for a little assistance. Receiving
no reply, she broke off the correspondence altogether. In 1870 Mr. and
Mrs. Mornington left England for America. Five years later they were
rich. Mr. Mornington died in 1878; but his widow continued to administer
the fortune bequeathed to her and, as she had a genius for business and
speculation, she increased this fortune until it attained a colossal
figure. At her decease, in 1900, she left her son the sum of four hundred
million francs."
The amount seemed to make an impression on the Prefect's hearers. He saw
the major and Don Luis Perenna exchange a glance and asked:
"You knew Cosmo Mornington, did you not?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet," replied Comte d'Astrignac. "He was in Morocco
when Perenna and I were fighting there."
"Just so," said M. Desmalions. "Cosmo Mornington had begun to travel
about the world. He took up the practise of medicine, from what I hear,
and, when occasion offered, treated the sick with great skill and, of
course, without charge. He lived first in Egypt and then in Algiers and
Morocco. Last year he settled down in Paris, where he died four weeks ago
as the result of a most stupid accident."
"A carelessly administered hypodermic injection, was it not, Monsieur le
Préfet?" asked the secretary of the American Embassy. "It was mentioned
in the papers and reported to us at the embassy."
"Yes," said Desmalions. "To assist his recovery from a long attack of
influenza which had kept him in bed all the winter, Mr. Mornington, by
his doctor's orders, used to give himself injections of glycero-phosphate
of soda. He must have omitted the necessary precautions on the last
occasion when he did so, for the wound was poisoned, inflammation set in
with lightning rapidity, and Mr. Mornington was dead in a few hours."
The Prefect of Police turned to the solicitor and asked:
"Have I summed up the facts correctly, Maître Lepertuis?"
"Absolutely, Monsieur le Préfet."
M. Desmalions continued:
"The next morning, Maître Lepertuis called here and, for reasons which
you will understand when you have heard the document read, showed me
Cosmo Mornington's will, which had been placed in his hands."
While the Prefect was looking through the papers, Maître Lepertuis added:
"I may be allowed to say that I saw my client only once before I was
summoned to his death-bed; and that was on the day when he sent for me to
come to his room in the hotel to hand me the will which he had just made.
This was at the beginning of his influenza. In the course of conversation
he told me that he had been making some inquiries with a view to tracing
his mother's family, and that he intended to pursue these inquiries
seriously after his recovery. Circumstances, as it turned out, prevented
his fulfilling his purpose."
Meanwhile, the Prefect of Police had taken from among the documents an
open envelope containing two sheets of paper. He unfolded the larger of
the two and said:
"This is the will. I will ask you to listen attentively while I read it
and also the document attached to it."
The others settled themselves in their chairs; and the Prefect read out:
"The last will and testament of me, Cosmo Mornington, eldest son of
Hubert Mornington and Ermeline Roussel, his wife, a naturalized citizen
of the United States of America. I give and bequeath to my adopted
country three fourths of my estate, to be employed on works of charity in
accordance with the instructions, written in my hand, which Maître
Lepertuis will be good enough to forward to the Ambassador of the United
States. The remainder of my property, to the value of about one hundred
million francs, consisting of deposits in various Paris and London banks,
a list of which is in the keeping of Maître Lepertuis, I give and
bequeath, in memory of my dear mother, to her favourite sister Elizabeth
Roussel or her direct heirs; or, in default of Elizabeth and her heirs,
to her second sister Armande Roussel or her direct heirs; or, in default
of both sisters and their heirs, to their cousin Victor Roussel or his
direct heirs.
"In the event of my dying without discovering the surviving members of
the Roussel family, or of the cousin of the three sisters, I request my
friend Don Luis Perenna to make all the necessary investigations. With
this object, I hereby appoint him the executor of my will in so far as
concerns the European portion of my estate, and I beg him to undertake
the conduct of the events that may arise after my death or in consequence
of my death to consider himself my representative and to act in all
things for the benefit of my memory and the accomplishment of my wishes.
In gratitude for this service and in memory of the two occasions on which
he saved my life, I give and bequeath to the said Don Luis Perenna the
sum of one million francs."
The Prefect stopped for a few seconds. Don Luis murmured:
"Poor Cosmo! ... I should not have needed that inducement to carry out
his last wishes."
M. Desmalions continued his reading:
"Furthermore, if, within three months of my death, the investigations
made by Don Luis Perenna and by Maître Lepertuis have led to no result;
if no heir and no survivor of the Roussel family have come forward to
receive the bequest, then the whole hundred million francs shall
definitely, all later claims notwithstanding, accrue to my friend Don
Luis Perenna. I know him well enough to feel assured that he will employ
this fortune in a manner which shall accord with the loftiness of his
schemes and the greatness of the plans which he described to me so
enthusiastically in our tent in Morocco."
M. Desmalions stopped once more and raised his eyes to Don Luis, who
remained silent and impassive, though a tear glistened on his lashes.
Comte d'Astrignac said:
"My congratulations, Perenna."
"Let me remind you, Major," he answered, "that this legacy is subject to
a condition. And I swear that, if it depends on me, the survivors of the
Roussel family shall be found."
"I'm sure of it," said the officer. "I know you."
"In any case," asked the Prefect of Police of Don Luis, "you do not
refuse this conditional legacy?"
"Well, no," said Perenna, with a laugh. "There are things which one
can't refuse."
"My question," said the Prefect, "was prompted by the last paragraph of
the will: 'If, for any reason, my friend Perenna should refuse this
legacy, or if he should have died before the date fixed for its payment,
I request the Ambassador of the United States and the Prefect of Police
for the time being to consult as to the means of building and maintaining
in Paris a university confined to students and artists of American
nationality and to devote the money to this purpose. And I hereby
authorize the Prefect of Police in any case to receive a sum of three
hundred thousand francs out of my estate for the benefit of the Paris
Police Fund.'"
M. Desmalions folded the paper and took up another.
"There is a codicil to the will. It consists of a letter which Mr.
Mornington wrote to Maître Lepertuis some time after and which explains
certain points with greater precision:
"I request Maître Lepertuis to open my will on the day after my death, in
the presence of the Prefect of Police, who will be good enough to keep
the matter an entire secret for a month. One month later, to the day, he
will have the kindness to summon to his office Maître Lepertuis, Don Luis
Perenna, and a prominent member of the United States Embassy. Subsequent
to the reading of the will, a cheque for one million francs shall be
handed to my friend and legatee Don Luis Perenna, after a simple
examination of his papers and a simple verification of his identity. I
should wish this verification to be made as regards the personality by
Major Comte d'Astrignac, who was his commanding officer in Morocco, and
who unfortunately had to retire prematurely from the army; and as regards
birth by a member of the Peruvian Legation, as Don Luis Perenna, though
retaining his Spanish nationality, was born in Peru.
"Furthermore, I desire that my will be not communicated to the Roussel
heirs until two days later, at Maître Lepertuis's office. Finally--and
this is the last expression of my wishes as regards the disposal of my
estate and the method of proceeding with that disposal--the Prefect of
Police will be good enough to summon the persons aforesaid to his office,
for a second time, at a date to be selected by himself, not less than
sixty nor more than ninety days after the first meeting. Then and not
till then will the definite legatee be named and proclaimed according to
his rights, nor shall any be so named and proclaimed unless he be present
at this meeting, at the conclusion of which Don Luis Perenna, who must
also attend it, shall become the definite legatee if, as I have said, no
survivor nor heir of the Roussel sisters or of their cousin Victor have
come forward to claim the bequest."
Replacing both documents in the envelope the Prefect of Police concluded:
"You have now, gentlemen, heard the will of Mr. Cosmo Mornington, which
explains your presence here. A sixth person will join us shortly: one of
my detectives, whom I instructed to make the first inquiries about the
Roussel family and who will give you the result of his investigations.
But, for the moment, we must proceed in accordance with the testator's
directions.
"Don Luis Perenna's papers, which he sent me, at my request, a fortnight
ago, have been examined by myself and are perfectly in order. As regards
his birth, I wrote and begged his Excellency the Peruvian minister to
collect the most precise information."
"The minister entrusted this mission to me," said Señor Caceres, the
Peruvian attaché. "It offered no difficulties. Don Luis Perenna comes of
an old Spanish family which emigrated thirty years ago, but which
retained its estates and property in Europe. I knew Don Luis's father in
America; and he used to speak of his only son with the greatest
affection. It was our legation that informed the son, three years ago, of
his father's death. I produce a copy of the letter sent to Morocco."
"And I have the original letter here, among the documents forwarded by
Don Luis Perenna to the Prefect of Police. Do you, Major, recognize
Private Perenna, who fought under your orders in the Foreign Legion?"
"I recognize him," said Comte d'Astrignac.
"Beyond the possibility of a mistake?"
"Beyond the possibility of a mistake and without the least feeling of
hesitation."
The Prefect of Police, with a laugh, hinted:
"You recognize Private Perenna, whom the men, carried away by a sort of
astounded admiration of his exploits, used to call Arsène Lupin?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet," replied the major sharply, "the one whom the
men called Arsène Lupin, but whom the officers called simply the Hero,
the one who we used to say was as brave as d'Artagnan, as strong as
Porthos...."
"And as mysterious as Monte Cristo," said the Prefect of Police,
laughing. "I have all this in the report which I received from the Fourth
Regiment of the Foreign Legion. It is not necessary to read the whole of
it; but it contains the unprecedented fact that Private Perenna, in the
space of two years' time, received the military medal, received the
Legion of Honour for exceptional services, and was mentioned fourteen
times in dispatches. I will pick out a detail here and there."
"Monsieur le Préfet, I beg of you," protested Don Luis. "These are
trivial matters, of no interest to anybody; and I do not see the
reason...."
"There is every reason, on the contrary," declared M. Desmalions. "You
gentlemen are here not only to hear a will read, but also to authorize
its execution as regards the only one of its clauses that is to be
carried out at once, the payment of a legacy of a million francs. It
is necessary, therefore, that all of you should know what there is to
know of the personality of the legatee. Consequently, I propose to
continue ..."
"In that case, Monsieur le Préfet," said Perenna, rising and making for
the door, "you will allow me ..."
"Right about turn! Halt! ... Eyes front!" commanded Major d'Astrignac in
a jesting tone.
He dragged Don Luis back to the middle of the room and forced him
into a chair.
"Monsieur le Préfet," he said, "I plead for mercy for my old
comrade-in-arms, whose modesty would really be put to too severe a test
if the story of his prowess were read out in front of him. Besides, the
report is here; and we can all of us consult it for ourselves. Without
having seen it, I second every word of praise that it contains; and I
declare that, in the course of my whole military career, I have never met
a soldier who could compare with Private Perenna. And yet I saw plenty of
fine fellows over there, the sort of demons whom you only find in the
Legion and who will get themselves cut to bits for the sheer pleasure of
the thing, for the lark of it, as they say, just to astonish one another.
"But not one of them came anywhere near Perenna. The chap whom we
nicknamed d'Artagnan, Porthos, and de Bussy deserved to be classed with
the most amazing heroes of legend and history. I have seen him perform
feats which I should not care to relate, for fear of being treated as an
impostor; feats so improbable that to-day, in my calmer moments, I wonder
if I am quite sure that I did see them. One day, at Settat, as we were
being pursued--"
"Another word, Major," cried Don Luis, gayly, "and this time I really
will go out! I must say you have a nice way of sparing my modesty!"
"My dear Perenna," replied Comte d'Astrignac, "I always told you that you
had every good quality and only one fault, which was that you were not a
Frenchman."
"And I always answered, Major, that I was French on my mother's side and
a Frenchman in heart and temperament. There are things which only a
Frenchman can do."
The two men again gripped each other's hands affectionately.
"Come," said the Prefect, "we'll say no more of your feats of prowess,
Monsieur, nor of this report. I will mention one thing, however, which is
that, after two years, you fell into an ambush of forty Berbers, that you
were captured, and that you did not rejoin the Legion until last month."
"Just so, Monsieur le Préfet, in time to receive my discharge, as my five
years' service was up."
"But how did Mr. Cosmo Mornington come to mention you in his will, when,
at the time when he was making it, you had disappeared from view for
eighteen months?"
"Cosmo and I used to correspond."
"What!"
"Yes; and I had informed him of my approaching escape and my return
to Paris."
"But how did you manage it? Where were you? And how did you find the
means? ..."
Don Luis smiled without answering.
"Monte Cristo, this time," said M. Desmalions. "The mysterious
Monte Cristo."
"Monte Cristo, if you like, Monsieur le Préfet. In point of fact, the
mystery of my captivity and escape is a rather strange one. It may be
interesting to throw some light upon it one of these days. Meanwhile, I
must ask for a little credit."
A silence ensued. M. Desmalions once more inspected this curious
individual; and he could not refrain from saying, as though in obedience
to an association of ideas for which he himself was unable to account:
"One word more, and one only. What were your comrades' reasons for giving
you that rather odd nickname of Arsène Lupin? Was it just an allusion to
your pluck, to your physical strength?"
"There was something besides, Monsieur le Préfet: the discovery of a very
curious theft, of which certain details, apparently incapable of
explanation, had enabled me to name the perpetrator."
"So you have a gift for that sort of thing?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, a certain knack which I had the opportunity of
employing in Africa on more than one occasion. Hence my nickname of
Arsène Lupin. It was soon after the death of the man himself, you know,
and he was much spoken of at the time."
"Was it a serious theft?"
"It was rather; and it happened to be committed upon Cosmo Mornington,
who was then living in the Province of Oran. That was really what started
our relations."
There was a fresh silence; and Don Luis added:
"Poor Cosmo! That incident gave him an unshakable confidence in my little
detective talents. He was always saying, 'Perenna, if I die murdered'--he
had a fixed notion in his head that he would meet with a violent
death--'if I die murdered, swear that you will pursue the culprit.'"
"His presentiment was not justified," said the Prefect of Police. "Cosmo
Mornington was not murdered."
"That's where you make a mistake, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis.
M. Desmalions gave a start.
"What! What's that? Cosmo Mornington--?"
"I say that Cosmo Mornington did not die, as you think, of a carelessly
administered injection, but that he died, as he feared he would, by
foul play."
"But, Monsieur, your assertion is based on no evidence whatever!"
"It is based on fact, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Were you there? Do you know anything?"
"I was not there. A month ago I was still with the colours. I even admit
that, when I arrived in Paris, not having seen the newspapers regularly,
I did not know of Cosmo's death. In fact, I learned it from you just now,
Monsieur le Préfet."
"In that case, Monsieur, you cannot know more about it than I do, and you
must accept the verdict of the doctor."
"I am sorry, but his verdict fails to satisfy me."
"But look here, Monsieur, what prompts you to make the accusation? Have
you any evidence?"
"Yes."
"What evidence?"
"Your own words, Monsieur le Préfet."
"My own words? What do you mean?"
"I will tell you, Monsieur le Préfet. You began by saying that Cosmo
Mornington had taken up medicine and practised it with great skill;
next, you said that he had given himself an injection which,
carelessly administered, set up inflammation and caused his death
within a few hours."
"Yes."
"Well, Monsieur le Préfet, I maintain that a man who practises medicine
with great skill and who is accustomed to treating sick people, as Cosmo
Mornington was, is incapable of giving himself a hypodermic injection
without first taking every necessary antiseptic precaution. I have seen
Cosmo at work, and I know how he set about things."
"Well?"
"Well, the doctor just wrote a certificate as any doctor will when there
is no sort of clue to arouse his suspicions."
"So your opinion is--"
"Maître Lepertuis," asked Perenna, turning to the solicitor, "did you
notice nothing unusual when you were summoned to Mr. Mornington's
death-bed?"
"No, nothing. Mr. Mornington was in a state of coma."
"It's a strange thing in itself," observed Don Luis, "that an injection,
however badly administered, should produce such rapid results. Were there
no signs of suffering?"
"No ... or rather, yes.... Yes, I remember the face showed brown patches
which I did not see on the occasion of my first visit."
"Brown patches? That confirms my supposition Cosmo Mornington was
poisoned."
"But how?" exclaimed the Prefect.
"By some substance introduced into one of the phials of
glycero-phosphate, or into the syringe which the sick man employed."
"But the doctor?" M. Desmalions objected.
"Maître Lepertuis," Perenna continued, "did you call the doctor's
attention to those brown patches?"
"Yes, but he attached no importance to them."
"Was it his ordinary medical adviser?"
"No, his ordinary medical adviser, Doctor Pujol, who happens to be a
friend of mine and who had recommended me to him as a solicitor, was ill.
The doctor whom I saw at his death-bed must have been a local
practitioner."
"I have his name and address here," said the Prefect of Police, who had
turned up the certificate. "Doctor Bellavoine, 14 Rue d'Astorg."
"Have you a medical directory, Monsieur le Préfet?"
M. Desmalions opened a directory and turned over the pages. Presently
he declared:
"There is no Doctor Bellavoine; and there is no doctor living at 14 Rue
d'Astorg."
CHAPTER TWO
A MAN DEAD
The declaration was followed by a silence of some length. The Secretary
of the American Embassy and the Peruvian attaché had followed the
conversation with eager interest. Major d'Astrignac nodded his head with
an air of approval. To his mind, Perenna could not be mistaken.
The Prefect of Police confessed:
"Certainly, certainly ... we have a number of circumstances here ... that
are fairly ambiguous.... Those brown patches; that doctor.... It's a case
that wants looking into." And, questioning Don Luis Perenna as though in
spite of himself, he asked, "No doubt, in your opinion, there is a
possible connection between the murder ... and Mr. Mornington's will?"
"That, Monsieur le Préfet, I cannot tell. If there is, we should have to
suppose that the contents of the will were known. Do you think they can
have leaked out, Maître Lepertuis?"
"I don't think so, for Mr. Mornington seemed to behave with great
caution."
"And there's no question, is there, of any indiscretion committed in
your office?"
"By whom? No one handled the will except myself; and I alone have the
key of the safe in which I put away documents of that importance
every evening."
"The safe has not been broken into? There has been no burglary at
your office?"
"No."
"You saw Cosmo Mornington in the morning?"
"Yes, on a Friday morning."
"What did you do with the will until the evening, until you locked it
away up your safe?"
"I probably put it in the drawer of my desk."
"And the drawer was not forced?"
Maître Lepertuis seemed taken aback and made no reply.
"Well?" asked Perenna.
"Well, yes, I remember ... there was something that day ... that
same Friday."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. When I came in from lunch I noticed that the drawer was not locked,
although I had locked it beyond the least doubt. At the time I attached
comparatively little importance to the incident. To-day, I understand, I
understand--"
Thus, little by little, were all the suppositions conceived by Don Luis
verified: suppositions resting, it is true, upon just one or two clues,
but yet containing an amount of intuition, of divination, that was really
surprising in a man who had been present at none of the events between
which he traced the connection so skilfully.
"We will lose no time, Monsieur," said the Prefect of Police, "in
checking your statements, which you will confess to be a little
venturesome, by the more positive evidence of one of my detectives who
has the case in charge ... and who ought to be here by now."
"Does his evidence bear upon Cosmo Mornington's heirs?" asked the
solicitor.
"Upon the heirs principally, because two days ago he telephoned to me
that he had collected all the particulars, and also upon the very points
which--But wait: I remember that he spoke to my secretary of a murder
committed a month ago to-day.... Now it's a month to-day since Mr. Cosmo
Mornington--"
M. Desmalions pressed hard on a bell. His private secretary at
once appeared.
"Inspector Vérot?" asked the Prefect sharply.
"He's not back yet."
"Have him fetched! Have him brought here! He must be found at all costs
and without delay."
He turned to Don Luis Perenna.
"Inspector Vérot was here an hour ago, feeling rather unwell, very much
excited, it seems, and declaring that he was being watched and followed.
He said he wanted to make a most important statement to me about the
Mornington case and to warn the police of two murders which are to be
committed to-night ... and which would be a consequence of the murder of
Cosmo Mornington."
"And he was unwell, you say?"
"Yes, ill at ease and even very queer and imagining things. By way of
being prudent, he left a detailed report on the case for me. Well, the
report is simply a blank sheet of letter-paper.
"Here is the paper and the envelope in which I found it, and here is a
cardboard box which he also left behind him. It contains a cake of
chocolate with the marks of teeth on it."
"May I look at the two things you have mentioned, Monsieur le Préfet?"
"Yes, but they won't tell you anything."
"Perhaps so--"
Don Luis examined at length the cardboard box and the yellow envelope,
on which were printed the words, "Café du Pont-Neuf." The others awaited
his words as though they were bound to shed an unexpected light. He
merely said:
"The handwriting is not the same on the envelope and the box. The writing
on the envelope is less plain, a little shaky, obviously imitated."
"Which proves--?"
"Which proves, Monsieur le Préfet, that this yellow envelope does not
come from your detective. I presume that, after writing his report at a
table in the Café du Pont-Neuf and closing it, he had a moment of
inattention during which somebody substituted for his envelope another
with the same address, but containing a blank sheet of paper."
"That's a supposition!" said the Prefect.
"Perhaps; but what is certain, Monsieur le Préfet, is that your
inspector's presentiments are well-grounded, that he is being closely
watched, that the discoveries about the Mornington inheritance which he
has succeeded in making are interfering with criminal designs, and that
he is in terrible danger."
"Come, come!"
"He must be rescued, Monsieur le Préfet. Ever since the commencement of
this meeting I have felt persuaded that we are up against an attempt
which has already begun. I hope that it is not too late and that your
inspector has not been the first victim."
"My dear sir," exclaimed the Prefect of Police, "you declare all this
with a conviction which rouses my admiration, but which is not enough to
establish the fact that your fears are justified. Inspector Vérot's
return will be the best proof."
"Inspector Vérot will not return."
"But why not?"
"Because he has returned already. The messenger saw him return."
"The messenger was dreaming. If you have no proof but that man's
evidence--"
"I have another proof, Monsieur le Préfet, which Inspector Vérot himself
has left of his presence here: these few, almost illegible letters which
he scribbled on this memorandum pad, which your secretary did not see him
write and which have just caught my eye. Look at them. Are they not a
proof, a definite proof that he came back?"
The Prefect did not conceal his perturbation. The others all seemed
impressed. The secretary's return but increased their apprehensions:
nobody had seen Inspector Vérot.
"Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis, "I earnestly beg you to have the
office messenger in."
And, as soon as the messenger was there, he asked him, without even
waiting for M. Desmalions to speak:
"Are you sure that Inspector Vérot entered this room a second time?"
"Absolutely sure."
"And that he did not go out again?"
"Absolutely sure."
"And your attention was not distracted for a moment?"
"Not for a moment."
"There, Monsieur, you see!" cried the Prefect. "If Inspector Vérot were
here, we should know it."
"He is here, Monsieur le Préfet."
"What!"
"Excuse my obstinacy, Monsieur le Préfet, but I say that, when some one
enters a room and does not go out again, he is still in that room."
"Hiding?" said M. Desmalions, who was growing more and more irritated.
"No, but fainting, ill--dead, perhaps."
"But where, hang it all?"
"Behind that screen."
"There's nothing behind that screen, nothing but a door."
"And that door--?"
"Leads to a dressing-room."
"Well, Monsieur le Préfet, Inspector Vérot, tottering, losing his head,
imagining himself to be going from your office to your secretary's room,
fell into your dressing-room."
M. Desmalions ran to the door, but, at the moment of opening it, shrank
back. Was it apprehension, the wish to withdraw himself from the
influence of that astonishing man, who gave his orders with such
authority and who seemed to command events themselves?
Don Luis stood waiting imperturbably, in a deferential attitude.
"I cannot believe--" said M. Desmalions.
"Monsieur le Préfet, I would remind you that Inspector Vérot's
revelations may save the lives of two persons who are doomed to die
to-night. Every minute lost is irreparable."
M. Desmalions shrugged his shoulders. But that man mastered him with the
power of his conviction; and the Prefect opened the door.
He did not make a movement, did not utter a cry. He simply muttered:
"Oh, is it possible!--"
By the pale gleam of light that entered through a ground-glass window
they saw the body of a man lying on the floor.
"The inspector! Inspector Vérot!" gasped the office messenger,
running forward.
He and the secretary raised the body and placed it in an armchair in the
Prefect's office.
Inspector Vérot was still alive, but so little alive that they could
scarcely hear the beating of his heart. A drop of saliva trickled from
the corner of his mouth. His eyes were devoid of all expression. However,
certain muscles of the face kept moving, perhaps with the effort of a
will that seemed to linger almost beyond life.
Don Luis muttered:
"Look, Monsieur le Préfet--the brown patches!"
The same dread unnerved all. They began to ring bells and open doors and
call for help.
"Send for the doctor!" ordered M. Desmalions. "Tell them to bring a
doctor, the first that comes--and a priest. We can't let the poor man--"
Don Luis raised his arm to demand silence.
"There is nothing more to be done," he said. "We shall do better to
make the most of these last moments. Have I your permission, Monsieur
le Préfet?"
He bent over the dying man, laid the swaying head against the back of the
chair, and, in a very gentle voice, whispered:
"Vérot, it's Monsieur le Préfet speaking to you. We should like a few
particulars about what is to take place to-night. Do you hear me, Vérot?
If you hear me, close your eyelids."
The eyelids were lowered. But was it not merely chance? Don Luis went on:
"You have found the heirs of the Roussel sisters, that much we know; and
it is two of those heirs who are threatened with death. The double murder
is to be committed to-night. But what we do not know is the name of those
heirs, who are doubtless not called Roussel. You must tell us the name.
"Listen to me: you wrote on a memorandum pad three letters which seem to
form the syllable Fau.... Am I right? Is this the first syllable of a
name? Which is the next letter after those three? Close your eyes when I
mention the right letter. Is it 'b?' Is it 'c?'"
But there was now not a flicker in the inspector's pallid face. The head
dropped heavily on the chest. Vérot gave two or three sighs, his frame
shook with one great shiver, and he moved no more.
He was dead.
The tragic scene had been enacted so swiftly that the men who were
its shuddering spectators remained for a moment confounded. The
solicitor made the sign of the cross and went down on his knees. The
Prefect murmured:
"Poor Vérot!... He was a good man, who thought only of the service, of
his duty. Instead of going and getting himself seen to--and who knows?
Perhaps he might have been saved--he came back here in the hope of
communicating his secret. Poor Vérot!--"
"Was he married? Are there any children?" asked Don Luis.
"He leaves a wife and three children," replied the Prefect.
"I will look after them," said Don Luis simply.
Then, when they brought a doctor and when M. Desmalions gave orders for
the corpse to be carried to another room, Don Luis took the doctor
aside and said:
"There is no doubt that Inspector Vérot was poisoned. Look at his
wrist: you will see the mark of a puncture with a ring of inflammation
round it."
"Then he was pricked in that place?"
"Yes, with a pin or the point of a pen; and not as violently as they may
have wished, because death did not ensue until some hours later."
The messengers removed the corpse; and soon there was no one left in the
office except the five people whom the Prefect had originally sent for.
The American Secretary of Embassy and the Peruvian attaché, considering
their continued presence unnecessary, went away, after warmly
complimenting Don Luis Perenna on his powers of penetration.
Next came the turn of Major d'Astrignac, who shook his former subordinate
by the hand with obvious affection. And Maître Lepertais and Perenna,
having fixed an appointment for the payment of the legacy, were
themselves on the point of leaving, when M. Desmalions entered briskly.
"Ah, so you're still here, Don Luis Perenna! I'm glad of that. I have an
idea: those three letters which you say you made out on the
writing-table, are you sure they form the syllable Fau?"
"I think so, Monsieur le Préfet. See for yourself: are not these an 'F,'
an 'A' and a 'U?' And observe that the 'F' is a capital, which made me
suspect that the letters are the first syllable of a proper name."
"Just so, just so," said M. Desmalions. "Well, curiously enough, that
syllable happens to be--But wait, we'll verify our facts--"
M. Desmalions searched hurriedly among the letters which his secretary
had handed him on his arrival and which lay on a corner of the table.
"Ah, here we are!" he exclaimed, glancing at the signature of one of the
letters. "Here we are! It's as I thought: 'Fauville.' ... The first
syllable is the same.... Look, 'Fauville,' just like that, without
Christian name or initials. The letter must have been written in a
feverish moment: there is no date nor address.... The writing is shaky--"
And M. Desmalions read out:
"MONSIEUR LE PRÉFET:
"A great danger is hanging over my head and over the head of my son.
Death is approaching apace. I shall have to-night, or to-morrow morning
at the latest, the proofs of the abominable plot that threatens us. I ask
leave to bring them to you in the course of the morning. I am in need of
protection and I call for your assistance.
"Permit me to be, etc. FAUVILLE."
"No other designation?" asked Perenna. "No letter-heading?"
"None. But there is no mistake. Inspector Vérot's declarations agree too
evidently with this despairing appeal. It is clearly M. Fauville and his
son who are to be murdered to-night. And the terrible thing is that, as
this name of Fauville is a very common one, it is impossible for our
inquiries to succeed in time."
"What, Monsieur le Préfet? Surely, by straining every nerve--"
"Certainly, we will strain every nerve; and I shall set all my men to
work. But observe that we have not the slightest clue."
"Oh, it would be awful!" cried Don Luis. "Those two creatures doomed to
death; and we unable to save them! Monsieur le Préfet, I ask you to
authorize me--"
He had not finished speaking when the Prefect's private secretary entered
with a visiting-card in his hand.
"Monsieur le Préfet, this caller was so persistent.... I hesitated--"
M. Desmalions took the card and uttered an exclamation of mingled
surprise and joy.
"Look, Monsieur," he said to Perenna.
And he handed him the card.
_Hippolyte Fauville,
Civil Engineer.
14 bis Boulevard Suchet._
"Come," said M. Desmalions, "chance is favouring us. If this M. Fauville
is one of the Roussel heirs, our task becomes very much easier."
"In any case, Monsieur le Préfet," the solicitor interposed, "I must
remind you that one of the clauses of the will stipulates that it shall
not be read until forty-eight hours have elapsed. M. Fauville, therefore,
must not be informed--"
The door was pushed open and a man hustled the messenger aside and
rushed in.
"Inspector ... Inspector Vérot?" he spluttered. "He's dead, isn't he? I
was told--"
"Yes, Monsieur, he is dead."
"Too late! I'm too late!" he stammered.
And he sank into a chair, clasping his hands and sobbing:
"Oh, the scoundrels! the scoundrels!"
He was a pale, hollow-cheeked, sickly looking man of about fifty.
His head was bald, above a forehead lined with deep wrinkles. A
nervous twitching affected his chin and the lobes of his ears. Tears
stood in his eyes.
The Prefect asked:
"Whom do you mean, Monsieur? Inspector Vérot's murderers? Are you able to
name them, to assist our inquiry?"
Hippolyte Fauville shook his head.
"No, no, it would be useless, for the moment.... My proofs would not be
sufficient.... No, really not."
He had already risen from his chair and stood apologizing:
"Monsieur le Préfet, I have disturbed you unnecessarily, but I wanted to
know.... I was hoping that Inspector Vérot might have escaped.... His
evidence, joined to mine, would have been invaluable. But perhaps he was
able to tell you?"
"No, he spoke of this evening--of to-night--"
Hippolyte Fauville started.
"This evening! Then the time has come!... But no, it's impossible, they
can't do anything to me yet.... They are not ready--"
"Inspector Vérot declared, however, that the double murder would be
committed to-night."
"No, Monsieur le Préfet, he was wrong there.... I know all about
it.... To-morrow evening at the earliest ... and we will catch them in a
trap.... Oh, the scoundrels!"
Don Luis went up to him and asked:
"Your mother's name was Ermeline Roussel, was it not?"
"Yes, Ermeline Roussel. She is dead now."
"And she was from Saint-Etienne?"
"Yes. But why these questions?"
"Monsieur le Préfet will tell you to-morrow. One word more." He opened
the cardboard box left by Inspector Vérot. "Does this cake of chocolate
mean anything to you? These marks?"
"Oh, how awful!" said the civil engineer, in a hoarse tone. "Where did
the inspector find it?"
He dropped into his chair again, but only for a moment; then, drawing
himself up, he hurried toward the door with a jerky step.
"I'm going, Monsieur le Préfet, I'm going. To-morrow morning I'll show
you.... I shall have all the proofs.... And the police will protect
me.... I am ill, I know, but I want to live! I have the right to
live ... and my son, too.... And we will live.... Oh, the scoundrels!--"
And he ran, stumbling out, like a drunken man.
M. Desmalions rose hastily.
"I shall have inquiries made about that man's circumstances.... I shall
have his house watched. I've telephoned to the detective office already.
I'm expecting some one in whom I have every confidence."
Don Luis said:
"Monsieur le Préfet, I beg you, with an earnestness which you will
understand, to authorize me to pursue the investigation. Cosmo
Mornington's will makes it my duty and, allow me to say, gives me the
right to do so. M. Fauville's enemies have given proofs of extraordinary
cleverness and daring. I want to have the honour of being at the post of
danger to-night, at M. Fauville's house, near his person."
The Prefect hesitated. He was bound to reflect how greatly to Don Luis
Perenna's interest it was that none of the Mornington heirs should be
discovered, or at least be able to come between him and the millions
of the inheritance. Was it safe to attribute to a noble sentiment of
gratitude, to a lofty conception of friendship and duty, that strange
longing to protect Hippolyte Fauville against the death that
threatened him?
For some seconds M. Desmalions watched that resolute face, those
intelligent eyes, at once innocent and satirical, grave and smiling, eyes
through which you could certainly not penetrate their owner's baffling
individuality, but which nevertheless looked at you with an expression of
absolute frankness and sincerity. Then he called his secretary:
"Has any one come from the detective office?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet; Sergeant Mazeroux is here."
"Please have him shown in."
And, turning to Perenna:
"Sergeant Mazeroux is one of our smartest detectives. I used to employ
him together with that poor Vérot when I wanted any one more than
ordinarily active and sharp. He will be of great use to you."
* * * * *
Sergeant Mazeroux entered. He was a short, lean, wiry man, whose drooping
moustache, heavy eyelids, watery eyes and long, lank hair gave him a most
doleful appearance.
"Mazeroux," said the Prefect, "you will have heard, by this time, of your
comrade Vérot's death and of the horrible circumstances attending it. We
must now avenge him and prevent further crimes. This gentleman, who knows
the case from end to end, will explain all that is necessary. You will
work with him and report to me to-morrow morning."
This meant giving a free hand to Don Luis Perenna and relying on his
power of initiative and his perspicacity. Don Luis bowed:
"I thank you, Monsieur le Préfet. I hope that you will have no reason to
regret the trust which you are good enough to place in me."
And, taking leave of M. Desmalions and Maître Lepertuis, he went out with
Sergeant Mazeroux.
As soon as they were outside, he told Mazeroux what he knew. The
detective seemed much impressed by his companion's professional gifts and
quite ready to be guided by his views.
They decided first to go to the Café du Pont-Neuf. Here they learned that
Inspector Vérot, who was a regular customer of the place, had written a
long letter there that morning. And the waiter remembered that a man at
the next table, who had entered the café at almost the same time as the
inspector, had also asked for writing-paper and called twice for yellow
envelopes.
"That's it," said Mazeroux to Don Luis. "As you suspected, one letter has
been substituted for the other."
The description given by the waiter was pretty explicit: a tall man, with
a slight stoop, wearing a reddish-brown beard cut into a point, a
tortoise-shell eyeglass with a black silk ribbon, and an ebony
walking-stick with a handle shaped like a swan's head.
"That's something for the police to go upon," said Mazeroux.
They were leaving the café when Don Luis stopped his companion.
"One moment."
"What's the matter?"
"We've been followed."
"Followed? What next? And by whom, pray?"
"No one that matters. I know who it is and I may as well settle his
business and have done with it. Wait for me. I shall be back; and I'll
show you some fun. You shall see one of the 'nuts,' I promise you."
He returned in a minute with a tall, thin man with his face set in
whiskers. He introduced him:
"M. Mazeroux, a friend of mine, Señor Caceres, an attaché at the Peruvian
Legation. Señor Caceres took part in the interview at the Prefect's just
now. It was he who, on the Peruvian Minister's instructions, collected
the documents bearing upon my identity." And he added gayly: "So you were
looking for me, dear Señor Caceres. Indeed, I expected, when we left the
police office--"
The Peruvian attaché made a sign and pointed to Sergeant Mazeroux.
Perenna replied:
"Oh, pray don't mind M. Mazeroux! You can speak before him; he is the
soul of discretion. Besides, he knows all about the business."
The attaché was silent. Perenna made him sit down in front of him.
"Speak without beating about the bush, dear Señor Caceres. It's a subject
that calls for plain dealing; and I don't mind a blunt word or two. It
saves such a lot of time! Come on. You want money, I suppose? Or, rather,
more money. How much?"
The Peruvian had a final hesitation, gave a glance at Don Luis's
companion, and then, suddenly making up his mind, said in a dull voice:
"Fifty thousand francs!"
"Oh, by Jove, by Jove!" cried Don Luis. "You're greedy, you know! What do
you say, M. Mazeroux? Fifty thousand francs is a lot of money. Especially
as--Look here, my dear Caceres, let's go over the ground again.
"Three years ago I had the honour of making your acquaintance in Algeria,
when you were touring the country. At the same time, I understood the
sort of man you were; and I asked you if you could manage, in three
years, with my name of Perenna, to fix me up a Spanish-Peruvian identity,
furnished with unquestionable papers and respectable ancestors. You said,
'Yes,' We settled the price: twenty thousand francs. Last week, when the
Prefect of Police asked me for my papers, I came to see you and learned
that you had just been instructed to make inquiries into my antecedents.
"Everything was ready, as it happened. With the papers of a deceased
Peruvian nobleman, of the name of Pereira, properly revised, you had
faked me up a first-rate civic status. We arranged what you were to say
before the Prefect of Police; and I paid up the twenty thousand. We were
quits. What more do you want?"
The Pervian attaché did not betray the least embarrassment. He put his
two elbows on the table and said, very calmly:
"Monsieur, when treating with you, three years ago, I thought I was
dealing with a gentleman who, hiding himself under the uniform of the
Foreign Legion, wished to recover the means to live respectably
afterward. To-day, I have to do with the universal legatee of Cosmo
Mornington, with a man who, to-morrow, under a false name, will receive
the sum of one million francs and, in a few months, perhaps, the sum of a
hundred millions. That's quite a different thing."
The argument seemed to strike Don Luis. Nevertheless, he objected:
"And, if I refuse--?"
"If you refuse, I shall inform the solicitor and the Prefect of Police
that I made an error in my inquiry and that there is some mistake about
Don Luis Perenna. In consequence of which you will receive nothing at all
and very likely find yourself in jail."
"With you, my worthy sir."
"Me?"
"Of course: on a charge of forgery and tampering with registers. For you
don't imagine that I should take it lying down."
The attaché did not reply. His nose, which was a very big one, seemed to
lengthen out still farther between his two long whiskers.
Don Luis began to laugh.
"Come, Señor Caceres, don't pull such a face! No one's going to hurt you.
Only don't think that you can corner me. Better men than you have tried
and have broken their backs in the process. And, upon my word, you don't
cut much of a figure when you're doing your best to diddle your
fellowmen.
"You look a bit of a mug, in fact, Caceres: a bit of a mug is what you
look. So it's understood, what? We lay down our arms. No more base
designs against our excellent friend Perenna. Capital, Señor Caceres,
capital. And now I'll be magnanimous and prove to you that the decent man
of us two is--the one whom any one would have thought!"
He produced a check-book on the Crédit Lyonnais.
"Here, my dear chap. Here's twenty thousand francs as a present from
Cosmo Mornington's legatee. Put it in your pocket and look pleasant. Say
thank you to the kind gentleman, and make yourself scarce without turning
your head any more than if you were one of old man Lot's daughters. Off
you go: hoosh!"
This was said in such a manner that the attaché obeyed Don Luis Perenna's
injunctions to the letter. He smiled as he pocketed the check, said thank
you twice over, and made off without turning his head.
"The low hound!" muttered Don Luis. "What do you say to that, Sergeant?"
Sergeant Mazeroux was looking at him in stupefaction, with his eyes
starting from his head.
"Well, but, Monsieur--"
"What, Sergeant?"
"Well, but, Monsieur, who are you?"
"Who am I?"
"Yes."
"Didn't they tell you? A Peruvian nobleman, or a Spanish nobleman, I
don't know which. In short, Don Luis Perenna."
"Bunkum! I've just heard--"
"Don Luis Perenna, late of the Foreign Legion."
"Enough of that, Monsieur--"
"Medaled and decorated with a stripe on every seam."
"Once more, Monsieur, enough of that; and come along with me to
the Prefect."
"But, let me finish, hang it! I was saying, late private in the Foreign
Legion.... Late hero.... Late prisoner of the Sureté.... Late Russian
prince.... Late chief of the detective service.... Late--"
"But you're mad!" snarled the sergeant. "What's all this story?"
"It's a true story, Sergeant, and quite genuine. You ask me who I am; and
I'm telling you categorically. Must I go farther back? I have still more
titles to offer you: marquis, baron, duke, archduke, grand-duke,
petty-duke, superduke--the whole 'Almanach de Gotha,' by Jingo! If any
one told me that I had been a king, by all that's holy, I shouldn't dare
swear to the contrary!"
Sergeant Mazeroux put out his own hands, accustomed to rough work, seized
the seemingly frail wrists of the man addressing him and said:
"No nonsense, now. I don't know whom I've got hold of, but I shan't let
you go. You can say what you have to say at the Prefect's."
"Don't speak so loud, Alexandre."
The two frail wrists were released with unparalleled ease; the sergeant's
powerful hands were caught and rendered useless; and Don Luis grinned:
"Don't you know me, you idiot?"
Sergeant Mazeroux did not utter a word. His eyes started still farther
from his head. He tried to understand and remained absolutely dumfounded.
The sound of that voice, that way of jesting, that schoolboy playfulness
allied with that audacity, the quizzing expression of those eyes, and
lastly that Christian name of Alexandre, which was not his name at all
and which only one person used to give him, years ago. Was it possible?
"The chief!" he stammered. "The chief!"
"Why not?"
"No, no, because--"
"Because what?"
"Because you're dead."
"Well, what about it? D'you think it interferes with my living,
being dead?"
And, as the other seemed more and more perplexed, he laid his hand on his
shoulder and said:
"Who put you into the police office?"
"The Chief Detective, M. Lenormand."
"And who was M. Lenormand?"
"The chief."
"You mean Arsène Lupin, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, Alexandre, don't you know that it was much more difficult for
Arsène Lupin to be Chief Detective--and a masterly Chief Detective he
was--than to be Don Luis Perenna, to be decorated in the Foreign Legion,
to be a hero, and even to be alive after he was dead?"
Sergeant Mazeroux examined his companion in silence. Then his lacklustre
eyes brightened, his drab features turned scarlet and, suddenly striking
the table with his fist, he growled, in an angry voice:
"All right, very well! But I warn you that you mustn't reckon on me. No,
not that! I'm in the detective service; and in the detective service I
remain. Nothing doing. I've tasted honesty and I mean to eat no other
bread. No, no, no, no! No more humbug!"
Perenna shrugged his shoulders:
"Alexandre, you're an ass. Upon my word, the bread of honesty hasn't
enlarged your intelligence. Who talked of starting again?"
"But--"
"But what?"
"All your maneuvers, Chief."
"My maneuvers! Do you think I have anything to say to this business?"
"Look here, Chief--"
"Why, I'm out of it altogether, my lad! Two hours ago I knew no more
about it than you do. It's Providence that chucked this legacy at me,
without so much as shouting, 'Heads!' And it's in obedience to the
decrees of--"
"Then--?"
"It's my mission in life to avenge Cosmo Mornington, to find his natural
heirs, to protect them and to divide among them the hundred millions
that belong to them. That's all. Don't you call that the mission of an
honest man?"
"Yes, but--"
"Yes, but, if I don't fulfil it as an honest man: is that what you mean?"
"Chief--"
"Well, my lad, if you notice the least thing in my conduct that
dissatisfies you, if you discover a speck of black on Don Luis Perenna's
conscience, examined under the magnifying glass, don't hesitate: collar
me with both hands. I authorize you to do it. I order you to do it. Is
that enough for you?"
"It's not enough for it to be enough for me, Chief."
"What are you talking about?"
"There are the others."
"Explain yourself."
"Suppose you're nabbed?"
"How?"
"You can be betrayed."
"By whom?"
"Your old mates."
"Gone away. I've sent them out of France."
"Where to?"
"That's my secret. I left you at the police office, in case I should
require your services; and you see that I was right."
"But suppose the police discover your real identity?"
"Well?"
"They'll arrest you."
"Impossible!"
"Why?"
"They can't arrest me."
"For what reason?"
"You've said it yourself, fat-head: a first-class, tremendous,
indisputable reason."
"What do you mean?"
"_I'm dead_!"
Mazeroux seemed staggered. The argument struck him fully. He at once
perceived it, with all its common sense and all its absurdity. And
suddenly he burst into a roar of laughter which bent him in two and
convulsed his doleful features in the oddest fashion:
"Oh, Chief, just the same as always!... Lord, how funny!... Will I come
along? I should think I would! As often as you like! You're dead and
buried and put out of sight!... Oh, what a joke, what a joke!"
* * * * *
Hippolyte Fauville, civil engineer, lived on the Boulevard Suchet, near
the fortifications, in a fair-sized private house having on its left a
small garden in which he had built a large room that served as his study.
The garden was thus reduced to a few trees and to a strip of grass along
the railings, which were covered with ivy and contained a gate that
opened on the Boulevard Suchet.
Don Luis Perenna went with Mazeroux to the commissary's office at Passy,
where Mazeroux, on Perenna's instructions, gave his name and asked to
have M. Fauville's house watched during the night by two policemen who
were to arrest any suspicious person trying to obtain admission. The
commissary agreed to the request.
Don Luis and Mazeroux next dined in the neighbourhood. At nine o'clock
they reached the front door of the house.
"Alexandre," said Perenna.
"Yes, Chief?"
"You're not afraid?"
"No, Chief. Why should I be?"
"Why? Because, in defending M. Fauville and his son, we are attacking
people who have a great interest in doing away with them and because
those people seem pretty wide-awake. Your life, my life: a breath, a
trifle. You're not afraid?"
"Chief," replied Mazeroux, "I can't say if I shall ever know what it
means to be afraid. But there's one case in which I certainly shall
never know."
"What case is that, old chap?"
"As long as I'm by your side, Chief."
And firmly he rang the bell.
CHAPTER THREE
A MAN DOOMED
The door was opened by a manservant. Mazeroux sent in his card.
Hippolyte received the two visitors in his study. The table, on which
stood a movable telephone, was littered with books, pamphlets, and
papers. There were two tall desks, with diagrams and drawings, and some
glass cases containing reduced models, in ivory and steel, of apparatus
constructed or invented by the engineer.
A large sofa stood against the wall. In one corner was a winding
staircase that led to a circular gallery. An electric chandelier hung
from the ceiling.
Mazeroux, after stating his quality and introducing his friend Perenna
as also sent by the Prefect of Police, at once expounded the object of
their visit.
M. Desmalions, he said, was feeling anxious on the score of very serious
indications which he had just received and, without waiting for the next
day's interview, begged M. Fauville to take all the precautions which his
detectives might advise.
Fauville at first displayed a certain ill humour.
"My precautions are taken, gentlemen, and well taken. And, on the other
hand, I am afraid that your interference may do harm."
"In what way?"
"By arousing the attention of my enemies and preventing me, for that
reason, from collecting proofs which I need in order to confound them."
"Can you explain--?"
"No, I cannot ... To-morrow, to-morrow morning--not before."
"And if it's too late?" Don Luis interjected.
"Too late? To-morrow?"
"Inspector Vérot told M. Desmalions's secretary that the two murders
would take place to-night. He said it was fatal and irrevocable."
"To-night?" cried Fauville angrily. "I tell you no! Not to-night.
I'm sure of that. There are things which I know, aren't there, which
you do not?"
"Yes," retorted Don Luis, "but there may also be things which Inspector
Vérot knew and which you don't know. He had perhaps learned more of your
enemies' secrets than you did. The proof is that he was suspected, that a
man carrying an ebony walking-stick was seen watching his movements,
that, lastly, he was killed."
Hippolyte Fauville's self-assurance decreased. Perenna took advantage of
this to insist; and he insisted to such good purpose that Fauville,
though without withdrawing from his reserve, ended by yielding before a
will that was stronger than his own.
"Well, but you surely don't intend to spend the night in here?"
"We do indeed."
"Why, it's ridiculous! It's sheer waste of time! After all, looking at
things from the worst--And what do you want besides?"
"Who lives in the house?"
"Who? My wife, to begin with. She has the first floor."
"Mme. Fauville is not threatened?"
"No, not at all. It's I who am threatened with death; I and my son
Edmond. That is why, for the past week, instead of sleeping in my regular
bedroom, I have locked myself up in this room. I have given my work as a
pretext; a quantity of writing which keeps me up very late and for which
I need my son's assistance."
"Does he sleep here, then?"
"He sleeps above us, in a little room which I have had arranged for him.
The only access to it is by this inner staircase."
"Is he there now?"
"Yes, he's asleep."
"How old is he?"
"Sixteen."
"But the fact that you have changed your room shows that you feared some
one would attack you. Whom had you in mind? An enemy living in the house?
One of your servants? Or people from the outside? In that case, how could
they get in? The whole question lies in that."
"To-morrow, to-morrow," replied Fauville, obstinately. "I will explain
everything to-morrow--"
"Why not to-night?" Perenna persisted.
"Because I want proofs, I tell you; because the mere fact of my talking
may have terrible consequences--and I am frightened; yes, I'm
frightened--"
He was trembling, in fact, and looked so wretched and terrified that Don
Luis insisted no longer.
"Very well," he said, "I will only ask your permission, for my comrade
and myself, to spend the night where we can hear you if you call."
"As you please, Monsieur. Perhaps, after all, that will be best."
At that moment one of the servants knocked and came in to say that his
mistress wished to see the master before she went out. Madame Fauville
entered almost immediately. She bowed pleasantly as Perenna and Mazeroux
rose from their chairs.
She was a woman between thirty and thirty-five, a woman of a bright and
smiling beauty, which she owed to her blue eyes, to her wavy hair, to all
the charm of her rather vapid but amiable and very pretty face. She wore
a long, figured-silk cloak over an evening dress that showed her fine
shoulders.
Her husband said, in surprise
"Are you going out to-night?"
"You forget," she said. "The Auverards offered me a seat in their box at
the opera; and you yourself asked me to look in at Mme. d'Ersingen's
party afterward--"
"So I did, so I did," he said. "It escaped my memory; I am working so
hard."
She finished buttoning her gloves and asked:
"Won't you come and fetch me at Mme. d'Ersingen's?"
"What for?"
"They would like it."
"But I shouldn't. Besides, I don't feel well enough."
"Then I'll make your apologies for you."
"Yes, do."
She drew her cloak around her with a graceful gesture, and stood for a
few moments, without moving, as though seeking a word of farewell.
Then she said:
"Edmond's not here! I thought he was working with you?"
"He was feeling tired."
"Is he asleep?"
"Yes."
"I wanted to kiss him good-night."
"No, you would only wake him. And here's your car; so go, dear. Amuse
yourself."
"Oh, amuse myself!" she said. "There's not much amusement about the opera
and an evening party."
"Still, it's better than keeping one's room."
There was some little constraint. It was obviously one of those
ill-assorted households in which the husband, suffering in health and not
caring for the pleasures of society, stays at home, while the wife seeks
the enjoyments to which her age and habits entitle her.
As he said nothing more, she bent over and kissed him on the forehead.
Then, once more bowing to the two visitors, she went out. A moment later
they heard the sound of the motor driving away.
Hippolyte Fauville at once rose and rang the bell. Then he said:
"No one here has any idea of the danger hanging over me. I have confided
in nobody, not even in Silvestre, my own man, though he has been in my
service for years and is honesty itself."
The manservant entered.
"I am going to bed, Silvestre," said M. Fauville. "Get everything ready."
Silvestre opened the upper part of the great sofa, which made a
comfortable bed, and laid the sheets and blankets. Next, at his master's
orders, he brought a jug of water, a glass, a plate of biscuits, and a
dish of fruit.
M. Fauville ate a couple of biscuits and then cut a dessert-apple. It was
not ripe. He took two others, felt them, and, not thinking them good, put
them back as well. Then he peeled a pear and ate it.
"You can leave the fruit dish," he said to his man. "I shall be glad of
it, if I am hungry during the night.... Oh, I was forgetting! These two
gentlemen are staying. Don't mention it to anybody. And, in the morning,
don't come until I ring."
The man placed the fruit dish on the table before retiring. Perenna, who
was noticing everything, and who was afterward to remember every smallest
detail of that evening, which his memory recorded with a sort of
mechanical faithfulness, counted three pears and four apples in the dish.
Meanwhile, Fauville went up the winding staircase, and, going along the
gallery, reached the room where his son lay in bed.
"He's fast asleep," he said to Perenna, who had joined him.
The bedroom was a small one. The air was admitted by a special system of
ventilation, for the dormer window was hermetically closed by a wooden
shutter tightly nailed down.
"I took the precaution last year," Hippolyte Fauville explained. "I used
to make my electrical experiments in this room and was afraid of being
spied upon, so I closed the aperture opening on the roof."
And he added in a low voice:
"They have been prowling around me for a long time."
The two men went downstairs again.
Fauville looked at his watch.
"A quarter past ten: bedtime, I am exceedingly tired, and you will
excuse me--"
It was arranged that Perenna and Mazeroux should make themselves
comfortable in a couple of easy chairs which they carried into the
passage between the study and the entrance hall. But, before bidding them
good-night, Hippolyte Fauville, who, although greatly excited, had
appeared until then to retain his self-control, was seized with a sudden
attack of weakness. He uttered a faint cry. Don Luis turned round and saw
the sweat pouring like gleaming water down his face and neck, while he
shook with fever and anguish.
"What's the matter?" asked Perenna.
"I'm frightened! I'm frightened!" he said.
"This is madness!" cried Don Luis. "Aren't we here, the two of us? We can
easily spend the night with you, if you prefer, by your bedside."
Fauville replied by shaking Perenna violently by the shoulder, and, with
distorted features, stammering:
"If there were ten of you--if there were twenty of you with me, you need
not think that it would spoil their schemes! They can do anything they
please, do you hear, anything! They have already killed Inspector
Vérot--they will kill me--and they will kill my son. Oh, the blackguards!
My God, take pity on me! The awful terror of it! The pain I suffer!"
He had fallen on his knees and was striking his breast and repeating:
"O God, have pity on me! I can't die! I can't let my son die! Have pity
on me, I beseech Thee!"
He sprang to his feet and led Perenna to a glass-fronted case, which
he rolled back on its brass castors, revealing a small safe built
into the wall.
"You will find my whole story here, written up day by day for the past
three years. If anything should happen to me, revenge will be easy."
He hurriedly turned the letters of the padlock and, with a key which he
took from his pocket, opened the safe.
It was three fourths empty; but on one of the shelves, between some piles
of papers, was a diary bound in drab cloth, with a rubber band round it.
He took the diary, and, emphasizing his words, said:
"There, look, it's all in here. With this, the hideous business can
be reconstructed.... There are my suspicions first and then my
certainties.... Everything, everything ... how to trap them and how
to do for them.... You'll remember, won't you? A diary bound in drab
cloth.... I'm putting it back in the safe."
Gradually his calmness returned. He pushed back the glass case, tidied a
few papers, switched on the electric lamp above his bed, put out the
lights in the middle of the ceiling, and asked Don Luis and Mazeroux to
leave him.
Don Luis, who was walking round the room and examining the iron shutters
of the two windows, noticed a door opposite the entrance door and asked
the engineer about it.
"I use it for my regular clients," said Fauville, "and sometimes I go out
that way."
"Does it open on the garden?"
"Yes."
"Is it properly closed?"
"You can see for yourself; it's locked and bolted with a safety bolt.
Both keys are on my bunch; so is the key of the garden gate."
He placed the bunch of keys on the table with his pocket-book and, after
first winding it, his watch.
Don Luis, without troubling to ask permission, took the keys and
unfastened the lock and the bolt. A flight of three steps brought him to
the garden. He followed the length of the narrow border. Through the ivy
he saw and heard the two policemen pacing up and down the boulevard. He
tried the lock of the gate. It was fastened.
"Everything's all right," he said when he returned, "and you can be easy.
Good-night."
"Good-night," said the engineer, seeing Perenna and Mazeroux out.
Between his study and the passage were two doors, one of which was padded
and covered with oilcloth. On the other side, the passage was separated
from the hall by a heavy curtain.
"You can go to sleep," said Perenna to his companion. "I'll sit up."
"But surely, Chief, you don't think that anything's going to happen!"
"I don't think so, seeing the precautions which we've taken. But,
knowing Inspector Vérot as you did, do you think he was the man to
imagine things?"
"No, Chief."
"Well, you know what he prophesied. That means that he had his reasons
for doing so. And therefore I shall keep my eyes open."
"We'll take it in turns, Chief; wake me when it's my time to watch."
Seated motionlessly, side by side, they exchanged an occasional remark.
Soon after, Mazeroux fell asleep. Don Luis remained in his chair without
moving, his ears pricked up. Everything was quiet in the house. Outside,
from time to time, the sound of a motor car or of a cab rolled by. He
could also hear the late trains on the Auteuil line.
He rose several times and went up to the door. Not a sound. Hippolyte
Fauville was evidently asleep.
"Capital!" said Perenna to himself. "The boulevard is watched. No one can
enter the room except by this way. So there is nothing to fear."
At two o'clock in the morning a car stopped outside the house, and one of
the manservants, who must have been waiting in the kitchen, hastened to
the front door. Perenna switched off the light in the passage, and,
drawing the curtain slightly aside, saw Mme. Fauville enter, followed by
Silvestre.
She went up. The lights on the staircase were put out. For half an hour
or so there was a sound overhead of voices and of chairs moving. Then all
was silence.
And, amid this silence, Perenna felt an unspeakable anguish arise within
him, he could not tell why. But it was so violent, the impression became
so acute, that he muttered:
"I shall go and see if he's asleep. I don't expect that he has bolted
the doors."
He had only to push both doors to open them; and, with his electric
lantern in his hand, he went up to the bed. Hippolyte Fauville was
sleeping with his face turned to the wall.
Perenna gave a smile of relief. He returned to the passage and,
shaking Mazeroux:
"Your turn, Alexandre."
"No news, Chief?"
"No, none; he's asleep."
"How do you know?"
"I've had a look at him."
"That's funny; I never heard you. It's true, though, I've slept
like a pig."
He followed Perenna into the study, and Perenna said:
"Sit down and don't wake him. I shall take forty winks."
He had one more turn at sentry duty. But, even while dozing, he remained
conscious of all that happened around him. A clock struck the hours with
a low chime; and each time Perenna counted the strokes. Then came the
life outside awakening, the rattle of the milk-carts, the whistle of the
early suburban trains.
People began to stir inside the house. The daylight trickled in
through the crannies of the shutters, and the room gradually became
filled with light.
"Let's go away," said Sergeant Mazeroux. "It would be better for him not
to find us here."
"Hold your tongue!" said Don Luis, with an imperious gesture.
"Why?"
"You'll wake him up."
"But you can see I'm not waking him," said Mazeroux, without
lowering his tone.
"That's true, that's true," whispered Don Luis, astonished that the sound
of that voice had not disturbed the sleeper.
And he felt himself overcome with the same anguish that had seized upon
him in the middle of the night, a more clearly defined anguish, although
he would not, although he dared not, try to realize the reason of it.
"What's the matter with you, Chief? You're looking like nothing on earth.
What is it?"
"Nothing--nothing. I'm frightened--"
Mazeroux shuddered.
"Frightened of what? You say that just as he did last night."
"Yes ... yes ... and for the same reason."
"But--?"
"Don't you understand? Don't you understand that I'm wondering--?"
"No; what?"
"If he's not dead!"
"But you're mad, Chief!"
"No.... I don't know.... Only, only ... I have an impression of death--"
Lantern in hand, he stood as one paralyzed, opposite the bed; and he
who was afraid of nothing in the world had not the courage to throw the
light on Hippolyte Fauville's face. A terrifying silence rose and
filled the room.
"Oh, Chief, he's not moving!"
"I know ... I know ... and I now see that he has not moved once during
the night. And that's what frightens me."
He had to make a real effort in order to step forward. He was now almost
touching the bed.
The engineer did not appear to breathe.
This time, Perenna resolutely took hold of his hand.
It was icy cold.
Don Luis at once recovered all his self-possession.
"The window! Open the window!" he cried.
And, when the light flooded the room, he saw the face of Hippolyte
Fauville all swollen, stained with brown patches.
"Oh," he said, under his breath, "he's dead!"
"Dash it all! Dash it all!" spluttered the detective sergeant.
For two or three minutes they stood petrified, stupefied, staggered at
the sight of this most astonishing and mysterious phenomenon. Then a
sudden idea made Perenna start. He flew up the winding staircase, rushed
along the gallery, and darted into the attic.
Edmond, Hippolyte Fauville's son, lay stiff and stark on his bed, with a
cadaverous face, dead, too.
"Dash it all! Dash it all!" repeated Mazeroux.
Never, perhaps, in the course of his adventurous career, had Perenna
experienced such a knockdown blow. It gave him a feeling of extreme
lassitude, depriving him of all power of speech or movement. Father and
son were dead! They had been killed during that night! A few hours
earlier, though the house was watched and every outlet hermetically
closed, both had been poisoned by an infernal puncture, even as Inspector
Vérot was poisoned, even as Cosmo Mornington was poisoned.
"Dash it all!" said Mazeroux once more. "It was not worth troubling about
the poor devils and performing such miracles to save them!"
The exclamation conveyed a reproach. Perenna grasped it and admitted:
"You are right, Mazeroux; I was not equal to the job."
"Nor I, Chief."
"You ... you have only been in this business since yesterday evening--"
"Well, so have you, Chief!"
"Yes, I know, since yesterday evening, whereas the others have been
working at it for weeks and weeks. But, all the same, these two are dead;
and I was there, I, Lupin, was there! The thing has been done under my
eyes; and I saw nothing! I saw nothing! How is it possible?"
He uncovered the poor boy's shoulders, showing the mark of a puncture at
the top of the arm.
"The same mark--the same mark obviously that we shall find on the
father.... The lad does not seem to have suffered, either.... Poor little
chap! He did not look very strong.... Never mind, it's a nice face; what
a terrible blow for his mother when she learns!"
The detective sergeant wept with anger and pity, while he kept on
mumbling:
"Dash it all!... Dash it all!"
"We shall avenge them, eh, Mazeroux?"
"Rather, Chief! Twice over!"
"Once will do, Mazeroux. But it shall be done with a will."
"That I swear it shall!"
"You're right; let's swear. Let us swear that this dead pair shall be
avenged. Let us swear not to lay down our arms until the murderers of
Hippolyte Fauville and his son are punished as they deserve."
"I swear it as I hope to be saved, Chief."
"Good!" said Perenna. "And now to work. You go and telephone at once to
the police office. I am sure that M. Desmalions will approve of your
informing him without delay. He takes an immense interest in the case."
"And if the servants come? If Mme. Fauville--?"
"No one will come till we open the doors; and we shan't open them except
to the Prefect of Police. It will be for him, afterward, to tell Mme.
Fauville that she is a widow and that she has no son. Go! Hurry!"
"One moment, Chief; we are forgetting something that will help us
enormously."
"What's that?"
"The little drab-cloth diary in the safe, in which M. Fauville describes
the plot against him."
"Why, of course!" said Perenna. "You're right ... especially as he
omitted to mix up the letters of the lock last night, and the key is on
the bunch which he left lying on the table."
They ran down the stairs.
"Leave this to me," said Mazeroux. "It's more regular that you shouldn't
touch the safe."
He took the bunch, moved the glass case, and inserted the key with a
feverish emotion which Don Luis felt even more acutely than he did. They
were at last about to know the details of the mysterious story. The dead
man himself would betray the secret of his murderers.
"Lord, what a time you take!" growled Don Luis.
Mazeroux plunged both hands into the crowd of papers that encumbered the
iron shelf.
"Well, Mazeroux, hand it over."
"What?"
"The diary."
"I can't Chief."
"What's that?"
"It's gone."
Don Luis stifled an oath. The drab-cloth diary, which the engineer had
placed in the safe before their eyes, had disappeared.
Mazeroux shook his head.
"Dash it all! So they knew about that diary!"
"Of course they did; and they knew plenty of other things besides.
We've not seen the end of it with those fellows. There's no time to
lose. Ring up!"
Mazeroux did so and soon received the answer that M. Desmalions was
coming to the telephone. He waited.
In a few minutes Perenna, who had been walking up and down, examining
different objects in the room, came and sat down beside Mazeroux. He
seemed thoughtful. He reflected for some time. But then, his eyes falling
on the fruit dish, he muttered:
"Hullo! There are only three apples instead of four. Then he ate
the fourth."
"Yes," said Mazeroux, "he must have eaten it."
"That's funny," replied Perenna, "for he didn't think them ripe."
He was silent once more, sat leaning his elbows on the table, visibly
preoccupied; then, raising his head, he let fall these words:
"The murder was committed before we entered the room, at half-past
twelve exactly."
"How do you know, Chief?"
"M. Fauville's murderer or murderers, in touching the things on the
table, knocked down the watch which M. Fauville had placed there.
They put it back; but the fall had stopped it. And it stopped at
half-past twelve."
"Then, Chief, when we settled ourselves here, at two in the morning, it
was a corpse that was lying beside us and another over our heads?"
"Yes."
"But how did those devils get in?"
"Through this door, which opens on the garden, and through the gate that
opens on the Boulevard Suchet."
"Then they had keys to the locks and bolts?"
"False keys, yes."
"But the policemen watching the house outside?"
"They are still watching it, as that sort watch a house, walking from
point to point without thinking that people can slip into a garden
while they have their backs turned. That's what took place in coming
and going."
Sergeant Mazeroux seemed flabbergasted. The criminals' daring, their
skill, the precision of their acts bewildered him.
"They're deuced clever," he said.
"Deuced clever, Mazeroux, as you say; and I foresee a tremendous battle.
By Jupiter, with what a vim they set to work!"
The telephone bell rang. Don Luis left Mazeroux to his conversation with
the Prefect, and, taking the bunch of keys, easily unfastened the lock
and the bolt of the door and went out into the garden, in the hope of
there finding some trace that should facilitate his quest.
As on the day before, he saw, through the ivy, two policemen walking
between one lamp-post and the next. They did not see him. Moreover,
anything that might happen inside the house appeared to be to them a
matter of total indifference.
"That's my great mistake," said Perenna to himself. "It doesn't do to
entrust a job to people who do not suspect its importance."
His investigations led to the discovery of some traces of footsteps on
the gravel, traces not sufficiently plain to enable him to distinguish
the shape of the shoes that had left them, yet distinct enough to confirm
his supposition. The scoundrels had been that way.
Suddenly he gave a movement of delight. Against the border of the path,
among the leaves of a little clump of rhododendrons, he saw something
red, the shape of which at once struck him. He stooped. It was an
apple, the fourth apple, the one whose absence from the fruit dish he
had noticed.
"Excellent!" he said. "Hippolyte Fauville did not eat it. One of them
must have carried it away--a fit of appetite, a sudden hunger--and it
must have rolled from his hand without his having time to look for it and
pick it up."
He took up the fruit and examined it.
"What!" he exclaimed, with a start. "Can it be possible?"
He stood dumfounded, a prey to real excitement, refusing to admit the
inadmissible thing which nevertheless presented itself to his eyes
with the direct evidence of actuality. Some one had bitten into the
apple; into the apple which was too sour to eat. And the teeth had
left their mark!
"Is it possible?" repeated Don Luis. "Is it possible that one of them
can have been guilty of such an imprudence! The apple must have
fallen without his knowing ... or he must have been unable to find it
in the dark."
He could not get over his surprise. He cast about for plausible
explanations. But the fact was there before him. Two rows of teeth,
cutting through the thin red peel, had left their regular, semicircular
bite clearly in the pulp of the fruit. They were clearly marked on the
top, while the lower row had melted into a single curved line.
"The teeth of the tiger!" murmured Perenna, who could not remove his eyes
from that double imprint. "The teeth of the tiger! The teeth that had
already left their mark on Inspector Vérot's piece of chocolate! What a
coincidence! It can hardly be fortuitous. Must we not take it as certain
that the same person bit into this apple and into that cake of chocolate
which Inspector Vérot brought to the police office as an incontestable
piece of evidence?"
He hesitated a second. Should he keep this evidence for himself, for the
personal inquiry which he meant to conduct? Or should he surrender it to
the investigations of the police? But the touch of the object filled him
with such repugnance, with such a sense of physical discomfort, that he
flung away the apple and sent it rolling under the leaves of the shrubs.
And he repeated to himself:
"The teeth of the tiger! The teeth of the wild beast!"
He locked the garden door behind him, bolted it, put back the keys on the
table and said to Mazeroux:
"Have you spoken to the Chief of Police?"
"Yes."
"Is he coming?"
"Yes."
"Didn't he order you to telephone for the commissary of police?"
"No."
"That means that he wants to see everything by himself. So much the
better. But the detective office? The public prosecutor?"
"He's told them."
"What's the matter with you, Alexandre? I have to drag your answers out
of you. Well, what is it? You're looking at me very queerly. What's up?"
"Nothing."
"That's all right. I expect this business has turned your head. And no
wonder.... The Prefect won't enjoy himself, either, ... especially as he
put his faith in me a bit light-heartedly and will be called upon to give
an explanation of my presence here. By the way, it's much better that you
should take upon yourself the responsibility for all that we have done.
Don't you agree? Besides, it'll do you all the good in the world.
"Put yourself forward, flatly; suppress me as much as you can; and, above
all--I don't suppose that you will have any objection to this little
detail--don't be such a fool as to say that you went to sleep for a
single second, last night, in the passage. First of all, you'd only be
blamed for it. And then ... well, that's understood, eh? So we have only
to say good-bye.
"If the Prefect wants me, as I expect he will, telephone to my address,
Place du Palais-Bourbon. I shall be there. Good-bye. It is not necessary
for me to assist at the inquiry; my presence would be out of place.
Good-bye, old chap."
He turned toward the door of the passage.
"Half a moment!" cried Mazeroux.
"Half a moment?... What do you mean?"
The detective sergeant had flung himself between him and the door and was
blocking his way.
"Yes, half a moment ... I am not of your opinion. It's far better that
you should wait until the Prefect comes."
"But I don't care a hang about your opinion!"
"May be; but you shan't pass."
"What! Why, Alexandre, you must be ill!"
"Look here, Chief," said Mazeroux feebly. "What can it matter to you?
It's only natural that the Prefect should wish to speak to you."
"Ah, it's the Prefect who wishes, is it?... Well, my lad, you can tell
him that I am not at his orders, that I am at nobody's orders, and that,
if the President of the Republic, if Napoleon I himself were to bar my
way ... Besides, rats! Enough said. Get out of the road!"
"You shall not pass!" declared Mazeroux, in a resolute tone,
extending his arms.
"Well, I like that!"
"You shall not pass."
"Alexandre, just count ten."
"A hundred, if you like, but you shall not...."
"Oh, blow your catchwords! Get out of this."
He seized Mazeroux by both shoulders, made him spin round on his
heels and, with a push, sent him floundering over the sofa. Then he
opened the door.
"Halt, or I fire!"
It was Mazeroux, who had scrambled to his feet and now stood with his
revolver in his hand and a determined expression on his face.
Don Luis stopped in amazement. The threat was absolutely indifferent to
him, and the barrel of that revolver aimed at him left him as cold as
could be. But by what prodigy did Mazeroux, his former accomplice, his
ardent disciple, his devoted servant, by what prodigy did Mazeroux dare
to act as he was doing?
Perenna went up to him and pressed gently on the detective's
outstretched arm.
"Prefect's orders?" he asked.
"Yes," muttered the sergeant, uncomfortably.
"Orders to keep me here until he comes?"
"Yes."
"And if I betrayed an intention of leaving, to prevent me?"
"Yes."
"By every means?"
"Yes."
"Even by putting a bullet through my skin?"
"Yes."
Perenna reflected; and then, in a serious voice:
"Would you have fired, Mazeroux?"
The sergeant lowered his head and said faintly:
"Yes, Chief."
Perenna looked at him without anger, with a glance of affectionate
sympathy; and it was an absorbing sight for him to see his former
companion dominated by such a sense of discipline and duty. Nothing was
able to prevail against that sense, not even the fierce admiration, the
almost animal attachment which Mazeroux retained for his master.
"I'm not angry, Mazeroux. In fact, I approve. Only you must tell me the
reason why the Prefect of Police--"
The detective did not reply, but his eyes wore an expression of such
sadness that Don Luis started, suddenly understanding.
"No," he cried, "no!... It's absurd ... he can't have thought
that!... And you, Mazeroux, do you believe me guilty?"
"Oh, I, Chief, am as sure of you as I am of myself!... You don't take
life!... But, all the same, there are things ... coincidences--"
"Things ... coincidences ..." repeated Don Luis slowly.
He remained pensive; and, in a low voice, he said:
"Yes, after all, there's truth in what you say.... Yes, it all fits
in.... Why didn't I think of it?... My relations with Cosmo Mornington,
my arrival in Paris in time for the reading of the will, my insisting on
spending the night here, the fact that the death of the two Fauvilles
undoubtedly gives me the millions.... And then ... and then ... why, he's
absolutely right, your Prefect of Police!... All the more so as.... Well,
there, I'm a goner!"
"Come, come, Chief!"
"A dead-goner, old chap; you just get that into your head. Not as Arsène
Lupin, ex-burglar, ex-convict, ex-anything you please--I'm unattackable
on that ground--but as Don Luis Perenna, respectable man, residuary
legatee, and the rest of it. And it's too stupid! For, after all, who
will find the murderers of Cosmo, Vérot, and the two Fauvilles, if they
go clapping me into jail?"
"Come, come, Chief--"
"Shut up! ... Listen!"
A motor car was stopping on the boulevard, followed by another. It
was evidently the Prefect and the magistrates from the public
prosecutor's office.
Don Luis took Mazeroux by the arm.
"There's only one way out of it, Alexandre! Don't say you went to sleep."
"I must, Chief."
"You silly ass!" growled Don Luis. "How is it possible to be such an ass!
It's enough to disgust one with honesty. What am I to do, then?"
"Discover the culprit, Chief."
"What! ... What are you talking about?"
Mazeroux, in his turn, took him by the arm and, clutching him with a sort
of despair, said, in a voice choked with tears:
"Discover the culprit, Chief. If not, you're done for ... that's
certain ... the Prefect told me so. ... The police want a
culprit ... they want him this evening.... One has got to be
found.... It's up to you to find him."
"What you have, Alexandre, is a merry wit."
"It's child's play for you, Chief. You have only to set your mind to it."
"But there's not the least clue, you ass!"
"You'll find one ... you must ... I entreat you, hand them over
somebody.... It would be more than I could bear if you were arrested.
You, the chief, accused of murder! No, no.... I entreat you, discover the
criminal and hand him over.... You have the whole day to do it in...and
Lupin has done greater things than that!"
He was stammering, weeping, wringing his hands, grimacing with every
feature of his comic face. And it was really touching, this grief, this
dismay at the approach of the danger that threatened his master.
M. Desmalions's voice was heard in the hall, through the curtain that
closed the passage. A third motor car stopped on the boulevard, and a
fourth, both doubtless laden with policemen.
The house was surrounded, besieged.
Perenna was silent.
Beside him, anxious-faced, Mazeroux seemed to be imploring him.
A few seconds elapsed.
Then Perenna declared, deliberately:
"Looking at things all round, Alexandre, I admit that you have seen the
position clearly and that your fears are fully justified. If I do not
manage to hand over the murderer or murderers of Hippolyte Fauville and
his son to the police in a few hours from now, it is I, Don Luis Perenna,
who will be lodged in durance vile on the evening of this Thursday, the
first of April."
CHAPTER FOUR
THE CLOUDED TURQUOISE
It was about nine o'clock in the morning when the Prefect of Police
entered the study in which the incomprehensible tragedy of that double
murder had been enacted.
He did not even bow to Don Luis; and the magistrates who accompanied him
might have thought that Don Luis was merely an assistant of Sergeant
Mazeroux, if the chief detective had not made it his business to tell
them, in a few words, the part played by the stranger.
M. Desmalions briefly examined the two corpses and received a rapid
explanation from Mazeroux. Then, returning to the hall, he went up to a
drawing-room on the first floor, where Mme. Fauville, who had been
informed of his visit, joined him almost at once.
Perenna, who had not stirred from the passage, slipped into the hall
himself. The servants of the house, who by this time had heard of the
murder, were crossing it in every direction. He went down the few stairs
leading to a ground-floor landing, on which the front door opened.
There were two men there, of whom one said:
"You can't pass."
"But--"
"You can't pass: those are our orders."
"Your orders? Who gave them?"
"The Prefect himself."
"No luck," said Perenna, laughing. "I have been up all night and I am
starving. Is there no way of getting something to eat?"
The two policemen exchanged glances and one of them beckoned to Silvestre
and spoke to him. Silvestre went toward the dining-room, and returned
with a horseshoe roll.
"Good," thought Don Luis, after thanking him. "This settles it. I'm
nabbed. That's what I wanted to know. But M. Desmalions is deficient in
logic. For, if it's Arsène Lupin whom he means to detain here, all these
worthy plain-clothesmen are hardly enough; and, if it's Don Luis Perenna,
they are superfluous, because the flight of Master Perenna would deprive
Master Perenna of every chance of seeing the colour of my poor Cosmo's
shekels. Having said which, I will take a chair."
He resumed his seat in the passage and awaited events.
Through the open door of the study he saw the magistrates pursuing
their investigations. The divisional surgeon made a first examination
of the two bodies and at once recognized the same symptoms of poisoning
which he himself had perceived, the evening before, on the corpse of
Inspector Vérot.
Next, the detectives took up the bodies and carried them to the adjoining
bedrooms which the father and son formerly occupied on the second floor
of the house.
The Prefect of Police then came downstairs; and Don Luis heard him say to
the magistrates:
"Poor woman! She refused to understand.... When at last she understood,
she fell to the ground in a dead faint. Only think, her husband and her
son at one blow!... Poor thing!"
From that moment Perenna heard and saw nothing. The door was shut. The
Prefect must afterward have given some order through the outside, through
the communication with the front door offered by the garden, for the two
detectives came and took up their positions in the hall, at the entrance
to the passage, on the right and left of the dividing curtain.
"One thing's certain," thought Don Luis. "My shares are not booming. What
a state Alexandre must be in! Oh, what a state!"
At twelve o'clock Silvestre brought him some food on a tray.
And the long and painful wait began anew.
In the study and in the house, the inquiry, which had been adjourned for
lunch, was resumed. Perenna heard footsteps and the sound of voices on
every side. At last, feeling tired and bored, he leaned back in his chair
and fell asleep.
* * * * *
It was four o'clock when Sergeant Mazeroux came and woke him. As he led
him to the study, Mazeroux whispered:
"Well, have you discovered him?"
"Whom?"
"The murderer."
"Of course!" said Perenna. "It's as easy as shelling peas!"
"That's a good thing!" said Mazeroux, greatly relieved and failing to see
the joke. "But for that, as you saw for yourself, you would have been
done for."
Don Luis entered. In the room were the public prosecutor, the examining
magistrate, the chief detective, the local commissary of police, two
inspectors, and three constables in uniform.
Outside, on the Boulevard Suchet, shouts were raised; and, when the
commissary and his three policemen went out, by the Prefect's orders, to
listen to the crowd, the hoarse voice of a newsboy was heard shouting:
"The double murder on the Boulevard Suchet! Full particulars of the death
of Inspector Vérot! The police at a loss!--"
Then, when the door was closed, all was silent.
"Mazeroux was quite right," thought Don Luis. "It's I or the other one:
that's clear. Unless the words that will be spoken and the facts that
will come to light in the course of this examination supply me with some
clue that will enable me to give them the name of that mysterious X,
they'll surrender me this evening for the people to batten on. Attention,
Lupin, old chap, the great game is about to commence!"
He felt that thrill of delight which always ran through him at the
approach of the great struggles. This one, indeed, might be numbered
among the most terrible that he had yet sustained.
He knew the Prefect's reputation, his experience, his tenacity, and the
keen pleasure which he took in conducting important inquiries and in
personally pushing them to a conclusion before placing them in the
magistrate's hands; and he also knew all the professional qualities of
the chief detective, and all the subtlety, all the penetrating logic
possessed by the examining magistrate.
The Prefect of Police himself directed the attack. He did so in a
straightforward fashion, without beating about the bush, and in a rather
harsh voice, which had lost its former tone of sympathy for Don Luis. His
attitude also was more formal and lacked that geniality which had struck
Don Luis on the previous day.
"Monsieur," he said, "circumstances having brought about that, as the
residuary legatee and representative of Mr. Cosmo Mornington, you spent
the night on this ground floor while a double murder was being committed
here, we wish to receive your detailed evidence as to the different
incidents that occurred last night."
"In other words, Monsieur le Préfet," said Perenna, replying directly to
the attack, "in other words, circumstances having brought about that you
authorized me to spend the night here, you would like to know if my
evidence corresponds at all points with that of Sergeant Mazeroux?"
"Yes."
"Meaning that the part played by myself strikes you as suspicious?"
M. Desmalions hesitated. His eyes met Don Luis's eyes; and he was visibly
impressed by the other's frank glance. Nevertheless he replied, plainly
and bluntly:
"It is not for you to ask me questions, Monsieur."
Don Luis bowed.
"I am at your orders, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Please tell us what you know."
Don Luis thereupon gave a minute account of events, after which M.
Desmalions reflected for a few moments and said:
"There is one point on which we want to be informed. When you entered
this room at half-past two this morning and sat down beside M. Fauville,
was there nothing to tell you that he was dead?"
"Nothing, Monsieur le Préfet. Otherwise, Sergeant Mazeroux and I would
have given the alarm."
"Was the garden door shut?"
"It must have been, as we had to unlock it at seven o'clock."
"With what?"
"With the key on the bunch."
"But how could the murderers, coming from the outside, have opened it?"
"With false keys."
"Have you a proof which allows you to suppose that it was opened with
false keys?"
"No, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Therefore, until we have proofs to the contrary, we are bound to believe
that it was not opened from the outside, and that the criminal was inside
the house."
"But, Monsieur le Préfet, there was no one here but Sergeant Mazeroux
and myself!"
There was a silence, a pause whose meaning admitted of no doubt.
M. Desmalions's next words gave it an even more precise value.
"You did not sleep during the night?"
"Yes, toward the end."
"You did not sleep before, while you were in the passage?"
"No."
"And Sergeant Mazeroux?"
Don Luis remained undecided for a moment; but how could he hope that the
honest and scrupulous Mazeroux had disobeyed the dictates of his
conscience?
He replied:
"Sergeant Mazeroux went to sleep in his chair and did not wake until Mme.
Fauville returned, two hours later."
There was a fresh silence, which evidently meant:
"So, during the two hours when Sergeant Mazeroux was asleep, it was
physically possible for you to open the door and kill the two Fauvilles."
The examination was taking the course which Perenna had foreseen; and
the circle was drawing closer and closer around him. His adversary was
conducting the contest with a logic and vigour which he admired
without reserve.
"By Jove!" he thought. "How difficult it is to defend one's self when one
is innocent. There's my right wing and my left wing driven in. Will my
centre be able to stand the assault?"
M. Desmalions, after a whispered colloquy with the examining magistrate,
resumed his questions in these terms:
"Yesterday evening, when M. Fauville opened his safe in your presence and
the sergeant's, what was in the safe?"
"A heap of papers, on one of the shelves; and, among those papers, the
diary in drab cloth which has since disappeared."
"You did not touch those papers?"
"Neither the papers nor the safe, Monsieur le Préfet. Sergeant Mazeroux
must have told you that he made me stand aside, to insure the regularity
of the inquiry."
"So you never came into the slightest contact with the safe?"
"Not the slightest."
M. Desmalions looked at the examining magistrate and nodded his head. Had
Perenna been able to doubt that a trap was being laid for him, a glance
at Mazeroux would have told him all about it. Mazeroux was ashen gray.
Meanwhile, M. Desmalions continued:
"You have taken part in inquiries, Monsieur, in police inquiries.
Therefore, in putting my next question to you, I consider that I am
addressing it to a tried detective."
"I will answer your question, Monsieur le Préfet, to the best of
my ability."
"Here it is, then: Supposing that there were at this moment in the safe
an object of some kind, a jewel, let us say, a diamond out of a tie pin,
and that this diamond had come from a tie pin which belonged to somebody
whom we knew, somebody who had spent the night in this house, what would
you think of the coincidence?"
"There we are," said Perenna to himself. "There's the trap. It's clear
that they've found something in the safe, and next, that they imagine
that this something belongs to me. Good! But, in that case, we must
presume, as I have not touched the safe, that the thing was taken from me
and put in the safe to compromise me. But I did not have a finger in this
pie until yesterday; and it is impossible that, during last night, when I
saw nobody, any one can have had time to prepare and contrive such a
determined plot against me. So--"
The Prefect of Police interrupted this silent monologue by repeating:
"What would be your opinion?"
"There would be an undeniable connection between that person's presence
in the house and the two crimes that had been committed."
"Consequently, we should have the right at least to suspect the person?"
"Yes."
"That is your view?"
"Decidedly."
M. Desmalions produced a piece of tissue paper from his pocket and took
from it a little blue stone, which he displayed.
"Here is a turquoise which we found in the safe. It belongs, without a
shadow of a doubt, to the ring which you are wearing on your finger."
Don Luis was seized with a fit of rage. He half grated, through his
clenched teeth:
"Oh, the rascals! How clever they are! But no, I can't believe--"
He looked at his ring, which was formed of a large, clouded, dead
turquoise, surrounded by a circle of small, irregular turquoises, also of
a very pale blue. One of these was missing; and the one which M.
Desmalions had in his hand fitted the place exactly.
"What do you say?" asked M. Desmalions.
"I say that this turquoise belongs to my ring, which was given me by
Cosmo Mornington on the first occasion that I saved his life."
"So we are agreed?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, we are agreed."
Don Luis Perenna began to walk across the room, reflecting. The movement
which the two detectives made toward the two doors told him that his
arrest was provided for. A word from M. Desmalions, and Sergeant Mazeroux
would be forced to take his chief by the collar.
Don Luis once more gave a glance toward his former accomplice. Mazeroux
made a gesture of entreaty, as though to say:
"Well, what are you waiting for? Why don't you give up the criminal?
Quick, it's time!"
Don Luis smiled.
"What's the matter?" asked the Prefect, in a tone that now entirely
lacked the sort of involuntary politeness which he had shown since the
commencement of the examination.
"The matter? The matter?--"
Perenna seized a chair by the back, spun it round and sat down upon it,
with the simple remark:
"Let's talk!"
And this was said in such a way and the movement executed with so much
decision that the Prefect muttered, as though wavering:
"I don't quite see--"
"You soon will, Monsieur le Préfet."
And, speaking in a slow voice, laying stress on every syllable that he
uttered, he began:
"Monsieur le Préfet, the position is as clear as daylight. Yesterday
evening you gave me an authorization which involves your responsibility
most gravely. The result is that what you now want, at all costs and
without delay, is a culprit. And that culprit is to be myself. By way of
incriminating evidence, you have the fact of my presence here, the fact
the door was locked on the inside, the fact that Sergeant Mazeroux was
asleep while the crime was committed, and the fact of the discovery of
the turquoise in the safe. All this is crushing, I admit. Added to it,"
he continued, "we have the terrible presumption that I had every interest
in the removal of M. Fauville and his son, inasmuch as, if there is no
heir of Cosmo Mornington's in existence, I come into a hundred million
francs. Exactly. There is therefore nothing for me to do, Monsieur le
Préfet, but to go with you to the lockup or else--"
"Or else what?"
"Or else hand over to you the criminal, the real criminal."
The Prefect of Police smiled and took out his watch.
"I'm waiting," he said.
"It will take me just an hour, Monsieur le Préfet, and no more, if you
give me every latitude. And the search of the truth, it seems to me, is
worth a little patience."
"I'm waiting," repeated M. Desmalions.
"Sergeant Mazeroux, please tell Silvestre, the manservant, that Monsieur
le Préfet wishes to see him."
Upon a sign from M. Desmalions, Mazeroux went out.
Don Luis explained his motive.
"Monsieur le Préfet, whereas the discovery of the turquoise constitutes
in your eyes an extremely serious proof against me, to me it is a
revelation of the highest importance. I will tell you why. That turquoise
must have fallen from my ring last evening and rolled on the carpet.
"Now there are only four persons," he continued, "who can have noticed
this fall when it happened, picked up the turquoise and, in order to
compromise the new adversary that I was, slipped it into the safe. The
first of those four persons is one of your detectives, Sergeant Mazeroux,
of whom we will not speak. The second is dead: I refer to M. Fauville. We
will not speak of him. The third is Silvestre, the manservant. I should
like to say a few words to him. I shall not take long."
Silvestre's examination, in fact, was soon over. He was able to prove
that, pending the return of Mme. Fauville, for whom he had to open the
door, he had not left the kitchen, where he was playing at cards with the
lady's maid and another manservant.
"Very well," said Perenna. "One word more. You must have read in this
morning's papers of the death of Inspector Vérot and seen his portrait."
"Yes."
"Do you know Inspector Vérot?"
"No."
"Still, it is probable that he came here yesterday, during the day."
"I can't say," replied the servant. "M. Fauville used to receive many
visitors through the garden and let them in himself."
"You have no more evidence to give?"
"No."
"Please tell Mme. Fauville that Monsieur le Préfet would be very much
obliged if he could have a word with her."
Silvestre left the room.
The examining magistrate and the public prosecutor had drawn nearer in
astonishment.
The Prefect exclaimed:
"What, Monsieur! You don't mean to pretend that Mme. Fauville is
mixed up--"
"Monsieur le Préfet, Mme. Fauville is the fourth person who may have seen
the turquoise drop out of my ring."
"And what then? Have we the right, in the absence of any real proof,
to suppose that a woman can kill her husband, that a mother can
poison her son?"
"I am supposing nothing, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Then--?"
Don Luis made no reply. M. Desmalions did not conceal his irritation.
However, he said:
"Very well; but I order you most positively to remain silent. What
questions am I to put to Mme. Fauville?"
"One only, Monsieur le Préfet: ask Mme. Fauville if she knows any one,
apart from her husband, who is descended from the sisters Roussel."
"Why that question?"
"Because, if that descendant exists, it is not I who will inherit the
millions, but he; and then it will be he and not I who would be
interested in the removal of M. Fauville and his son."
"Of course, of course," muttered M. Desmalions. "But even so, this
new trail--"
Mme. Fauville entered as he was speaking. Her face remained charming and
pretty in spite of the tears that had reddened her eyelids and impaired
the freshness of her cheeks. But her eyes expressed the scare of terror;
and the obsession of the tragedy imparted to all her attractive
personality, to her gait and to her movements, something feverish and
spasmodic that was painful to look upon.
"Pray sit down, Madame," said the Prefect, speaking with the height
of deference, "and forgive me for inflicting any additional emotion
upon you. But time is precious; and we must do everything to make
sure that the two victims whose loss you are mourning shall be
avenged without delay."
Tears were still streaming from her beautiful eyes; and, with a sob, she
stammered:
"If the police need me, Monsieur le Préfet--"
"Yes, it is a question of obtaining a few particulars. Your husband's
mother is dead, is she not?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Am I correct in saying that she came from Saint-Etienne and that her
maiden name was Roussel?"
"Yes."
"Elizabeth Roussel?"
"Yes."
"Had your husband any brothers or sisters?"
"No."
"Therefore there is no descendant of Elizabeth Roussel living?"
"No."
"Very well. But Elizabeth Roussel had two sisters, did she not?"
"Yes."
"Ermeline Roussel, the elder, went abroad and was not heard of again. The
other, the younger--"
"The other was called Armande Roussel. She was my mother."
"Eh? What do you say?"
"I said my mother's maiden name was Armande Roussel, and I married my
cousin, the son of Elizabeth Roussel."
The statement had the effect of a thunderclap. So, upon the death of
Hippolyte Fauville and his son Edmond, the direct descendants of the
eldest sister, Cosmo Mornington's inheritance passed to the other
branch, that of Armande Roussel; and this branch was represented so far
by Mme. Fauville!
The Prefect of Police and the examining magistrate exchanged glances
and both instinctively turned toward Don Luis Perenna, who did not
move a muscle.
"Have you no brother or sister, Madame?" asked the Prefect.
"No, Monsieur le Préfet, I am the only one."
The only one! In other words, now that her husband and son were dead,
Cosmo Mornington's millions reverted absolutely and undeniably to her, to
her alone.
Meanwhile, a hideous idea weighed like a nightmare upon the magistrates
and they could not rid themselves of it: the woman sitting before them
was the mother of Edmond Fauville. M. Desmalions had his eyes on Don Luis
Perenna, who wrote a few words on a card and handed it to the Prefect.
M. Desmalions, who was gradually resuming toward Don Luis his courteous
attitude of the day before, read it, reflected a moment, and put this
question to Mme. Fauville:
"What was your son Edmond's age?"
"Seventeen."
"You look so young--"
"Edmond was not my son, but my stepson, the son of my husband by his
first wife, who died,"
"Ah! So Edmond Fauville--" muttered the Prefect, without finishing
his sentence.
In two minutes the whole situation had changed. In the eyes of the
magistrates, Mme. Fauville was no longer the widow and mother who must on
no account be attacked. She had suddenly become a woman whom
circumstances compelled them to cross-examine. However prejudiced they
might be in her favour, however charmed by the seductive qualities of her
beauty, they were inevitably bound to ask themselves, whether for some
reason or other, for instance, in order to be alone in the enjoyment of
the enormous fortune, she had not had the madness to kill her husband and
to kill the boy who was only her husband's son. In any case, the question
was there, calling for a solution.
The Prefect of Police continued:
"Do you know this turquoise?"
She took the stone which he held out to her and examined it without the
least sign of confusion.
"No," she said. "I have an old-fashioned turquoise necklace, which I
never wear, but the stones are larger and none of them has this
irregular shape."
"We found this one in the safe," said M. Desmalions. "It forms part of a
ring belonging to a person whom we know."
"Well," she said eagerly, "you must find that person."
"He is here," said the Prefect, pointing to Don Luis, who had been
standing some way off and who had not been noticed by Mme. Fauville.
She started at the sight of Perenna and cried, very excitedly:
"But that gentleman was here yesterday evening! He was talking to my
husband--and so was that other gentleman," she said, referring to
Sergeant Mazeroux. "You must question them, find out why they were here.
You understand that, if the turquoise belonged to one of them--"
The insinuation was direct, but clumsy; and it lent the greatest weight
to Perenna's unspoken argument:
"The turquoise was picked up by some one who saw me yesterday and who
wishes to compromise me. Apart from M. Fauville and the detective
sergeant, only two people saw me: Silvestre, the manservant, and Mme.
Fauville. Consequently, as Silvestre is outside the question, I accuse
Mme. Fauville of putting the turquoise in the safe."
M. Desmalions asked:
"Will you let me see the necklace, Madame?"
"Certainly. It is with my other jewels, in my wardrobe. I will go for
it."
"Pray don't trouble, Madame. Does your maid know the necklace?"
"Quite well."
"In that case, Sergeant Mazeroux will tell her what is wanted."
* * * * *
Not a word was spoken during the few minutes for which Mazeroux was
absent. Mme. Fauville seemed absorbed in her grief. M. Desmalions kept
his eyes fixed on her.
The sergeant returned, carrying a very large box containing a number of
jewel-cases and loose ornaments.
M. Desmalions found the necklace, examined it, and realized, in fact,
that the stones did not resemble the turquoise and that none of them was
missing. But, on separating two jewel cases in order to take out a tiara
which also contained blue stones, he made a gesture of surprise.
"What are these two keys?" he asked, pointing to two keys identical in
shape and size with those which opened the lock and the bolt of the
garden door.
Mme. Fauville remained very calm. Not a muscle of her face moved. Nothing
pointed to the least perturbation on account of this discovery. She
merely said:
"I don't know. They have been there a long time."
"Mazeroux," said M. Desmalions, "try them on that door."
Mazeroux did so. The door opened.
"Yes," said Mme. Fauville. "I remember now, my husband gave them to me.
They were duplicates of his own keys--"
The words were uttered in the most natural tone and as though the speaker
did not even suspect the terrible charge that was forming against her.
And nothing was more agonizing than this tranquillity. Was it a sign of
absolute innocence, or the infernal craft of a criminal whom nothing is
able to stir? Did she realize nothing of the tragedy which was taking
place and of which she was the unconscious heroine? Or did she guess the
terrible accusation which was gradually closing in upon her on every side
and which threatened her with the most awful danger? But, in that case,
how could she have been guilty of the extraordinary blunder of keeping
those two keys?
A series of questions suggested itself to the minds of all those present.
The Prefect of Police put them as follows:
"You were out, Madame, were you not, when the murders were committed?"
"Yes."
"You were at the opera?"
"Yes; and I went on to a party at the house of one of my friends, Mme.
d'Ersingen."
"Did your chauffeur drive you?"
"To the opera, yes. But I sent him back to his garage; and he came to
fetch me at the party."
"I see," said M. Desmalions. "But how did you go from the opera to Mme.
d'Ersingen's?"
For the first time, Mme. Fauville seemed to understand that she was the
victim of a regular cross-examination; and her look and attitude betrayed
a certain uneasiness. She replied:
"I took a motor cab."
"In the street?"
"On the Place de l'Opéra."
"At twelve o'clock, therefore?"
"No, at half-past eleven: I left before the opera was over."
"You were in a hurry to get to your friend's?"
"Yes ... or rather--"
She stopped; her cheeks were scarlet; her lips and chin trembled; and
she asked:
"Why do you ask me all these questions?"
"They are necessary, Madame. They may throw a light on what we want to
know. I beg you, therefore, to answer them. At what time did you reach
your friend's house?"
"I hardly know. I did not notice the time."
"Did you go straight there?"
"Almost."
"How do you mean, almost?"
"I had a little headache and told the driver to go up the Champs
Elysées and the Avenue du Bois--very slowly--and then down the Champs
Elysées again--"
She was becoming more and more embarrassed. Her voice grew indistinct.
She lowered her head and was silent.
Certainly her silence contained no confession, and there was nothing
entitling any one to believe that her dejection was other than a
consequence of her grief. But yet she seemed so weary as to give the
impression that, feeling herself lost, she was giving up the fight. And
it was almost a feeling of pity that was entertained for this woman
against whom all the circumstances seemed to be conspiring, and who
defended herself so badly that her cross-examiner hesitated to press her
yet further.
M. Desmalions, in fact, wore an irresolute air, as if the victory had
been too easy, and as if he had some scruple about pursuing it.
Mechanically he observed Perenna, who passed him a slip of paper, saying:
"Mme. d'Ersingen's telephone number."
M. Desmalions murmured:
"Yes, true, they may know--"
And, taking down the receiver, he asked for number 325.04. He was
connected at once and continued:
"Who is that speaking?... The butler? Ah! Is Mme. d'Ersingen at
home?... No?... Or Monsieur?... Not he, either?... Never mind, you can
tell me what I want to know. I am M. Desmalions, the Prefect of Police,
and I need certain information. At what time did Mme. Fauville come last
night?... What do you say?... Are you sure?... At two o'clock in the
morning?... Not before?... And she went away?... In ten minutes
time?... Good ... But you're certain you are not mistaken about the
time when she arrived? I must know this positively: it is most
important.... You say it was two o'clock in the morning? Two o'clock in
the morning?... Very well.... Thank you."
When M. Desmalions turned round, he saw Mme. Fauville standing beside him
and looking at him with an expression of mad anguish. And one and the
same idea occurred to the mind of all the onlookers. They were in the
presence either of an absolutely innocent woman or else of an exceptional
actress whose face lent itself to the most perfect simulation of
innocence.
"What do you want?" she stammered. "What does this mean? Explain
yourself!"
Then M. Desmalions asked simply:
"What were you doing last night between half-past eleven in the evening
and two o'clock in the morning?"
It was a terrifying question at the stage which the examination had
reached, a fatal question implying:
"If you cannot give us an exact and strict account of the way in which
you employed your time while the crime was being committed, we have the
right to conclude that you were not alien to the murder of your husband
and stepson--"
She understood it in this sense and staggered on her feet, moaning:
"It's horrible!... horrible!"
The Prefect repeated:
"What were you doing? The question must be quite easy to answer."
"Oh," she cried, in the same piteous tone, "how can you believe!... Oh,
no, no, it's not possible! How can you believe!"
"I believe nothing yet," he said. "Besides, you can establish the truth
with a single word."
It seemed, from the movement of her lips and the sudden gesture of
resolution that shook her frame, as though she were about to speak that
word. But all at once she appeared stupefied and dumfounded, pronounced a
few unintelligible syllables, and fell huddled into a chair, sobbing
convulsively and uttering cries of despair.
It was tantamount to a confession. At the very least, it was a confession
of her inability to supply the plausible explanation which would have put
an end to the discussion.
The Prefect of Police moved away from her and spoke in a low voice to the
examining magistrate and the public prosecutor. Perenna and Sergeant
Mazeroux were left alone together, side by side.
Mazeroux whispered:
"What did I tell you? I knew you would find out! Oh, what a man you are!
The way you managed!"
He was beaming at the thought that the chief was clear of the matter and
that he had no more crows to pluck with his, Mazeroux's, superiors, whom
he revered almost as much as he did the chief. Everybody was now agreed;
they were "friends all round"; and Mazeroux was choking with delight.
"They'll lock her up, eh?"
"No," said Perenna. "There's not enough 'hold' on her for them to issue
a warrant."
"What!" growled Mazeroux indignantly. "Not enough hold? I hope, in any
case, that you won't let her go. She made no bones, you know, about
attacking you! Come, Chief, polish her off, a she-devil like that!"
Don Luis remained pensive. He was thinking of the unheard-of
coincidences, the accumulation of facts that bore down on Mme. Fauville
from every side. And the decisive proof which would join all these
different facts together and give to the accusation the grounds which it
still lacked was one which Perenna was able to supply. This was the marks
of the teeth in the apple hidden among the shrubs in the garden. To the
police these would be as good as any fingerprint, all the more as they
could compare the marks with those on the cake of chocolate.
Nevertheless, he hesitated; and, concentrating his anxious attention, he
watched, with mingled feelings of pity and repulsion, that woman who, to
all seeming, had killed her husband and her husband's son. Was he to give
her the finishing stroke? Had he the right to play the part of judge? And
supposing he were wrong?
* * * * *
Meantime, M. Desmalions had walked up to him and, while pretending to
speak to Mazeroux, was really asking Perenna:
"What do you think of it?"
Mazeroux shook his head. Perenna replied:
"I think, Monsieur le Préfet, that, if this woman is guilty, she is
defending herself, for all her cleverness, with inconceivable lack
of skill."
"Meaning--?"
"Meaning that she was doubtless only a tool in the hands of an
accomplice."
"An accomplice?"
"Remember, Monsieur le Préfet, her husband's exclamation in your office
yesterday: 'Oh, the scoundrels! the scoundrels!' There is, therefore, at
least one accomplice, who perhaps is the same as the man who was present,
as Sergeant Mazeroux must have told you, in the Café du Pont-Neuf when
Inspector Vérot was last there: a man with a reddish-brown beard,
carrying an ebony walking-stick with a silver handle. So that--"
"So that," said M. Desmalions, completing the sentence, "by arresting
Mme. Fauville to-day, merely on suspicion, we have a chance of laying our
hands on the accomplice."
Perenna did not reply. The Prefect continued, thoughtfully:
"Arrest her ... arrest her.... We should need a proof for that.... Did
you receive no clue?"
"None at all, Monsieur le Préfet. True, my search was only summary."
"But ours was most minute. We have been through every corner of
the room."
"And the garden, Monsieur le Préfet?"
"The garden also."
"With the same care?"
"Perhaps not.... But I think--"
"I think, on the contrary, Monsieur le Préfet, that, as the murderers
passed through the garden in coming and going, there might be a chance--"
"Mazeroux," said M. Desmalions, "go outside and make a more thorough
inspection."
The sergeant went out. Perenna, who was once more standing at one side,
heard the Prefect of Police repeating to the examining magistrate:
"Ah, if we only had a proof, just one! The woman is evidently guilty. The
presumption against her is too great! ... And then there are Cosmo
Mornington's millions.... But, on the other hand, look at her ... look at
all the honesty in that pretty face of hers, look at all the sincerity of
her grief."
She was still crying, with fitful sobs and starts of indignant protest
that made her clench her fists. At one moment she took her tear-soaked
handkerchief, bit it with her teeth and tore it, after the manner of
certain actresses.
Perenna saw those beautiful white teeth, a little wide, moist and
gleaming, rending the dainty cambric. And he thought of the marks of
teeth on the apple. And he was seized with an extreme longing to know the
truth. Was it the same pair of jaws that had left its impress in the pulp
of the fruit?
Mazeroux returned. M. Desmalions moved briskly toward the sergeant, who
showed him the apple which he had found under the ivy. And Perenna at
once realized the supreme importance which the Prefect of Police attached
to Mazeroux's explanations and to his unexpected discovery.
A conversation of some length took place between the magistrates and
ended in the decision which Don Luis foresaw. M. Desmalions walked
across the room to Mme. Fauville. It was the catastrophe. He reflected
for a second on the manner in which he should open this final contest,
and then he asked:
"Are you still unable, Madame, to tell us how you employed your time
last night?"
She made an effort and whispered:
"Yes, yes.... I took a taxi and drove about. ... I also walked a
little--"
"That is a fact which we can easily verify when we have found the
driver of the taxi. Meanwhile, there is an opportunity of removing the
somewhat ... grievous impression which your silence has left on our
minds."
"I am quite ready--"
"It is this: the person or one of the persons who took part in the
crime appears to have bitten into an apple which was afterward thrown
away in the garden and which has just been found. To put an end to any
suppositions concerning yourself, we should like you to perform the
same action."
"Oh, certainly!" she cried, eagerly. "If this is all you need to
convince you--"
She took one of the three apples which Desmalions handed her from the
dish and lifted it to her mouth.
It was a decisive act. If the two marks resembled each other, the proof
existed, assured and undeniable.
Before completing her movement, she stopped short, as though seized with
a sudden fear.... Fear of what? Fear of the monstrous chance that might
be her undoing? Or fear rather of the dread weapon which she was about to
deliver against herself? In any case nothing accused her with greater
directness than this last hesitation, which was incomprehensible if she
was innocent, but clear as day if she was guilty!
"What are you afraid of, Madame?" asked M. Desmalions.
"Nothing, nothing," she said, shuddering. "I don't know.... I am afraid
of everything.... It is all so horrible--"
"But, Madame, I assure you that what we are asking of you has no sort of
importance and, I am persuaded, can only have a fortunate result for you.
If you don't mind, therefore--"
She raised her hand higher and yet higher, with a slowness that betrayed
her uneasiness. And really, in the fashion in which things were
happening, the scene was marked by a certain solemnity and tragedy that
wrung every heart.
"And, if I refuse?" she asked, suddenly.
"You are absolutely entitled to refuse," said the Prefect of Police. "But
is it worth while, Madame? I am sure that your counsel would be the first
to advise you--"
"My counsel?" she stammered, understanding the formidable meaning
conveyed by that reply.
And, suddenly, with a fierce resolve and the almost ferocious air that
contorts the face when great dangers threaten, she made the movement
which they were pressing her to make. She opened her mouth. They saw
the gleam of the white teeth. At one bite, the white teeth dug into
the fruit.
"There you are, Monsieur," she said.
M. Desmalions turned to the examining magistrate.
"Have you the apple found in the garden?"
"Here, Monsieur le Préfet."
M. Desmalions put the two apples side by side.
And those who crowded round him, anxiously looking on, all uttered one
exclamation.
The two marks of teeth were identical.
Identical! Certainly, before declaring the identity of every detail, the
absolute analogy of the marks of each tooth, they must wait for the
results of the expert's report. But there was one thing which there was
no mistaking and that was the complete similarity of the two curves.
In either fruit the rounded arch was bent according to the same
inflection. The two semicircles could have fitted one into the other,
both very narrow, both a little long-shaped and oval and of a restricted
radius which was the very character of the jaw.
The men did not speak a word. M. Desmalions raised his head. Mme.
Fauville did not move, stood livid and mad with terror. But all the
sentiments of terror, stupor and indignation that she might simulate with
her mobile face and her immense gifts as an actress, did not prevail
against the compelling proof that presented itself to every eye.
The two imprints were identical! The same teeth had bitten into
both apples!
"Madame--" the Prefect of Police began.
"No, no," she cried, seized with a fit of fury, "no, it's not
true.... This is all just a nightmare.... No, you are never going to
arrest me? I in prison! Why, it's horrible!... What have I done? Oh, I
swear that you are mistaken--"
She took her head between her hands.
"Oh, my brain is throbbing as if it would burst! What does all this mean?
I have done no wrong.... I knew nothing. It was you who told me this
morning.... Could I have suspected? My poor husband ... and that dear
Edmond who loved me ... and whom I loved! Why should I have killed them?
Tell me that! Why don't you answer?" she demanded. "People don't commit
murder without a motive.... Well?... Well?... Answer me, can't you?"
And once more convulsed with anger, standing in an aggressive
attitude, with her clenched hands outstretched at the group of
magistrates, she screamed:
"You're no better than butchers ... you have no right to torture a woman
like this.... Oh, how horrible! To accuse me ... to arrest me ... for
nothing! ... Oh, it's abominable! ... What butchers you all are! ... And
it's you in particular," addressing Perenna, "it's you--yes, I know--it's
you who are the enemy.
"Oh, I understand! You had your reasons, you were here last
night.... Then why don't they arrest you? Why not you, as you were
here and I was not and know nothing, absolutely nothing of what
happened.... Why isn't it you?"
The last words were pronounced in a hardly intelligible fashion. She had
no strength left. She had to sit down, with her head bent over her knees,
and she wept once more, abundantly.
Perenna went up to her and, raising her forehead and uncovering the
tear-stained face, said:
"The imprints of teeth in both apples are absolutely identical. There is
therefore no doubt whatever but that the first comes from you as well as
the second."
"No!" she said.
"Yes," he affirmed. "That is a fact which it is materially impossible to
deny. But the first impression may have been left by you before last
night, that is to say, you may have bitten that apple yesterday, for
instance--"
She stammered:
"Do you think so? Yes, perhaps, I seem to remember--yesterday morning--"
But the Prefect of Police interrupted her.
"It is useless, Madame; I have just questioned your servant, Silvestre.
He bought the fruit himself at eight o'clock last evening. When M.
Fauville went to bed, there were four apples in the dish. At eight
o'clock this morning there were only three. Therefore the one found in
the garden is incontestably the fourth; and this fourth apple was marked
last night. And the mark is the mark of your teeth."
She stammered:
"It was not I ... it was not I ... that mark is not mine."
"But--"
"That mark is not mine.... I swear it as I hope to be saved.... And I
also swear that I shall die, yes, die.... I prefer death to prison.... I
shall kill myself.... I shall kill myself--"
Her eyes were staring before her. She stiffened her muscles and made a
supreme effort to rise from her chair. But, once on her feet, she
tottered and fell fainting on the floor.
While she was being seen to, Mazeroux beckoned to Don Luis and whispered:
"Clear out, Chief."
"Ah, so the orders are revoked? I'm free?"
"Chief, take a look at the beggar who came in ten minutes ago and who's
talking to the Prefect. Do you know him?"
"Hang it all!" said Perenna, after glancing at a large red-faced man who
did not take his eyes off him. "Hang it, it's Weber, the deputy chief!"
"And he's recognized you, Chief! He recognized Lupin at first sight.
There's no fake that he can't see through. He's got the knack of it.
Well, Chief, just think of all the tricks you've played on him and ask
yourself if he'll stick at anything to have his revenge!"
"And you think he has told the Prefect?"
"Of course he has; and the Prefect has ordered my mates to keep you in
view. If you make the least show of trying to escape them, they'll
collar you."
"In that case, there's nothing to be done?"
"Nothing to be done? Why, it's a question of putting them off your scent
and mighty quickly!"
"What good would that do me, as I'm going home and they know where I
live?"
"Eh, what? Can you have the cheek to go home after what's happened?"
"Where do you expect me to sleep? Under the bridges?"
"But, dash it all, don't you understand that, after this job, there will
be the most infernal stir, that you're compromised up to the neck as it
is, and that everybody will turn against you?"
"Well?"
"Drop the business."
"And the murderers of Cosmo Mornington and the Fauvilles?"
"The police will see to that."
"Alexandre, you're an ass."
"Then become Lupin again, the invisible, impregnable Lupin, and do your
own fighting, as you used to. But in Heaven's name don't remain Perenna!
It is too dangerous. And don't occupy yourself officially with a business
in which you are not interested."
"The things you say, Alexandre! I am interested in it to the tune of a
hundred millions. If Perenna does not stick to his post, the hundred
millions will be snatched from under his nose. And, on the one occasion
when I can earn a few honest centimes, that would be most annoying."
"And, if they arrest you?"
"No go! I'm dead!"
"Lupin is dead. But Perenna is alive."
"As they haven't arrested me to-day, I'm easy in my mind."
"It's only put off. And the orders are strict from this moment onward.
They mean to surround your house and to keep watch day and night."
"Capital. I always was frightened at night."
"But, good Lord! what are you hoping for?"
"I hope for nothing, Alexandre. I am sure. I am sure now that they will
not dare arrest me."
"Do you imagine that Weber will stand on ceremony?"
"I don't care a hang about Weber. Without orders, Weber can do nothing."
"But they'll give him his orders."
"The order to shadow me, yes; to arrest me, no. The Prefect of Police has
committed himself about me to such an extent that he will be obliged to
back me up. And then there's this: the whole affair is so absurd, so
complicated, that you people will never find your way out of it alone.
Sooner or later, you will come and fetch me. For there is no one but
myself able to fight such adversaries as these: not you nor Weber, nor
any of your pals at the detective office. I shall expect your visit,
Alexandre."
On the next day an expert examination identified the tooth prints on the
two apples and likewise established the fact that the print on the cake
of chocolate was similar to the others.
Also, the driver of a taxicab came and gave evidence that a lady engaged
him as she left the opera, told him to drive her straight to the end of
the Avenue Henri Martin, and left the cab on reaching that spot.
Now the end of the Avenue Henri Martin was within five minutes' walk of
the Fauvilles' house.
The man was brought into Mme. Fauville's presence and recognized
her at once.
What had she done in that neighbourhood for over an hour?
Marie Fauville was taken to the central lockup, was entered on the
register, and slept, that night, at the Saint-Lazare prison.
That same day, when the reporters were beginning to publish details of
the investigation, such as the discovery of the tooth prints, but when
they did not yet know to whom to attribute them, two of the leading
dailies used as a headline for their article the very words which Don
Luis Perenna had employed to describe the marks on the apple, the
sinister words which so well suggested the fierce, savage, and so to
speak, brutal character of the incident:
"THE TEETH OF THE TIGER."
CHAPTER FIVE
THE IRON CURTAIN
It is sometimes an ungrateful task to tell the story of Arsène Lupin's
life, for the reason that each of his adventures is partly known to the
public, having at the time formed the subject of much eager comment,
whereas his biographer is obliged, if he would throw light upon what is
not known, to begin at the beginning and to relate in full detail all
that which is already public property.
It is because of this necessity that I am compelled to speak once more of
the extreme excitement which the news of that shocking series of crimes
created in France, in Europe and throughout the civilized world. The
public heard of four murders practically all at once, for the particulars
of Cosmo Mornington's will were published two days later.
There was no doubt that the same person had killed Cosmo Mornington,
Inspector Vérot, Fauville the engineer, and his son Edmond. The same
person had made the identical sinister bite, leaving against himself or
herself, with a heedlessness that seemed to show the avenging hand of
fate, a most impressive and incriminating proof, a proof which made
people shudder as they would have shuddered at the awful reality: the
marks of his or her teeth, the teeth of the tiger!
And, in the midst of all this bloodshed, at the most tragic moment
of the dismal tragedy, behold the strangest of figures emerging from
the darkness!
An heroic adventurer, endowed with astounding intelligence and insight,
had in a few hours partly unravelled the tangled skeins of the plot,
divined the murder of Cosmo Mornington, proclaimed the murder of
Inspector Vérot, taken the conduct of the investigation into his own
hands, delivered to justice the inhuman creature whose beautiful white
teeth fitted the marks as precious stones fit their settings, received a
cheque for a million francs on the day after these exploits and, finally,
found himself the probable heir to an immense fortune.
And here was Arsène Lupin coming to life again!
For the public made no mistake about that, and, with wonderful intuition,
proclaimed aloud that Don Luis Perenna was Arsène Lupin, before a close
examination of the facts had more or less confirmed the supposition.
"But he's dead!" objected the doubters.
To which the others replied:
"Yes, Dolores Kesselbach's corpse was recovered under the still smoking
ruins of a little chalet near the Luxemburg frontier and, with it, the
corpse of a man whom the police identified as Arsène Lupin. But
everything goes to show that the whole scene was contrived by Lupin, who,
for reasons of his own, wanted to be thought dead. And everything shows
that the police accepted and legalized the theory of his death only
because they wished to be rid of their everlasting adversary.
"As a proof, we have the confidences made by Valenglay, who was Prime
Minister at the time and whom the chances of politics have just replaced
at the head of the government. And there is the mysterious incident on
the island of Capri when the German Emperor, just as he was about to be
buried under a landslip, was saved by a hermit who, according to the
German version, was none other than Arsène Lupin."
To this came a fresh objection:
"Very well; but read the newspapers of the time: ten minutes
afterward, the hermit flung himself into the sea from Tiberius' Leap."
And the answer:
"Yes, but the body was never found. And, as it happens, we know that a
steamer picked up a man who was making signals to her and that this
steamer was on her way to Algiers. Well, a few days later, Don Luis
Perenna enlisted in the Foreign Legion at Sidi-bel-Abbes."
Of course, the controversy upon which the newspapers embarked on this
subject was carried on discreetly. Everybody was afraid of Lupin; and the
journalists maintained a certain reserve in their articles, confined
themselves to comparing dates and pointing out coincidences, and
refrained from speaking too positively of any Lupin that might lie hidden
under the mask of Perenna.
But, as regards the private in the Foreign Legion and his stay in
Morocco, they took their revenge and let themselves go freely.
Major d'Astrignac had spoken. Other officers, other comrades of
Perenna's, related what they had seen. The reports and daily orders
concerning him were published. And what became known as "The Hero's
Idyll" began to take the form of a sort of record each page of which
described the maddest and unlikeliest of facts.
At Médiouna, on the twenty-fourth of March, the adjutant, Captain Pollex,
awarded Private Perenna four days' cells on a charge of having broken out
of camp past two sentries after evening roll call, contrary to orders,
and being absent without leave until noon on the following day. Perenna,
the report went on to say, brought back the body of his sergeant, killed
in ambush. And in the margin was this note, in the colonel's hand:
"The colonel commanding doubles Private Perenna's award, but mentions his
name in orders and congratulates and thanks him."
After the fight of Ber-Réchid, Lieutenant Fardet's detachment being
obliged to retreat before a band of four hundred Moors, Private Perenna
asked leave to cover the retreat by installing himself in a _kasbah_.
"How many men do you want, Perenna?"
"None, sir."
"What! Surely you don't propose to cover a retreat all by yourself?"
"What pleasure would there be in dying, sir, if others were to die as
well as I?"
At his request, they left him a dozen rifles, and divided with him the
cartridges that remained. His share came to seventy-five.
The detachment got away without being further molested. Next day, when
they were able to return with reinforcements, they surprised the Moors
lying in wait around the _kasbah_, but afraid to approach. The ground was
covered with seventy-five of their killed.
Our men drove them off. They found Private Perenna stretched on the floor
of the _kasbah_. They thought him dead. He was asleep!
He had not a single cartridge left. But each of his seventy-five bullets
had gone home.
What struck the imagination of the public most, however, was Major Comte
d'Astrignac's story of the battle of Dar-Dbibarh. The major confessed
that this battle, which relieved Fez at the moment when we thought that
all was lost and which created such a sensation in France, was won before
it was fought and that it was won by Perenna, alone!
At daybreak, when the Moorish tribes were preparing for the attack,
Private Perenna lassoed an Arab horse that was galloping across the
plain, sprang on the animal, which had no saddle, bridle, nor any sort of
harness, and without jacket, cap, or arms, with his white shirt bulging
out and a cigarette between his teeth, charged, with his hands in his
trousers-pockets!
He charged straight toward the enemy, galloped through their camp, riding
in and out among the tents, and then left it by the same place by which
he had gone in.
This quite inconceivable death ride spread such consternation among the
Moors that their attack was half-hearted and the battle was won without
resistance.
This, together with numberless other feats of bravado, went to make up
the heroic legend of Perenna. It threw into relief the superhuman energy,
the marvellous recklessness, the bewildering fancy, the spirit of
adventure, the physical dexterity, and the coolness of a singularly
mysterious individual whom it was impossible not to take for Arsène
Lupin, but a new and greater Arsène Lupin, dignified, idealized, and
ennobled by his exploits.
One morning, a fortnight after the double murder in the Boulevard
Suchet, this extraordinary man, who aroused such eager interest and who
was spoken of on every side as a fabulous and more or less impossible
being: one morning, Don Luis Perenna dressed himself and went the rounds
of his house.
It was a comfortable and roomy eighteenth-century mansion, situated at
the entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, on the little Place du
Palais-Bourbon. He had bought it, furnished, from a rich Hungarian, Count
Malonyi, keeping for his own use the horses, carriages, motor cars, and
taking over the eight servants and even the count's secretary, Mlle.
Levasseur, who undertook to manage the household and to receive and get
rid of the visitors--journalists, bores and curiosity-dealers--attracted
by the luxury of the house and the reputation of its new owner.
After finishing his inspection of the stables and garage, he walked
across the courtyard and went up to his study, pushed open one of the
windows and raised his head. Above him was a slanting mirror; and this
mirror reflected, beyond the courtyard and its surrounding wall, one
whole side of the Place du Palais-Bourbon.
"Bother!" he said. "Those confounded detectives are still there. And this
has been going on for a fortnight. I'm getting tired of this spying."
He sat down, in a bad temper, to look through his letters, tearing up,
after he had read them, those which concerned him personally and making
notes on the others, such as applications for assistance and requests for
interviews. When he had finished, he rang the bell.
"Ask Mlle. Levasseur to bring me the newspapers."
She had been the Hungarian count's reader as well as his secretary; and
Perenna had trained her to pick out in the newspapers anything that
referred to him, and to give him each morning an exact account of the
proceedings that were being taken against Mme. Fauville.
Always dressed in black, with a very elegant and graceful figure, she had
attracted him from the first. She had an air of great dignity and a grave
and thoughtful face which made it impossible to penetrate the secret of
her soul, and which would have seemed austere had it not been framed in a
cloud of fair curls, resisting all attempts at discipline and setting a
halo of light and gayety around her.
Her voice had a soft and musical tone which Perenna loved to hear; and,
himself a little perplexed by Mlle. Levasseur's attitude of reserve, he
wondered what she could think of him, of his mode of life, and of all
that the newspapers had to tell of his mysterious past.
"Nothing new?" he asked, as he glanced at the headings of the articles.
She read the reports relating to Mme. Fauville; and Don Luis could see
that the police investigations were making no headway. Marie Fauville
still kept to her first method, that of weeping, making a show of
indignation, and assuming entire ignorance of the facts upon which she
was being examined.
"It's ridiculous," he said, aloud. "I have never seen any one defend
herself so clumsily."
"Still, if she's innocent?"
It was the first time that Mlle. Levasseur had uttered an opinion or
rather a remark upon the case. Don Luis looked at her in great surprise.
"So you think her innocent, Mademoiselle?"
She seemed ready to reply and to explain the meaning of her
interruption. It was as though she were removing her impassive mask and
about to allow her face to adopt a more animated expression under the
impulse of her inner feelings. But she restrained herself with a visible
effort, and murmured:
"I don't know. I have no views."
"Possibly," he said, watching her with curiosity, "but you have a doubt:
a doubt which would be permissible if it were not for the marks left by
Mme. Fauville's own teeth. Those marks, you see, are something more than
a signature, more than a confession of guilt. And, as long as she is
unable to give a satisfactory explanation of this point--"
But Marie Fauville vouchsafed not the slightest explanation of this or of
anything else. She remained impenetrable. On the other hand, the police
failed to discover her accomplice or accomplices, or the man with the
ebony walking-stick and the tortoise-shell glasses whom the waiter at the
Café du Pont-Neuf had described to Mazeroux and who seemed to have played
a singularly suspicious part. In short, there was not a ray of light
thrown upon the subject.
Equally vain was all search for the traces of Victor, the Roussel
sister's first cousin, who would have inherited the Mornington bequest in
the absence of any direct heirs.
"Is that all?" asked Perenna.
"No," said Mlle. Levasseur, "there is an article in the _Echo de
France_--"
"Relating to me?"
"I presume so, Monsieur. It is called, 'Why Don't They Arrest Him?'"
"That concerns me," he said, with a laugh.
He took the newspaper and read:
"Why do they not arrest him? Why go against logic and prolong an
unnatural situation which no decent man can understand? This is the
question which everybody is asking and to which our investigations enable
us to furnish a precise reply.
"Two years ago, in other words, three years after the pretended death of
Arsène Lupin, the police, having discovered or believing they had
discovered that Arsène Lupin was really none other than one Floriani,
born at Blois and since lost to sight, caused the register to be
inscribed, on the page relating to this Floriani, with the word
'Deceased,' followed by the words 'Under the alias of Arsène Lupin.'
"Consequently, to bring Arsène Lupin back to life, there would be wanted
something more than the undeniable proof of his existence, which would
not be impossible. The most complicated wheels in the administrative
machine would have to be set in motion, and a decree obtained from the
Council of State.
"Now it would seem that M. Valenglay, the Prime Minister, together with
the Prefect of Police, is opposed to making any too minute inquiries
capable of opening up a scandal which the authorities are anxious to
avoid. Bring Arsène Lupin back to life? Recommence the struggle with
that accursed scoundrel? Risk a fresh defeat and fresh ridicule? No, no,
and again no!
"And thus is brought about this unprecedented, inadmissible,
inconceivable, disgraceful situation, that Arsène Lupin, the hardened
thief, the impenitent criminal, the robber-king, the emperor of burglars
and swindlers, is able to-day, not clandestinely, but in the sight and
hearing of the whole world, to pursue the most formidable task that he
has yet undertaken, to live publicly under a name which is not his own,
but which he has incontestably made his own, to destroy with impunity
four persons who stood in his way, to cause the imprisonment of an
innocent woman against whom he himself has accumulated false evidence,
and at the end of all, despite the protests of common sense and thanks
to an unavowed complicity, to receive the hundred millions of the
Mornington legacy.
"There is the ignominious truth in a nutshell. It is well that it should
be stated. Let us hope, now that it stands revealed, that it will
influence the future conduct of events."
"At any rate, it will influence the conduct of the idiot who wrote that
article," said Lupin, with a grin.
He dismissed Mlle. Levasseur and rang up Major d'Astrignac on the
telephone.
"Is that you, Major? Perenna speaking."
"Yes, what is it?"
"Have you read the article in the _Echo de France_?"
"Yes."
"Would it bore you very much to call on that gentleman and ask for
satisfaction in my name?"
"Oh! A duel!"
"It's got to be, Major. All these sportsmen are wearying me with their
lucubrations. They must be gagged. This fellow will pay for the rest."
"Well, of course, if you're bent on it--"
"I am, very much."
* * * * *
The preliminaries were entered upon without delay. The editor of the
_Echo de France_ declared that the article had been sent in without a
signature, typewritten, and that it had been published without his
knowledge; but he accepted the entire responsibility.
That same day, at three o'clock, Don Luis Perenna, accompanied by Major
d'Astrignac, another officer, and a doctor, left the house in the Place
du Palais-Bourbon in his car, and, followed by a taxi crammed with the
detectives engaged in watching him, drove to the Parc des Princes.
While waiting for the arrival of the adversary, the Comte d'Astrignac
took Don Luis aside.
"My dear Perenna, I ask you no questions. I don't want to know how much
truth there is in all that is being written about you, or what your real
name is. To me, you are Perenna of the Legion, and that is all I care
about. Your past began in Morocco. As for the future, I know that,
whatever happens and however great the temptation, your only aim will be
to revenge Cosmo Mornington and protect his heirs. But there's one thing
that worries me."
"Speak out, Major."
"Give me your word that you won't kill this man."
"Two months in bed, Major; will that suit you?"
"Too long. A fortnight."
"Done."
The two adversaries took up their positions. At the second encounter, the
editor of the _Echo de France_ fell, wounded in the chest.
"Oh, that's too bad of you, Perenna!" growled the Comte d'Astrignac. "You
promised me--"
"And I've kept my promise, Major."
The doctors were examining the injured man. Presently one of them
rose and said:
"It's nothing. Three weeks' rest, at most. Only a third of an inch more,
and he would have been done for."
"Yes, but that third of an inch isn't there," murmured Perenna.
Still followed by the detectives' motor cab, Don Luis returned to the
Faubourg Saint-Germain; and it was then that an incident occurred which
was to puzzle him greatly and throw a most extraordinary light on the
article in the _Echo de France_.
In the courtyard of his house he saw two little puppies which belonged to
the coachman and which were generally confined to the stables. They were
playing with a twist of red string which kept catching on to things, to
the railings of the steps, to the flower vases. In the end, the paper
round which the string was wound, appeared. Don Luis happened to pass at
that moment. His eyes noticed marks of writing on the paper, and he
mechanically picked it up and unfolded it.
He gave a start. He had at once recognized the opening lines of the
article printed in the _Echo de France_. And the whole article was there,
written in ink, on ruled paper, with erasures, and with sentences added,
struck out, and begun anew.
He called the coachman and asked him:
"Where does this ball of string come from?"
"The string, sir? Why, from the harness-room, I think. It must have been
that little she-devil of a Mirza who--"
"And when did you wind the string round the paper?"
"Yesterday evening, Monsieur."
"Yesterday evening. I see. And where is the paper from?"
"Upon my word, Monsieur, I can't say. I wanted something to wind my
string on. I picked this bit up behind the coach-house where they fling
all the rubbish of the house to be taken into the street at night."
Don Luis pursued his investigations. He questioned or asked Mlle.
Levasseur to question the other servants. He discovered nothing; but one
fact remained: the article in the _Echo de France_ had been written, as
the rough draft which he had picked up proved, by somebody who lived in
the house or who was in touch with one of the people in the house.
The enemy was inside the fortress.
But what enemy? And what did he want? Merely Perenna's arrest?
All the remainder of the afternoon Don Luis continued anxious, annoyed by
the mystery that surrounded him, incensed at his own inaction, and
especially at that threatened arrest, which certainly caused him no
uneasiness, but which hampered his movements.
Accordingly, when he was told at about ten o'clock that a man who gave
the name of Alexandre insisted on seeing him, he had the man shown in;
and when he found himself face to face with Mazeroux, but Mazeroux
disguised beyond recognition and huddled in an old cloak, he flung
himself on him as on a prey, hustling and shaking him.
"So it's you, at last?" he cried. "Well, what did I tell you? You can't
make head or tail of things at the police office and you've come for me!
Confess it, you numskull! You've come to fetch me! Oh, how funny it all
is! Gad, I knew that you would never have the cheek to arrest me, and
that the Prefect of Police would manage to calm the untimely ardour of
that confounded Weber! To begin with, one doesn't arrest a man whom one
has need of. Come, out with it! Lord, how stupid you look! Why don't you
answer? How far have you got at the office? Quick, speak! I'll settle the
thing in five seconds. Just tell me about your inquiry in two words, and
I'll finish it for you in the twinkling of a bed-post, in two minutes by
my watch. Well, you were saying--"
"But, Chief," spluttered Mazeroux, utterly nonplussed.
"What! Must I drag the words out of you? Come on! I'll make a start. It
has to do with the man with the ebony walking-stick, hasn't it? The one
we saw at the Café du Pont-Neuf on the day when Inspector Vérot was
murdered?"
"Yes, it has."
"Have you found his traces?"
"Yes."
"Well, come along, find your tongue!"
"It's like this, Chief. Some one else noticed him besides the waiter.
There was another customer in the café; and this other customer, whom I
ended by discovering, went out at the same time as our man and heard
him ask somebody in the street which was the nearest underground
station for Neuilly."
"Capital, that. And, in Neuilly, by asking questions on every side, you
ferreted him out?"
"And even learnt his name, Chief: Hubert Lautier, of the Avenue du Roule.
Only he decamped from there six months ago, leaving his furniture behind
him and taking nothing but two trunks."
"What about the post-office?"
"We have been to the post-office. One of the clerks recognized the
description which we supplied. Our man calls once every eight or ten days
to fetch his mail, which never amounts to much: just one or two letters.
He has not been there for some time."
"Is the correspondence in his name?"
"No, initials."
"Were they able to remember them?"
"Yes: B.R.W.8."
"Is that all?"
"That is absolutely all that I have discovered. But one of my fellow
officers succeeded in proving, from the evidence of two detectives, that
a man carrying a silver-handled ebony walking-stick and a pair of
tortoise-shell glasses walked out of the Gare d'Auteuil on the evening of
the double murder and went toward Renelagh. Remember the presence of Mme.
Fauville in that neighbourhood at the same hour. And remember that the
crime was committed round about midnight. I conclude from this--"
"That will do; be off!"
"But--"
"Get!"
"Then I don't see you again?"
"Meet me in half an hour outside our man's place."
"What man?"
"Marie Fauville's accomplice."
"But you don't know--"
"The address? Why, you gave it to me yourself: Boulevard Richard-Wallace,
No. 8. Go! And don't look such a fool."
He made him spin round on his heels, took him by the shoulders, pushed
him to the door, and handed him over, quite flabbergasted, to a footman.
He himself went out a few minutes later, dragging in his wake the
detectives attached to his person, left them posted on sentry duty
outside a block of flats with a double entrance, and took a motor cab
to Neuilly.
He went along the Avenue de Madrid on foot and turned down the Boulevard
Richard-Wallace, opposite the Bois de Boulogne. Mazeroux was waiting for
him in front of a small three-storied house standing at the back of a
courtyard contained within the very high walls of the adjoining property.
"Is this number eight?"
"Yes, Chief, but tell me how--"
"One moment, old chap; give me time to recover my breath."
He gave two or three great gasps.
"Lord, how good it is to be up and doing!" he said. "Upon my word, I was
getting rusty. And what a pleasure to pursue those scoundrels! So you
want me to tell you?"
He passed his arm through the sergeant's.
"Listen, Alexandre, and profit by my words. Remember this: when a person
is choosing initials for his address at a _poste restante_ he doesn't
pick them at random, but always in such a way that the letters convey a
meaning to the person corresponding with him, a meaning which will enable
that other person easily to remember the address."
"And in this case?"
"In this case, Mazeroux, a man like myself, who knows Neuilly and the
neighbourhood of the Bois, is at once struck by those three letters,
'B.R.W.,' and especially by the 'W.', a foreign letter, an English letter.
So that in my mind's eye, instantly, as in a flash, I saw the three
letters in their logical place as initials at the head of the words for
which they stand. I saw the 'B' of 'boulevard,' and the 'R' and the
English 'W' of Richard-Wallace. And so I came to the Boulevard
Richard-Wallace, And that, my dear sir, explains the milk in the
cocoanut."
Mazeroux seemed a little doubtful.
"And what do you think, Chief?"
"I think nothing. I am looking about. I am building up a theory on the
first basis that offers a probable theory. And I say to myself ... I say
to myself ... I say to myself, Mazeroux, that this is a devilish
mysterious little hole and that this house--Hush! Listen--"
He pushed Mazeroux into a dark corner. They had heard a noise, the
slamming of a door.
Footsteps crossed the courtyard in front of the house. The lock of the
outer gate grated. Some one appeared, and the light of a street lamp fell
full on his face.
"Dash it all," muttered Mazeroux, "it's he!"
"I believe you're right."
"It's he. Chief. Look at the black stick and the bright handle. And did
you see the eyeglasses--and the beard? What a oner you are, Chief!"
"Calm yourself and let's go after him."
The man had crossed the Boulevard Richard-Wallace and was turning into
the Boulevard Maillot. He was walking pretty fast, with his head up,
gayly twirling his stick. He lit a cigarette.
At the end of the Boulevard Maillot, the man passed the octroi and
entered Paris. The railway station of the outer circle was close by. He
went to it and, still followed by the others, stepped into a train that
took them to Auteuil.
"That's funny," said Mazeroux. "He's doing exactly what he did a
fortnight ago. This is where he was seen."
The man now went along the fortifications. In a quarter of an hour he
reached the Boulevard Suchet and almost immediately afterward the house
in which M. Fauville and his son had been murdered.
He climbed the fortifications opposite the house and stayed there for
some minutes, motionless, with his face to the front of the house. Then
continuing his road he went to La Muette and plunged into the dusk of the
Bois de Boulogne.
"To work and boldly!" said Don Luis, quickening his pace.
Mazeroux stopped him.
"What do you mean, Chief?"
"Well, catch him by the throat! There are two of us; we couldn't hope for
a better moment."
"What! Why, it's impossible!"
"Impossible? Are you afraid? Very well, I'll do it by myself."
"Look here, Chief, you're not serious!"
"Why shouldn't I be serious?"
"Because one can't arrest a man without a reason."
"Without a reason? A scoundrel like this? A murderer? What more do
you want?"
"In the absence of compulsion, of catching him in the act, I want
something that I haven't got."
"What's that?"
"A warrant. I haven't a warrant."
Mazeroux's accent was so full of conviction, and the answer struck Don
Luis Perenna as so comical, that he burst out laughing.
"You have no warrant? Poor little chap! Well, I'll soon show you if I
need a warrant!"
"You'll show me nothing," cried Mazeroux, hanging on to his companion's
arm. "You shan't touch the man."
"One would think he was your mother!"
"Come, Chief."
"But, you stick-in-the-mud of an honest man," shouted Don Luis, angrily,
"if we let this opportunity slip shall we ever find another?"
"Easily. He's going home. I'll inform the commissary of police. He will
telephone to headquarters; and to-morrow morning--"
"And suppose the bird has flown?"
"I have no warrant."
"Do you want me to sign you one, idiot?"
But Don Luis mastered his rage. He felt that all his arguments would be
shattered to pieces against the sergeant's obstinacy, and that, if
necessary, Mazeroux would go to the length of defending the enemy against
him. He simply said in a sententious tone:
"One ass and you make a pair of asses; and there are as many asses as
there are people who try to do police work with bits of paper,
signatures, warrants, and other gammon. Police work, my lad, is done with
one's fists. When you come upon the enemy, hit him. Otherwise, you stand
a chance of hitting the air. With that, good-night. I'm going to bed.
Telephone to me when the job is done."
He went home, furious, sick of an adventure in which he had not had elbow
room, and in which he had had to submit to the will, or, rather, to the
weakness of others.
But next morning when he woke up his longing to see the police lay hold
of the man with the ebony stick, and especially the feeling that his
assistance would be of use, impelled him to dress as quickly as he could.
"If I don't come to the rescue," he thought, "they'll let themselves be
done in the eye. They're not equal to a contest of this kind."
Just then Mazeroux rang up and asked to speak to him. He rushed to a
little telephone box which his predecessor had fitted up on the first
floor, in a dark recess that communicated only with his study, and
switched on the electric light.
"Is that you, Alexandre?"
"Yes, Chief. I'm speaking from a wine shop near the house on the
Boulevard Richard-Wallace."
"What about our man?"
"The bird's still in the nest. But we're only just in time."
"Really?"
"Yes, he's packed his trunk. He's going away this morning."
"How do they know?"
"Through the woman who manages for him. She's just come to the house and
will let us in."
"Does he live alone?"
"Yes, the woman cooks his meals and goes away in the evening. No one ever
calls except a veiled lady who has paid him three visits since he's been
here. The housekeeper was not able to see what she was like. As for him,
she says he's a scholar, who spends his time reading and working."
"And have you a warrant?"
"Yes, we're going to use it."
"I'll come at once."
"You can't! We've got Weber at our head. Oh, by the way, have you heard
the news about Mme. Fauville?"
"About Mme. Fauville?"
"Yes, she tried to commit suicide last night."
"What! Tried to commit suicide!"
Perenna had uttered an exclamation of astonishment and was very much
surprised to hear, almost at the same time, another cry, like an echo, at
his elbow. Without letting go the receiver, he turned round and saw that
Mlle. Levasseur was in the study a few yards away from him, standing with
a distorted and livid face. Their eyes met. He was on the point of
speaking to her, but she moved away, without leaving the room, however.
"What the devil was she listening for?" Don Luis wondered. "And why that
look of dismay?"
Meanwhile, Mazeroux continued:
"She said, you know, that she would try to kill herself. But it must have
taken a goodish amount of pluck."
"But how did she do it?" Perenna asked.
"I'll tell you another time. They're calling me. Whatever you do, Chief,
don't come."
"Yes," he replied, firmly, "I'm coming. After all, the least I can do is
to be in at the death, seeing that it was I who found the scent. But
don't be afraid. I shall keep in the background."
"Then hurry, Chief. We're delivering the attack in ten minutes."
"I'll be with you before that."
He quickly hung up the receiver and turned on his heel to leave the
telephone box. The next moment he had flung himself against the farther
wall. Just as he was about to pass out he had heard something click
above his head and he but barely had the time to leap back and escape
being struck by an iron curtain which fell in front of him with a
terrible thud.
Another second and the huge mass would have crushed him. He could feel it
whizzing by his head. And he had never before experienced the anguish of
danger so intensely.
After a moment of genuine fright, in which he stood as though petrified,
with his brain in a whirl, he recovered his coolness and threw himself
upon the obstacle. But it at once appeared to him that the obstacle was
unsurmountable.
It was a heavy metal panel, not made of plates or lathes fastened one to
the other, but formed of a solid slab, massive, firm, and strong, and
covered with the sheen of time darkened here and there with patches of
rust. On either side and at the top and bottom the edges of the panel
fitted in a narrow groove which covered them hermetically.
He was a prisoner. In a sudden fit of rage he banged at the metal with
his fists. He remembered that Mlle. Levasseur was in the study. If she
had not yet left the room--and surely she could not have left it when the
thing happened--she would hear the noise. She was bound to hear it. She
would be sure to come back, give the alarm, and rescue him.
He listened. He shouted. No reply. His voice died away against the walls
and ceiling of the box in which he was shut up, and he felt that the
whole house--drawing-rooms, staircases, and passages--remained deaf to
his appeal.
And yet ... and yet ... Mlle. Levasseur--
"What does it mean?" he muttered. "What can it all mean?"
And motionless now and silent, he thought once more of the girl's strange
attitude, of her distraught face, of her haggard eyes. And he also began
to wonder what accident had released the mechanism which had hurled the
formidable iron curtain upon him, craftily and ruthlessly.
CHAPTER SIX
THE MAN WITH THE EBONY WALKING-STICK
A group consisting of Deputy Chief Detective Weber, Chief Inspector
Ancenis, Sergeant Mazeroux, three inspectors, and the Neuilly commissary
of police stood outside the gate of No. 8 Boulevard Richard-Wallace.
Mazeroux was watching the Avenue de Madrid, by which Don Luis would have
to come, and began to wonder what had happened; for half an hour had
passed since they telephoned to each other, and Mazeroux could find no
further pretext for delaying the work.
"It's time to make a move," said Weber. "The housekeeper is making
signals to us from the window: the joker's dressing."
"Why not nab him when he comes out?" objected Mazeroux. "We shall capture
him in a moment."
"And if he cuts off by another outlet which we don't know of?" said the
deputy chief. "You have to be careful with these beggars. No, let's beard
him in his den. It's more certain."
"Still--"
"What's the matter with you, Mazeroux?" asked the deputy chief, taking
him on one side. "Don't you see that our men are getting restive? They're
afraid of this sportsman. There's only one way, which is to set them on
him as if he were a wild beast. Besides, the business must be finished by
the time the Prefect comes,"
"Is he coming?"
"Yes. He wants to see things for himself. The whole affair interests him
enormously. So, forward! Are you ready, men? I'm going to ring."
The bell sounded; and the housekeeper at once came and half opened the
gate.
Although the orders were to observe great quiet, so as not to alarm the
enemy too soon, the fear which he inspired was so intense that there
was a general rush; and all the detectives crowded into the courtyard,
ready for the fight. But a window opened and some one cried from the
second floor:
"What's happening?"
The deputy chief did not reply. Two detectives, the chief inspector, the
commissary, and himself entered the house, while the others remained in
the courtyard and made any attempt at flight impossible.
The meeting took place on the first floor. The man had come down, fully
dressed, with his hat on his head; and the deputy chief roared:
"Stop! Hands up! Are you Hubert Lautier?"
The man seemed disconcerted. Five revolvers were levelled at him. And yet
no sign of fear showed in his face; and he simply said:
"What do you want, Monsieur? What are you here for?"
"We are here in the name of the law, with a warrant for your arrest."
"A warrant for my arrest?"
"A warrant for the arrest of Hubert Lautier, residing at 8 Boulevard
Richard-Wallace."
"But it's absurd!" said the man. "It's incredible! What does it mean?
What for?"
They took him by both arms, without his offering the least resistance,
pushed him into a fairly large room containing no furniture but three
rush-bottomed chairs, an armchair, and a table covered with big books.
"There," said the deputy chief. "Don't stir. If you attempt to move, so
much the worse for you."
The man made no protest. While the two detectives held him by the
collar, he seemed to be reflecting, as though he were trying to
understand the secret causes of an arrest for which he was totally
unprepared. He had an intelligent face, a reddish-brown beard, and a
pair of blue-gray eyes which now and again showed a certain hardness of
expression behind his glasses. His broad shoulders and powerful neck
pointed to physical strength.
"Shall we tie his wrists?" Mazeroux asked the deputy chief.
"One second. The Prefect's coming; I can hear him. Have you searched the
man's pockets? Any weapons?"
"No."
"No flask, no phial? Nothing suspicious?"
"No, nothing."
M. Desmalions arrived and, while watching the prisoner's face, talked
in a low voice with the deputy chief and received the particulars of
the arrest.
"This is good business," he said. "We wanted this. Now that both
accomplices are in custody, they will have to speak; and everything will
be cleared up. So there was no resistance?"
"None at all, Monsieur le Préfet."
"No matter, we will remain on our guard."
The prisoner had not uttered a word, but still wore a thoughtful look, as
though trying to understand the inexplicable events of the last few
minutes. Nevertheless, when he realized that the newcomer was none other
than the Prefect of Police, he raised his head and looked at M.
Desmalions, who asked him:
"It is unnecessary to tell you the cause of your arrest, I presume?"
He replied, in a deferential tone:
"Excuse me, Monsieur le Préfet, but I must ask you, on the contrary, to
inform me. I have not the least idea of the reason. Your detectives have
made a grave mistake which a word, no doubt, will be enough to set right.
That word I wish for, I insist upon--"
The Prefect shrugged his shoulders and said:
"You are suspected of taking part in the murder of Fauville, the civil
engineer, and his son Edmond."
"Is Hippolyte dead?"
The cry was spontaneous, almost unconscious; a bewildered cry of dismay
from a man moved to the depths of his being. And his dismay was supremely
strange, his question, trying to make them believe in his ignorance,
supremely unexpected.
"Is Hippolyte dead?"
He repeated the question in a hoarse voice, trembling all over as he
spoke.
"Is Hippolyte dead? What are you saying? Is it possible that he can be
dead? And how? Murdered? Edmond, too?"
The Prefect once more shrugged his shoulders.
"The mere fact of your calling M. Fauville by his Christian name shows
that you knew him intimately. And, even if you were not concerned in his
murder, it has been mentioned often enough in the newspapers during the
last fortnight for you to know of it."
"I never read a newspaper, Monsieur le Préfet."
"What! You mean to tell me--?"
"It may sound improbable, but it is quite true. I lead an industrious
life, occupying myself solely with scientific research, in view of a
popular work which I am preparing, and I do not take the least part or
the least interest in outside things. I defy any one to prove that I have
read a newspaper for months and months past. And that is why I am
entitled to say that I did not know of Hippolyte Fauville's murder."
"Still, you knew M. Fauville."
"I used to know him, but we quarrelled."
"For what reason?"
"Family affairs."
"Family affairs! Were you related, then?"
"Yes. Hippolyte was my cousin."
"Your cousin! M. Fauville was your cousin! But ... but then ... Come, let
us have the rights of the matter. M. Fauville and his wife were the
children of two sisters, Elizabeth and Armande Roussel. Those two sisters
had been brought up with a first cousin called Victor."
"Yes, Victor Sauverand, whose grandfather was a Roussel. Victor Sauverand
married abroad and had two sons. One of them died fifteen years ago; the
other is myself."
M. Desmalions gave a start. His excitement was manifest. If that man was
telling the truth, if he was really the son of that Victor whose record
the police had not yet been able to trace, then, owing to this very fact,
since M. Fauville and his son were dead and Mme. Fauville, so to speak,
convicted of murder and forfeiting her rights, they had arrested the
final heir to Cosmo Mornington. But why, in a moment of madness, had he
voluntarily brought this crushing indictment against himself?
He continued:
"My statements seem to surprise you, Monsieur le Préfet. Perhaps they
throw a light on the mistake of which I am a victim?"
He expressed himself calmly, with great politeness and in a remarkably
well-bred voice; and he did not for a moment seem to suspect that his
revelations, on the contrary, were justifying the measures taken
against him.
Without replying to the question, the Prefect of Police asked him:
"So your real name is--"
"Gaston Sauverand."
"Why do you call yourself Hubert Lautier?"
The man had a second of indecision which did not escape so clear-sighted
an observer as M. Desmalions. He swayed from side to side, his eyes
flickered and he said:
"That does not concern the police; it concerns no one but myself."
M. Desmalions smiled:
"That is a poor argument. Will you use the same when I ask you why you
live in hiding, why you left the Avenue du Roule, where you used to live,
without leaving an address behind you, and why you receive your letters
at the post-office under initials?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, those are matters of a private character, which
affect only my conscience. You have no right to question me about them."
"That is the exact reply which we are constantly receiving at every
moment from your accomplice."
"My accomplice?"
"Yes, Mme. Fauville."
"Mme. Fauville!"
Gaston Sauverand had uttered the same cry as when he heard of the death
of the engineer; and his stupefaction seemed even greater, combined as it
was with an anguish that distorted his features beyond recognition.
"What?... What?... What do you say? Marie!... No, you don't mean it! It's
not true!"
M. Desmalions considered it useless to reply, so absurd and childish
was this affectation of knowing nothing about the tragedy on the
Boulevard Suchet.
Gaston Sauverand, beside himself, with his eyes starting from his
head, muttered:
"Is it true? Is Marie the victim of the same mistake as myself? Perhaps
they have arrested her? She, she in prison!"
He raised his clenched fists in a threatening manner against all the
unknown enemies by whom he was surrounded, against those who were
persecuting him, those who had murdered Hippolyte Fauville and delivered
Marie Fauville to the police.
Mazeroux and Chief Inspector Ancenis took hold of him roughly. He made a
movement of resistance, as though he intended to thrust back his
aggressors. But it was only momentary; and he sank into a chair and
covered his face with his hands:
"What a mystery!" he stammered. "I don't understand! I don't
understand--"
Weber, who had gone out a few minutes before, returned. M.
Desmalions asked:
"Is everything ready?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, I have had the taxi brought up to the gate
beside your car."
"How many of you are there?"
"Eight. Two detectives have just arrived from the commissary's."
"Have you searched the house?"
"Yes. It's almost empty, however. There's nothing but the indispensable
articles of furniture and some bundles of papers in the bedroom."
"Very well. Take him away and keep a sharp lookout."
Gaston Sauverand walked off quietly between the deputy chief and
Mazeroux. He turned round in the doorway.
"Monsieur le Préfet, as you are making a search, I entreat you to take
care of the papers on the table in my bedroom. They are notes that have
cost me a great deal of labour in the small hours of the night. Also--"
He hesitated, obviously embarrassed.
"Well?"
"Well, Monsieur le Préfet, I must tell you--something--"
He was looking for his words and seemed to fear the consequences of them
at the same time that he uttered them. But he suddenly made up his mind.
"Monsieur le Préfet, there is in this house--somewhere--a packet of
letters which I value more than my life. It is possible that those
letters, if misinterpreted, will furnish a weapon against me; but no
matter. The great thing is that they should be safe. You will see. They
include documents of extreme importance. I entrust them to your
keeping--to yours alone, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Where are they?"
"The hiding-place is easily found. All you have to do is to go to the
garret above my bedroom and press on a nail to the right of the window.
It is an apparently useless nail, but it controls a hiding-place outside,
under the slates of the roof, along the gutter."
He moved away between the two men. The Prefect called them back.
"One second. Mazeroux, go up to the garret and bring me the letters."
Mazeroux went out and returned in a few minutes. He had been unable to
work the spring.
The Prefect ordered Chief Inspector Ancenis to go up with Mazeroux and to
take the prisoner, who would show them how to open the hiding-place. He
himself remained in the room with Weber, awaiting the result of the
search, and began to read the titles of the volumes piled upon the table.
They were scientific books, among which he noticed works on chemistry:
"Organic Chemistry" and "Chemistry Considered in Its Relations with
Electricity." They were all covered with notes in the margins. He was
turning over the pages of one of them, when he seemed to hear shouts.
The Prefect rushed to the door, but had not crossed the threshold when a
pistol shot echoed down the staircase and there was a yell of pain.
Immediately after came two more shots, accompanied by cries, the sound of
a struggle, and yet another shot.
Tearing upstairs, four steps at a time, with an agility not to be
expected from a man of his build, the Prefect of Police, followed by the
deputy chief, covered the second flight and came to a third, which was
narrower and steeper. When he reached the bend, a man's body, staggering
above him, fell into his arms: it was Mazeroux, wounded.
On the stairs lay another body, lifeless, that of Chief Inspector
Ancenis.
Above them, in the frame of a small doorway, stood Gaston Sauverand, with
a savage look on his face and his arm outstretched. He fired a fifth shot
at random. Then, seeing the Prefect of Police, he took deliberate aim.
The Prefect stared at that terrifying barrel levelled at his face and
gave himself up for lost. But, at that exact second, a shot was
discharged from behind him, Sauverand's weapon fell from his hand before
he was able to fire, and the Prefect saw, as in a dream, a man, the man
who had saved his life, striding across the chief inspector's body,
propping Mazeroux against the wall, and darting ahead, followed by the
detectives. He recognized the man: it was Don Luis Perenna.
Don Luis stepped briskly into the garret where Sauverand had retreated,
but had time only to catch sight of him standing on the window ledge and
leaping into space from the third floor.
"Has he jumped from there?" cried the Prefect, hastening up. "We shall
never capture him alive!"
"Neither alive nor dead, Monsieur le Préfet. See, he's picking himself
up. There's a providence which looks after that sort. He's making for the
gate. He's hardly limping."
"But where are my men?"
"Why, they're all on the staircase, in the house, brought here by the
shots, seeing to the wounded--"
"Oh, the demon!" muttered the Prefect. "He's played a masterly game!"
Gaston Sauverand, in fact, was escaping unmolested.
"Stop him! Stop him!" roared M. Desmalions.
There were two motors standing beside the pavement, which is very wide
at this spot: the Prefect's own car, and the cab which the deputy chief
had provided for the prisoner. The two chauffeurs, sitting on their
seats, had noticed nothing of the fight. But they saw Gaston Sauverand's
leap into space; and the Prefect's chauffeur, on whose seat a certain
number of incriminating articles had been placed, taking out of the heap
the first weapon that offered, the ebony walking-stick, bravely rushed
at the fugitive.
"Stop him! Stop him!" shouted M. Desmalions.
The encounter took place at the exit from the courtyard. It did not last
long. Sauverand flung himself upon his assailant, snatched the stick from
him, and broke it across his face. Then, without dropping the handle, he
ran away, pursued by the other chauffeur and by three detectives who at
last appeared from the house. He had thirty yards' start of the
detectives, one of whom fired several shots at him without effect.
When M. Desmalions and Weber went downstairs again, they found the chief
inspector lying on the bed in Gaston Sauverand's room on the second
floor, gray in the face. He had been hit on the head and was dying. A few
minutes later he was dead.
Sergeant Mazeroux, whose wound was only slight, said, while it was being
dressed, that Sauverand had taken the chief inspector and himself up to
the garret, and that, outside the door, he had dipped his hand quickly
into an old satchel hanging on the wall among some servants' wornout
aprons and jackets. He drew out a revolver and fired point-blank at the
chief inspector, who dropped like a log. When seized by Mazeroux, the
murderer released himself and fired three bullets, the third of which hit
the sergeant in the shoulder.
And so, in a fight in which the police had a band of experienced
detectives at their disposal, while the enemy, a prisoner, seemed to
possess not the remotest chance of safety, this enemy, by a strategem of
unprecedented daring, had led two of his adversaries aside, disabled
both of them, drawn the others into the house and, finding the coast
clear, escaped.
M. Desmalions was white with anger and despair. He exclaimed:
"He's tricked us! His letters, his hiding-place, the movable nail, were
all shams. Oh, the scoundrel!"
He went down to the ground floor and into the courtyard. On the boulevard
he met one of the detectives who had given chase to the murderer and who
was returning quite out of breath.
"Well?" he asked anxiously,
"Monsieur le Préfet, he turned down the first street, where there was a
motor waiting for him. The engine must have been working, for our man
outdistanced us at once."
"But what about my car?"
"You see, Monsieur le Préfet, by the time it was started--"
"Was the motor that picked him up a hired one?"
"Yes, a taxi."
"Then we shall find it. The driver will come of his own accord when he
has seen the newspapers."
Weber shook his head.
"Unless the driver is himself a confederate, Monsieur le Préfet.
Besides, even if we find the cab, aren't we bound to suppose that Gaston
Sauverand will know how to front the scent? We shall have trouble,
Monsieur le Préfet."
"Yes," whispered Don Luis, who had been present at the first
investigation and who was left alone for a moment with Mazeroux. "Yes,
you will have trouble, especially if you let the people you capture take
to their heels. Eh, Mazeroux, what did I tell you last night? But, still,
what a scoundrel! And he's not alone, Alexandre. I'll answer for it that
he has accomplices--and not a hundred yards from my house--do you
understand? From my house."
After questioning Mazeroux upon Sauverand's attitude and the other
incidents of the arrest, Don Luis went back to the Place du
Palais-Bourbon.
* * * * *
The inquiry which he had to make related to events that were certainly
quite as strange as those which he had just witnessed; and while the
part played by Gaston Sauverand in the pursuit of the Mornington
inheritance deserved all his attention, the behaviour of Mlle. Levasseur
puzzled him no less.
He could not forget the cry of terror that escaped the girl while he was
telephoning to Mazeroux, nor the scared expression of her face. Now it
was impossible to attribute that cry and that expression to anything
other than the words which he had uttered in reply to Mazeroux:
"What! Mme. Fauville tried to commit suicide!"
The fact was certain; and the connection between the announcement of the
attempt and Mlle. Levasseur's extreme emotion was too obvious for Perenna
not to try to draw conclusions.
He went straight to his study and at once examined the arch leading to
the telephone box. This arch, which was about six feet wide and very low,
had no door, but merely a velvet hanging, which was nearly always drawn
up, leaving the arch uncovered. Under the hanging, among the moldings of
the cornice, was a button that had only to be pressed to bring down the
iron curtain against which he had thrown himself two hours before.
He worked the catch two or three times over, and his experiments
proved to him in the most explicit fashion that the mechanism was in
perfect order and unable to act without outside intervention. Was he
then to conclude that the girl had wanted to kill him? But what could
be her motive?
He was on the point of ringing and sending for her, so as to receive the
explanation which he was resolved to demand from her. However, the
minutes passed and he did not ring. He saw her through the window as she
walked slowly across the yard, her body swinging gracefully from her
hips. A ray of sunshine lit up the gold of her hair.
All the rest of the morning he lay on a sofa, smoking cigars. He was ill
at ease, dissatisfied with himself and with the course of events, not one
of which brought him the least glimmer of truth; in fact, all of them
seemed to deepen the darkness in which he was battling. Eager to act, the
moment he did so he encountered fresh obstacles that paralyzed his powers
of action and left him in utter ignorance of the nature of his
adversaries.
But, at twelve o'clock, just as he had rung for lunch, his butler entered
the study with a tray in his hand, and exclaimed, with an agitation which
showed that the household was aware of Don Luis's ambiguous position:
"Sir, it's the Prefect of Police!"
"Eh?" said Perenna. "Where is he?"
"Downstairs, sir. I did not know what to do, at first ... and I thought
of telling Mlle. Levasseur. But--"
"Are you sure?"
"Here is his card, sir."
Perenna took the card from the tray and read M. Desmalions's name. He
went to the window, opened it and, with the aid of the overhead mirror,
looked into the Place du Palais-Bourbon. Half a dozen men were walking
about. He recognized them. They were his usual watchers, those whom he
had got rid of on the evening before and who had come to resume their
observation.
"No others?" he said to himself. "Come, we have nothing to fear, and the
Prefect of Police has none but the best intentions toward me. It was what
I expected; and I think that I was well advised to save his life."
M. Desmalions entered without a word. All that he did was to bend his
head slightly, with a movement that might be taken for a bow. As for
Weber, who was with him, he did not even give himself the trouble to
disguise his feelings toward such a man as Perenna.
Don Luis took no direct notice of this attitude, but, in revenge,
ostentatiously omitted to push forward more than one chair. M.
Desmalions, however, preferred to walk about the room, with his hands
behind his back, as if to continue his reflections before speaking.
The silence was prolonged. Don Luis waited patiently. Then, suddenly, the
Prefect stopped and said:
"When you left the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, Monsieur, did you go
straight home?"
Don Luis did not demur to this cross-examining manner and answered:
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Here, to your study?"
"Here, to my study."
M. Desmalions paused and then went on:
"I left thirty or forty minutes after you and drove to the police office
in my car. There I received this express letter. Read it. You will see
that it was handed in at the Bourse at half-past nine."
Don Luis took the letter and read the following words, written in
capital letters:
This is to inform you that Gaston Sauverand, after making his escape,
rejoined his accomplice Perenna, who, as you know, is none other than
Arsène Lupin. Arsène Lupin gave you Sauverand's address in order to get
rid of him and to receive the Mornington inheritance. They were
reconciled this morning, and Arsène Lupin suggested a safe hiding-place
to Sauverand. It is easy to prove their meeting and their complicity.
Sauverand handed Lupin the half of the walking-stick which he had carried
away unawares. You will find it under the cushions of a sofa standing
between the two windows of Perenna's study.
Don Luis shrugged his shoulders. The letter was absurd; for he had not
once left his study. He folded it up quietly and handed it to the Prefect
of Police without comment. He was resolved to let M. Desmalions take the
initiative in the conversation.
The Prefect asked:
"What is your reply to the accusation?"
"None, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Still, it is quite plain and easy to prove or disprove."
"Very easy, indeed, Monsieur le Préfet; the sofa is there, between
the windows."
M. Desmalions waited two or three seconds and then walked to the sofa and
moved the cushions. Under one of them lay the handle end of the
walking-stick.
Don Luis could not repress a gesture of amazement and anger. He had not
for a second contemplated the possibility of such a miracle; and it took
him unawares. However, he mastered himself. After all, there was nothing
to prove that this half of a walking-stick was really that which had
been seen in Gaston Sauverand's hands and which Sauverand had carried
away by mistake.
"I have the other half on me," said the Prefect of Police, replying to
the unspoken objection. "Deputy Chief Weber himself picked it up on the
Boulevard Richard-Wallace. Here it is."
He produced it from the inside pocket of his overcoat and tried it. The
ends of the two pieces fitted exactly.
There was a fresh pause. Perenna was confused, as were those, invariably,
upon whom he himself used to inflict this kind of defeat and humiliation.
He could not get over it. By what prodigy had Gaston Sauverand managed,
in that short space of twenty minutes, to enter the house and make his
way into this room? Even the theory of an accomplice living in the house
did not do much to make the phenomenon easier to understand.
"It upsets all my calculations," he thought, "and I shall have to go
through the mill this time. I was able to baffle Mme. Fauville's
accusation and to foil the trick of the turquoise. But M. Desmalions will
never admit that this is a similar attempt and that Gaston Sauverand has
tried, as Marie Fauville did, to get me out of the way by compromising me
and procuring my arrest."
"Well," exclaimed M. Desmalions impatiently, "answer! Defend yourself!"
"No, Monsieur le Préfet, it is not for me to defend myself,"
M. Desmalions stamped his foot and growled:
"In that case ... in that case ... since you confess ... since--"
He put his hand on the latch of the window, ready to open it. A whistle,
and the detectives would burst in and all would be over.
"Shall I have your inspectors called, Monsieur le Préfet?" asked Don
Luis.
M. Desmalions did not reply. He let go the window latch and started
walking about the room again. And, suddenly, while Perenna was wondering
why he still hesitated, for the second time the Prefect planted himself
in front of him, and said:
"And suppose I looked upon the incident of the walking-stick as not
having occurred, or, rather, as an incident which, while doubtless
proving the treachery of your servants, is not able to compromise
yourself? Suppose I took only the services which you have already
rendered us into consideration? In a word, suppose I left you free?"
Perenna could not help smiling. Notwithstanding the affair of the
walking-stick and though appearances were all against him, at the moment
when everything seemed to be going wrong, things were taking the course
which he had prophesied from the start, and which he had mentioned to
Mazeroux during the inquiry on the Boulevard Suchet. They wanted him.
"Free?" he asked. "No more supervision? Nobody shadowing my movements?"
"Nobody."
"And what if the press campaign around my name continues, if the papers
succeed, by means of certain pieces of tittle-tattle, of certain
coincidences, in creating a public outcry, if they call for measures
against me?"
"Those measures shall not be taken."
"Then I have nothing to fear?"
"Nothing."
"Will M. Weber abandon his prejudices against me?"
"At any rate, he will act as though he did, won't you, Weber?"
The deputy chief uttered a few grunts which might be taken as an
expression of assent; and Don Luis at once exclaimed:
"In that case, Monsieur le Préfet, I am sure of gaining the victory and
of gaining it in accordance with the wishes and requirements of the
authorities."
And so, by a sudden change in the situation, after a series of
exceptional circumstances, the police themselves, bowing before Don Luis
Perenna's superior qualities of mind, acknowledging all that he had
already done and foreseeing all that he would be able to do, decided to
back him up, begging for his assistance, and offering him, so to speak,
the command of affairs.
It was a flattering compliment. Was it addressed only to Don Luis
Perenna? And had Lupin, the terrible, undaunted Lupin, no right to claim
his share? Was it possible to believe that M. Desmalions, in his heart of
hearts, did not admit the identity of the two persons?
Nothing in the Prefect's attitude gave any clue to his secret thoughts.
He was suggesting to Don Luis Perenna one of those compacts which the
police are often obliged to conclude in order to gain their ends. The
compact was concluded, and no more was said upon the subject.
"Do you want any particulars of me?" asked the Prefect of Police.
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. The papers spoke of a notebook found in poor
Inspector Vérot's pocket. Did the notebook contain a clue of any kind?"
"No. Personal notes, lists of disbursements, that's all. Wait, I was
forgetting, there was a photograph of a woman, about which I have not yet
been able to obtain the least information. Besides, I don't suppose that
it bears upon the case and I have not sent it to the newspapers. Look,
here it is."
Perenna took the photograph which the Prefect handed him and gave a start
that did not escape M. Desmalions's eye.
"Do you know the lady?"
"No. No, Monsieur le Préfet. I thought I did; but no, there's merely a
resemblance--a family likeness, which I will verify if you can leave the
photograph with me till this evening."
"Till this evening, yes. When you have done with it, give it back to
Sergeant Mazeroux, whom I will order to work in concert with you in
everything that relates to the Mornington case."
The interview was now over. The Prefect went away. Don Luis saw him to
the door. As M. Desmalions was about to go down the steps, he turned and
said simply:
"You saved my life this morning. But for you, that scoundrel Sauverand--"
"Oh, Monsieur le Préfet!" said Don Luis, modestly protesting.
"Yes, I know, you are in the habit of doing that sort of thing. All the
same, you must accept my thanks."
And the Prefect of Police made a bow such as he would really have made to
Don Luis Perenna, the Spanish noble, the hero of the Foreign Legion. As
for Weber, he put his two hands in his pockets, walked past with the look
of a muzzled mastiff, and gave his enemy a glance of fierce hatred.
"By Jupiter!" thought Don Luis. "There's a fellow who won't miss me when
he gets the chance to shoot!"
Looking through a window, he saw M. Desmalions's motor car drive off. The
detectives fell in behind the deputy chief and left the Place du
Palais-Bourbon. The siege was raised.
"And now to work!" said Don Luis. "My hands are free, and we shall make
things hum."
He called the butler.
"Serve lunch; and ask Mlle. Levasseur to come and speak to me
immediately after."
He went to the dining-room and sat down, placing on the table the
photograph which M. Desmalions had left behind; and, bending over it, he
examined it attentively. It was a little faded, a little worn, as
photographs have a tendency to become when they lie about in pocket-books
or among papers; but the picture was quite clear. It was the radiant
picture of a young woman in evening dress, with bare arms and shoulders,
with flowers and leaves in her hair and a smile upon her face.
"Mlle. Levasseur, Mlle. Levasseur," he said. "Is it possible!"
In a corner was a half-obliterated and hardly visible signature. He made
out, "Florence," the girl's name, no doubt. And he repeated:
"Mlle. Levasseur, Florence Levasseur. How did her photograph come to be
in Inspector Vérot's pocket-book? And what is the connection between
this adventure and the reader of the Hungarian count from whom I took
over the house?"
He remembered the incident of the iron curtain. He remembered the article
in the _Echo de France_, an article aimed against him, of which he had
found the rough draft in his own courtyard. And, above all, he thought of
the problem of that broken walking-stick conveyed into his study.
And, while his mind was striving to read these events clearly, while he
tried to settle the part played by Mlle. Levasseur, his eyes remained
fixed upon the photograph and he gazed absent-mindedly at the pretty
lines of the mouth, the charming smile, the graceful curve of the neck,
the admirable sweep of the shoulders.
The door opened suddenly and Mlle. Levasseur burst into the room.
Perenna, who had dismissed the butler, was raising to his lips a glass of
water which he had just filled for himself. She sprang forward, seized
his arm, snatched the glass from him and flung it on the carpet, where it
smashed to pieces.
"Have you drunk any of it? Have you drunk any of it?" she gasped, in a
choking voice.
He replied:
"No, not yet. Why?"
She stammered:
"The water in that bottle ... the water in that bottle--"
"Well?"
"It's poisoned!"
He leapt from his chair and, in his turn, gripped her arm fiercely:
"What's that? Poisoned! Are you certain? Speak!"
In spite of his usual self-control, he was this time thoroughly alarmed.
Knowing the terrible effects of the poison employed by the miscreants
whom he was attacking, recalling the corpse of Inspector Vérot, the
corpses of Hippolyte Fauville and his son, he knew that, trained though
he was to resist comparatively large doses of poison, he could not have
escaped the deadly action of this. It was a poison that did not forgive,
that killed, surely and fatally.
The girl was silent. He raised his voice in command:
"Answer me! Are you certain?"
"No ... it was an idea that entered my head--a presentiment ... certain
coincidences--"
It was as though she regretted her words and now tried to withdraw them.
"Come, come," he cried, "I want to know the truth: You're not certain
that the water in this bottle is poisoned?"
"No ... it's possible--"
"Still, just now--"
"I thought so. But no ... no!"
"It's easy to make sure," said Perenna, putting out his hand for the
water bottle.
She was quicker than he, seized it and, with one blow, broke it against
the table.
"What are you doing?" he said angrily.
"I made a mistake. And so there is no need to attach any importance--"
Don Luis hurriedly left the dining-room. By his orders, the water which
he drank was drawn from a filter that stood in a pantry at the end of the
passage leading from the dining-room to the kitchens and beyond. He ran
to it and took from a shelf a bowl which he filled with water from the
filter. Then, continuing to follow the passage, which at this spot
branched off toward the yard, he called Mirza, the puppy, who was playing
by the stables.
"Here," he said, putting the bowl in front of her.
The puppy began to drink. But she stopped almost at once and stood
motionless, with her paws tense and stiff. A shiver passed through the
little body. The dog gave a hoarse groan, spun round two or three
times, and fell.
"She's dead," he said, after touching the animal.
Mlle. Levasseur had joined him. He turned to her and rapped out:
"You were right about the poison--and you knew it. How did you know it?"
All out of breath, she checked the beating of her heart and answered:
"I saw the other puppy drinking in the pantry. She's dead. I told the
coachman and the chauffeur. They're over there, in the stable. And I ran
to warn you."
"In that case, there was no doubt about it. Why did you say that you were
not certain that the water was poisoned, when--"
The chauffeur and the coachman were coming out of the stables. Leading
the girl away, Perenna said:
"We must talk about this. We'll go to your rooms."
They went back to the bend in the passage. Near the pantry where the
filter was, another passage ran, ending in a flight of three steps, with
a door at the top of the steps. Perenna opened this door. It was the
entrance to the rooms occupied by Mlle. Levasseur. They went into a
sitting-room.
Don Luis closed the entrance door and the door of the sitting-room.
"And now," he said, in a resolute tone, "you and I will have an
explanation."
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS, VOLUME VIII
Two lodges, belonging to the same old-time period as the house itself,
stood at the extreme right and left of the low wall that separated the
front courtyard from the Place du Palais-Bourbon. These lodges were
joined to the main building, situated at the back of the courtyard, by a
series of outhouses. On one side were the coach-houses, stables,
harness-rooms, and garage, with the porter's lodge at the end; on the
other side, the wash-houses, kitchens, and offices, ending in the lodge
occupied by Mlle. Levasseur.
This lodge had only a ground floor, consisting of a dark entrance hall
and one large room, most of which served as a sitting-room, while the
rest, arranged as a bedroom, was really only a sort of alcove. A curtain
hid the bed and wash-hand-stand. There were two windows looking out on
the Place du Palais-Bourbon.
It was the first time that Don Luis had set foot in Mlle. Levasseur's
room. Engrossed though he was with other matters, he felt its charm. It
was very simply furnished: some old mahogany chairs and armchairs, a
plain, Empire writing-table, a round table with one heavy, massive leg,
and some book-shelves. But the bright colour of the linen curtains
enlivened the room. On the walls hung reproductions of famous pictures,
drawings of sunny buildings and landscapes, Italian villas, Sicilian
temples....
The girl remained standing. She had resumed her composure, and her face
had taken on the enigmatical expression so difficult to fathom,
especially as she had assumed a deliberate air of dejection, which
Perenna guessed was intended to hide her excitement and alertness,
together with the tumultuous feelings which even she had great difficulty
in controlling.
Her eyes looked neither timorous nor defiant. It really seemed as though
she had nothing to fear from the explanation.
Don Luis kept silent for some little time. It was strange and it annoyed
him to feel it, but he experienced a certain embarrassment in the
presence of this woman, against whom he was inwardly bringing the most
serious charges. And, not daring to put them into words, not daring to
say plainly what he thought, he began:
"You know what happened in this house this morning?"
"This morning?"
"Yes, when I had finished speaking on the telephone."
"I know now. I heard it from the servants, from the butler."
"Not before?"
"How could I have known earlier?"
She was lying. It was impossible that she should be speaking the truth.
And yet in what a calm voice she had replied!
He went on:
"I will tell you, in a few words, what happened. I was leaving the
telephone box, when the iron curtain, concealed in the upper part of
the wall, fell in front of me. After making sure that there was nothing
to be done, I simply resolved, as I had the telephone by me, to call in
the assistance of one of my friends. I rang up Major d'Astrignac. He
came at once and, with the help of the butler, let me out. Is that what
you heard?"
"Yes, Monsieur. I had gone to my room, which explains why I knew nothing
of the incident or of Major d'Astrignac's visit."
"Very well. It appears, however, from what I learned when I was released,
that the butler and, for that matter, everybody in the house, including
yourself, knew of the existence of that iron curtain."
"Certainly."
"And how did you know it?"
"Through Baron Malonyi. He told me that, during the Revolution, his
great-grandmother, on the mother's side, who then occupied this house and
whose husband was guillotined, remained hidden in that recess for
thirteen months. At that time the curtain was covered with woodwork
similar to that of the room."
"It's a pity that I wasn't informed of it, for, after all, I was very
nearly crushed to death."
This possibility did not seem to move the girl. She said:
"It would be a good thing to look at the mechanism and see why it became
unfastened. It's all very old and works badly."
"The mechanism works perfectly. I tested it. An accident is not enough to
account for it."
"Who could have done it, if it was not an accident?"
"Some enemy whom I am unable to name."
"He would have been seen."
"There was only one person who could have seen him--yourself. You
happened to pass through my study as I was telephoning and I heard your
exclamation of fright at the news about Mme. Fauville."
"Yes, it gave me a shock. I pity the woman so very much, whether she is
guilty or not."
"And, as you were close to the arch, with your hand within reach of the
spring, the presence of an evildoer would not have escaped your notice."
She did not lower her eyes. A slight flush overspread her face,
and she said:
"Yes, I should at least have met him, for, from what I gather, I went out
a few seconds before the accident."
"Quite so," he said. "But what is so curious and unlikely is that you did
not hear the loud noise of the curtain falling, nor my shouts and all the
uproar I created."
"I must have closed the door of the study by that time. I heard nothing."
"Then I am bound to presume that there was some one hidden in my study at
that moment, and that this person is a confederate of the ruffians who
committed the two murders on the Boulevard Suchet; for the Prefect of
Police has just discovered under the cushions of my sofa the half of a
walking-stick belonging to one of those ruffians."
She wore an air of great surprise. This new incident seemed really to be
quite unknown to her. He came nearer and, looking her straight in the
eyes, said:
"You must at least admit that it's strange."
"What's strange?"
"This series of events, all directed against me. Yesterday, that draft of
a letter which I found in the courtyard--the draft of the article
published in the _Echo de France_. This morning, first the crash of the
iron curtain just as I was passing under it, next, the discovery of that
walking-stick, and then, a moment ago, the poisoned water bottle--"
She nodded her head and murmured:
"Yes, yes--there is an array of facts--"
"An array of facts so significant," he said, completing her sentence
meaningly, "as to remove the least shadow of doubt. I can feel absolutely
certain of the immediate intervention of my most ruthless and daring
enemy. His presence here is proved. He is ready to act at any moment. His
object is plain," explained Don Luis. "By means of the anonymous article,
by means of that half of the walking-stick, he meant to compromise me and
have me arrested. By the fall of the curtain he meant to kill me or at
least to keep me imprisoned for some hours. And now it's poison, the
cowardly poison which kills by stealth, which they put in my water to-day
and which they will put in my food to-morrow. And next it will be the
dagger and then the revolver and then the rope, no matter which, so long
as I disappear; for that is what they want: to get rid of me.
"I am the adversary, I am the man they're afraid of, the man who will
discover the secret one day and pocket the millions which they're after.
I am the interloper. I stand mounting guard over the Mornington
inheritance. It's my turn to suffer. Four victims are dead already. I
shall be the fifth. So Gaston Sauverand has decided: Gaston Sauverand or
some one else who's managing the business."
Perenna's eyes narrowed.
"The accomplice is here, in this house, in the midst of everything, by my
side. He is lying in wait for me. He is following every step I take. He
is living in my shadow. He is waiting for the time and place to strike
me. Well, I have had enough of it. I want to know, I will know, and I
shall know. Who is he?"
The girl had moved back a little way and was leaning against the round
table. He took another step forward and, with his eyes still fixed on
hers, looking in that immobile face for a quivering sign of fear or
anxiety, he repeated, with greater violence:
"Who is the accomplice? Who in the house has sworn to take my life?"
"I don't know," she said, "I don't know. Perhaps there is no plot, as you
think, but just a series of chance coincidences--"
He felt inclined to say to her, with his habit of adopting a familiar
tone toward those whom he regarded as his adversaries:
"You're lying, dearie, you're lying. The accomplice is yourself, my
beauty. You alone overheard my conversation on the telephone with
Mazeroux, you alone can have gone to Gaston Sauverand's assistance,
waited for him in a motor at the corner of the boulevard, and arranged
with him to bring the top half of the walking-stick here. You're the
beauty that wants to kill me, for some reason which I do not know. The
hand that strikes me in the dark is yours, sweetheart."
But it was impossible for him to treat her in this fashion; and he was so
much exasperated at not being able to proclaim his certainty in words of
anger and indignation that he took her fingers and twisted them
violently, while his look and his whole attitude accused the girl even
more forcibly than the bitterest words.
He mastered himself and released his grip. The girl freed herself with a
quick movement, indicating repulsion and hatred. Don Luis said:
"Very well. I will question the servants. If necessary I shall dismiss
any whom I suspect."
"No, don't do that," she said eagerly. "You mustn't. I know them all."
Was she going to defend them? Was she yielding to a scruple of conscience
at the moment when her obstinacy and duplicity were on the point of
causing her to sacrifice a set of servants whose conduct she knew to be
beyond reproach? Don Luis received the impression that the glance which
she threw at him contained an appeal for pity. But pity for whom? For the
others? Or for herself?
They were silent for a long time. Don Luis, standing a few steps away
from her, thought of the photograph, and was surprised to find in the
real woman all the beauty of the portrait, all that beauty which he had
not observed hitherto, but which now struck him as a revelation. The
golden hair shone with a brilliancy unknown to him. The mouth wore a less
happy expression, perhaps, a rather bitter expression, but one which
nevertheless retained the shape of the smile. The curve of the chin, the
grace of the neck revealed above the dip of the linen collar, the line of
the shoulders, the position of the arms, and of the hands resting on her
knees: all this was charming and very gentle and, in a manner, very
seemly and reassuring. Was it possible that this woman should be a
murderess, a poisoner?
He said:
"I forget what you told me that your Christian name was. But the name you
gave me was not the right one."
"Yes, it was," she said.
"Your name is Florence: Florence Levasseur."
She started.
"What! Who told you? Florence? How do you know?"
"Here is your photograph, with your name on it almost illegible."
"Oh!" she said, amazed at seeing the picture. "I can't believe it!
Where does it come from? Where did you get it from?" And, suddenly, "It
was the Prefect of Police who gave it to you, was it not? Yes, it was
he, I'm sure of it. I am sure that this photograph is to identify me
and that they are looking for me, for me, too. And it's you again, it's
you again--"
"Have no fear," he said. "The print only wants a few touches to alter the
face beyond recognition. I will make them. Have no fear."
She was no longer listening to him. She gazed at the photograph with all
her concentrated attention and murmured:
"I was twenty years old.... I was living in Italy. Dear me, how happy I
was on the day when it was taken! And how happy I was when I saw my
portrait!... I used to think myself pretty in those days.... And then it
disappeared.... It was stolen from me like other things that had already
been stolen from me, at that time--"
And, sinking her voice still lower, speaking her name as if she were
addressing some other woman, some unhappy friend, she repeated:
"Florence.... Florence--"
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
"She is not one of those who kill," thought Don Luis. "I can't believe
that she is an accomplice. And yet--and yet--"
He moved away from her and walked across the room from the window to the
door. The drawings of Italian landscapes on the wall attracted his
attention. Next, he read the titles of the books on the shelves. They
represented French and foreign works, novels, plays, essays, volumes of
poetry, pointing to a really cultivated and varied taste.
He saw Racine next to Dante, Stendhal near Edgar Allan Poe, Montaigne
between Goethe and Virgil. And suddenly, with that extraordinary faculty
which enabled him, in any collection of objects, to perceive details
which he did not at once take in, he noticed that one of the volumes of
an English edition of Shakespeare's works did not look exactly like the
others. There was something peculiar about the red morocco back,
something stiff, without the cracks and creases which show that a book
has been used.
It was the eighth volume. He took it out, taking care not to be heard.
He was not mistaken. The volume was a sham, a mere set of boards
surrounding a hollow space that formed a box and thus provided a regular
hiding-place; and, inside this book, he caught sight of plain note-paper,
envelopes of different kinds, and some sheets of ordinary ruled paper,
all of the same size and looking as if they had been taken from a
writing-pad.
And the appearance of these ruled sheets struck him at once. He
remembered the look of the paper on which the article for the _Echo de
France_ had been drafted. The ruling was identical, and the shape and
size appeared to be the same.
On lifting the sheets one after the other, he saw, on the last but one, a
series of lines consisting of words and figures in pencil, like notes
hurriedly jotted down.
He read:
"House on the Boulevard Suchet.
"First letter. Night of 15 April.
"Second. Night of 25th.
"Third and fourth. Nights of 5 and 15 May.
"Fifth and explosion. Night of 25 May."
And, while noting first that the date of the first night was that of the
actual day, and next that all these dates followed one another at
intervals of ten days, he remarked the resemblance between the writing
and the writing of the rough draft.
The draft was in a notebook in his pocket. He was therefore in a
position to verify the similarity of the two handwritings and of the two
ruled sheets of paper. He took his notebook and opened it. The draft was
not there.
"Gad," he snarled, "but this is a bit too thick!"
And, at the same time, he remembered clearly that, when he was
telephoning to Mazeroux in the morning, the notebook was in the pocket of
his overcoat and that he had left his overcoat on a chair near the
telephone box. Now, at that moment, Mlle. Levasseur, for no reason, was
roaming about the study. What was she doing there?
"Oh, the play-actress!" thought Perenna, raging within himself. "She was
humbugging me. Her tears, her air of frankness, her tender memories: all
bunkum! She belongs to the same stock and the same gang as Marie
Fauville and Gaston Sauverand. Like them, she is an accomplished liar
and actress from her slightest gesture down to the least inflection of
her innocent voice."
He was on the point of having it all out with her and confounding her.
This time, the proof was undeniable. Dreading an inquiry which might have
brought the facts home to her, she had been unwilling to leave the draft
of the article in the adversary's hands.
How could he doubt, from this moment, that she was the accomplice
employed by the people who were working the Mornington affair and trying
to get rid of him? Had he not every right to suppose that she was
directing the sinister gang, and that, commanding the others with her
audacity and her intelligence, she was leading them toward the obscure
goal at which they were aiming?
For, after all, she was free, entirely free in her actions and movements.
The windows opening on the Place du Palais-Bourbon gave her every
facility for leaving the house under cover of the darkness and coming in
again unknown to anybody.
It was therefore quite possible that, on the night of the double crime,
she was among the murderers of Hippolyte Fauville and his son. It was
quite possible that she had taken part in the murders, and even that the
poison had been injected into the victims by her hand, by that little,
white, slender hand which he saw resting against the golden hair.
A shudder passed through him. He had softly put back the paper in the
book, restored the book in its place, and moved nearer to the girl.
All of a sudden, he caught himself studying the lower part of her
face, the shape of her jaw! Yes, that was what he was making every
effort to guess, under the curve of the cheeks and behind the veil of
the lips. Almost against his will, with personal anguish mingled with
torturing curiosity, he stared and stared, ready to force open those
closed lips and to seek the reply to the terrifying problem that
suggested itself to him.
Those teeth, those teeth which he did not see, were not they the teeth
that had left the incriminating marks in the fruit? Which were the teeth
of the tiger, the teeth of the wild beast: these, or the other woman's?
It was an absurd supposition, because the marks had been recognized as
made by Marie Fauville. But was the absurdity of a supposition a
sufficient reason for discarding it?
Himself astonished at the feelings that agitated him, fearing lest he
should betray himself, he preferred to cut short the interview and, going
up to the girl, he said to her, in an imperious and aggressive tone:
"I wish all the servants in the house to be discharged. You will give
them their wages, pay them such compensation as they ask for, and see
that they leave to-day, definitely. Another staff of servants will arrive
this evening. You will be here to receive them."
She made no reply. He went away, taking with him the uncomfortable
impression that had lately marked his relations with Florence. The
atmosphere between them always remained heavy and oppressive. Their words
never seemed to express the private thoughts of either of them; and their
actions did not correspond with the words spoken. Did not the
circumstances logically demand the immediate dismissal of Florence
Levasseur as well? Yet Don Luis did not so much as think of it.
Returning to his study, he at once rang up Mazeroux and, lowering his
voice so as not to let it reach the next room, he said:
"Is that you, Mazeroux?"
"Yes."
"Has the Prefect placed you at my disposal?"
"Yes."
"Well, tell him that I have sacked all my servants and that I have given
you their names and instructed you to have an active watch kept on them.
We must look among them for Sauverand's accomplice. Another thing: ask
the Prefect to give you and me permission to spend the night at Hippolyte
Fauville's house."
"Nonsense! At the house on the Boulevard Suchet?"
"Yes, I have every reason to believe that something's going to
happen there."
"What sort of thing?"
"I don't know. But something is bound to take place. And I insist on
being at it. Is it arranged?"
"Right, Chief. Unless you hear to the contrary, I'll meet you at nine
o'clock this evening on the Boulevard Suchet."
Perenna did not see Mlle. Levasseur again that day. He went out in the
course of the afternoon, and called at the registry office, where he
chose some servants: a chauffeur, a coachman, a footman, a cook, and so
on. Then he went to a photographer, who made a new copy of Mlle.
Levasseur's photograph. Don Luis had this touched up and faked it
himself, so that the Prefect of Police should not perceive the
substitution of one set of features for another.
He dined at a restaurant and, at nine o'clock, joined Mazeroux on the
Boulevard Suchet.
Since the Fauville murders the house had been left in the charge of the
porter. All the rooms and all the locks had been sealed up, except the
inner door of the workroom, of which the police kept the keys for the
purposes of the inquiry.
The big study looked as it did before, though the papers had been removed
and put away and there were no books and pamphlets left on the
writing-table. A layer of dust, clearly visible by the electric light,
covered its black leather and the surrounding mahogany.
"Well, Alexandre, old man," cried Don Luis, when they had made themselves
comfortable, "what do you say to this? It's rather impressive, being here
again, what? But, this time, no barricading of doors, no bolts, eh? If
anything's going to happen, on this night of the fifteenth of April,
we'll put nothing in our friends' way. They shall have full and entire
liberty. It's up to them, this time."
Though joking, Don Luis was nevertheless singularly impressed, as he
himself said, by the terrible recollection of the two crimes which he had
been unable to prevent and by the haunting vision of the two dead bodies.
And he also remembered with real emotion the implacable duel which he had
fought with Mme. Fauville, the woman's despair and her arrest.
"Tell me about her," he said to Mazeroux. "So she tried to kill herself?"
"Yes," said Mazeroux, "a thoroughgoing attempt, though she had to make
it in a manner which she must have hated. She hanged herself in strips
of linen torn from her sheets and underclothing and twisted together.
She had to be restored by artificial respiration. She is out of danger
now, I believe, but she is never left alone, for she swore she would do
it again."
"She has made no confession?"
"No. She persists in proclaiming her innocence."
"And what do they think at the public prosecutor's? At the Prefect's?"
"Why should they change their opinion, Chief? The inquiries confirm every
one of the charges brought against her; and, in particular, it has been
proved beyond the possibility of dispute that she alone can have touched
the apple and that she can have touched it only between eleven o'clock at
night and seven o'clock in the morning. Now the apple bears the
undeniable marks of her teeth. Would you admit that there are two sets of
jaws in the world that leave the same identical imprint?"
"No, no," said Don Luis, who was thinking of Florence Levasseur. "No,
the argument allows of no discussion. We have here a fact that is clear
as daylight; and the imprint is almost tantamount to a discovery in the
act. But then how, in the midst of all this, are we to explain the
presence of -----"
"Whom, Chief?"
"Nobody. I had an idea worrying me. Besides, you see, in all this there
are so many unnatural things, such queer coincidences and
inconsistencies, that I dare not count on a certainty which the reality
of to-morrow may destroy."
They went on talking for some time, in a low voice, studying the question
in all its bearings.
At midnight they switched off the electric light in the chandelier and
arranged that each should go to sleep in turn.
And the hours went by as they had done when the two sat up before, with
the same sounds of belated carriages and motor cars; the same railway
whistles; the same silence.
The night passed without alarm or incident of any kind. At daybreak the
life out of doors was resumed; and Don Luis, during his waking hours, had
not heard a sound in the room except the monotonous snoring of his
companion.
"Can I have been mistaken?" he wondered. "Did the clue in that volume of
Shakespeare mean something else? Or did it refer to events of last year,
events that took place on the dates set down?"
In spite of everything, he felt overcome by a strange uneasiness as the
dawn began to glimmer through the half-closed shutters. A fortnight
before, nothing had happened either to warn him; and yet there were two
victims lying near him when he woke.
At seven o'clock he called out:
"Alexandre!"
"Eh? What is it, Chief?"
"You're not dead?"
"What's that? Dead? No, Chief; why should I be?"
"Quite sure?"
"Well, that's a good 'un! Why not you?"
"Oh, it'll be my turn soon! Considering the intelligence of those
scoundrels, there's no reason why they should go on missing me."
They waited an hour longer. Then Perenna opened a window and threw back
the shutter.
"I say, Alexandre, perhaps you're not dead, but you're certainly
very green."
Mazeroux gave a wry laugh:
"Upon my word, Chief, I confess that I had a bad time of it when I was
keeping watch while you were asleep."
"Were you afraid?"
"To the roots of my hair. I kept on thinking that something was going to
happen. But you, too, Chief, don't look as if you had been enjoying
yourself. Were you also--"
He interrupted himself, on seeing an expression of unbounded astonishment
on Don Luis's face.
"What's the matter, Chief?"
"Look! ... on the table ... that letter--"
He looked. There was a letter on the writing-table, or, rather, a
letter-card, the edges of which had been torn along the perforation
marks; and they saw the outside of it, with the address, the stamp, and
the postmarks.
"Did you put that there, Alexandre?"
"You're joking, Chief. You know it can only have been you."
"It can only have been I ... and yet it was not I."
"But then--"
Don Luis took the letter-card and, on examining it, found that the
address and the postmarks had been scratched out so as to make it
impossible to read the name of the addressee or where he lived, but
that the place of posting was quite clear, as was the date: Paris, 4
January, 19--.
"So the letter is three and a half months old," said Don Luis.
He turned to the inside of the letter. It contained a dozen lines and he
at once exclaimed:
"Hippolyte Fauville's signature!"
"And his handwriting," observed Mazeroux. "I can tell it at a glance.
There's no mistake about that. What does it all mean? A letter written by
Hippolyte Fauville three months before his death?"
Perenna read aloud:
"MY DEAR OLD FRIEND:
"I can only, alas, confirm what I wrote to you the other day: the plot is
thickening around me! I do not yet know what their plan is and still less
how they mean to put it into execution; but everything warns me that the
end is at hand. I can see it in her eyes. How strangely she looks at me
sometimes!
"Oh, the shame of it! Who would ever have thought her capable of it?
"I am a very unhappy man, my dear friend."
"And it's signed Hippolyte Fauville," Mazeroux continued, "and I declare
to you that it's actually in his hand ... written on the fourth of
January of this year to a friend whose name we don't know, though we
shall dig him out somehow, that I'll swear. And this friend will
certainly give us the proofs we want."
Mazeroux was becoming excited.
"Proofs? Why, we don't need them! They're here. M. Fauville himself
supplies them: 'The end is at hand. I can see it in her eyes.' 'Her'
refers to his wife, to Marie Fauville, and the husband's evidence
confirms all that we knew against her. What do you say, Chief?"
"You're right," replied Perenna, absent-mindedly, "you're right; the
letter is final. Only--"
"Only what?"
"Who the devil can have brought it? Somebody must have entered the room
last night while we were here. Is it possible? For, after all, we should
have heard. That's what astounds me."
"It certainly looks like it."
"Just so. It was a queer enough job a fortnight ago. But, still, we were
in the passage outside, while they were at work in here, whereas, this
time, we were here, both of us, close to this very table. And, on this
table, which had not the least scrap of paper on it last night, we find
this letter in the morning."
A careful inspection of the place gave them no clue to put them on the
track. They went through the house from top to bottom and ascertained for
certain that there was no one there in hiding. Besides, supposing that
any one was hiding there, how could he have made his way into the room
without attracting their attention? There was no solving the problem.
"We won't look any more," said Perenna, "it's no use. In matters of this
sort, some day or other the light enters by an unseen cranny and
everything gradually becomes clear. Take the letter to the Prefect of
Police, tell him how we spent the night, and ask his permission for both
of us to come back on the night of the twenty-fifth of April. There's to
be another surprise that night; and I'm dying to know if we shall receive
a second letter through the agency of some Mahatma."
They closed the doors and left the house.
While they were walking to the right, toward La Muette, in order to take
a taxi, Don Luis chanced to turn his head to the road as they reached the
end of the Boulevard Suchet. A man rode past them on a bicycle. Don Luis
just had time to see his clean-shaven face and his glittering eyes fixed
upon himself.
"Look out!" he shouted, pushing Mazeroux so suddenly that the sergeant
lost his balance.
The man had stretched out his hand, armed with a revolver. A shot
rang out. The bullet whistled past the ears of Don Luis, who had
bobbed his head.
"After him!" he roared. "You're not hurt, Mazeroux?"
"No, Chief."
They both rushed in pursuit, shouting for assistance. But, at that early
hour, there are never many people in the wide avenues of this part of the
town. The man, who was making off swiftly, increased his distance, turned
down the Rue Octave-Feuillet, and disappeared.
"All right, you scoundrel, I'll catch you yet!" snarled Don Luis,
abandoning a vain pursuit.
"But you don't even know who he is, Chief."
"Yes, I do: it's he."
"Who?"
"The man with the ebony stick. He's cut off his beard and shaved his
face, but I knew him for all that. It was the man who was taking
pot-shots at us yesterday morning, from the top of his stairs on the
Boulevard Richard-Wallace, the one who killed Inspector Ancenis. The
blackguard! How did he know that I had spent the night at Fauville's?
Have I been followed then and spied on? But by whom? And why? And how?"
Mazeroux reflected and said:
"Remember, Chief, you telephoned to me in the afternoon to give me an
appointment. For all you know, in spite of lowering your voice, you may
have been heard by somebody at your place."
Don Luis did not answer. He thought of Florence.
That morning Don Luis's letters were not brought to him by Mlle.
Levasseur, nor did he send for her. He caught sight of her several times
giving orders to the new servants. She must afterward have gone back to
her room, for he did not see her again.
In the afternoon he rang for his car and drove to the house on the
Boulevard Suchet, to pursue with Mazeroux, by the Prefect's instructions,
a search that led to no result whatever.
It was ten o'clock when he came in. The detective sergeant and he had
some dinner together. Afterward, wishing also to examine the home of the
man with the ebony stick, he got into his car again, still accompanied by
Mazeroux, and told the man to drive to the Boulevard Richard-Wallace.
The car crossed the Seine and followed the right bank.
"Faster," he said to his new chauffeur, through the speaking-tube. "I'm
accustomed to go at a good pace."
"You'll have an upset one fine day, Chief," said Mazeroux.
"No fear," replied Don Luis. "Motor accidents are reserved for fools."
They reached the Place de l'Alma. The car turned to the left.
"Straight ahead!" cried Don Luis. "Go up by the Trocadéro."
The car veered back again. But suddenly it gave three or four lurches in
the road, took the pavement, ran into a tree and fell over on its side.
In a few seconds a dozen people were standing round. They broke one of
the windows and opened the door. Don Luis was the first.
"It's nothing," he said. "I'm all right. And you, Alexandre?"
They helped the sergeant out. He had a few bruises and a little pain, but
no serious injury.
Only the chauffeur had been thrown from his seat and lay motionless on
the pavement, bleeding from the head. He was carried into a chemist's
shop and died in ten minutes.
Mazeroux had gone in with the poor victim and, feeling pretty well
stunned, had himself been given a pick-me-up. When he went back to the
motor car he found two policemen entering particulars of the accident in
their notebooks and taking evidence from the bystanders; but the chief
was not there.
Perenna in fact had jumped into a taxicab and driven home as fast as he
could. He got out in the square, ran through the gateway, crossed the
courtyard, and went down the passage that led to Mlle. Levasseur's
quarters. He leaped up the steps, knocked, and entered without waiting
for an answer.
The door of the room that served as a sitting-room was opened and
Florence appeared. He pushed her back into the room, and said, in a tone
furious with indignation:
"It's done. The accident has occurred. And yet none of the old servants
can have prepared it, because they were not there and because I was out
with the car this afternoon. Therefore, it must have been late in the
day between six and nine o'clock, that somebody went to the garage and
filed the steering-rod three quarters through."
"I don't understand. I don't understand," she said, with a scared look.
"You understand perfectly well that the accomplice of the ruffians cannot
be one of the new servants, and you understand perfectly well that the
job was bound to succeed and that it did succeed, beyond their hopes.
There is a victim, who suffers instead of myself."
"But tell me what has happened, Monsieur! You frighten me! What accident?
What was it?"
"The motor car was overturned. The chauffeur is dead."
"Oh," she said, "how horrible! And you think that I can have--Oh, dead,
how horrible! Poor man!"
Her voice grew fainter. She was standing opposite to Perenna, close up
against him. Pale and swooning, she closed her eyes, staggered.
He caught her in his arms as she fell. She tried to release herself, but
had not the strength; and he laid her in a chair, while she moaned,
repeatedly:
"Poor man! Poor man!"
Keeping one of his arms under the girl's head, he took a handkerchief in
the other hand and wiped her forehead, which was wet with perspiration,
and her pallid cheeks, down which the tears streamed.
She must have lost consciousness entirely, for she surrendered herself to
Perenna's cares without the least resistance. And he, making no further
movement, began anxiously to examine the mouth before his eyes, the mouth
with the lips usually so red, now bloodless and discoloured.
Gently passing one of his fingers over each of them, with a continuous
pressure, he separated them, as one separates the petals of a flower; and
the two rows of teeth appeared.
They were charming, beautifully shaped, and beautifully white; a little
smaller perhaps than Mme. Fauville's, perhaps also arranged in a wider
curve. But what did he know? Who could say that their bite would not
leave the same imprint? It was an improbable supposition, an impossible
miracle, he knew. And yet the circumstances were all against the girl and
pointed to her as the most daring, cruel, implacable, and terrible of
criminals.
Her breathing became regular. He perceived the cool fragrance of her
mouth, intoxicating as the scent of a rose. In spite of himself, he bent
down, came so close, so close that he was seized with giddiness and had
to make a great effort to lay the girl's head on the back of the chair
and to take his eyes from the fair face with the half-parted lips.
He rose to his feet and went.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE DEVIL'S POST-OFFICE
Of all these events the public knew only of the attempted suicide of Mme.
Fauville, the capture and escape of Gaston Sauverand, the murder of Chief
Inspector Ancenis, and the discovery of a letter written by Hippolyte
Fauville. This was enough, however, to reawaken their curiosity, as they
were already singularly puzzled by the Mornington case and took the
greatest interest in all the movements, however slight, of the mysterious
Don Luis Perenna, whom they insisted on confusing with Arsène Lupin.
He was, of course, credited with the brief capture of the man with the
ebony walking-stick. It was also known that he had saved the life of the
Prefect of Police, and that, finally, having at his own request spent the
night in the house on the Boulevard Suchet, he had become the recipient
of Hippolyte Fauville's famous letter. And all this added immensely to
the excitement of the aforesaid public.
But how much more complicated and disconcerting were the problems set to
Don Luis Perenna himself! Not to mention the denunciation in the
anonymous article, there had been, in the short space of forty-eight
hours, no fewer than four separate attempts to kill him: by the iron
curtain, by poison, by the shooting on the Boulevard Suchet, and by the
deliberately prepared motor accident.
Florence's share in this series of attempts was not to be denied. And,
now, behold her relations with the Fauvilles' murderers duly established
by the little note found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays,
while two more deaths were added to the melancholy list: the deaths of
Chief Inspector Ancenis and of the chauffeur. How to describe and how to
explain the part played, in the midst of all these catastrophes, by that
enigmatical girl?
Strangely enough, life went on as usual at the house in the Place du
Palais-Bourbon, as though nothing out of the way had happened there.
Every morning Florence Levasseur sorted Don Luis's post in his presence
and read out the newspaper articles referring to himself or bearing upon
the Mornington case.
Not a single allusion was made to the fierce fight that had been waged
against him for two days. It was as though a truce had been proclaimed
between them; and the enemy appeared to have ceased his attacks for the
moment. Don Luis felt easy, out of the reach of danger; and he talked to
the girl with an indifferent air, as he might have talked to anybody.
But with what a feverish interest he studied her unobserved! He
watched the expression of her face, at once calm and eager, and a
painful sensitiveness which showed under the placid mask and which,
difficult to control, revealed itself in the frequent quivering of the
lips and nostrils.
"Who are you? Who are you?" he felt inclined to exclaim. "Will nothing
content you, you she-devil, but to deal out murder all round? And do you
want my death also, in order to attain your object? Where do you come
from and where are you making for?"
On reflection, he was convinced of a certainty that solved a problem
which had preoccupied him for a long time--namely, the mysterious
connection between his own presence in the mansion in the Place du
Palais-Bourbon and the presence of a woman who was manifestly wreaking
her hatred on him.
He now understood that he had not bought the house by accident. In making
the purchase he had been persuaded by an anonymous offer that reached him
in the form of a typewritten prospectus. Whence did this offer come, if
not from Florence, who wished to have him near her in order to spy upon
him and wage war upon him?
"Yes," he thought, "that is where the truth lies. As the possible heir
of Cosmo Mornington and a prominent figure in the case, I am the enemy,
and they are trying to do away with me as they did with the others. And
it is Florence who is acting against me. And it is she who has
committed murder.
"Everything tells against her; nothing speaks in her defence. Her
innocent eyes? The accent of sincerity in her voice? Her serene dignity?
And then? Yes, what then? Have I never seen women with that frank look
who have committed murder for no reason, almost for pleasure's sake?"
He started with terror at the memory of Dolores Kesselbach. What was it
that made him connect these two women at every moment in his mind? He
had loved one of them, that monster Dolores, and had strangled her with
his own hands. Was fate now leading him toward a like love and a
similar murder?
When Florence left him he would experience a sense of satisfaction and
breathe more easily, as though released from an oppressive weight, but he
would run to the window and see her crossing the courtyard and be still
waiting when the girl whose scented breath he had felt upon his face
passed to and fro.
One morning she said to him:
"The papers say that it will be to-night."
"To-night?"
"Yes," she said, showing him an article in one of the newspapers.
"This is the twenty-fifth; and, according to the information of the
police, supplied, they say, by you, there should be a letter delivered
in the house on the Boulevard Suchet every tenth day, and the house is
to be destroyed by an explosion on the day when the fifth and last
letter appears."
Was she defying him? Did she wish to make him understand that, whatever
happened, whatever the obstacles, the letters would appear, those
mysterious letters prophesied on the list which he had found in the
eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays?
He looked at her steadily. She did not flinch. He answered:
"Yes, this is the night. I shall be there. Nothing in the world will
prevent me."
She was on the point of replying, but once more controlled her feelings.
That day Don Luis was on his guard. He lunched and dined out and arranged
with Mazeroux to have the Place du Palais-Bourbon watched.
Mlle. Levasseur did not leave the house during the afternoon. In the
evening Don Luis ordered Mazeroux's men to follow any one who might go
out at that time.
At ten o'clock the sergeant joined Don Luis in Hippolyte Fauville's
workroom. Deputy Chief Detective Weber and two plain-clothesmen
were with him.
Don Luis took Mazeroux aside:
"They distrust me. Own up to it."
"No. As long as M. Desmalions is there, they can do nothing against you.
Only, M. Weber maintains--and he is not the only one--that you fake up
all these occurrences yourself."
"With what object?"
"With the object of furnishing proof against Marie Fauville and getting
her condemned. So I asked for the attendance of the deputy chief and two
men. There will be four of us to bear witness to your honesty."
They all took up their posts. Two detectives were to sit up in turns.
This time, after making a minute search of the little room in which
Fauville's son used to sleep, they locked and bolted the doors and
shutters. At eleven o'clock they switched off the electric chandelier.
Don Luis and Weber hardly slept at all.
The night passed without incident of any kind.
But, at seven o'clock, when the shutters were opened, they saw that there
was a letter on the table. Just as on the last occasion, there was a
letter on the table!
When the first moment of stupefaction was over, the deputy chief took
the letter. His orders were not to read it and not to let any one
else read it.
Here is the letter, published by the newspapers, which also published the
declarations of the experts certifying that the handwriting was Hippolyte
Fauville's:
"I have seen him! You understand, don't you, my dear friend? I have seen
him! He was walking along a path in the Bois, with his coat collar turned
up and his hat pulled over his ears. I don't think that he saw me. It was
almost dark. But I knew him at once. I knew the silver handle of his
ebony stick. It was he beyond a doubt, the scoundrel!
"So he is in Paris, in spite of his promise. Gaston Sauverand is in
Paris! Do you understand the terrible significance of that fact? If he is
in Paris, it means that he intends to act. If he is in Paris, it means
certain death to me. Oh, the harm which I shall have suffered at that
man's hands! He has already robbed me of my happiness; and now he wants
my life. I am terrified."
So Fauville knew that the man with the ebony walking-stick, that Gaston
Sauverand, was designing to kill him. Fauville declared it most
positively, by evidence written in his own hand; and the letter,
moreover, corroborating the words that had escaped Gaston Sauverand at
his arrest, showed that the two men had at one time had relations with
each other, that they were no longer friends, and that Gaston Sauverand
had promised never to come to Paris.
A little light was therefore being shed on the darkness of the Mornington
case. But, on the other hand, how inconceivable was the mystery of that
letter found on the table in the workroom!
Five men had kept watch, five of the smartest men obtainable; and yet, on
that night, as on the night of the fifteenth of April, an unknown hand
had delivered the letter in a room with barricaded doors and windows,
without their hearing a sound or discovering any signs that the
fastenings of the doors or windows had been tampered with.
The theory of a secret outlet was at once raised, but had to be
abandoned after a careful examination of the walls and after an
interview with the contractor who had built the house, from Fauville's
own plans, some years ago.
It is unnecessary once more to recall what I may describe as the flurry
of the public. The deed, in the circumstances, assumed the appearance of
a sleight-of-hand trick. People felt tempted to look upon it as the
recreation of some wonderfully skilful conjurer rather than as the act of
a person employing unknown methods.
Nevertheless, Don Luis Perenna's intelligence was justified at all
points, for the expected incident had taken place on the twenty-fifth of
April, as on the fifteenth. Would the series be continued on the fifth of
May? No one doubted it, because Don Luis had said so and because
everybody felt that Don Luis could not be mistaken. All through the night
of the fifth of May there was a crowd on the Boulevard Suchet; and
quidnuncs and night birds of every kind came trooping up to hear the
latest news.
The Prefect of Police, greatly impressed by the first two miracles, had
determined to see the next one for himself, and was present in person on
the third night.
He came accompanied by several inspectors, whom he left in the garden, in
the passage, and in the attic on the upper story. He himself took up his
post on the ground floor with Weber, Mazeroux, and Don Luis Perenna.
Their expectations were disappointed; and this was M. Desmalions's fault.
In spite of the express opinion of Don Luis, who deprecated the
experiment as useless, the Prefect had decided not to turn off the
electric light, so that he might see if the light would prevent the
miracle. Under these conditions no letter could appear, and no letter did
appear. The miracle, whether a conjuring trick or a criminal's device,
needed the kindly aid of the darkness.
There were therefore ten days lost, always presuming that the diabolical
postman would dare to repeat his attempt and produce the third
mysterious letter.
* * * * *
On the fifteenth of May the wait was renewed, while the same crowd
gathered outside, an anxious, breathless crowd, stirred by the least
sound and keeping an impressive silence, with eyes gazing upon the
Fauvilles' house.
This time the light was put out, but the Prefect of Police kept his hand
on the electric switch. Ten times, twenty times, he unexpectedly turned
on the light. There was nothing on the table. What had aroused his
attention was the creaking of a piece of furniture or a movement made by
one of the men with him.
Suddenly they all uttered an exclamation. Something unusual, a rustling
noise, had interrupted the silence.
M. Desmalions at once switched on the light. He gave a cry. A letter lay
not on the table, but beside it, on the floor, on the carpet.
Mazeroux made the sign of the cross. The inspectors were as pale as
death.
M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis, who nodded his head without a word.
They inspected the condition of the locks and bolts. Nothing had moved.
That day again, the contents of the letter made some amends for the
really extraordinary manner of its delivery. It completely dispelled
all the doubts that still enshrouded the double murder on the
Boulevard Suchet.
Again signed by the engineer, written throughout by himself, on the
eighth of February, with no visible address, it said:
"No, my dear friend, I will not allow myself to be killed like a sheep
led to the slaughter. I shall defend myself, I shall fight to the last
moment. Things have changed lately. I have proofs now, undeniable proofs.
I possess letters that have passed between them. And I know that they
still love each other as they did at the start, that they want to marry,
and that they will let nothing stand in their way. It is written,
understand what I say, it is written in Marie's own hand; 'Have patience,
my own Gaston. My courage increases day by day. So much the worse for him
who stands between us. He shall disappear.'
"My dear friend, if I succumb in the struggle you will find those letters
(and all the evidence which I have collected against the wretched
creature) in the safe hidden behind the small glass case: Then revenge
me. Au revoir. Perhaps good-bye."
Thus ran the third missive. Hippolyte Fauville from his grave named and
accused his guilty wife. From his grave he supplied the solution to the
riddle and explained the reason why the crimes had been committed: Marie
Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.
Certainly they knew of the existence of Cosmo Mornington's will, for they
had begun by doing away with Cosmo Mornington; and their eagerness to
come into the enormous fortune had hastened the catastrophe. But the
first idea of the murder rose from an older and deep-rooted passion:
Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.
One problem remained to be solved: who was the unknown correspondent to
whom Hippolyte Fauville had bequeathed the task of avenging his murder,
and who, instead of simply handing over the letters to the police, was
exercising his ingenuity to deliver them by means of the most
Machiavellian contrivances? Was it to his interest also to remain in the
background?
To all these questions Marie Fauville replied in the most unexpected
manner, though it was one that fully accorded with her threats. A week
later, after a long cross-examination at which she was pressed for the
name of her husband's old friend and at which she maintained the most
stubborn silence, together with a sort of stupid inertia, she returned to
her cell in the evening and opened the veins of her wrist with a piece of
glass which she had managed to hide.
Don Luis heard the news from Mazeroux, who came to tell him of it
before eight o'clock the next morning, just as he was getting out of
bed. The sergeant had a travelling bag in his hand and was on his way
to catch a train.
Don Luis was greatly upset.
"Is she dead?" he exclaimed.
"No. It seems that she has had one more let-off. But what's the good?"
"How do you mean, what's the good?"
"She'll do it again, of course. She's set her mind upon it. And, one day
or another--"
"Did she volunteer no confession, this time either, before making the
attempt on her life?"
"No. She wrote a few words on a scrap of paper, saying that, on thinking
it over, she advised us to ask a certain M. Langernault about the
mysterious letters. He was the only friend that she had known her husband
to possess, or at any rate the only one whom he would have called, 'My
dear fellow,' or, 'My dear friend,' This M. Langernault could do no more
than prove her innocence and explain the terrible misunderstanding of
which she was the victim."
"But," said Don Luis, "if there is any one to prove her innocence, why
does she begin by opening her veins?"
"She doesn't care, she says. Her life is done for; and what she wants is
rest and death."
"Rest? Rest? There are other ways in which she can find it besides in
death. If the discovery of the truth is to spell her safety, perhaps the
truth is not impossible to discover."
"What are you saying, Chief? Have you guessed anything? Are you beginning
to understand?"
"Yes, very vaguely, but, all the same, the really unnatural accuracy of
those letters just seems to me a sign--"
He reflected for a moment and continued:
"Have they reëxamined the erased addresses of the three letters?"
"Yes; and they managed to make out the name of Langernault."
"Where does this Langernault live?"
"According to Mme. Fauville, at the village of Damigni, in the Orme."
"Have they deciphered the word Damigni on one of the letters?"
"No, but they have the name of the nearest town."
"What town is that?"
"Alençon."
"And is that where you're going?"
"Yes, the Prefect of Police told me to go straightaway. I shall take the
train at the Invalides."
"You mean you will come with me in my motor."
"Eh?"
"We will both of us go, my lad. I want to be doing something; the
atmosphere of this house is deadly for me."
"What are you talking about, Chief?"
"Nothing. I know."
Half an hour later they were flying along the Versailles Road. Perenna
himself was driving his open car and driving it in such a way that
Mazeroux, almost stifling, kept blurting out, at intervals:
"Lord, what a pace! Dash it all, how you're letting her go, Chief! Aren't
you afraid of a smash? Remember the other day--"
They reached Alençon in time for lunch. When they had done, they went to
the chief post-office. Nobody knew the name of Langernault there.
Besides, Damigni had its own post-office, though the presumption was that
M. Langernault had his letters addressed _poste restante_ at Alençon.
Don Luis and Mazeroux went on to the village of Damigni. Here again the
postmaster knew no one of the name of Langernault; and this in spite of
the fact that Damigni contained only about a thousand inhabitants.
"Let's go and call on the mayor," said Perenna.
At the mayor's Mazeroux stated who he was and mentioned the object of his
visit. The mayor nodded his head.
"Old Langernault? I should think so. A decent fellow: used to run a
business in the town."
"And accustomed, I suppose, to fetch his letters at Alençon post-office?"
"That's it, every day, for the sake of the walk."
"And his house?"
"Is at the end of the village. You passed it as you came along."
"Can we see it?"
"Well, of course ... only--"
"Perhaps he's not at home?"
"Certainly not! The poor, dear man hasn't even set foot in the house
since he left it the last time, four years ago!"
"How is that?"
"Why, he's been dead these four years!"
Don Luis and Mazeroux exchanged a glance of amazement.
"So he's dead?" said Don Luis.
"Yes, a gunshot."
"What's that!" cried Perenna. "Was he murdered?"
"No, no. They thought so at first, when they picked him up on the floor
of his room; but the inquest proved that it was an accident. He was
cleaning his gun, and it went off and sent a load of shot into his
stomach. All the same, we thought it very queer in the village. Daddy
Langernault, an old hunter before the Lord, was not the man to commit an
act of carelessness."
"Had he money?"
"Yes; and that's just what clinched the matter: they couldn't find a
penny of it!"
Don Luis remained thinking for some time and then asked:
"Did he leave any children, any relations of the same name?"
"Nobody, not even a cousin. The proof is that his property--it's called
the Old Castle, because of the ruins on it--has reverted to the State.
The authorities have had the doors of the house sealed up, and locked the
gate of the park. They are waiting for the legal period to expire in
order to take possession."
"And don't sightseers go walking in the park, in spite of the walls?"
"Not they. In the first place, the walls are very high. And then--and
then the Old Castle has had a bad reputation in the neighbourhood ever
since I can remember. There has always been a talk of ghosts: a pack of
silly tales. But still--"
Perenna and his companion could not get over their surprise.
"This is a funny affair," exclaimed Don Luis, when they had left the
mayor's. "Here we have Fauville writing his letters to a dead man--and to
a dead man, by the way, who looks to me very much as if he had been
murdered."
"Some one must have intercepted the letters."
"Obviously. But that does not do away with the fact that he wrote them to
a dead man and made his confidences to a dead man and told him of his
wife's criminal intentions."
Mazeroux was silent. He, too, seemed greatly perplexed.
They spent part of the afternoon in asking about old Langernault's
habits, hoping to receive some useful clue from the people who had known
him. But their efforts led to nothing.
At six o'clock, as they were about to start, Don Luis found that the car
had run out of petrol and sent Mazeroux in a trap to the outskirts of
Alençon to fetch some. He employed the delay in going to look at the Old
Castle outside the village.
He had to follow a hedged road leading to an open space, planted with
lime trees, where a massive wooden gate stood in the middle of a wall.
The gate was locked. Don Luis walked along the wall, which was, in fact,
very high and presented no opening. Nevertheless, he managed to climb
over by means of the branches of a tree.
The park consisted of unkept lawns, overgrown with large wild flowers,
and grass-covered avenues leading on the right to a distant mound,
thickly dotted with ruins, and, on the left, to a small, tumbledown house
with ill-fitting shutters.
He was turning in this direction, when he was much surprised to perceive
fresh footprints on a border which had been soaked with the recent rain.
And he could see that these footprints had been made by a woman's boots,
a pair of elegant and dainty boots.
"Who the devil comes walking here?" he thought.
He found more footprints a little farther, on another border which the
owner of the boots had crossed, and they led him away from the house,
toward a series of clumps of trees where he saw them twice more. Then he
lost sight of them for good.
He was standing near a large, half-ruined barn, built against a very tall
bank. Its worm-eaten doors seemed merely balanced on their hinges. He
went up and looked through a crack in the wood. Inside the windowless
barn was in semi-darkness, for but little light came through the openings
stopped up with straw, especially as the day was beginning to wane. He
was able to distinguish a heap of barrels, broken wine-presses, old
ploughs, and scrap-iron of all kinds.
"This is certainly not where my fair stroller turned her steps," thought
Don Luis. "Let's look somewhere else."
Nevertheless, he did not move. He had noticed a noise in the barn.
He listened and heard nothing. But as he wanted to get to the bottom of
things he forced out a couple of planks with his shoulder and stepped in.
The breach which he had thus contrived admitted a little light. He could
see enough to make his way between two casks, over some broken window
frames, to an empty space on the far side.
His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness as he went on. For all that, he
knocked his head against something which he had not perceived, something
hanging up above, something rather hard which, when set in motion, swung
to and fro with a curious grating sound.
It was too dark to see. Don Luis took an electric lantern from his pocket
and pressed the spring.
"Damn it all!" he swore, falling back aghast.
Above him hung a skeleton!
And the next moment he uttered another oath. A second skeleton hung
beside the first!
They were both fastened by stout ropes to rings fixed in the rafters of
the barn. Their heads dangled from the slip-knots. The one against which
Perenna had struck was still moving slightly and the bones clicked
together with a gruesome sound.
He dragged forward a rickety table, propped it up as best he could, and
climbed onto it to examine the two skeletons more closely. They were
turned toward each other, face to face. The first was considerably bigger
than the second. They were obviously the skeletons of a man and a woman.
Even when they were not moved by a jolt of any kind, the wind blowing
through the crevices in the barn set them lightly swinging to and fro, in
a sort of very slow, rhythmical dance.
But what perhaps was most impressive in this ghastly spectacle was the
fact that each of the skeletons, though deprived of every rag of
clothing, still wore a gold ring, too wide now that the flesh had
disappeared, but held, as in hooks, by the bent joints of the fingers.
He slipped off the rings with a shiver of disgust, and found that they
were wedding rings. Each bore a date inside, the same date, 12 August,
1887, and two names: "Alfred--Victorine."
"Husband and wife," he murmured. "Is it a double suicide? Or a murder?
But how is it possible that the two skeletons have not yet been
discovered? Can one conceive that they have been here since the death of
old Langernault, since the government has taken possession of the estate
and made it impossible for anybody to walk in?"
He paused to reflect.
"Anybody? I don't know about that, considering that I saw footprints in
the garden, and that a woman has been there this very day!"
The thought of the unknown visitor engrossed him once more, and he got
down from the table. In spite of the noise which he had heard, it was
hardly to be supposed that she had entered the barn. And, after a few
minutes' search, he was about to go out, when there came, from the left,
a clash of things falling about and some hoops dropped to the ground not
far from where he stood.
They came from above, from a loft likewise crammed with various objects
and implements and reached by a ladder. Was he to believe that the
visitor, surprised by his arrival, had taken refuge in that hiding-place
and made a movement that caused the fall of the hoops?
Don Luis placed his electric lantern on a cask in such a way as to send
the light right up to the loft. Seeing nothing suspicious, nothing but an
arsenal of old pickaxes, rakes, and disused scythes, he attributed what
had happened so some animal, to some stray cat; and, to make sure, he
walked quickly to the ladder and went up.
Suddenly, at the very moment when he reached the level of the floor,
there was a fresh noise, a fresh clatter of things falling: and a form
rose from the heap of rubbish with a terrible gesture.
It was swift as lightning. Don Luis saw the great blade of a scythe
cleaving the air at the height of his head. Had he hesitated for a
second, for the tenth of a second, the awful weapon would have beheaded
him. As it was, he just had time to flatten himself against the ladder.
The scythe whistled past him, grazing his jacket. He slid down to the
floor below.
But he had seen.
He had seen the dreadful face of Gaston Sauverand, and, behind the man of
the ebony walking-stick, wan and livid in the rays of the electric light,
the distorted features of Florence Levasseur!
CHAPTER NINE
LUPIN'S ANGER
He remained for one moment motionless and speechless. Above was a perfect
clatter of things being pushed about, as though the besieged were
building themselves a barricade. But to the right of the electric rays,
diffused daylight entered through an opening that was suddenly exposed;
and he saw, in front of this opening, first one form and then another
stooping in order to escape over the roofs.
He levelled his revolver and fired, but badly, for he was thinking of
Florence and his hand trembled. Three more shots rang out. The bullets
rattled against the old scrap-iron in the loft. The fifth shot was
followed by a cry of pain. Don Luis once more rushed up the ladder.
Slowly making his way through the tangle of farm implements and over some
cases of dried rape seed forming a regular rampart, he at last, after
bruising and barking his shins, succeeded in reaching the opening, and
was greatly surprised, on passing through it, to find himself on level
ground. It was the top of the sloping bank against which the barn stood.
He descended the slope at haphazard, to the left of the barn, and passed
in front of the building, but saw nobody. He then went up again on the
right; and although the flat part was very narrow, he searched it
carefully for, in the growing darkness of the twilight, he had every
reason to fear renewed attacks from the enemy.
He now became aware of something which he had not perceived before. The
bank ran along the top of the wall, which at this spot was quite
sixteen feet high. Gaston Sauverand and Florence had, beyond a doubt,
escaped this way.
Perenna followed the wall, which was fairly wide, till he came to a lower
part, and here he jumped into a ploughed field skirting a little wood
toward which the fugitives must have run He started exploring it, but,
realizing its denseness, he at once saw that it was waste of time to
linger in pursuit.
He therefore returned to the village, while thinking over this, his
latest exploit. Once again Florence and her accomplice had tried to get
rid of him. Once again Florence figured prominently in this network of
criminal plots.
At the moment when chance informed Don Luis that old Langernault had
probably died by foul play, at the moment when chance, by leading him to
Hanged Man's Barn, as he christened it, brought him into the presence of
two skeletons, Florence appeared as a murderous vision, as an evil
genius who was seen wherever death had passed with its trail of blood
and corpses.
"Oh, the loathsome creature!" he muttered, with a shudder. "How can she
have so fair a face, and eyes of such haunting beauty, so grave, sincere,
and almost guileless?"
In the church square, outside the inn, Mazeroux, who had returned, was
filling the petrol tank of the motor and lighting the lamps. Don Luis saw
the mayor of Damigni crossing the square. He took him aside.
"By the way, Monsieur le Maire, did you ever hear any talk in the
district, perhaps two years ago, of the disappearance of a couple forty
or fifty years of age? The husband's name was Alfred--"
"And the wife's Victorine, eh?" the mayor broke in. "I should think so!
The affair created some stir. They lived at Alençon on a small, private
income; they disappeared between one day and the next; and no one has
since discovered what became of them, any more than a little hoard,
some twenty thousand francs or so, which they had realized the day
before by the sale of their house. I remember them well. Dedessuslamare
their name was."
"Thank you, Monsieur le Maire," said Perenna, who had learned all that he
wanted to know.
The car was ready. A minute after he was rushing toward Alençon
with Mazeroux.
"Where are we going, Chief?" asked the sergeant.
"To the station. I have every reason to believe, first, that Sauverand
was informed this morning--in what way remains to be seen--of the
revelations made last night by Mme. Fauville relating to old Langernault;
and, secondly, that he has been prowling around and inside old
Langernault's property to-day for reasons that also remain to be seen.
And I presume that he came by train and that he will go back by train."
Perenna's supposition was confirmed without delay. He was told at the
railway station that a gentleman and a lady had arrived from Paris at two
o'clock, that they had hired a trap at the hotel next door, and that,
having finished their business, they had gone back a few minutes ago, by
the 7:40 express. The description of the lady and gentleman corresponded
exactly with that of Florence and Sauverand.
"Off we go!" said Perenna, after consulting the timetable. "We are an
hour behind. We may catch up with the scoundrel at Le Mans."
"We'll do that, Chief, and we'll collar him, I swear: him and his lady,
since there are two of them."
"There are two of them, as you say. Only--"
"Only what?"
Don Luis waited to reply until they were seated and the engine started,
when he said:
"Only, my boy, you will keep your hands off the lady."
"Why should I?"
"Do you know who she is? Have you a warrant against her?"
"No."
"Then shut up."
"But--"
"One word more, Alexandre, and I'll set you down beside the road. Then
you can make as many arrests as you please."
Mazeroux did not breathe another word. For that matter the speed at which
they at once began to go hardly left him time to raise a protest. Not a
little anxious, he thought only of watching the horizon and keeping a
lookout for obstacles.
The trees vanished on either side almost unseen. Their foliage overhead
made a rhythmical sound as of moaning waves. Night insects dashed
themselves to death against the lamps.
"We shall get there right enough," Mazeroux ventured to observe. "There's
no need to put on the pace."
The speed increased and he said no more.
Villages, plains, hills; and then, suddenly in the midst of the darkness,
the lights of a large town, Le Mans.
"Do you know the way to the station, Alexandre?"
"Yes, Chief, to the right and then straight on."
Of course they ought to have gone to the left. They wasted seven or eight
minutes in wandering through the streets and receiving contradictory
instructions. When the motor pulled up at the station the train was
whistling.
Don Luis jumped out, rushed through the waiting-room, found the doors
shut, jostled the railway officials who tried to stop him, and reached
the platform.
A train was about to start on the farther line. The last door was banged
to. He ran along the carriages, holding on to the brass rails.
"Your ticket, sir! Where's your ticket?" shouted an angry collector.
Don Luis continued to fly along the footboards, giving a swift glance
through the panes, thrusting aside the persons whose presence at the
windows prevented him from seeing, prepared at any moment to burst into
the compartment containing the two accomplices.
He did not see them in the end carriages. The train started. And suddenly
he gave a shout: they were there, the two of them, by themselves! He had
seen them! They were there: Florence, lying on the seat, with her head on
Sauverand's shoulder, and he, leaning over her, with his arms around her!
Mad with rage he flung back the bottom latch and seized the handle of the
carriage door. At the same moment he lost his balance and was pulled off
by the furious ticket collector and by Mazeroux, who bellowed:
"Why, you're mad, Chief! you'll kill yourself!"
"Let go, you ass!" roared Don Luis. "It's they! Let me be, can't you!"
The carriages filed past. He tried to jump on to another footboard.
But the two men were clinging to him, some railway porters came to
their assistance, the station-master ran up. The train moved out of
the station.
"Idiots!" he shouted. "Boobies! Pack of asses that you are, couldn't you
leave me alone? Oh, I swear to Heaven--!"
With a blow of his left fist he knocked the ticket collector down; with a
blow of his right he sent Mazeroux spinning; and shaking off the porters
and the station-master, he rushed along the platform to the luggage-room,
where he took flying leaps over several batches of trunks, packing-cases,
and portmanteaux.
"Oh, the perfect fool!" he mumbled, on seeing that Mazeroux had let the
power down in the car. "Trust him, if there's any blunder going!"
Don Luis had driven his car at a fine rate during the day; but that night
the pace became vertiginous. A very meteor flashed through the suburbs of
Le Mans and hurled itself along the highroad. Perenna had but one thought
in his head: to reach the next station, which was Chartres, before the
two accomplices, and to fly at Sauverand's throat. He saw nothing but
that: the savage grip of his two hands that would set Florence
Levasseur's lover gasping in his agony.
"Her lover! Her lover!" he muttered, gnashing his teeth. "Why, of course,
that explains everything! They have combined against their accomplice,
Marie Fauville; and it is she alone, poor devil, who will pay for the
horrible series of crimes!"
"Is she their accomplice even?" he wondered. "Who knows? Who knows if
that pair of demons are not capable, after killing Hippolyte and his son,
of having plotted the ruin of Marie Fauville, the last obstacle that
stood between them and the Mornington inheritance? Doesn't everything
point to that conclusion? Didn't I find the list of dates in a book
belonging to Florence? Don't the facts prove that the letters were
communicated by Florence?...
"Those letters accuse Gaston Sauverand as well. But how does that affect
things? He no longer loves Marie, but Florence. And Florence loves him.
She is his accomplice, his counsellor, the woman who will live by his
side and benefit by his fortune.... True, she sometimes pretends to be
defending Marie Fauville. Play-acting! Or perhaps remorse, fright at the
thought of all that she has done against her rival, and of the fate that
awaits the unhappy woman!
"But she is in love with Sauverand. And she continues to carry on the
struggle without pity and without respite. And that is why she wanted to
kill me, the interloper whose insight she dreaded. And she hates me and
loathes me--"
To the hum of the engine and the sighing of the trees, which bent down at
the approach, he murmured incoherent words. The recollection of the two
lovers clasped in each other's arms made him cry aloud with jealousy. He
wanted to be revenged. For the first time in his life, the longing, the
feverish craving to kill set his brain boiling.
"Hang it all!" he growled suddenly. "The engine's misfiring! Mazeroux!
Mazeroux!"
"What, Chief! Did you know that I was here?" exclaimed Mazeroux, emerging
from the shadow in which he sat hidden.
"You jackass! Do you think that the first idiot who comes along can hang
on to the footboard of my car without my knowing it? You must be feeling
comfortable down there!"
"I'm suffering agonies, and I'm shivering with cold."
"That's right, it'll teach you. Tell me, where did you buy your petrol?"
"At the grocer's."
"At a thief's, you mean. It's muck. The plugs are getting sooted up."
"Are you sure?"
"Can't you hear the misfiring, you fool?"
The motor, indeed, at moments seemed to hesitate. Then everything became
normal again. Don Luis forced the pace. Going downhill they appeared to
be hurling themselves into space. One of the lamps went out. The other
was not as bright as usual. But nothing diminished Don Luis's ardour.
There was more misfiring, fresh hesitations, followed by efforts, as
though the engine was pluckily striving to do its duty. And then suddenly
came the final failure, a dead stop at the side of the road, a stupid
breakdown.
"Confound it!" roared Don Luis. "We're stuck! Oh, this is the last
straw!"
"Come, Chief, we'll put it right. And we'll pick up Sauverand at Paris
instead of Chartres, that's all."
"You infernal ass! The repairs will take an hour! And then she'll break
down again. It's not petrol, it's filth they've foisted on you."
The country stretched around them to endless distances, with no other
lights than the stars that riddled the darkness of the sky.
Don Luis was stamping with fury. He would have liked to kick the motor to
pieces. He would have liked--
It was Mazeroux who "caught it," in the hapless sergeant's own words. Don
Luis took him by the shoulders, shook him, loaded him with insults and
abuse and, finally, pushing him against the roadside bank and holding him
there, said, in a broken voice of mingled hatred and sorrow.
"It's she, do you hear, Mazeroux? it's Sauverand's companion who has done
everything. I'm telling you now, because I'm afraid of relenting. Yes, I
am a weak coward. She has such a grave face, with the eyes of a child.
But it's she, Mazeroux. She lives in my house. Remember her name:
Florence Levasseur. You'll arrest her, won't you? I might not be able to.
My courage fails me when I look at her. The fact is that I have never
loved before.
"There have been other women--but no, those were fleeting fancies--not
even that: I don't even remember the past! Whereas Florence--! You must
arrest her, Mazeroux. You must deliver me from her eyes. They burn into
me like poison. If you don't deliver me I shall kill her as I killed
Dolores--or else they will kill me--or--Oh, I don't know all the ideas
that are driving me wild--!
"You see, there's another man," he explained. "There's Sauverand, whom
she loves. Oh, the infamous pair! They have killed Fauville and the boy
and old Langernault and those two in the barn and others besides: Cosmo
Mornington, Vérot, and more still. They are monsters, she most of
all--And if you saw her eyes-"
He spoke so low that Mazeroux could hardly hear him. He had let go his
hold of Mazeroux and seemed utterly cast down with despair, a surprising
symptom in a man of his amazing vigour and authority.
"Come, Chief," said the sergeant, helping him up. "This is all stuff and
nonsense. Trouble with women: I've had it like everybody else. Mme.
Mazeroux--yes, I got married while you were away--Mme. Mazeroux turned
out badly herself, gave me the devil of a time, Mme. Mazeroux did. I'll
tell you all about it, Chief, how Mme. Mazeroux rewarded my kindness."
He led Don Luis gently to the car and settled him on the front seat.
"Take a rest, Chief. It's not very cold and there are plenty of furs. The
first peasant that comes along at daybreak, I'll send him to the next
town for what we want--and for food, too, for I'm starving. And
everything will come right; it always does with women. All you have to do
is to kick them out of your life--except when they anticipate you and
kick themselves out.... I was going to tell you: Mme. Mazeroux--"
Don Luis was never to learn what had happened with Mme. Mazeroux. The
most violent catastrophies had no effect upon the peacefulness of his
slumbers. He was asleep almost at once.
It was late in the morning when he woke up. Mazeroux had had to wait till
seven o'clock before he could hail a cyclist on his way to Chartres.
They made a start at nine o'clock. Don Luis had recovered all his
coolness. He turned to his sergeant.
"I said a lot last night that I did not mean to say. However, I don't
regret it. Yes, it is my duty to do everything to save Mme. Fauville and
to catch the real culprit. Only the task falls upon myself; and I swear
that I shan't fail in it. This evening Florence Levasseur shall sleep in
the lockup!"
"I'll help you, Chief," replied Mazeroux, in a queer tone of voice.
"I need nobody's help. If you touch a single hair of her head, I'll do
for you. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Chief."
"Then hold your tongue."
His anger was slowly returning and expressed itself in an increase of
speed, which seemed to Mazeroux a revenge executed upon himself. They
raced over the cobble-stones of Chartres. Rambouillet, Chevreuse, and
Versailles received the terrifying vision of a thunderbolt tearing across
them from end to end.
Saint-Cloud. The Bois de Boulogne ...
On the Place de la Concorde, as the motor was turning toward the
Tuileries, Mazeroux objected:
"Aren't you going home, Chief?"
"No. There's something more urgent first: we must relieve Marie Fauville
of her suicidal obsession by letting her know that we have discovered the
criminals."
"And then?"
"Then I want to see the Prefect of Police."
"M. Desmalions is away and won't be back till this afternoon."
"In that case the examining magistrate."
"He doesn't get to the law courts till twelve; and it's only eleven now."
"We'll see."
Mazeroux was right: there was no one at the law courts.
Don Luis lunched somewhere close by; and Mazeroux, after calling at the
detective office, came to fetch him and took him to the magistrate's
corridor. Don Luis's excitement, his extraordinary restlessness, did not
fail to strike Mazeroux, who asked:
"Are you still of the same mind, Chief?"
"More than ever. I looked through the newspapers at lunch. Marie
Fauville, who was sent to the infirmary after her second attempt, has
again tried to kill herself by banging her head against the wall of the
room. They have put a straitjacket on her. But she is refusing all food.
It is my duty to save her."
"How?"
"By handing over the real criminal. I shall inform the magistrate in
charge of the case; and this evening I shall bring you Florence Levasseur
dead or alive."
"And Sauverand?"
"Sauverand? That won't take long. Unless--"
"Unless what?"
"Unless I settle his business myself, the miscreant!"
"Chief!"
"Oh, dry up!"
There were some reporters near them waiting for particulars. He
recognized them and went up to them.
"You can say, gentlemen, that from to-day I am taking up the defence of
Marie Fauville and devoting myself entirely to her cause."
They all protested: was it not he who had had Mme. Fauville arrested? Was
it not he who had collected a heap of convicting proofs against her?
"I shall demolish those proofs one by one," he said. "Marie Fauville is
the victim of wretches who have hatched the most diabolical plot against
her, and whom I am about to deliver up to justice."
"But the teeth! The marks of the teeth!"
"A coincidence! An unparalleled coincidence, but one which now strikes me
as a most powerful proof of innocence. I tell you that, if Marie Fauville
had been clever enough to commit all those murders, she would also have
been clever enough not to leave behind her a fruit bearing the marks of
her two rows of teeth."
"But still--"
"She is innocent! And that is what I am going to tell the examining
magistrate. She must be informed of the efforts that are being made in
her favour. She must be given hope at once. If not, the poor thing will
kill herself and her death will be on the conscience of all who accused
an innocent woman. She must--"
At that moment he interrupted himself. His eyes were fixed on one of the
journalists who was standing a little way off listening to him and
taking notes.
He whispered to Mazeroux:
"Could you manage to find out that beggar's name? I can't remember where
on earth I've seen him before."
But an usher now opened the door of the examining magistrate, who, on
receiving Don Perenna's card, had asked to see him at once. He stepped
forward and was about to enter the room with Mazeroux, when he suddenly
turned to his companion with a cry of rage:
"It's he! It was Sauverand in disguise. Stop him! He's made off. Run,
can't you?"
He himself darted away followed by Mazeroux and a number of warders and
journalists, He soon outdistanced them, so that, three minutes later, he
heard no one more behind him. He had rushed down the staircase of the
"Mousetrap," and through the subway leading from one courtyard to the
other. Here two people told him that they had met a man walking at a
smart pace.
The track was a false one. He became aware of this, hunted about, lost a
good deal of time, and managed to discover that Sauverand had left by the
Boulevard du Palais and joined a very pretty, fair-haired woman--Florence
Levasseur, obviously--on the Quai de l'Horloge. They had both got into
the motor bus that runs from the Place Saint-Michel to the Gare
Saint-Lazare.
Don Luis went back to a lonely little street where he had left his car in
the charge of a boy. He set the engine going and drove at full speed to
the Gare Saint-Lazare, From the omnibus shelter he went off on a fresh
track which also proved to be wrong, lost quite another hour, returned to
the terminus, and ended by learning for certain that Florence had stepped
by herself into a motor bus which would take her toward the Place du
Palais-Bourbon. Contrary to all his expectations, therefore, the girl
must have gone home.
The thought of seeing her again roused his anger to its highest pitch.
All the way down the Rue Royale and across the Place de la Concorde he
kept blurting out words of revenge and threats which he was itching to
carry out. He would abuse Florence. He would sting her with his insults.
He felt a bitter and painful need to hurt the odious creature.
But on reaching the Place du Palais-Bourbon he pulled up short. His
practised eye had counted at a glance, on the right and left, a
half-dozen men whose professional look there was no mistaking. And
Mazeroux, who had caught sight of him, had spun round on his heel and was
hiding under a gateway.
He called him:
"Mazeroux!"
The sergeant appeared greatly surprised to hear his name and came up
to the car.
"Hullo, the Chief!"
His face expressed such embarrassment that Don Luis felt his fears taking
definite shape.
"Look here, is it for me that you and your men are hanging about outside
my house?"
"There's a notion, Chief," replied Mazeroux, looking very uncomfortable.
"You know that you're in favour all right!"
Don Luis gave a start. He understood. Mazeroux had betrayed his
confidence. To obey his scruples of conscience as well as to rescue the
chief from the dangers of a fatal passion, Mazeroux had denounced
Florence Levasseur.
Perenna clenched his fists in an effort of his whole being to stifle his
boiling rage. It was a terrible blow. He received a sudden intuition of
all the blunders which his mad jealousy had made him commit since the day
before, and a presentiment of the irreparable disasters that might result
from them. The conduct of events was slipping from him.
"Have you the warrant?" he asked.
Mazeroux spluttered:
"It was quite by accident. I met the Prefect, who was back. We spoke of
the young lady's business. And, as it happened, they had discovered that
the photograph--you know, the photograph of Florence Levasseur which the
Prefect lent you--well, they have discovered that you faked it. And then
when I mentioned the name of Florence, the Prefect remembered that that
was the name."
"Have you the warrant?" Don Luis repeated, in a harsher tone.
"Well, you see, I couldn't help it.... M. Desmalions, the magistrate--"
If the Place du Palais Bourbon had been deserted at that moment, Don
Luis would certainly have relieved himself by a swinging blow
administered to Mazeroux's chin according to the most scientific rules
of the noble art. And Mazeroux foresaw this contingency, for he
prudently kept as far away as possible and, to appease the chief's
anger, intended a whole litany of excuses:
"It was for your good, Chief.... I had to do it ... Only think! You
yourself told me: 'Rid me of the creature!' said you. I'm too weak.
You'll arrest her, won't you? Her eyes burn into me--like poison! Well,
Chief, could I help it? No, I couldn't, could I? Especially as the
deputy chief--"
"Ah! So Weber knows?"
"Why, yes! The Prefect is a little suspicious of you since he understood
about the faking of the portrait. So M. Weber is coming back in an hour,
perhaps, with reinforcements. Well, I was saying, the deputy chief had
learnt that the woman who used to go to Gaston Sauverand's at
Neuilly--you know, the house on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace--was fair
and very good looking, and that her name was Florence. She even used to
stay the night sometimes."
"You lie! You lie!" hissed Perenna.
All his spite was reviving. He had been pursuing Florence with intentions
which it would have been difficult for him to put into words. And now
suddenly he again wanted to destroy her; and this time consciously. In
reality he no longer knew what he was doing. He was acting at haphazard,
tossed about in turns by the most diverse passions, a prey to that
inordinate love which impels us as readily to kill the object of our
affections as to die in an attempt to save her.
A newsboy passed with a special edition of the _Paris-Midi_, showing in
great black letters:
"SENSATIONAL DECLARATION BY DON LUIS PERENNA
"MME. FAUVILLE IS INNOCENT.
"IMMINENT ARREST OF THE TWO CRIMINALS"
"Yes, yes," he said aloud. "The drama is drawing to an end. Florence is
about to pay her debt to society. So much the worse for her."
He started his car again and drove through the gate. In the courtyard he
said to his chauffeur, who came up:
"Turn her around and don't put her up. I may be starting again at
any moment."
He sprang out and asked the butler:
"Is Mlle. Levasseur in?"
"Yes, sir, she's in her room."
"She was away yesterday, wasn't she?"
"Yes, sir, she received a telegram asking her to go to the country to see
a relation who was ill. She came back last night."
"I want to speak to her. Send her to me. At once."
"In the study, sir?"
"No, upstairs, in the boudoir next to my bedroom."
This was a small room on the second floor which had once been a lady's
boudoir, and he preferred it to his study since the attempt at murder of
which he had been the object. He was quieter up there, farther away; and
he kept his important papers there. He always carried the key with him: a
special key with three grooves to it and an inner spring.
Mazeroux had followed him into the courtyard and was keeping close behind
him, apparently unobserved by Perenna, who having so far appeared not to
notice it. He now, however, took the sergeant by the arm and led him to
the front steps.
"All is going well. I was afraid that Florence, suspecting something,
might not have come back. But she probably doesn't know that I saw her
yesterday. She can't escape us now."
They went across the hall and up the stairs to the first floor. Mazeroux
rubbed his hands.
"So you've come to your senses, Chief?"
"At any rate I've made up my mind. I will not, do you hear, I will not
have Mme. Fauville kill herself; and, as there is no other way of
preventing that catastrophe, I shall sacrifice Florence."
"Without regret?"
"Without remorse."
"Then you forgive me?"
"I thank you."
And he struck him a clean, powerful blow under the chin. Mazeroux fell
without a moan, in a dead faint on the steps of the second flight.
Halfway up the stairs was a dark recess that served as a lumber room
where the servants kept their pails and brooms and the soiled household
linen. Don Luis carried Mazeroux to it, and, seating him comfortably on
the floor, with his back to a housemaid's box, he stuffed his
handkerchief into his mouth, gagged him with a towel, and bound his
wrists and ankles with two tablecloths. The other ends of these he
fastened to a couple of strong nails. As Mazeroux was slowly coming to
himself, Don Luis said:
"I think you have all you want. Tablecloths--napkins--something in your
mouth in case you're hungry. Eat at your ease. And then take a little
nap, and you'll wake up as fresh as paint."
He locked him in and glanced at his watch.
"I have an hour before me. Capital!"
At that moment his intention was to insult Florence, to throw up all her
scandalous crimes in her face, and, in this way, to force a written and
signed confession from her. Afterward, when Marie Fauville's safety was
insured, he would see. Perhaps he would put Florence in his motor and
carry her off to some refuge from which, with the girl for a hostage, he
would be able to influence the police. Perhaps--But he did not seek to
anticipate events. What he wanted was an immediate, violent explanation.
He ran up to his bedroom on the second floor and dipped his face into
cold water. Never had he experienced such a stimulation of his whole
being, such an unbridling of his blind instincts.
"It's she!" he spluttered. "I hear her! She is at the bottom of the
stairs. At last! Oh, the joy of having her in front of me! Face to face!
She and I alone!"
He returned to the landing outside the boudoir. He took the key from his
pocket. The door opened.
He uttered a great shout: Gaston Sauverand was there! In that locked room
Gaston Sauverand was waiting for him, standing with folded arms.
CHAPTER TEN
GASTON SAUVERAND EXPLAINS
Gaston Sauverand!
Instinctively, Don Luis took a step back, drew his revolver, and aimed it
at the criminal:
"Hands up!" he commanded. "Hands up, or I fire!"
Sauverand did not appear to be put out. He nodded toward two revolvers
which he had laid on a table beyond his reach and said:
"There are my arms. I have come here not to fight, but to talk."
"How did you get in?" roared Don Luis, exasperated by this display of
calmness. "A false key, I suppose? But how did you get hold of the key?
How did you manage it?"
The other did not reply. Don Luis stamped his foot:
"Speak, will you? Speak! If not--"
But Florence ran into the room. She passed him by without his trying to
stop her, flung herself upon Gaston Sauverand, and, taking no heed of
Perenna's presence, said:
"Why did you come? You promised me that you wouldn't. You swore it
to me. Go!"
Sauverand released himself and forced her into a chair.
"Let me be, Florence. I promised only so as to reassure you. Let me be."
"No, I will not!" exclaimed the girl eagerly. "It's madness! I won't have
you say a single word. Oh, please, please stop!"
He bent over her and smoothed her forehead, separating her mass of
golden hair.
"Let me do things my own way, Florence," he said softly.
She was silent, as though disarmed by the gentleness of his voice; and he
whispered more words which Don Luis could not hear and which seemed to
convince her.
Perenna had not moved. He stood opposite them with his arm outstretched
and his finger on the trigger, aiming at the enemy. When Sauverand
addressed Florence by her Christian name, he started from head to foot
and his finger trembled. What miracle kept him from shooting? By what
supreme effort of will did he stifle the jealous hatred that burnt him
like fire? And here was Sauverand daring to stroke Florence's hair!
He lowered his arm. He would kill them later, do with them what he
pleased, since they were in his power, and since nothing henceforth could
snatch them from his vengeance.
He took Sauverand's two revolvers and laid them in a drawer. Then he went
back to the door, intending to lock it. But hearing a sound on the
first-floor landing, he leant over the balusters. The butler was coming
upstairs with a tray in his hand.
"What is it now?"
"An urgent letter, sir, for Sergeant Mazeroux."
"Sergeant Mazeroux is with me. Give me the letter and don't let me be
disturbed again."
He tore open the envelope. The letter, hurriedly written in pencil and
signed by one of the inspectors on duty outside the house, contained
these words:
"Look out, Sergeant. Gaston Sauverand is in the house. Two people living
opposite say that the girl who is known hereabouts as the lady
housekeeper came in at half-past one, before we took up our posts. She
was next seen at the window of her lodge.
"A few moments after, a small, low door, used for the cellars and
situated under the lodge, was opened, evidently by her. Almost at the
same time a man entered the square, came along the wall, and slipped in
through the cellar door. According to the description it was Gaston
Sauverand. So look out, Sergeant. At the least alarm, at the first signal
from you, we shall come in."
Don Luis reflected. He now understood how the scoundrel had access to his
house, and how, hidden in the safest of retreats, he was able to escape
every attempt to find him. He was living under the roof of the very man
who had declared himself his most formidable adversary.
"Come on," he said to himself. "The fellow's score is settled--and so is
his young lady's. They can choose between the bullets in my revolver and
the handcuffs of the police."
He had ceased to think of his motor standing ready below. He no longer
dreamt of flight with Florence. If he did not kill the two of them, the
law would lay its hand upon them, the hand that does not let go. And
perhaps it was better so, that society itself should punish the two
criminals whom he was about to hand over to it.
He shut the door, pushed the bolt, faced his two prisoners again and,
taking a chair, said to Sauverand:
"Let us talk."
Owing to the narrow dimensions of the room they were all so close
together that Don Luis felt as if he were almost touching the man whom he
loathed from the very bottom of his heart. Their two chairs were hardly a
yard asunder. A long table, covered with books, stood between them and
the windows, which, hollowed out of the very thick wall, formed a recess,
as is usual in old houses.
Florence had turned her chair away from the light, and Don Luis could not
see her face clearly. But he looked straight into Gaston Sauverand's face
and watched it with eager curiosity; and his anger was heightened by the
sight of the still youthful features, the expressive mouth, and the
intelligent eyes, which were fine in spite of their hardness.
"Well? Speak!" said Don Luis, in a commanding tone. "I have agreed to a
truce, but a momentary truce, just long enough to say what is necessary.
Are you afraid now that the time has arrived? Do you regret the step
which you have taken?"
The man smiled calmly and said:
"I am afraid of nothing, and I do not regret coming, for I have a very
strong intuition that we can, that we are bound to, come to an
understanding."
"An understanding!" protested Don Luis with a start.
"Why not?"
"A compact! An alliance between you and me!"
"Why not? It is a thought which I had already entertained more than once,
which took a more precise shape in the magistrates' corridor, and which
finally decided me when I read the announcement which you caused to be
made in the special edition of this paper: 'Sensational declaration by
Don Luis Perenna. Mme. Fauville is innocent!'"
Gaston Sauverand half rose from his chair and, carefully picking his
words, emphasizing them with sharp gestures, he whispered:
"Everything lies, Monsieur, in those four words. Do those four words
which you have written, which you have uttered publicly and
solemnly--'Mme. Fauville is innocent'--do they express your real mind? Do
you now absolutely believe in Marie Fauville's innocence?"
Don Luis shrugged his shoulders.
"Mme. Fauville's innocence has nothing to do with the case. It is a
question not of her, but of you, of you two and myself. So come straight
to the point and as quickly as you can. It is to your interest even more
than to mine."
"To our interest?"
"You forget the third heading to the article," cried Don Luis. "I did
more than proclaim Marie Fauville's innocence. I also announced--read for
yourself--The 'imminent arrest of the criminals.'"
Sauverand and Florence rose together, with the same unguarded movement.
"And, in your view, the criminals are--?" asked Sauverand.
"Why, you know as well as I do: they are the man with the ebony
walking-stick, who at any rate cannot deny having murdered Chief
Inspector Ancenis, and the woman who is his accomplice in all his crimes.
Both of them must remember their attempts to assassinate me: the revolver
shot on the Boulevard Suchet; the motor smash causing the death of my
chauffeur; and yesterday again, in the barn--you know where--the barn
with the two skeletons hanging from the rafters: yesterday--you
remember--the scythe, the relentless scythe, which nearly beheaded me."
"And then?"
"Well, then, the game is lost. You must pay up; and all the more so as
you have foolishly put your heads into the lion's mouth."
"I don't understand. What does all this mean?"
"It simply means that they know Florence Levasseur, that they know you
are both here, that the house is surrounded, and that Weber, the deputy
chief detective, is on his way."
Sauverand appeared disconcerted by this unexpected threat. Florence,
standing beside him, had turned livid. A mad anguish distorted her
features. She stammered:
"Oh, it is awful! No, no, I can't endure it!"
And, rushing at Don Luis:
"Coward! Coward! It's you who are betraying us! Coward! Oh, I knew that
you were capable of the meanest treachery! There you stand like an
executioner! Oh, you villain, you coward!"
She fell into her chair, exhausted and sobbing, with her hand to her
face.
Don Luis turned away. Strange to say, he experienced no sense of pity;
and Florence's tears affected him no more than her insults had done, no
more than if he had never loved the girl. He was glad of this release.
The horror with which she filled him had killed his love.
But, when he once more stood in front of them after taking a few steps
across the room, he saw that they were holding each other's hands, like
two friends in distress, trying to give each other courage; and, again
yielding to a sudden impulse of hatred, for a moment beside himself, he
gripped the man's arm:
"I forbid you--By what right--? Is she your wife? Your mistress? Then--"
His voice became perplexed. He himself felt the strangeness of that fit
of anger which suddenly revealed, in all its force and all its blindness,
a passion which he thought dead. And he blushed, for Gaston Sauverand was
looking at him in amazement; and he did not doubt that the enemy had
penetrated his secret.
A long pause followed, during which he met Florence's eyes, hostile eyes,
full of rebellion and disdain. Had she, too, guessed?
He dared not speak another word. He waited for Sauverand's explanation.
And, while waiting, he gave not a thought to the coming revelations, nor
to the tremendous problems of which he was at last about to know the
solution, nor to the tragic events at hand.
He thought of one thing only, thought of it with the fevered throbbing of
his whole being, thought of what he was on the point of learning about
Florence, about the girl's affections, about her past, about her love for
Sauverand. That alone interested him.
"Very well," said Sauverand. "I am caught in a trap. Fate must take its
course. Nevertheless, can I speak to you? It is the only wish that
remains to me."
"Speak," replied Don Luis. "The door is locked. I shall not open it until
I think fit. Speak."
"I shall be brief," said Gaston Sauverand. "For one thing, what I can
tell you is not much. I do not ask you to believe it, but to listen to it
as if I were possibly telling the truth, the whole truth."
And he expressed himself in the following words:
"I never met Hippolyte and Marie Fauville, though I used to correspond
with them--you will remember that we were all cousins--until five
years ago, when chance brought us together at Palmero. They were
passing the winter there while their new house on the Boulevard Suchet
was being built.
"We spent five months at Palmero, seeing one another daily. Hippolyte and
Marie were not on the best of terms. One evening after they had been
quarrelling more violently than usual I found her crying. Her tears upset
me and I could not longer conceal my secret. I had loved Marie from the
first moment when we met. I was to love her always and to love her more
and more."
"You lie!" cried Don Luis, losing his self-restraint. "I saw the two of
you yesterday in the train that brought you back from Alençon--"
Gaston Sauverand looked at Florence. She sat silent, with her hands to
her face and her elbows on her knees. Without replying to Don Luis's
exclamation, he went on:
"Marie also loved me. She admitted it, but made me swear that I would
never try to obtain from her more than the purest friendship would allow.
I kept my oath. We enjoyed a few weeks of incomparable happiness.
Hippolyte Fauville, who had become enamoured of a music-hall singer, was
often away.
"I took a good deal of trouble with the physical training of the little
boy Edmond, whose health was not what it should be. And we also had with
us, between us, the best of friends, the most devoted and affectionate
counsellor, who staunched our wounds, kept up our courage, restored our
gayety, and bestowed some of her own strength and dignity upon our love.
Florence was there."
Don Luis felt his heart beating faster. Not that he attached the least
credit to Gaston Sauverand's words; but he had every hope of arriving,
through those words, at the real truth. Perhaps, also, he was
unconsciously undergoing the influence of Gaston Sauverand, whose
apparent frankness and sincerity of tone caused him a certain surprise.
Sauverand continued:
"Fifteen years before, my elder brother, Raoul Sauverand, had picked up
at Buenos Aires, where he had gone to live, a little girl, the orphan
daughter of some friends. At his death he entrusted the child, who was
then fourteen, to an old nurse who had brought me up and who had
accompanied my brother to South America. The old nurse brought the child
to me and herself died of an accident a few days after her arrival in
France.... I took the little girl to Italy to friends, where she worked
and studied and became--what she is.
"Wishing to live by her own resources, she accepted a position as teacher
in a family. Later I recommended her to my Fauville cousins with whom I
found her at Palmero as governess to the boy Edmond and especially as the
friend, the dear and devoted friend, of Marie Fauville.... She was mine,
also, at that happy time, which was so sunny and all too short. Our
happiness, in fact--the happiness of all three of us--was to be wrecked
in the most sudden and tantalizing fashion.
"Every evening I used to write in a diary the daily life of my love, an
uneventful life, without hope or future before it, but eager and radiant.
Marie Fauville was extolled in it as a goddess. Kneeling down to write, I
sang litanies of her beauty, and I also used to invent, as a poor
compensation, wholly imaginary scenes, in which she said all the things
which she might have said but did not, and promised me all the happiness
which we had voluntarily renounced.
"Hippolyte Fauville found the diary.... His anger was something terrible.
His first impulse was to get rid of Marie. But in the face of his wife's
attitude, of the proofs of her innocence which she supplied, of her
inflexible refusal to consent to a divorce, and of her promise never to
see me again, he recovered his calmness.... I left, with death in my
soul. Florence left, too, dismissed. And never, mark me, never, since
that fatal hour, did I exchange a single word with Marie. But an
indestructible love united us, a love which neither absence nor time was
to weaken."
He stopped for a moment, as though to read in Don Luis's face the effect
produced by his story. Don Luis did not conceal his anxious attention.
What astonished him most was Gaston Sauverand's extraordinary calmness,
the peaceful expression of his eyes, the quiet ease with which he set
forth, without hurrying, almost slowly and so very simply, the story of
that family tragedy.
"What an actor!" he thought.
And as he thought it, he remembered that Marie Fauville had given him the
same impression. Was he then to hark back to his first conviction and
believe Marie guilty, a dissembler like her accomplice, a dissembler like
Florence? Or was he to attribute a certain honesty to that man?
He asked:
"And afterward?"
"Afterward I travelled about. I resumed my life of work and pursued my
studies wherever I went, in my bedroom at the hotels, and in the public
laboratories of the big towns."
"And Mme. Fauville?"
"She lived in Paris in her new house. Neither she nor her husband ever
referred to the past."
"How do you know? Did she write to you?"
"No. Marie is a woman who does not do her duty by halves; and her sense
of duty is strict to excess. She never wrote to me. But Florence, who had
accepted a place as secretary and reader to Count Malonyi, your
predecessor in this house, used often to receive Marie's visits in her
lodge downstairs.
"They did not speak of me once, did they, Florence? Marie would not have
allowed it. But all her life and all her soul were nothing but love and
passionate memories. Isn't that so, Florence?
"At last," he went on slowly, "weary of being so far away from her, I
returned to Paris. That was our undoing.... It was about a year ago. I
took a flat in the Avenue du Roule and went to it in the greatest
secrecy, so that Hippolyte Fauville might not know of my return. I was
afraid of disturbing Marie's peace of mind. Florence alone knew, and came
to see me from time to time. I went out little, only after dark, and in
the most secluded parts of the Bois. But it happened--for our most heroic
resolutions sometimes fail us--one Wednesday night, at about eleven
o'clock, my steps led me to the Boulevard Suchet, without my noticing it,
and I went past Marie's house.
"It was a warm and fine night and, as luck would have it, Marie was at
her window. She saw me, I was sure of it, and knew me; and my happiness
was so great that my legs shook under me as I walked away.
"After that I passed in front of her house every Wednesday evening; and
Marie was nearly always there, giving me this unhoped-for and ever-new
delight, in spite of the fact that her social duties, her quite natural
love of amusement, and her husband's position obliged her to go out a
great deal."
"Quick! Why can't you hurry?" said Don Luis, urged by his longing to know
more. "Look sharp and come to the facts. Speak!"
He had become suddenly afraid lest he should not hear the remainder of
the explanation; and he suddenly perceived that Gaston Sauverand's words
were making their way into his mind as words that were perhaps not
untrue. Though he strove to fight against them, they were stronger than
his prejudices and triumphed over his arguments.
The fact is, that deep down in his soul, tortured with love and jealousy,
there was something that disposed him to believe this man in whom
hitherto he had seen only a hated rival, and who was so loudly
proclaiming, in Florence's very presence, his love for Marie.
"Hurry!" he repeated. "Every minute is precious!"
Sauverand shook his head.
"I shall not hurry. All my words were carefully thought out before I
decided to speak. Every one of them is essential. Not one of them can be
omitted, for you will find the solution of the problem not in facts
presented anyhow, separated one from the other, but in the concatenation
of the facts, and in a story told as faithfully as possible."
"Why? I don't understand."
"Because the truth lies hidden in that story."
"But that truth is your innocence, isn't it?"
"It is Marie's innocence."
"But I don't dispute it!"
"What is the use of that if you can't prove it?"
"Exactly! It's for you to give me proofs."
"I have none."
"What!"
"I tell you, I have no proof of what I am asking you to believe."
"Then I shall not believe it!" cried Don Luis angrily. "No, and again no!
Unless you supply me with the most convincing proofs, I shall refuse to
believe a single word of what you are going to tell me."
"You have believed everything that I have told you so far," Sauverand
retorted very simply.
Don Luis offered no denial. He turned his eyes to Florence Levasseur; and
it seemed to him that she was looking at him with less aversion, and as
though she were wishing with all her might that he would not resist the
impressions that were forcing themselves upon him. He muttered:
"Go on with your story."
And there was something really strange about the attitude of those two
men, one making his explanation in precise terms and in such a way as to
give every word its full value, the other listening attentively and
weighing every one of those words; both controlling their excitement;
both as calm in appearance as though they were seeking the philosophical
solution in a case of conscience. What was going on outside did not
matter. What was to happen presently did not count.
Before all, whatever the consequences of their inactivity at this moment
when the circle of the police was closing in around them, before all it
was necessary that one should speak and the other listen.
"We are coming," said Sauverand, in his grave voice, "we are coming to
the most important events, to those of which the interpretation, which is
new to you, but strictly true, will make you believe in our good faith.
Ill luck having brought me across Hippolyte Fauville's path in the course
of one of my walks in the Bois, I took the precaution of changing my
abode and went to live in the little house on the Boulevard
Richard-Wallace, where Florence came to see me several times.
"I was even careful to keep her visits a secret and, moreover, to refrain
from corresponding with her except through the _poste restante_. I was
therefore quite easy in my mind.
"I worked in perfect solitude and in complete security. I expected
nothing. No danger, no possibility of danger, threatened us. And, I may
say, to use a commonplace but very accurate expression, that what
happened came as an absolute bolt from the blue. I heard at the same
time, when the Prefect of Police and his men broke into my house and
proceeded to arrest me, I heard at the same time and for the first time
of the murder of Hippolyte Fauville, the murder of Edmond, and the arrest
of my adored Marie."
"Impossible!" cried Don Luis, in a renewed tone of aggressive wrath.
"Impossible! Those facts were a fortnight old. I cannot allow that you
had not heard of them."
"Through whom?"
"Through the papers," exclaimed Don Luis. "And, more certainly still,
through Mlle. Levasseur."
"Through the papers?" said Sauverand. "I never used to read them. What!
Is that incredible? Are we under an obligation, an inevitable necessity,
to waste half an hour a day in skimming through the futilities of
politics and the piffle of the news columns? Is your imagination
incapable of conceiving a man who reads nothing but reviews and
scientific publications?
"The fact is rare, I admit," he continued. "But the rarity of a fact is
no proof against it. On the other hand, on the very morning of the crime
I had written to Florence saying that I was going away for three weeks
and bidding her good-bye. I changed my mind at the last moment; but this
she did not know; and, thinking that I had gone, not knowing where I was,
she was unable to inform me of the crime, of Marie's arrest, or, later,
when an accusation was brought against the man with the ebony
walking-stick, of the search that was being made for me."
"Exactly!" declared Don Luis. "You cannot pretend that the man with the
ebony walking-stick, the man who followed Inspector Vérot to the Café du
Pont-Neuf and purloined his letter--"
"I am not the man," Sauverand interrupted.
And, when Don Luis shrugged his shoulders, he insisted, in a more
forcible tone of voice:
"I am not that man. There is some inexplicable mistake in all this, but I
have never set foot in the Café du Pont-Neuf. I swear it. You must accept
this statement as positively true. Besides, it agrees entirely with the
retired life which I was leading from necessity and from choice. And, I
repeat, I knew nothing.
"The thunderbolt was unexpected. And it was precisely for this reason,
you must understand, that the shock produced in me an equally unexpected
reaction, a state of mind diametrically opposed to my real nature, an
outburst of my most savage and primitive instincts. Remember, Monsieur,
that they had laid hands upon what to me was the most sacred thing on
earth. Marie was in prison. Marie was accused of committing two
murders!... I went mad.
"At first controlling myself, playing a part with the Prefect of Police,
then overthrowing every obstacle, shooting Chief Inspector Ancenis,
shaking off Sergeant Mazeroux, jumping from the window, I had only one
thought in my head--that of escape. Once free, I should save Marie. Were
there people in my way? So much the worse for them.
"By what right did those people dare to attack the most blameless of
women? I killed only one man that day! I would have killed ten! I would
have killed twenty! What was Chief Inspector Ancenis's life to me? What
cared I for the lives of any of those wretches? They stood between Marie
and myself; and Marie was in prison!"
Gaston Sauverand made an effort which contracted every muscle of his face
to recover the coolness that was gradually leaving him. He succeeded in
doing so, but his voice, nevertheless, remained tremulous, and the fever
with which he was consumed shook his frame in a manner which he was
unable to conceal.
He continued:
"At the corner of the street down which I turned after outdistancing the
Prefect's men on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, Florence saved me just as
I believed that all was lost. Florence had known everything for a
fortnight past. She learnt the news of the double murder from the papers,
those papers which she used to read out to you, and which you discussed
with her. And it was by being with you, by listening to you, that she
acquired the opinion which everything that happened tended to confirm:
the opinion that Marie's enemy, her only enemy, was yourself."
"But why? Why?"
"Because she saw you at work," exclaimed Sauverand, "because it was more
to your interest than to that of any one else that first Marie and then I
should not come between you and the Mornington inheritance, and lastly--"
"What?"
Gaston Sauverand hesitated and then said, plainly:
"Lastly, because she knew your real name beyond a doubt, and because she
felt that Arsène Lupin was capable of anything."
They were both silent; and their silence, at such a moment, was
impressive to a degree. Florence remained impassive under Don Luis
Perenna's gaze; and he was unable to discern on her sealed face any of
the feelings with which she must needs be stirred.
Gaston Sauverand continued:
"It was against Arsène Lupin, therefore, that Florence, Marie's terrified
friend, engaged in the struggle. It was to unmask Lupin that she wrote or
rather inspired the article of which you found the original in a ball of
string. It was Lupin whom she spied upon, day by day, in this house. It
was Lupin whom she heard one morning telephoning to Sergeant Mazeroux and
rejoicing in my imminent arrest. It was to save me from Lupin that she
let down the iron curtain in front of him, at the risk of an accident,
and took a taxi to the corner of the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, where she
arrived too late to warn me, as the detectives had already entered my
house, but in time to screen me from their pursuit.
"Her mistrust and terror-stricken hatred of you were told to me in an
instant," Sauverand declared. "During the twenty minutes which we
employed in throwing our assailants off the scent, she hurriedly sketched
the main lines of the business and described to me in a few words the
leading part which you were playing in it; and we then and there prepared
a counter-attack upon you, so that you might be suspected of complicity.
"While I was sending a message to the Prefect of Police, Florence went
home and hid under the cushions of your sofa the end of the stick
which I had kept in my hand without thinking. It was an ineffective
parry and missed its aim. But the fight had begun; and I threw myself
into it headlong.
"Monsieur, to understand my actions thoroughly, you must remember that I
was a student, a man leading a solitary life, but also an ardent lover. I
would have spent all my life in work, asking no more from fate than to
see Marie at her window from time to time at night. But, once she was
being persecuted, another man arose within me, a man of action, bungling,
certainly, and inexperienced, but a man who was ready to stick at
nothing, and who, not knowing how to save Marie Fauville, had no other
object before him than to do away with that enemy of Marie's to whom he
was entitled to ascribe all the misfortunes that had befallen the woman
he loved.... This started the series of my attempts upon your life.
Brought into your house, concealed in Florence's own rooms, I
tried--unknown to her: that I swear--to poison you."
He paused for an instant to mark the effect of his words, then went on:
"Her reproaches, her abhorrence of such an act, would perhaps have moved
me, but, I repeat, I was mad, quite mad; and your death seemed to me to
imply Marie's safety. And, one morning, on the Boulevard Suchet, where I
had followed you, I fired a revolver at you.
"The same evening your motor car, tampered with by myself--remember,
Florence's rooms are close to the garage--carried you, I hoped, to your
death, together with Sergeant Mazeroux, your confederate.... That time
again you escaped my vengeance. But an innocent man, the chauffeur who
drove you, paid for you with his life; and Florence's despair was such
that I had to yield to her entreaties and lay down my arms.
"I myself, terrified by what I had done, shattered by the remembrance of
my two victims, changed my plans and thought only of saving Marie by
contriving her escape from prison....
"I am a rich man. I lavished money upon Marie's warders, without,
however, revealing my intentions. I entered into relations with the
prison tradesmen and the staff of the infirmary. And every day, having
procured a card of admission as a law reporter, I went to the law courts,
to the examining magistrates' corridor, where I hoped to meet Marie, to
encourage her with a look, a gesture, perhaps to slip a few words of
comfort into her hand...."
Sauverand moved closer to Don Luis.
"Her martyrdom continued. You struck her a most terrible blow with that
mysterious business of Hippolyte Fauville's letters. What did those
letters mean? Where did they come from? Were we not entitled to
attribute the whole plot to you, to you who introduced them into the
horrible struggle?
"Florence watched you, I may say, night and day. We sought for a clue, a
glimmer of light in the darkness.... Well, yesterday morning, Florence
saw Sergeant Mazeroux arrive. She could not overhear what he said to you,
but she caught the name of a certain Langernault and the name of Damigni,
the village where Langernault lived. She remembered that old friend of
Hippolyte Fauville's. Were the letters not addressed to him and was it
not in search of him that you were going off in the motor with Sergeant
Mazeroux?...
"Half an hour later we were in the train for Alençon. A carriage took us
from the station to just outside Damigni, where we made our inquiries
with every possible precaution. On learning what you must also know, that
Langernault was dead, we resolved to visit his place, and we had
succeeded in effecting an entrance when Florence saw you in the grounds.
Wishing at all costs to avoid a meeting between you and myself, she
dragged me across the lawn and behind the bushes. You followed us,
however, and when a barn appeared in sight she pushed one of the doors
which half opened and let us through. We managed to slip quickly through
the lumber in the dark and knocked up against a ladder. This we climbed
and reached a loft in which we took shelter. You entered at that
moment....
"You know the rest: how you discovered the two hanging skeletons; how
your attention was drawn to us by an imprudent movement of Florence; your
attack, to which I replied by brandishing the first weapon with which
chance provided me; lastly, our flight through the window in the roof,
under the fire of your revolver. We were free. But in the evening, in the
train, Florence fainted. While bringing her to I perceived that one of
your bullets had wounded her in the shoulder. The wound was slight and
did not hurt her, but it was enough to increase the extreme tension of
her nerves. When you saw us--at Le Mans station wasn't it?--she was
asleep, with her head on my shoulder."
Don Luis had not once interrupted the latter part of this narrative,
which was told in a more and more agitated voice and quickened by an
accent of profound truth. Thanks to a superhuman effort of attention, he
noted Sauverand's least words and actions in his mind. And as these words
were uttered and these actions performed, he received the impression of
another woman who rose up beside the real Florence, a woman unspotted and
innocent of all the shame which he had attributed to her on the strength
of events.
Nevertheless, he did not yet give in. How could Florence possibly be
innocent? No, no, the evidence of his eyes, which had seen, and the
evidence of his reason, which had judged, both rebelled against any such
contention.
He would not admit that Florence could suddenly be different from what
she really was to him: a crafty, cunning, cruel, blood-thirsty monster.
No, no, the man was lying with infernal cleverness. He put things with a
skill amounting to genius, until it was no longer possible to
differentiate between the false and the true, or to distinguish the light
from the darkness.
He was lying! He was lying! And yet how sweet were the lies he told! How
beautiful was that imaginary Florence, the Florence compelled by destiny
to commit acts which she loathed, but free of all crime, free of remorse,
humane and pitiful, with her clear eyes and her snow-white hands! And how
good it was to yield to this fantastic dream!
Gaston Sauverand was watching the face of his former enemy. Standing
close to Don Luis, his features lit up with the expression of
feelings and passions which he no longer strove to check, he asked,
in a low voice:
"You believe me, don't you?"
"No, I don't," said Perenna, hardening himself to resist the man's
influence.
"You must!" cried Sauverand, with a fierce outburst of violence. "You
must believe in the strength of my love. It is the cause of everything.
My hatred for you comes only from my love. Marie is my life. If she were
dead, there would be nothing for me to do but die. Oh, this morning, when
I read in the papers that the poor woman had opened her veins--and
through your fault, after Hippolyte's letters accusing her--I did not
want to kill you so much as to inflict upon you the most barbarous
tortures! My poor Marie, what a martyrdom she must be enduring!...
"As you were not back, Florence and I wandered about all morning to have
news of her: first around the prison, next to the police office and the
law courts. And it was there, in the magistrates' corridor, that I saw
you. At that moment you were mentioning Marie Fauville's name to a number
of journalists; and you told them that Marie Fauville was innocent; and
you informed them of the evidence which you possessed in Marie's favour!
"My hatred ceased then and there, Monsieur. In one second the enemy had
become the ally, the master to whom one kneels. So you had had the
wonderful courage to repudiate all your work and to devote yourself to
Marie's rescue! I ran off, trembling with joy and hope, and, as I joined
Florence, I shouted, 'Marie is saved! He proclaims her innocent! I must
see him and speak to him!'...
"We came back here. Florence refused to lay down her arms and begged me
not to carry out my plan before your new attitude in the case was
confirmed by deeds. I promised everything that she asked. But my mind was
made up. And my will was still further strengthened when I had read your
declaration in the newspaper. I would place Marie's fate in your hands
whatever happened and without an hour's delay, I waited for your return
and came up here."
He was no longer the same man who had displayed such coolness at the
commencement of the interview. Exhausted by his efforts and by a struggle
that had lasted for weeks, costing him so much fruitless energy, he was
now trembling; and clinging to Don Luis, with one of his knees on the
chair beside which Don Luis was standing, he stammered:
"Save her, I implore you! You have it in your power. Yes, you can do
anything. I learnt to know you in fighting you. There was more than
your genius defending you against me; there is a luck that protects
you. You are different from other men. Why, the mere fact of your not
killing me at once, though I had pursued you so savagely, the fact of
your listening to the inconceivable truth of the innocence of all three
of us and accepting it as admissible, surely these constitute an
unprecedented miracle.
"While I was waiting for you and preparing to speak to you, I received
an intuition of it all!" he exclaimed. "I saw clearly that the man who
was proclaiming Marie's innocence with nothing to guide him but his
reason, I saw that this man alone could save her and that he would save
her. Ah, I beseech you, save her--and save her at once. Otherwise it
will be too late.
"In a few days Marie will have ended her life. She cannot go on living in
prison. You see, she means to die. No obstacle can prevent her. Can any
one be prevented from committing suicide? And how horrible if she were to
die!... Oh, if the law requires a criminal I will confess anything that I
am asked to. I will joyfully accept every charge and pay every penalty,
provided that Marie is free! Save her!... I did not know, I do not yet
know the best thing to be done! Save her from prison and death, save her,
for God's sake, save her!"
Tears flowed down his anguish-stricken face. Florence also was crying,
bowed down with sorrow. And Perenna suddenly felt the most terrible dread
steal over him.
Although, ever since the beginning of the interview, a fresh conviction
had gradually been mastering him, it was only as it were a glance that he
became aware of it. Suddenly he perceived that his belief in Sauverand's
words was unrestricted, and that Florence was perhaps not the loathsome
creature that he had had the right to think, but a woman whose eyes did
not lie and whose face and soul were alike beautiful.
Suddenly he learnt that the two people before him, as well as Marie
Fauville, for love of whom they had fought so unskilful a fight, were
imprisoned in an iron circle which their efforts would not succeed in
breaking. And that circle traced by an unknown hand he, Perenna, had
drawn tighter around them with the most ruthless determination.
"If only it is not too late!" he muttered.
He staggered under the shock of the sensations and ideas that crowded
upon him. Everything clashed in his brain with tragic violence:
certainty, joy, dismay, despair, fury. He was struggling in the clutches
of the most hideous nightmare; and he already seemed to see a detective's
heavy hand descending on Florence's shoulder.
"Come away! Come away!" he cried, starting up in alarm. "It is madness
to remain!"
"But the house is surrounded," Sauverand objected.
"And then? Do you think that I will allow for a second--? No, no, come!
We must fight side by side. I shall still entertain some doubts, that is
certain. You must destroy them; and we will save Mme. Fauville."
"But the detectives round the house?"
"We'll manage them."
"Weber, the deputy chief?"
"He's not here. And as long as he's not here I'll take everything on
myself. Come, follow me, but at some little distance. When I give the
signal and not till then--"
He drew the bolt and turned the handle of the door. At that moment some
one knocked. It was the butler.
"Well?" asked Don Luis. "Why am I disturbed?"
"The deputy chief detective, M. Weber, is here, sir."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ROUTED
Don Luis had certainly expected this formidable blow; and yet it appeared
to take him unawares, and he repeated more than once:
"Ah, Weber is here! Weber is here!"
All his buoyancy left him, and he felt like a retreating army which,
after almost making good its escape, suddenly finds itself brought to a
stop by a steep mountain. Weber was there--that is to say, the chief
leader of the enemies, the man who would be sure to plan the attack and
the resistance in such a manner as to dash Perenna's hopes to the ground.
With Weber at the head of the detectives, any attempt to force a way out
would have been absurd.
"Did you let him in?" he asked.
"You did not tell me not to, sir."
"Is he alone?"
"No, sir, the deputy chief has six men with him. He has left them in the
courtyard."
"And where is he?"
"He asked me to take him to the first floor. He expected to find you in
your study, sir."
"Does he know now that I am with Sergeant Mazeroux and Mlle. Levasseur?"
"Yes, sir."
Perenna thought for a moment and then said:
"Tell him that you have not found me and that you are going to look for
me in Mlle. Levasseur's rooms. Perhaps he will go with you. All the
better if he does."
And he locked the door again.
The struggle through which he had just passed did not show itself on his
face; and, now that all was lost, now that he was called upon to act, he
recovered that wonderful composure which never abandoned him at decisive
moments. He went up to Florence. She was very pale and was silently
weeping. He said:
"You must not be frightened, Mademoiselle. If you obey me implicitly, you
will have nothing to fear."
She did not reply and he saw that she still mistrusted him. And he almost
rejoiced at the thought that he would compel her to believe in him.
"Listen to me," he said to Sauverand. "In case I should not succeed after
all, there are still several things which you must explain."
"What are they?" asked Sauverand, who had lost none of his coolness.
Then, collecting all his riotous thoughts, resolved to omit nothing, but
at the same time to speak only what was essential, Don Luis asked, in a
calm voice:
"Where were you on the morning before the murder, when a man carrying an
ebony walking-stick and answering to your description entered the Café du
Pont-Neuf immediately after Inspector Vérot?"
"At home."
"Are you sure that you did not go out?"
"Absolutely sure. And I am also sure that I have never been to the Café
du Pont-Neuf, of which I had never even heard."
"Good. Next question. Why, when you learned all about this business, did
you not go to the Prefect of Police or the examining magistrate? It would
have been simpler for you to give yourself up and tell the exact truth
than to engage in this unequal fight."
"I was thinking of doing so. But I at once realized that the plot hatched
against me was so clever that no bare statement of the truth would have
been enough to convince the authorities. They would never have believed
me. What proof could I supply? None at all--whereas, on the other hand,
the proofs against us were overwhelming and undeniable. Were not the
marks of the teeth evidence of Marie's undoubted guilt? And were not my
silence, my flight, the shooting of Chief Inspector Ancenis so many
crimes? No, if I would rescue Marie, I must remain free."
"But she could have spoken herself?"
"And confessed our love? Apart from the fact that her womanly modesty
would have prevented her, what good would it have done? On the contrary,
it meant lending greater weight to the accusation. That was just what
happened when Hippolyte Fauville's letters, appearing one by one,
revealed to the police the as yet unknown motives of the crimes imputed
to us. We loved each other."
"How do you explain the letters?"
"I can't explain them. We did not know of Fauville's jealousy. He kept it
to himself. And then, again, why did he suspect us? What can have put it
into his head that we meant to kill him? Where did his fears, his
nightmares, come from? It is a mystery. He wrote that he had letters of
ours in his possession: what letters?"
"And the marks of the teeth, those marks which were undoubtedly made by
Mme. Fauville?"
"I don't know. It is all incomprehensible."
"You don't know either what she can have done after leaving the opera
between twelve and two in the morning?"
"No. She was evidently lured into a trap. But how and by whom? And why
does she not say what she was doing? More mystery."
"You were seen that evening, the evening of the murders, at Auteuil
station. What were you doing there?"
"I was going to the Boulevard Suchet and I passed under Marie's windows.
Remember that it was a Wednesday. I came back on the following Wednesday,
and, still knowing nothing of the tragedy or of Marie's arrest, I came
back again on the second Wednesday, which was the evening on which you
found out where I lived and informed Sergeant Mazeroux against me."
"Another thing. Did you know of the Mornington inheritance?"
"No, nor Florence either; and we have every reason to think that Marie
and her husband knew no more about it than we did."
"That barn at Damigni: was it the first time that you had entered it?"
"Yes; and our astonishment at the sight of the two skeletons hanging from
the rafters equalled yours."
Don Luis was silent. He cast about for a few seconds longer to see if he
had any more questions to ask. Then he said:
"That is all I wanted to know. Are you, on your side, certain that
everything that is necessary has been said?"
"Yes."
"This is a serious moment. It is possible that we may not meet again. Now
you have not given me a single proof of your statements."
"I have told you the truth. To a man like yourself, the truth is enough.
As for me, I am beaten. I give up the struggle, or, rather, I place
myself under your orders. Save Marie."
"I will save the three of you," said Perenna. "The fourth of the
mysterious letters is to make its appearance to-morrow: that leaves ample
time for us to lay our heads together and study the matter fully. And
to-morrow evening I shall go there and, with the help of all that you
have told me, I shall prove the innocence of you all. The essential thing
is to be present at the meeting on the twenty-fifth of May."
"Please think only of Marie. Sacrifice me, if necessary. Sacrifice
Florence even. I am speaking in her name as well as my own when I tell
you that it is better to desert us than to jeopardize the slightest
chance of success."
"I will save the three of you," Perenna repeated.
He pushed the door ajar and, after listening outside, said:
"Don't move. And don't open the door to anybody, on any pretext whatever,
before I come to fetch you. I shall not be long."
He locked the door behind him and went down to the first floor. He did
not feel those high spirits which usually cheered him on the eve of his
great battles. This time, Florence Levasseur's life and liberty were at
stake; and the consequences of a defeat seemed to him worse than death.
Through the window on the landing he saw the detectives guarding the
courtyard. He counted six of them. And he also saw the deputy chief at
one of the windows of his study, watching the courtyard and keeping in
touch with his detectives.
"By Jove!" he thought, "he's sticking to his post. It will be a tough
job. He suspects something. However, let's make a start!"
He went through the drawing-room and entered his study. Weber saw him.
The two enemies were face to face.
There was a few seconds' silence before the duel opened, the duel which
was bound to be swift and vigorous, without the least sign of weakness or
distraction on either side. It could not last longer than three minutes.
The deputy chief's face bore an expression of mingled joy and anxiety.
For the first time he had permission, he had orders, to fight that
accursed Don Luis, against whom he had never yet been able to satisfy
his hatred. And his delight was all the greater because he held every
trump, whereas Don Luis had put himself in the wrong by defending
Florence Levasseur and tampering with the girl's portrait. On the other
hand, Weber did not forget that Don Luis was identical with Arsène
Lupin; and this consideration caused him a certain uneasiness. He was
obviously thinking:
"The least blunder, and I'm done for."
He crossed swords with a jest.
"I see that you were not in Mlle. Levasseur's lodge, as your man
pretended."
"My man spoke in accordance with my instructions, I was in my bedroom,
upstairs. But I wanted to finish the job before I came down."
"And is it done?"
"It's done. Florence Levasseur and Gaston Sauverand are in my room,
gagged and bound. You have only to accept delivery of the goods."
"Gaston Sauverand!" cried Weber. "Then it was he who was seen coming in?"
"Yes. He was simply living with Florence Levasseur, whose lover he is."
"Oho!" said the deputy chief, in a bantering tone. "Her lover!"
"Yes; and when Sergeant Mazeroux brought Florence Levasseur to my room,
to question her out of hearing of the servants, Sauverand, foreseeing the
arrest of his mistress, had the audacity to join us. He tried to rescue
her from our hands."
"And you checkmated him?"
"Yes."
It was clear that the deputy chief did not believe one word of the story.
He knew through M. Desmalions and Mazeroux that Don Luis was in love with
Florence; and Don Luis was not the man even through jealousy to hand over
a woman whom he loved. He increased his attention.
"Good business!" he said. "Take me up to your room. Was it a hard
struggle?"
"Not very. I managed to disarm the scoundrel. All the same, Mazeroux got
stabbed in the thumb."
"Nothing serious?"
"Oh, dear, no; but he has gone to have his wound dressed at the
chemist's."
The deputy chief stopped, greatly surprised.
"What! Isn't Mazeroux in your room with the two prisoners?"
"I never told you that he was."
"No, but your butler--"
"The butler made a mistake. Mazeroux went out a few minutes before
you came."
"It's funny," said Weber, watching Don Luis closely, "but my men all
think he's here. They haven't seen him go out."
"They haven't seen him go out?" echoed Don Luis, pretending to feel
anxious. "But, then, where can he be? He told me he wanted to have his
thumb seen to."
The deputy chief was growing more and more suspicious. Evidently Perenna
was trying to get rid of him by sending him in search of the sergeant.
"I will send one of my men," he said. "Is the chemist's near?"
"Just around the corner, in the Rue de Bourgogne. Besides, we can
telephone."
"Oh, we can telephone!" muttered Weber.
He was quite at a loss and looked like a man who does not know what is
going to happen next. He moved slowly toward the instrument, while
barring the way to Don Luis to prevent his escaping. Don Luis
therefore retreated to the telephone box, as if forced to do so, took
down the receiver with one hand, and, calling, "Hullo! Hullo! Saxe,
2409," with the other hand, which was resting against the wall, he cut
one of the wires with a pair of pliers which he had taken off the
table as he passed.
"Hullo! Are you there? Is that 2409? Are you the
chemist?... Hullo!... Sergeant Mazeroux of the detective service is with
you, isn't he? Eh? What? What do you say? But it's too awful! Are you
sure? Do you mean to say the wound is poisoned?"
Without thinking what he was doing, the deputy chief pushed Don Luis
aside and took hold of the receiver. The thought of the poisoned wound
was too much for him.
"Are you there?" he cried, keeping an eye on Don Luis and motioning to
him not to go away. "Are you there? ... Eh? ... It's Deputy Chief Weber,
of the detective office, speaking.... Hullo! Are you there? ... I want to
know about Sergeant Mazeroux. ... Are you there?. . . Oh, hang it, why
don't you answer!"
Suddenly he let go the instrument, looked at the wires, perceived that
they had been cut, and turned round, showing a face that clearly
expressed the thought in his mind.
"That's done it. I've been tricked!"
Perenna was standing a couple of yards behind him, leaning carelessly
against the woodwork of the arch, with his left hand passed between
his back and the woodwork. He was smiling, smiling pleasantly, kindly,
and genially:
"Don't move!" he said, with a gesture of his right hand.
Weber, more frightened by that smile than he would have been by threats,
took good care not to move.
"Don't move," repeated Don Luis, in a very queer voice. "And, whatever
you do, don't be alarmed. You shan't be hurt, I promise you. Just five
minutes in a dark cell for a naughty little boy. Are you ready? One two,
three! Bang!"
He stood aside and pressed the button that worked the iron curtain. The
heavy panel came crashing to the floor. The deputy chief was a prisoner.
"That's a hundred millions gone to Jericho," grinned Don Luis. "A pretty
trick, but a bit expensive. Good-bye, Mornington inheritance! Good-bye,
Don Luis Perenna! And now, my dear Lupin, if you don't want Weber to take
his revenge, beat a retreat and in good order. One, two; left, right;
left, right!"
As he spoke, he locked, on the inside, the folding doors between the
drawing-room and the first-floor anteroom; then, returning to his study,
he locked the door between this room and the drawing-room.
The deputy chief was banging at the iron curtain with all his might and
shouting so loud that they were bound to hear him outside through the
open window.
"You're not making half enough noise, deputy!" cried Don Luis. "Let's see
what we can do."
He took his revolver and fired off three bullets, one of which broke a
pane. Then he quickly left his study by a small, massive door, which he
carefully closed behind him. He was now in a secret passage which ran
round both rooms and ended at another door leading to the anteroom. He
opened this door wide and was thus able to hide behind it.
Attracted by the shots and the noise, the detectives were already rushing
through the hall and up the staircase. When they reached the first floor
and had gone through the anteroom, as the drawing-room doors were locked,
the only outlet open to them was the passage, at the end of which they
could hear the deputy shouting. They all six darted down it.
When the last of them had vanished round the bend in the passage, Don
Luis softly pushed back the door that concealed him and locked it
like the rest. The six detectives were as safely imprisoned as the
deputy chief.
"Bottled!" muttered Don Luis. "It will take them quite five minutes to
realize the situation, to bang at the locked doors, and to break down one
of them. In five minutes we shall be far away."
He met two of his servants running up with scared faces, the chauffeur
and the butler. He flung each of them a thousand-franc note and said to
the chauffeur:
"Set the engine going, there's a sportsman, and let no one near the
machine to block my way. Two thousand francs more for each of you if I
get off in the motor. Don't stand staring at me like that: I mean what I
say. Two thousand francs apiece: it's for you to earn it. Look sharp!"
He himself went up the second flight without undue haste, remaining
master of himself. But, on the last stair, he was seized with such a
feeling of elation that he shouted:
"Victory! The road is clear!"
The boudoir door was opposite. He opened it and repeated:
"Victory! But there's not a second to lose. Follow me."
He entered. A stifled oath escaped his lips.
The room was empty.
"What!" he stammered. "What does this mean? They're gone.... Florence--"
Certainly, unlikely though it seemed, he had hitherto supposed that
Sauverand possessed a false key to the lock. But how could they both have
escaped, in the midst of the detectives? He looked around him. And then
he understood.
In the recess containing the window, the lower part of the wall, which
formed a very wide box underneath the casement, had the top of its
woodwork raised and resting against the panes, exactly like the lid of a
chest. And inside the open chest he saw the upper rungs of a narrow
descending ladder.
In a second, Don Luis conjured up the whole story of the past: Count
Malonyi's ancestress hiding in the old family mansion, escaping the
search of the perquisitors, and in this way living throughout the
revolutionary troubles. Everything was explained. A passage contrived in
the thickness of the wall led to some distant outlet. And this was how
Florence used to come and go through the house; this was how Gaston went
in and out in all security; and this also was how both of them were able
to enter his room and surprise his secrets.
"Why not have told me?" he wondered. "A lingering suspicion, I suppose--"
But his eyes were attracted by a sheet of paper on the table. With
a feverish hand, Gaston Sauverand had scribbled the following lines
in pencil:
"We are trying to escape so as not to compromise you. If we are caught,
it can't be helped. The great thing is that you should be free. All our
hopes are centred in you."
Below were two words written by Florence: "Save Marie."
"Ah," he murmured, disconcerted by the turn of events and not knowing
what to decide, "why, oh, why did they not obey my instructions? We are
separated now--"
Downstairs the detectives were battering at the door of the passage in
which they were imprisoned. Perhaps he would still have time to reach his
motor before they succeeded in breaking down the door. Nevertheless, he
preferred to take the same road as Florence and Sauverand, which gave him
the hope of saving them and of rescuing them in case of danger.
He therefore stepped over the side of the chest, placed his foot on the
top rung and went down. Some twenty bars brought him to the middle of the
first floor. Here, by the light of his electric lantern, he entered a
sort of low, vaulted tunnel, dug, as he thought, in the wall, and so
narrow that he could only walk along it sideways.
Thirty yards farther there was a bend, at right angles; and next, at the
end of another tunnel of the same length, a trapdoor, which stood open,
revealing the rungs of a second ladder. He did not doubt that the
fugitives had gone this way.
It was quite light at the bottom. Here he found himself in a cupboard
which was also open and which, on ordinary occasions, must have been
covered by curtains that were now drawn. This cupboard faced a bed that
filled almost the whole space of an alcove. On passing through the alcove
and reaching a room from which it was separated only by a slender
partition, to his great surprise, he recognized Florence's sitting-room.
This time, he knew where he was. The exit, which was not secret, as it
led to the Place du Palais-Bourbon, but nevertheless very safe, was that
which Sauverand generally used when Florence admitted him.
Don Luis therefore went through the entrance hall and down the steps and,
a little way before the pantry, came upon the cellar stairs. He ran down
these and soon recognized the low door that served to admit the
wine-casks. The daylight filtered in through a small, grated spy-hole. He
groped till he found the lock. Glad to have come to the end of his
expedition, he opened the door.
"Hang it all!" he growled, leaping back and clutching at the lock, which
he managed to fasten again.
Two policemen in uniform were guarding the exit, two policemen who had
tried to seize him as he appeared.
Where did those two men come from? Had they prevented the escape of
Sauverand and Florence? But in that case Don Luis would have met the two
fugitives, as he had come by exactly the same road as they.
"No," he thought, "they effected their flight before the exit was
watched. But, by Jove! it's my turn to clear out; and that's not easy.
Shall I let myself be caught in my burrow like a rabbit?"
He went up the cellar stairs again, intending to hasten matters, to slip
into the courtyard through the outhouses, to jump into his motor, and to
clear a way for himself. But, when he was just reaching the yard, near
the coach-house, he saw four detectives, four of those whom he had
imprisoned, come up waving their arms and shouting. And he also became
aware of a regular uproar near the main gate and the porter's lodge. A
number of men were all talking together, raising their voices in violent
discussion.
Perhaps he might profit by this opportunity to steal outside under cover
of the disorder. At the risk of being seen, he put out his head. And what
he saw astounded him.
Gaston Sauverand stood with his back to the wall of the lodge, surrounded
by policemen and detectives who pushed and insulted him. The handcuffs
were on his wrists.
Gaston Sauverand a prisoner! What had happened between the two fugitives
and the police?
His heart wrung with anguish, he leaned out still farther. But he did not
see Florence. The girl had no doubt succeeded in escaping.
Weber's appearance on the steps and the deputy chief's first words
confirmed his hopes. Weber was mad with rage. His recent captivity and
the humiliation of his defeat exasperated him.
"Ah!" he roared, as he saw the prisoner. "There's one of them, at any
rate! Gaston Sauverand! Choice game, that!... Where did you catch him?"
"On the Place du Palais-Bourbon," said one of the inspectors. "We saw him
slinking out through the cellar door."
"And his accomplice, the Levasseur girl?"
"We missed her, Deputy Chief. She was the first out."
"And Don Luis? You haven't let him leave the house, I hope? I gave
orders."
"He tried to get out through the cellar door five minutes after."
"Who said so?"
"One of the men in uniform posted outside the door."
"Well?"
"The beggar went back into the cellar."
Weber gave a shout of delight.
"We've got him! And it's a nasty business for him! Charge of resisting
the police!... Complicity ... We shall be able to unmask him at last.
Tally-ho, my lads, tally-ho! Two men to guard Sauverand, four men on the
Place du Palais-Bourbon, revolver in hand. Two men on the roof. The rest
stick to me. We'll begin with the Levasseur girl's room and we'll take
his room next. Hark, forward, my lads!"
Don Luis did not wait for the enemies' attack. Knowing their intentions,
he beat a retreat, unseen, toward Florence's rooms. Here, as Weber did
not yet know the short cut through the outhouses, he had time to make
sure that the trapdoor was in perfect working order, and that there was
no reason why they should discover the existence of a secret cupboard at
the back of the alcove, behind the curtains of the bed.
Once inside the passage, he went up the first staircase, followed the
long corridor contrived in the wall, climbed the ladder leading to the
boudoir, and, perceiving that this second trapdoor fitted the woodwork so
closely that no one could suspect anything, he closed it over him. A few
minutes later he heard the noise of men making a search above his head.
And so, on the twenty-fourth of May, at five o'clock in the afternoon,
the position was as follows: Florence Levasseur with a warrant out
against her, Gaston Sauverand in prison, Marie Fauville in prison and
refusing all food, and Don Luis, who believed in their innocence and who
alone could have saved them, Don Luis was being blockaded in his own
house and hunted down by a score of detectives.
As for the Mornington inheritance, there could be no more question of
that, because the legatee, in his turn, had set himself in open rebellion
against society.
"Capital!" said Don Luis, with a grin. "This is life as I understand it.
The question is a simple one and may be put in different ways. How can a
wretched, unwashed beggar, with not a penny in his pocket, make a fortune
in twenty-four hours without setting foot outside his hovel? How can a
general, with no soldiers and no ammunition left, win a battle which he
has lost? In short, how shall I, Arsène Lupin, manage to be present
to-morrow evening at the meeting which will be held on the Boulevard
Suchet and to behave in such a way as to save Marie Fauville, Florence
Levasseur, Gaston Sauverand, and my excellent friend Don Luis Perenna in
the bargain?"
Dull blows came from somewhere. The men must be hunting the roofs and
sounding the walls.
Don Luis stretched himself flat on the floor, hid his face in his folded
arms and, shutting his eyes, murmured:
"Let's think."
CHAPTER TWELVE
"HELP!"
When Lupin afterward told me this episode of the tragic story, he said,
not without a certain self-complacency:
"What astonished me then, and what astonishes me still, as one of the
most amazing victories on which I am entitled to pride myself, is that I
was able to admit Sauverand and Marie Fauville's innocence on the spot,
as a problem solved once and for all. It was a first-class performance, I
swear, and surpassed the most famous deductions of the most famous
investigators both in psychological value and in detective merit.
"After all, taking everything into account, there was not the shadow of a
fresh fact to enable me to alter the verdict. The charges accumulated
against the two prisoners were the same, and were so grave that no
examining magistrate would have hesitated for a second to commit them for
trial, nor any jury to bring them in guilty. I will not speak of Marie
Fauville: you had only to think of the marks of her teeth to be
absolutely certain. But Gaston Sauverand, the son of Victor Sauverand and
consequently the heir of Cosmo Mornington--Gaston Sauverand, the man with
the ebony walking-stick and the murderer of Chief Inspector Ancenis--was
he not just as guilty as Marie Fauville, incriminated with her by the
mysterious letters, incriminated by the very revelation of the husband
whom they had killed?
"And yet why did that sudden change take place in me?" he asked. "Why did
I go against the evidence? Why did I credit an incredible fact? Why did I
admit the inadmissible? Why? Well, no doubt, because truth has an accent
that rings in the ears in a manner all its own. On the one side, every
proof, every fact, every reality, every certainty; on the other, a story,
a story told by one of the three criminals, and therefore, presumptively,
absurd and untrue from start to finish. But a story told in a frank
voice, a clear, dispassionate, closely woven story, free from
complications or improbabilities, a story which supplied no positive
solution, but which, by its very honesty, obliged any impartial mind to
reconsider the solution arrived at. I believed the story."
The explanation which Lupin gave me was not complete. I asked:
"And Florence Levasseur?"
"Florence?"
"Yes, you don't tell me what you thought. What was your opinion about
her? Everything tended to incriminate her not only in your eyes, because,
logically speaking, she had taken part in all the attempts to murder you,
but also in the eyes of the police. They knew that she used to pay
Sauverand clandestine visits at his house on the Boulevard
Richard-Wallace. They had found her photograph in Inspector Vérot's
memorandum-book, and then--and then all the rest: your accusations, your
certainties. Was all that modified by Sauverand's story? To your mind,
was Florence innocent or guilty?"
He hesitated, seemed on the point of replying directly and frankly to my
question, but could not bring himself to do so, and said:
"I wished to have confidence. In order to act, I must have full and
entire confidence, whatever doubts might still assail me, whatever
darkness might still enshroud this or that part of the adventure. I
therefore believed. And, believing, I acted according to my belief."
Acting, to Don Luis Perenna, during those hours of forced inactivity,
consisted solely in perpetually repeating to himself Gaston Sauverand's
account of the events. He tried to reconstitute it in all its details, to
remember the very least sentences, the apparently most insignificant
phrases. And he examined those sentences, scrutinized those phrases one
by one, in order to extract such particle of the truth as they contained.
For the truth was there. Sauverand had said so and Perenna did not doubt
it. The whole sinister affair, all that constituted the case of the
Mornington inheritance and the tragedy of the Boulevard Suchet, all that
could throw light upon the plot hatched against Marie Fauville, all that
could explain the undoing of Sauverand and Florence--all this lay in
Sauverand's story. Don Luis had only to understand, and the truth would
appear like the moral which we draw from some obscure fable.
Don Luis did not once deviate from his method. If any objection suggested
itself to his mind, he at once replied:
"Very well. It may be that I am wrong and that Sauverand's story will not
enlighten me on any point capable of guiding me. It may be that the truth
lies outside it. But am I in a position to get at the truth in any other
way? All that I possess as an instrument of research, without attaching
undue importance to certain gleams of light which the regular appearance
of the mysterious letters has shed upon the case, all that I possess is
Gaston Sauverand's story. Must I not make use of it?"
And, once again, as when one follows a path by another person's tracks,
he began to live through the adventure which Sauverand had been through.
He compared it with the picture of it which he had imagined until then.
The two were in opposition; but could not the very clash of their
opposition be made to produce a spark of light?
"Here is what he said," he thought, "and there is what I believed. What
does the difference mean? Here is the thing that was, and there is the
thing that appeared to be. Why did the criminal wish the thing that was
to appear under that particular aspect? To remove all suspicion from him?
But, in that case, was it necessary that suspicion should fall precisely
on those on whom it did?"
The questions came crowding one upon the other. He sometimes answered
them at random, mentioning names and uttering words in succession, as
though the name mentioned might be just that of the criminal, and the
words uttered those which contained the unseen reality.
Then at once he would take up the story again, as schoolboys do when
parsing and analyzing a passage, in which each expression is
carefully sifted, each period discussed, each sentence reduced to its
essential value.
* * * * *
Hours and hours passed. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, he gave a
start. He took out his watch. By the light of his electric lamp he saw
that it was seventeen minutes to twelve.
"So at seventeen minutes to twelve at night," he said, "I fathomed
the mystery."
He tried to control his emotion, but it was too great; and his nerves
were so immensely staggered by the trial that he began to shed tears. He
had caught sight of the appalling truth, all of a sudden, as when at
night one half sees a landscape under a lightning-flash.
There is nothing more unnerving than this sudden illumination when we
have been groping and struggling in the dark. Already exhausted by his
physical efforts and by the want of food, from which he was beginning to
suffer, he felt the shock so intensely that, without caring to think a
moment longer, he managed to go to sleep, or, rather, to sink into sleep,
as one sinks into the healing waters of a bath.
When he woke, in the small hours, alert and well despite the
discomfort of his couch, he shuddered on thinking of the theory which
he had accepted; and his first instinct was to doubt it. He had, so to
speak, no time.
All the proofs came rushing to his mind of their own accord and at once
transformed the theory into one of those certainties which it would be
madness to deny. It was that and nothing else. As he had foreseen, the
truth lay recorded in Sauverand's story. And he had not been mistaken,
either, in saying to Mazeroux that the manner in which the mysterious
letters appeared had put him on the track of the truth.
And the truth was terrible. He felt, at the thought of it, the same fears
that had maddened Inspector Vérot when, already tortured by the poison,
he stammered:
"Oh, I don't like this, I don't like the look of this!... The whole thing
has been planned in such an infernal manner!"
Infernal was the word! And Don Luis remained stupefied at the revelation
of a crime which looked as if no human brain could have conceived it.
For two hours more he devoted all his mental powers to examining the
situation from every point of view. He was not much disturbed about the
result, because, being now in possession of the terrible secret, he had
nothing more to do but make his escape and go that evening to the meeting
on the Boulevard Suchet, where he would show them all how the murder was
committed.
But when, wishing to try his chance of escaping, he went up through the
underground passage and climbed to the top of the upper ladder--that is
to say, to the level of the boudoir--he heard through the trapdoor the
voices of men in the room.
"By Jove!" he said to himself, "the thing is not so simple as I thought!
In order to escape the minions of the law I must first leave my prison;
and here is at least one of the exits blocked. Let's look at the other."
He went down to Florence's apartments and worked the mechanism,
which consisted of a counterweight. The panel of the cupboard moved
in the groove.
Driven by horror and hoping to find some provisions which enable him to
withstand a siege without being reduced to famine, he was about to pass
through the alcove, behind the curtains, when he was stopped short by a
sound of footsteps. Some one had entered the room.
"Well, Mazeroux, have you spent the night here? Nothing new!"
Don Luis recognized the Prefect of Police by his voice; and the question
put by the Prefect told him, first, that Mazeroux had been released from
the dark closet where he had bound him up, and, secondly, that the
sergeant was in the next room. Fortunately, the sliding panel had worked
without the least sound; and Don Luis was able to overhear the
conversation between the two men.
"No, nothing new, Monsieur le Préfet," replied Mazeroux.
"That's funny. The confounded fellow must be somewhere. Or can he have
got away over the roof?"
"Impossible, Monsieur le Préfet," said a third voice, which Don Luis
recognized as that of Weber, the deputy chief detective. "Impossible. We
made certain yesterday, that unless he has wings--"
"Then what do you think, Weber?"
"I think, Monsieur le Préfet, that he is concealed in the house. This is
an old house and probably contains some safe hiding-place--"
"Of course, of course," said M. Desmalions, whom Don Luis, peeping
through the curtains, saw walking to and fro in front of the alcove.
"You're right; and we shall catch him in his burrow. Only, is it really
necessary?"
"Monsieur le Préfet!"
"Well, you know my opinion on the subject, which is also the Prime
Minister's opinion. Unearthing Lupin would be a blunder which we should
end by regretting. After all, he's become an honest man, you know; he's
useful to us and he does no harm--"
"No harm, Monsieur le Préfet? Do you think so?" said Weber stiffly.
M. Desmalions burst out laughing.
"Oh, of course, yesterday's trick, the telephone trick! You must admit it
was funny. The Premier had to hold his sides when I told him of it."
"Upon my word, I see nothing to laugh at!"
"No, but, all the same, the rascal is never at a loss. Funny or not, the
trick was extraordinarily daring. To cut the telephone wire before your
eyes and then blockade you behind that iron curtain! By the way,
Mazeroux, you must get the telephone repaired this morning, so as to keep
in touch with the office. Have you begun your search in these two rooms?"
"As you ordered, Monsieur le Préfet. The deputy chief and I have been
hunting round for the last hour."
"Yes," said M. Desmalions, "that Florence Levasseur strikes me as a
troublesome creature. She is certainly an accomplice. But what were her
relations with Sauverand and what was her connection with Don Luis
Perenna? That's what I should like to know. Have you discovered nothing
in her papers?"
"No, Monsieur le Préfet," said Mazeroux. "Nothing but bills and
tradesmen's letters."
"And you, Weber?"
"I've found something very interesting, Monsieur le Préfet."
Weber spoke in a triumphant tone, and, in answer to M. Desmalions's
question, went on:
"This is a volume of Shakespeare, Monsieur le Préfet, Volume VIII. You
will see that, contrary to the other volumes, the inside is empty and the
binding forms a secret receptacle for hiding documents."
"Yes. What sort of documents?"
"Here they are: sheets of paper, blank sheets, all but three. One of
them gives a list of the dates on which the mysterious letters were
to appear."
"Oho!" said M. Desmalions. "That's a crushing piece of evidence
against Florence Levasseur. And also it tells us where Don Luis got
his list from."
Perenna listened with surprise: he had utterly forgotten this particular;
and Gaston Sauverand had made no reference to it in his narrative. And
yet it was a strange and serious detail. From whom had Florence received
that list of dates?
"And what's on the other two sheets?" asked M. Desmalions.
Don Luis pricked up his ears. Those two other sheets had escaped his
attention on the day of his interview with Florence in this room.
"Here is one of them," said Weber.
M. Desmalions took the paper and read:
"Bear in mind that the explosion is independent of the letters, and that
it will take place at three o'clock in the morning."
"Yes," he said, "the famous explosion which Don Luis foretold and which
is to accompany the fifth letter, as announced on the list of dates.
Tush! We have plenty of time, as there have been only three letters and
the fourth is due to-night. Besides, blowing up that house on the
Boulevard Suchet would be no easy job, by Jove! Is that all?"
"Monsieur le Préfet," said Weber, producing the third sheet, "would you
mind looking at these lines drawn in pencil and enclosed in a large
square containing some other smaller squares and rectangles of all sizes?
Wouldn't you say that it was the plan of a house?"
"Yes, I should."
"It is the plan of the house in which we are," declared Weber solemnly.
"Here you see the front courtyard, the main building, the porter's lodge,
and, over there, Mlle. Levasseur's lodge. From this lodge, a dotted line,
in red pencil, starts zigzagging toward the main building. The
commencement of this line is marked by a little red cross which stands
for the room in which we are, or, to be more correct, the alcove. You
will see here something like the design of a chimney, or, rather, a
cupboard--a cupboard recessed behind the bed and probably hidden by the
curtains."
"But, in that case, Weber," said M. Desmalions, "this dotted line must
represent a passage leading from this lodge to the main building. Look,
there is also a little red cross at the other end of the line."
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, there is another cross. We shall discover
later for certain what position it marks. But, meanwhile, and acting on
a mere guess, I have posted some men in a small room on the second floor
where the last secret meeting between Don Luis, Florence Levasseur, and
Gaston Sauverand was held yesterday. And, meanwhile, at any rate, we
hold one end of the line and, through that very fact, we know Don Luis
Perenna's retreat."
There was a pause, after which the deputy chief resumed in a more and
more solemn voice:
"Monsieur le Préfet, yesterday I suffered a cruel outrage at the hands of
that man. It was witnessed by our subordinates. The servants must be
aware of it. The public will know of it before long. This man has brought
about the escape of Florence Levasseur. He tried to bring about the
escape of Gaston Sauverand. He is a ruffian of the most dangerous type.
Monsieur le Préfet, I am sure that you will not refuse me leave to dig
him out of his hole. Otherwise--otherwise, Monsieur le Préfet, I shall
feel obliged to hand in my resignation."
"With good reasons to back it up!" said the Prefect, laughing. "There's
no doubt about it; you can't stomach the trick of the iron curtain. Well,
go ahead! It's Don Luis's own lookout; he's brought it on himself.
Mazeroux, ring me up at the office as soon as the telephone is put right.
And both of you meet me at the Fauvilles' house this evening. Don't
forget it's the night for the fourth letter."
"There won't be any fourth letter, Monsieur le Préfet," said Weber.
"Why not?"
"Because between this and then Don Luis will be under lock and key."
"Oh, so you accuse Don Luis also of--"
Don Luis did not wait to hear more. He softly retreated to the cupboard,
took hold of the panel and pushed it back without a sound.
So his hiding-place was known!
"By Jingo," he growled, "this is a bit awkward! I'm in a nice plight!"
He had run halfway along the underground passage, with the intention of
reaching the other exit. But he stopped.
"It's not worth while, as the exit's watched. Well, let's see; am I to
let myself be collared? Wait a bit, let's see--"
Already there came from the alcove below a noise of blows striking on the
panel, the hollow sound of which had probably attracted the deputy
chief's attention. And, as Weber was not compelled to take the same
precautions as Don Luis, and seemed to be breaking down the panel without
delaying to look for the mechanism, the danger was close at hand.
"Oh, hang it all!" muttered Don Luis. "This is too silly. What shall I
do? Have a dash at them? Ah, if I had all my strength!"
But he was exhausted by want of food. His legs shook beneath him and his
brain seemed to lack its usual clearness.
The increasing violence of the blows in the alcove drove him, in spite of
all, toward the upper exit; and, as he climbed the ladder, he moved his
electric lantern over the stones of the wall and the wood of the
trapdoor. He even tried to lift the door with his shoulder. But he again
heard a sound of footsteps above his head. The men were still there.
Then, consumed with fury and helpless, he awaited the deputy's coming.
A crash came from below; its echo spread through the tunnel, followed by
a tumult of voices.
"That's it," he said to himself. "The handcuffs, the lockup, the cell!
Good Lord, what luck--and what nonsense! And Marie Fauville, who's sure
to do away with herself. And Florence--Florence--"
Before extinguishing his lantern, he cast its light around him for the
last time.
At a couple of yards' distance from the ladder, about three quarters of
the way up and set a little way back, there was a big stone missing from
the inner wall, leaving a space just large enough to crouch in.
Although the recess did not form much of a hiding-place, it was just
possible that they might omit to inspect it. Besides, Don Luis had no
choice. At all events, after putting out the light, he leaned toward the
edge of the hole, reached it, and managed to scramble in by bending
himself in two.
Weber, Mazeroux, and their men were coming along. Don Luis propped
himself against the back of his hiding-hole to avoid as far as possible
the glare of the lanterns, of which he was beginning to see the gleams.
And an amazing thing happened: the stone against which he was pushing
toppled over slowly, as though moving on a pivot, and he fell backward
into a second cavity situated behind it.
He quickly drew his legs after him and the stone swung back as slowly as
before, not, however, without sending down a quantity of small stones,
crumbling from the wall and half covering his legs.
"Well, well!" he chuckled. "Can Providence be siding with virtue and
righteousness?"
He heard Mazeroux's voice saying:
"Nobody! And here's the end of the passage. Unless he ran away as we
came--look, through the trapdoor at the top of this ladder."
Weber replied:
"Considering the slope by which we've come, it's certain that the
trapdoor is on a level with the second floor. Well, the other little
cross ought to mark the boudoir on the second floor, next to Don Luis's
bedroom. That's what I supposed, and why I posted three of our men there.
If he's tried to get out on that side, he's caught."
"We've only got to knock," said Mazeroux. "Our men will find the trapdoor
and let us out. If not, we will break it down."
More blows echoed down the passage. Fifteen or twenty minutes after, the
trapdoor gave way, and other voices now mingled with Weber's and
Mazeroux's.
During this time, Don Luis examined his domain and perceived how
extremely small it was. The most that he could do was to sit in it. It
was a gallery, or, rather, a sort of gut, a yard and a half long and
ending in an orifice, narrower still, heaped up with bricks. The walls,
besides, were formed of bricks, some of which were lacking; and the
building-stones which these should have kept in place crumbled at the
least touch. The ground was strewn with them.
"By Jove!" thought Lupin, "I must not wriggle about too much, or I shall
risk being buried alive! A pleasant prospect!"
Not only this, but the fear of making a noise kept him motionless. As a
matter of fact, he was close to two rooms occupied by the detectives,
first the boudoir and then the study, for the boudoir, as he knew, was
over that part of his study which included the telephone box.
The thought of this suggested another. On reflection, remembering that he
used sometimes to wonder how Count Malonyi's ancestress had managed to
keep alive behind the curtain on the days when she had to hide there, he
realized that there must have been a communication between the secret
passage and what was now the telephone box, a communication too narrow to
admit a person's body, but serving as a ventilating shaft.
As a precaution, in case the secret passage was discovered, a stone
concealed the upper aperture of this shaft. Count Malonyi must have
closed up the lower end when he restored the wainscoting of the study.
So there he was, imprisoned in the thickness of the walls, with no very
definite intention beyond that of escaping from the clutches of the
police. More hours passed.
Gradually, tortured with hunger and thirst, he fell into a heavy sleep,
disturbed by painful nightmares which he would have given much to be able
to throw off. But he slept too deeply to recover consciousness until
eight o'clock in the evening.
When he woke up, feeling very tired, he saw his position in an
unexpectedly hideous light and, at the same time, so accurately that,
yielding to a sudden change of opinion marked by no little fear, he
resolved to leave his hiding-place and give himself up. Anything was
better than the torture which he was enduring and the dangers to which
longer waiting exposed him.
But, on turning round to reach the entrance to his hole, he perceived
first that the stone did not swing over when merely pushed, and, next,
after several attempts, that he could not manage to find the mechanism
which no doubt worked the stone. He persisted. His exertions were all in
vain. The stone did not budge. Only, at each exertion, a few bits of
stone came crumbling from the upper part of the wall and still further
narrowed the space in which he was able to move.
It cost him a considerable effort to master his excitement and to
say, jokingly:
"That's capital! I shall be reduced now to calling for help. I, Arsène
Lupin! Yes, to call in the help of those gentlemen of the police.
Otherwise, the odds on my being buried alive will increase every minute.
They're ten to one as it is!"
He clenched his fists.
"Hang it! I'll get out of this scrape by myself! Call for help? Not if
I know it!"
He summoned up all his energies to think, but his jaded brain gave him
none but confused and disconnected ideas. He was haunted by Florence's
image and by Marie Fauville's as well.
"It's to-night that I'm to save them," he said to himself. "And I
certainly will save them, as they are not guilty and as I know the real
criminal. But how shall I set about it to succeed?"
He thought of the Prefect of Police, of the meeting that was to take
place at Fauville's house on the Boulevard Suchet. The meeting had begun.
The police were watching the house. And this reminded him of the sheet of
paper found by Weber in the eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays, and of
the sentence written on it, which the Prefect had read out:
"Bear in mind that the explosion is independent of the letters, and that
it will take place at three o'clock in the morning."
"Yes," thought Don Luis, accepting M. Desmalions's reasoning, "yes, in
ten days' time. As there have been only three letters, the fourth will
appear to-night; and the explosion will not take place until the fifth
letter appears--that is in ten days from now."
He repeated:
"In ten days--with the fifth letter--in ten days--"
And suddenly he gave a start of fright. A horrible vision had flashed
across his mind, a vision only too real. The explosion was to occur that
very night! And all at once, knowing that he knew the truth, all at
once, in a revival of his usual clear-sightedness, he accepted the
theory as certain.
No doubt only three letters had appeared out of the mysterious darkness,
but four letters ought to have appeared, because one of them had appeared
not on the date fixed, but ten days later; and this for a reason which
Don Luis knew. Besides, it was not a question of all this. It was not a
question of seeking the truth amid this confusion of dates and letters,
amid this intricate tangle in which no one could lay claim to any
certainty,
No; one thing alone stood out above the situation: the sentence, "Bear in
mind that the explosion is independent of the letters." And, as the
explosion was put down for the night of the twenty-fifth of May, it would
occur that very night, at three o'clock in the morning!
"Help! Help!" he cried.
This time he did not hesitate. So far, he had had the courage to remain
huddled in his prison and to wait for the miracle that might come to his
assistance; but he preferred to face every danger and undergo every
penalty rather than abandon the Prefect of Police, Weber, Mazeroux, and
their companions to the death that threatened them.
"Help! Help!"
Fauville's house would be blown up in three or four hours. That he knew
with the greatest certainty. Just as punctually as the mysterious letters
had reached their destination in spite of all the obstacles in the way,
so the explosion would occur at the hour named. The infernal artificer of
the accursed work had wished it so. At three o'clock in the morning there
would be nothing left of the Fauvilles' house.
"Help! Help!"
He recovered enough strength to raise desperate shouts and to make his
voice carry beyond the stones and beyond the wainscoting.
Then, when there seemed to be no answer to his call, he stopped
and listened for a long time. There was not a sound. The silence
was absolute.
Thereupon a terrible anguish covered him with a cold sweat. Supposing the
detectives had ceased to watch the upper floors and confined themselves
to spending the night in the rooms on the ground floor?
He madly took a brick and struck it repeatedly against the stone that
closed the entrance, hoping that the noise would spread through the
house. But an avalanche of small stones, loosened by the blows, at once
fell upon him, knocking him down again and fixing him where he lay.
"Help! Help!"
More silence--a great, ruthless silence.
"Help! Help!"
He felt that his shouts did not penetrate the walls that stifled him.
Besides, his voice was growing fainter and fainter, producing a hoarse
groan that died away in his strained throat.
He ceased his cries and again listened, with all his anxious attention,
to the great silence that surrounded as with layers of lead the stone
coffin in which he lay imprisoned. Still nothing, not a sound. No one
would come, no one could come to his assistance.
He continued to be haunted by Florence's name and image. And he thought
also of Marie Fauville, whom he had promised to save. But Marie would die
of starvation. And, like her, like Gaston Sauverand and so many others,
he in his turn was the victim of this monstrous horror.
An incident occurred to increase his dismay. All of a sudden his electric
lantern, which he had left alight to dispel the terrors of the darkness,
went out. It was eleven o'clock at night.
He was overcome with a fit of giddiness. He could hardly breathe in the
close and vitiated air. His brain suffered, as it were, a physical and
exceedingly painful ailment, from the repetition of images that seemed to
encrust themselves there; and it was always Florence's beautiful features
or Marie's livid face. And, in his distraught brain, while Marie lay
dying, he heard the explosion at the Fauvilles' house and saw the Prefect
of Police and Mazeroux lying hideously mutilated, dead.
A numbness crept over him. He fell into a sort of swoon, in which he
continued to stammer confused syllables:
"Florence--Marie--Marie--"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE EXPLOSION
The fourth mysterious letter! The fourth of those letters "posted by the
devil and delivered by the devil," as one of the newspapers expressed it!
We all of us remember the really extraordinary agitation of the public as
the night of the twenty-fifth of May drew near. And fresh news increased
this interest to a yet higher degree.
People heard in quick succession of the arrest of Sauverand, the flight
of his accomplice, Florence Levasseur, Don Luis Perenna's secretary, and
the inexplicable disappearance of Perenna himself, whom they insisted,
for the best of reasons, on identifying with Arsène Lupin.
The police, assured from this moment of victory and having nearly all the
actors in the tragedy in their power, had gradually given way to
indiscretion; and, thanks to the particulars revealed to this or that
journalist, the public knew of Don Luis's change of attitude, suspected
his passion for Florence Levasseur and the real cause of his
right-about-face, and thrilled with excitement as they saw that
astonishing figure enter upon a fresh struggle.
What was he going to do? If he wanted to save the woman he loved from
prosecution and to release Marie and Sauverand from prison, he would have
to intervene some time that night, to take part, somehow or other, in the
event at hand, and to prove the innocence of the three accomplices,
either by arresting the invisible bearer of the fourth letter or by
suggesting some plausible explanation. In short, he would have to be
there; and that was interesting indeed!
And then the news of Marie Fauville was not good. With unwavering
obstinacy she persisted in her suicidal plans. She had to be artificially
fed; and the doctors in the infirmary at Saint-Lazare did not conceal
their anxiety. Would Don Luis Perenna arrive in time?
Lastly, there was that one other thing, the threat of an explosion which
was to blow up Hippolyte Fauville's house ten days after the delivery of
the fourth letter, a really impressive threat when it was remembered that
the enemy had never announced anything that did not take place at the
stated hour. And, although it was still ten days--at least, so people
thought--from the date fixed for the catastrophe, the threat made the
whole business look more and more sinister.
That evening, therefore, a great crowd made its way, through La Muette
and Auteuil, to the Boulevard Suchet, a crowd coming not only from Paris,
but also from the suburbs and the provinces. The spectacle was exciting,
and people wanted to see.
They saw only from a distance, for the police had barred the approaches
a hundred yards from either side of the house and were driving into the
ditches of the fortifications all those who managed to climb the
opposite slope.
The sky was stormy, with heavy clouds revealed at intervals by the light
of a silver moon. There were lightning-flashes and peals of distant
thunder. Men sang. Street-boys imitated the noises of animals. People
formed themselves into groups on the benches and pavements and ate and
drank while discussing the matter.
A part of the night was spent in this way and nothing happened to reward
the patience of the crowd, who began to wonder, somewhat wearily, if they
would not do better to go home, seeing that Sauverand was in prison and
that there was every chance that the fourth letter would not appear in
the same mysterious way as the others.
And yet they did not go: Don Luis Perenna was due to come!
From ten o'clock in the evening the Prefect of Police and his secretary
general, the chief detective and Weber, his deputy, Sergeant Mazeroux,
and two detectives were gathered in the large room in which Fauville had
been murdered. Fifteen more detectives occupied the remaining rooms,
while some twenty others watched the roofs, the outside of the house, and
the garden.
Once again a thorough search had been made during the afternoon, with no
better results than before. But it was decided that all the men should
keep awake. If the letter was delivered anywhere in the big room, they
wanted to know and they meant to know who brought it. The police do not
recognize miracles.
At twelve o'clock M. Desmalions had coffee served to his subordinates. He
himself took two cups and never ceased walking from one end to the other
of the room, or climbing the staircase that led to the attic, or going
through the passage and hall. Preferring that the watch should be
maintained under the most favourable conditions, he left all the doors
opened and all the electric lights on.
Mazeroux objected:
"It has to be dark for the letter to come. You will remember, Monsieur le
Préfet, that the other experiment was tried before and the letter was not
delivered."
"We will try it again," replied M. Desmalions, who, in spite of
everything, was really afraid of Don Luis's interference, and increased
his measures to make it impossible.
Meanwhile, as the night wore on, the minds of all those present became
impatient. Prepared for the angry struggle as they were, they longed for
the opportunity to show their strength. They made desperate use of their
ears and eyes.
At one o'clock there was an alarm that showed the pitch which the nervous
tension had reached. A shot was fired on the first floor, followed by
shouts. On inquiry, it was found that two detectives, meeting in the
course of a round, had not recognized each other, and one of them had
discharged his revolver in the air to inform his comrades.
In the meantime the crowd outside had diminished, as M. Desmalions
perceived on opening the garden gate. The orders had been relaxed and
sightseers were allowed to come nearer, though they were still kept at a
distance from the pavement.
Mazeroux said:
"It is a good thing that the explosion is due in ten days' time and not
to-night, Monsieur le Préfet; otherwise, all those good people would be
in danger as well as ourselves."
"There will be no explosion in ten days' time, any more than there will
be a letter to-night," said M. Desmalions, shrugging his shoulders. And
he added, "Besides, on that day, the orders will be strict."
It was now ten minutes past two.
At twenty-five minutes past, as the Prefect was lighting a cigar, the
chief detective ventured to joke:
"That's something you will have to do without, next time, Monsieur le
Préfet. It would be too risky."
"Next time," said M. Desmalions, "I shall not waste time in keeping
watch. For I really begin to think that all this business with the
letters is over."
"You can never tell," suggested Mazeroux.
A few minutes more passed. M. Desmalions had sat down. The others also
were seated. No one spoke.
And suddenly they all sprang up, with one movement, and the same
expression of surprise.
A bell had rung.
They at once heard where the sound came from.
"The telephone," M. Desmalions muttered.
He took down the receiver.
"Hullo! Who are you?"
A voice answered, but so distant and so faint that he could only catch an
incoherent noise and exclaimed:
"Speak louder! What is it? Who are you?"
The voice spluttered out a few syllables that seemed to astound him.
"Hullo!" he said. "I don't understand. Please repeat what you said. Who
is it speaking?"
"Don Luis Perenna," was the answer, more distinctly this time.
The Prefect made as though to hang up the receiver; and he growled:
"It's a hoax. Some rotter amusing himself at our expense."
Nevertheless, in spite of himself, he went on in a gruff voice:
"Look here, what is it? You say you're Don Luis Perenna?"
"Yes."
"What do you want?"
"What's the time?"
"What's the time!"
The Prefect made an angry gesture, not so much because of the
ridiculous question as because he had really recognized Don Luis's
voice beyond mistake.
"Well?" he said, controlling himself. "What's all this about?
Where are you?"
"At my house, above the iron curtain, in the ceiling of my study."
"In the ceiling!" repeated the Prefect, not knowing what to think.
"Yes; and more or less done for, I confess."
"We'll send and help you out," said M. Desmalions, who was beginning to
enjoy himself.
"Later on, Monsieur le Préfet. First answer me. Quickly! If not, I don't
know that I shall have the strength. What's the time?"
"Oh, look here!"
"I beg of you--"
"It's twenty minutes to three."
"Twenty minutes to three!"
It was as though Don Luis found renewed strength in a sudden fit of fear.
His weak voice recovered its emphasis, and, by turns imperious,
despairing, and beseeching, full of a conviction which he did his utmost
to impart to M. Desmalions, he said:
"Go away, Monsieur le Préfet! Go, all of you; leave the house. The house
will be blown up at three o'clock. Yes, yes, I swear it will. Ten days
after the fourth letter means now, because there has been a ten days'
delay in the delivery of the letters. It means now, at three o'clock in
the morning. Remember what was written on the sheet which Deputy Chief
Weber handed you this morning: 'The explosion is independent of the
letters. It will take place at three o'clock in the morning.' At three
o'clock in the morning, to-day, Monsieur le Préfet!" The voice faltered
and then continued:
"Go away, please. Let no one remain in the house. You must believe me. I
know everything about the business. And nothing can prevent the threat
from being executed. Go, go, go! This is horrible; I feel that you do not
believe me--and I have no strength left. Go away, every one of you!"
He said a few more words which M. Desmalions could not make out. Then the
voice ceased; and, though the Prefect still heard cries, it seemed to him
that those cries were distant, as though the instrument were no longer
within the reach of the mouth that uttered them.
He hung up the receiver.
"Gentlemen," he said, with a smile, "it is seventeen to three. In
seventeen minutes we shall all be blown up together. At least, that is
what our good friend Don Luis Perenna declares."
In spite of the jokes with which this threat was met, there was a general
feeling of uneasiness. Weber asked:
"Was it really Don Luis, Monsieur le Préfet?"
"Don Luis in person. He has gone to earth in some hiding-hole in his
house, above the study; and his fatigue and privations seem to have
unsettled him a little. Mazeroux, go and ferret him out--unless this is
just some fresh trick on his part. You have your warrant."
Sergeant Mazeroux went up to M. Desmalions. His face was pallid.
"Monsieur le Préfet, did _he_ tell you that we were going to be
blown up?"
"He did. He relies on the note which M. Weber found in a volume of
Shakespeare. The explosion is to take place to-night."
"At three o'clock in the morning?"
"At three o'clock in the morning--that is to say, in less than a quarter
of an hour."
"And do you propose to remain, Monsieur le Préfet?"
"What next, Sergeant? Do you imagine that we are going to obey that
gentleman's fancies?"
Mazeroux staggered, hesitated, and then, despite all his natural
deference, unable to contain himself, exclaimed:
"Monsieur le Préfet, it's not a fancy. I have worked with Don Luis. I
know the man. If he tells you that something is going to happen, it's
because he has his reasons."
"Absurd reasons."
"No, no, Monsieur le Préfet," Mazeroux pleaded, growing more and more
excited. "I swear that you must listen to him. The house will be blown
up--he said so--at three o'clock. We have a few minutes left. Let us go.
I entreat you, Monsieur le Préfet."
"In other words, you want us to run away."
"But it's not running away, Monsieur le Préfet. It's a simple precaution.
After all, we can't risk--You, yourself, Monsieur le Préfet--"
"That will do."
"But, Monsieur le Préfet, as Don Luis said--"
"That will do, I say!" repeated the Prefect harshly. "If you're afraid,
you can take advantage of the order which I gave you and go off after
Don Luis."
Mazeroux clicked his heels together and, old soldier that he was,
saluted:
"I shall stay here, Monsieur le Préfet."
And he turned and went back to his place at a distance.
* * * * *
Silence followed. M. Desmalions began to walk up and down the room, with
his hands behind his back. Then, addressing the chief detective and the
secretary general:
"You are of my opinion, I hope?" he said.
"Why, yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Well, of course! To begin with, that supposition is based on nothing
serious. And, besides, we are guarded, aren't we? Bombs don't come
tumbling on one's head like that. It takes some one to throw them. Well,
how are they to come? By what way?"
"Same way as the letters," the secretary general ventured to suggest.
"What's that? Then you admit--?"
The secretary general did not reply and M. Desmalions did not complete
his sentence. He himself, like the others, experienced that same feeling
of uneasiness which gradually, as the seconds sped past, was becoming
almost intolerably painful.
Three o'clock in the morning! ... The words kept on recurring to his
mind. Twice he looked at his watch. There was twelve minutes left. There
was ten minutes. Was the house really going to be blown up, by the mere
effect of an infernal and all-powerful will?
"It's senseless, absolutely senseless!" he cried, stamping his foot.
But, on looking at his companions, he was amazed to see how drawn their
faces were; and he felt his courage sink in a strange way. He was
certainly not afraid; and the others were no more afraid than he. But all
of them, from the chiefs to the simple detectives, were under the
influence of that Don Luis Perenna whom they had seen accomplishing such
extraordinary feats, and who had shown such wonderful ability throughout
this mysterious adventure.
Consciously or unconsciously, whether they wished it or no, they looked
upon him as an exceptional being endowed with special faculties, a
being of whom they could not think without conjuring up the image of
the amazing Arsène Lupin, with his legend of daring, genius, and
superhuman insight.
And Lupin was telling them to fly. Pursued and hunted as he was, he
voluntarily gave himself up to warn them of their danger. And the danger
was immediate. Seven minutes more, six minutes more--and the house would
be blown up.
With great simplicity, Mazeroux went on his knees, made the sign of the
cross, and said his prayers in a low voice. The action was so impressive
that the secretary general and the chief detective made a movement as
though to go toward the Prefect of Police.
M. Desmalions turned away his head and continued his walk up and down the
room. But his anguish increased; and the words which he had heard over
the telephone rang in his ears; and all Perenna's authority, his ardent
entreaties, his frenzied conviction--all this upset him. He had seen
Perenna at work. He felt it borne in upon him that he had no right, in
the present circumstances, to neglect the man's warning.
"Let's go," he said.
The words were spoken in the calmest manner; and it really seemed as if
those who heard them regarded them merely as the sensible conclusion of
a very ordinary state of affairs. They went away without hurry or
disorder, not as fugitives, but as men deliberately obeying the dictates
of prudence.
They stood back at the door to let the Prefect go first.
"No," he said, "go on; I'll follow you."
He was the last out, leaving the electric light full on.
In the hall he asked the chief detective to blow his whistle. When all
the plain-clothesmen had assembled, he sent them out of the house
together with the porter, and shut the door behind him. Then, calling the
detectives who were watching the boulevard, he said:
"Let everybody stand a good distance away; push the crowd as far back
as you can; and be quick about it. We shall enter the house again in
half an hour."
"And you, Monsieur le Préfet?" whispered Mazeroux, "You won't remain
here, I hope?"
"No, that I shan't!" he said, laughing. "If I take our friend Perenna's
advice at all, I may as well take it thoroughly!"
"There is only two minutes left."
"Our friend Perenna spoke of three o'clock, not of two minutes to
three. So--"
He crossed the boulevard, accompanied by his secretary general, the chief
detective, and Mazeroux, and clambered up the slope of the fortifications
opposite the house.
"Perhaps we ought to stoop down," suggested Mazeroux.
"Let's stoop, by all means," said the Prefect, still in a good humour.
"But, honestly, if there's no explosion, I shall send a bullet through my
head. I could not go on living after making myself look so ridiculous."
"There will be an explosion, Monsieur le Préfet," declared Mazeroux.
"What confidence you must have in our friend Don Luis!"
"You have just the same confidence, Monsieur le Préfet."
They were silent, irritated by the wait, and struggling with the absurd
anxiety that oppressed them. They counted the seconds singly, by the
beating of their hearts. It was interminable.
Three o'clock sounded from somewhere.
"You see," grinned M. Desmalions, in an altered voice, "you see! There's
nothing, thank goodness!"
And he growled:
"It's idiotic, perfectly idiotic! How could any one imagine such
nonsense!"
Another clock struck, farther away. Then the hour also rang from the roof
of a neighbouring building.
Before the third stroke had sounded they heard a kind of cracking, and,
the next moment, came the terrible blast, complete, but so brief that
they had only, so to speak, a vision of an immense sheaf of flames and
smoke shooting forth enormous stones and pieces of wall, something like
the grand finale of a fireworks display. And it was all over. The volcano
had erupted.
"Look sharp!" shouted the Prefect of Police, darting forward. "Telephone
for the engines, quick, in case of fire!"
He caught Mazeroux by the arm:
"Run to my motor; you'll see her a hundred yards down the boulevard. Tell
the man to drive you to Don Luis, and, if you find him, release him and
bring him here."
"Under arrest, Monsieur le Préfet?"
"Under arrest? You're mad!"
"But, if the deputy chief--"
"The deputy chief will keep his mouth shut. I'll see to that. Be off!"
Mazeroux fulfilled his mission, not with greater speed than if he had
been sent to arrest Don Luis, for Mazeroux was a conscientious man, but
with extraordinary pleasure. The fight which he had been obliged to wage
against the man whom he still called "the chief" had often distressed him
to the point of tears. This time he was coming to help him, perhaps to
save his life.
That afternoon the deputy chief had ceased his search of the house, by M.
Desmalions's orders, as Don Luis's escape seemed certain, and left only
three men on duty. Mazeroux found them in a room on the ground floor,
where they were sitting up in turns. In reply to his questions, they
declared that they had not heard a sound.
He went upstairs alone, so as to have no witnesses to his interview with
the governor, passed through the drawing-room and entered the study.
Here he was overcome with anxiety, for, after turning on the light, the
first glance revealed nothing to his eyes.
"Chief!" he cried, repeatedly. "Where are you, Chief?"
No answer.
"And yet," thought Mazeroux, "as he telephoned, he can't be far away."
In fact, he saw from where he stood that the receiver was hanging from
its cord; and, going on to the telephone box, he stumbled over bits of
brick and plaster that strewed the carpet. He then switched on the
light in the box as well and saw a hand and arm hanging from the
ceiling above him. The ceiling was broken up all around that arm. But
the shoulder had not been able to pass through; and Mazeroux could not
see the captive's head.
He sprang on to a chair and reached the hand. He felt it and was
reassured by the warmth of its touch.
"Is that you, Mazeroux?" asked a voice that seemed to the sergeant to
come from very far away.
"Yes, it's I. You're not wounded, are you? Nothing serious?"
"No, only stunned--and a bit faint--from hunger.... Listen to me."
"I'm listening."
"Open the second drawer on the left in my writing-desk.... You'll find--"
"Yes, Chief?"
"An old stick of chocolate."
"But--"
"Do as I tell you, Alexandre; I'm famished."
Indeed, Don Luis recovered after a moment or two and said, in a
gayer voice:
"That's better. I can wait now. Go to the kitchen and fetch me some bread
and some water."
"I'll be back at once, Chief."
"Not this way. Come back by Florence Levasseur's room and the secret
passage to the ladder which leads to the trapdoor at the top."
And he told him how to make the stone swing out and how to enter the
hollow in which he had expected to meet with such a tragic end.
The thing was done in ten minutes. Mazeroux cleared the opening, caught
hold of Don Luis by the legs and pulled him out of his hole.
"Oh, dear, oh dear!" he moaned, in a voice full of pity. "What a
position, Chief! How did you manage it all? Yes, I see: you must have dug
down, where you lay, and gone on digging--for more than a yard! And it
took some pluck, I expect, on an empty stomach!"
When Don Luis was seated in his bedroom and had swallowed a few bits of
bread and drunk what he wanted, he told his story:
"Yes, it took the devil's own pluck, old man. By Jingo! when a chap's
ideas are whirling in his head and he can't use his brain, upon my word,
all he asks is to die? And then there was no air, you see. I couldn't
breathe. I went on digging, however, as you saw, went on digging while I
was half asleep, in a sort of nightmare. Just look: my fingers are in a
jelly. But there, I was thinking of that confounded business of the
explosion and I wanted to warn you at all costs, and I dug away at my
tunnel. What a job! And then, oof! I felt space at last!
"I got my hand through and next my arm. Where was I? Why, over the
telephone, of course! I knew that at once by feeling the wall and finding
the wires. Then it took me quite half an hour to get hold of the
instrument. I couldn't reach it with my arm.
"I managed at last with a piece of string and a slip-knot to fish up the
receiver and hold it near my mouth, or, say, at ten inches from my mouth.
And then I shouted and roared to make my voice carry; and, all the time,
I was in pain. And then, at last, my string broke.... And then--and
then--I hadn't an ounce of strength left in my body. Besides, you fellows
had been warned; and it was for you to get yourselves out of the mess."
He looked at Mazeroux and asked him, as though certain of the reply:
"The explosion took place, didn't it?"
"Yes, Chief."
"At three o'clock exactly?"
"Yes."
"And of course M. Desmalions had the house cleared?"
"Yes."
"At the last minute?"
"At the last minute."
Don Luis laughed and said:
"I knew he would wait about and not give way until the crucial moment.
You must have had a bad time of it, my poor Mazeroux, for of course you
agreed with me from the start."
He kept on eating while he talked; and each mouthful seemed to bring back
a little of his usual animation.
"Funny thing, hunger!" he said. "Makes you feel so light-headed. I must
practise getting used to it, however."
"At any rate, Chief, no one would believe that you have been fasting for
nearly forty-eight hours."
"Ah, that comes of having a sound constitution, with something to fall
back upon! I shall be a different man in half an hour. Just give me time
to shave and have a bath."
When he had finished dressing, he sat down to the breakfast of eggs
and cold meat which Mazeroux had prepared for him; and then,
getting up, said:
"Now, let's be off."
"But there's no hurry, Chief. Why don't you lie down for a few hours? The
Prefect can wait."
"You're mad! What about Marie Fauville?"
"Marie Fauville?"
"Why, of course! Do you think I'm going to leave her in prison, or
Sauverand, either? There's not a second to lose, old chap."
Mazeroux thought to himself that the chief had not quite recovered his
wits yet. What? Release Marie Fauville and Sauverand, one, two, three,
just like that! No, no, it was going a bit too far.
However, he took down to the Prefect's car a new Perenna, merry, brisk,
and as fresh as though he had just got out of bed.
"Very flattering to my pride," said Don Luis to Mazeroux, "most
flattering, that hesitation of the Prefect's, after I had warned him over
the telephone, followed by his submission at the decisive moment. What a
hold I must have on all those jokers, to make them sit up at a sign from
little me! 'Beware, gentlemen!' I telephone to them from the bottomless
pit. 'Beware! At three o'clock, a bomb!' 'Nonsense!' say they. 'Not a bit
of it!' say I. 'How do you know?' 'Because I do.' 'But what proof have
you?' 'What proof? That I say so.' 'Oh, well, of course, if you say so!'
And, at five minutes to three, out they march. Ah, if I wasn't built up
of modesty--"
They came to the Boulevard Suchet, where the crowd was so dense that they
had to alight from the car. Mazeroux passed through the cordon of police
protecting the approaches to the house and took Don Luis to the slope
across the road.
"Wait for me here, Chief. I'll tell the Prefect of Police."
On the other side of the boulevard, under the pale morning sky in which a
few black clouds still lingered, Don Luis saw the havoc wrought by the
explosion. It was apparently not so great as he had expected. Some of the
ceilings had fallen in and their rubbish showed through the yawning
cavities of the windows; but the house remained standing. Even Fauville's
built-out annex had not suffered overmuch, and, strange to say, the
electric light, which the Prefect had left burning on his departure, had
not gone out. The garden and the road were covered with stacks of
furniture, over which a number of soldiers and police kept watch.
"Come with me, Chief," said Mazeroux, as he fetched Don Luis and led him
toward the engineer's workroom.
A part of the floor was demolished. The outer walls on the left, near the
passage, were cracked; and two workmen were fixing up beams, brought from
the nearest timber yard, to support the ceiling. But, on the whole, the
explosion had not had the results which the man who prepared it must have
anticipated.
M. Desmalions was there, together with all the men who had spent the
night in the room and several important persons from the public
prosecutor's office. Weber, the deputy chief detective, alone had gone,
refusing to meet his enemy.
Don Luis's arrival caused great excitement. The Prefect at once came up
to him and said:
"All our thanks, Monsieur. Your insight is above praise. You have
saved our lives; and these gentlemen and I wish to tell you so most
emphatically. In my case, it is the second time that I have to
thank you."
"There is a very simple way of thanking me, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don
Luis, "and that is to allow me to carry out my task to the end."
"Your task?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. My action of last night is only the beginning.
The conclusion is the release of Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand."
M. Desmalions smiled.
"Oh!"
"Am I asking too much, Monsieur le Préfet?"
"One can always ask, but the request should be reasonable. And the
innocence of those people does not depend on me."
"No; but it depends on you, Monsieur le Préfet, to let them know if I
prove their innocence to you."
"Yes, I agree, if you prove it beyond dispute."
"Just so."
Don Luis's calm assurance impressed M. Desmalions in spite of everything
and even more than on the former occasions; and he suggested:
"The results of the hasty inspection which we have made will perhaps help
you. For instance, we are certain that the bomb was placed by the
entrance to the passage and probably under the boards of the floor."
"Please do not trouble, Monsieur le Préfet. These are only secondary
details. The great thing now is that you should know the whole truth, and
that not only through words."
The Prefect had come closer. The magistrate and detectives were standing
round Don Luis, watching his lips and movements with feverish impatience.
Was it possible that that truth, as yet so remote and vague, in spite of
all the importance which they attached to the arrests already effected,
was known at last?
It was a solemn moment. Every one was on tenterhooks. The manner in which
Don Luis had foretold the explosion lent the value of an accomplished
fact to his predictions; and the men whom he had saved from the terrible
catastrophe were almost ready to accept as certainties the most
improbable statements which a man of his stamp might make.
"Monsieur le Préfet," he said, "you waited in vain last night for the
fourth letter to make its appearance. We shall now be able, by an
unexpected miracle of chance, to be present at the delivery of the
letter. You will then know that it was the same hand that committed all
the crimes--and you will know whose hand that was."
And, turning to Mazeroux:
"Sergeant, will you please make the room as dark as you can? The
shutters are gone; but you might draw the curtains across the windows
and close the doors. Monsieur le Préfet, is it by accident that the
electric light is on?"
"Yes, by accident. We will have it turned out."
"One moment. Have any of you gentlemen a pocket lantern about you? Or,
no, it doesn't matter. This will do."
There was a candle in a sconce. He took it and lit it.
Then he switched off the electric light.
There was a half darkness, amid which the flame of the candle flickered
in the draught from the windows. Don Luis protected the flame with his
hand and moved to the table.
"I do not think that we shall be kept waiting long," he said. "As I
foresee it, there will be only a few seconds before the facts speak for
themselves and better than I could do."
Those few seconds, during which no one broke the silence, were
unforgettable. M. Desmalions has since declared, in an interview in which
he ridicules himself very cleverly, that his brain, over-stimulated by
the fatigues of the night and by the whole scene before him, imagined the
most unlikely events, such as an invasion of the house by armed
assailants, or the apparition of ghosts and spirits.
He had the curiosity, however, he said, to watch Don Luis. Sitting on
the edge of the table, with his head thrown a little back and his
eyes roaming over the ceiling, Don Luis was eating a piece of bread
and nibbling at a cake of chocolate. He seemed very hungry, but quite
at his ease.
The others maintained that tense attitude which we put on at moments of
great physical effort. Their faces were distorted with a sort of
grimace. They were haunted by the memory of the explosion as well as
obsessed by what was going to happen. The flame of the candle cast
shadows on the wall.
More seconds elapsed than Don Luis Perenna had said, thirty or forty
seconds, perhaps, that seemed endless. Then Perenna lifted the candle a
little and said:
"There you are."
They had all seen what they now saw almost as soon as he spoke. A letter
was descending from the ceiling. It spun round slowly, like a leaf
falling from a tree without being driven by the wind. It just touched Don
Luis and alighted on the floor between two legs of the table.
Picking up the paper and handing it to M. Desmalions, Don Luis said:
"There you are, Monsieur le Préfet. This is the fourth letter, due
last night."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE "HATER"
M. Desmalions looked at him without understanding, and looked from him to
the ceiling. Perenna said:
"Oh, there's no witchcraft about it; and, though no one has thrown that
letter from above, though there is not the smallest hole in the ceiling,
the explanation is quite simple!"
"Quite simple, is it?" said M. Desmalions.
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. It all looks like an extremely complicated
conjuring trick, done almost for fun. Well, I say that it is quite
simple--and, at the same time, terribly tragic. Sergeant Mazeroux, would
you mind drawing back the curtains and giving us as much light as
possible?"
While Mazeroux was executing his orders and M. Desmalions glancing at the
fourth letter, the contents of which were unimportant and merely
confirmed the previous ones, Don Luis took a pair of steps which the
workmen had left in the corner, set it up in the middle of the room and
climbed to the top, where, seated astride, he was able to reach the
electric chandelier.
It consisted of a broad, circular band in brass, beneath which was a
festoon of crystal pendants. Inside were three lamps placed at the
corners of a brass triangle concealing the wires.
He uncovered the wires and cut them. Then he began to take the whole
fitting to pieces. To hasten matters, he asked for a hammer and broke up
the plaster all round the clamps that held the chandelier in position.
"Lend me a hand, please," he said to Mazeroux.
Mazeroux went up the steps; and between them they took hold of the
chandelier and let it slide down the uprights. The detectives caught it
and placed it on the table with some difficulty, for it was much heavier
than it looked.
On inspection, it proved to be surmounted by a cubical metal box,
measuring about eight inches square, which box, being fastened inside the
ceiling between the iron clamps, had obliged Don Luis to knock away the
plaster that concealed it.
"What the devil's this?" exclaimed M. Desmalions.
"Open it for yourself, Monsieur le Préfet: there's a lid to it,"
said Perenna.
M. Desmalions raised the lid. The box was filled with springs and wheels,
a whole complicated and detailed mechanism resembling a piece of
clockwork.
"By your leave, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis.
He took out one piece of machinery and discovered another beneath it,
joined to the first by the gearing of two wheels; and the second was more
like one of those automatic apparatuses which turn out printed slips.
Right at the bottom of the box, just where the box touched the
ceiling, was a semicircular groove, and at the edge of it was a letter
ready for delivery.
"The last of the five letters," said Don Luis, "doubtless continuing the
series of denunciations. You will notice, Monsieur le Préfet, that the
chandelier originally had a fourth lamp in the centre. It was obviously
removed when the chandelier was altered, so as to make room for the
letters to pass."
He continued his detailed explanations:
"So the whole set of letters was placed here, at the bottom. A clever
piece of machinery, controlled by clockwork, took them one by one at the
appointed time, pushed them to the edge of the groove concealed between
the lamps and the pendants, and projected them into space."
None of those standing around Don Luis spoke, and all of them seemed
perhaps a little disappointed. The whole thing was certainly very clever;
but they had expected something better than a trick of springs and
wheels, however surprising.
"Have patience, gentlemen," said Don Luis. "I promised you something
ghastly; and you shall have it."
"Well, I agree," said the Prefect of Police, "that this is where the
letters started from. But a good many points remain obscure; and, apart
from this, there is one fact in particular which it seems impossible to
understand. How were the criminals able to adapt the chandelier in this
way? And, in a house guarded by the police, in a room watched night and
day, how were they able to carry out such a piece of work without being
seen or heard?"
"The answer is quite easy, Monsieur le Préfet: the work was done before
the house was guarded by the police."
"Before the murder was committed, therefore?"
"Before the murder was committed."
"And what is to prove to me that that is so?"
"You have said so yourself, Monsieur le Préfet: because it could not have
been otherwise."
"But do explain yourself, Monsieur!" cried M. Desmalions, with a gesture
of irritation. "If you have important things to tell us, why delay?"
"It is better, Monsieur le Préfet, that you should arrive at the truth in
the same way as I did. When you know the secret of the letters, the truth
is much nearer than you think; and you would have already named the
criminal if the horror of his crime had not been so great as to divert
all suspicion from him."
M. Desmalions looked at him attentively. He felt the importance of
Perenna's every word and he was really anxious.
"Then, according to you," he said, "those letters accusing Madame
Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were placed there with the sole object of
ruining both of them?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
"And, as they were placed there before the crime, the plot must have been
schemed before the murder?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, before the murder. From the moment that we
admit the innocence of Mme. Fauville and Gaston Sauverand, we are obliged
to conclude that, as everything accuses them, this is due to a series of
deliberate acts. Mme. Fauville was out on the night of the murder: a
plot! She was unable to say how she spent her time while the murder was
being committed: a plot! Her inexplicable drive in the direction of La
Muette and her cousin Sauverand's walk in the neighbourhood of the house:
plots! The marks left in the apple by those teeth, by Mme. Fauville's own
teeth: a plot and the most infernal of all!
"I tell you, everything is plotted beforehand, everything is, so to
speak, prepared, measured out, labelled, and numbered. Everything takes
place at the appointed time. Nothing is left to chance. It is a work very
nicely pieced together, worthy of the most skilful artisan, so solidly
constructed that outside happenings have not been able to throw it out of
gear; and that the scheme works exactly, precisely, imperturbably, like
the clockwork in this box, which is a perfect symbol of the whole
business and, at the same time, gives a most accurate explanation of it,
because the letters denouncing the murderers were duly posted before the
crime and delivered after the crime on the dates and at the hours
foreseen."
M. Desmalions remained thinking for a time and then objected:
"Still, in the letters which he wrote, M. Fauville accuses his wife."
"He does."
"We must therefore admit either that he was right in accusing her or that
the letters are forged?"
"They are not forged. All the experts have recognized M. Fauville's
handwriting."
"Then?"
"Then--"
Don Luis did not finish his sentence; and M. Desmalions felt the breath
of the truth fluttering still nearer round him.
The others, one and all as anxious as himself, were silent. He muttered:
"I do not understand--"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, you do. You understand that, if the sending of
those letters forms an integrate part of the plot hatched against Mme.
Fauville and Gaston Sauverand, it is because their contents were prepared
in such a way as to be the undoing of the victims."
"What! What! What are you saying?"
"I am saying what I said before. Once they are innocent, everything that
tells against them is part of the plot."
Again there was a long silence. The Prefect of Police did not conceal
his agitation. Speaking very slowly, with his eyes fixed on Don Luis's
eyes, he said:
"Whoever the culprit may be, I know nothing more terrible than this work
of hatred."
"It is an even more improbable work than you can imagine, Monsieur le
Préfet," said Perenna, with growing animation, "and it is a hatred of
which you, who do not know Sauverand's confession, cannot yet estimate
the violence. I understood it completely as I listened to the man; and,
since then, all my thoughts have been overpowered by the dominant idea of
that hatred. Who could hate like that? To whose loathing had Marie
Fauville and Sauverand been sacrificed? Who was the inconceivable person
whose perverted genius had surrounded his two victims with chains so
powerfully forged?
"And another idea came to my mind, an earlier idea which had already
struck me several times and to which I have already referred in Sergeant
Mazeroux's presence: I mean the really mathematical character of the
appearance of the letters. I said to myself that such grave documents
could not be introduced into the case at fixed dates unless some primary
reason demanded that those dates should absolutely be fixed. What
reason? If a _human_ agency had been at work each time, there would
surely have been some irregularity dependent on this especially after
the police had become cognizant of the matter and were present at the
delivery of the letters.
"Well," Perenna continued, "in spite of every obstacle, the letters
continued to come, as though they could not help it. And thus the reason
of their coming gradually dawned upon me: they came mechanically, by some
invisible process set going once and for all and working with the blind
certainty of a physical law. This was a case not of a conscious
intelligence and will, but just of material necessity.... It was the
clash of these two ideas--the idea of the hatred pursuing the innocent
and the idea of that machinery serving the schemes of the 'hater'--it was
their clash that gave birth to the little spark of light. When brought
into contact, the two ideas combined in my mind and suggested the
recollection that Hippolyte Fauville was an engineer by profession!"
The others listened to him with a sort of uneasy oppression. What was
gradually being revealed of the tragedy, instead of relieving the
anxiety, increased it until it became absolutely painful.
M. Desmalions objected:
"Granting that the letters arrived on the dates named, you will
nevertheless have noted that the hour varied on each occasion.
"That is to say, it varied according as we watched in the dark or not,
and that is just the detail which supplied me with the key to the
riddle. If the letters--and this was an indispensable precaution, which
we are now able to understand--were delivered only under cover of the
darkness, it must be because a contrivance of some kind prevented them
from appearing when the electric light was on, and because that
contrivance was controlled by a switch inside the room. There is no
other explanation possible.
"We have to do with an automatic distributor that delivers the
incriminating letters which it contains by clockwork, releasing them only
between this hour and that on such and such a night fixed in advance and
only at times when the electric light is off. You have the apparatus
before you. No doubt the experts will admire its ingenuity and confirm my
assertions. But, given the fact that it was found in the ceiling of this
room, given the fact that it contained letters written by M. Fauville, am
I not entitled to say that it was constructed by M. Fauville, the
electrical engineer?"
Once more the name of M. Fauville returned, like an obsession; and each
time the name stood more clearly defined. It was first M. Fauville; then
M. Fauville, the engineer; then M. Fauville, the electrical engineer. And
thus the picture of the "hater," as Don Luis said, appeared in its
accurate outlines, giving those men, used though they were to the
strangest criminal monstrosities, a thrill of terror. The truth was now
no longer prowling around them. They were already fighting with it, as
you fight with an adversary whom you do not see but who clutches you by
the throat and brings you to the ground.
And the Prefect of Police, summing up all his impressions, said, in a
strained voice:
"So M. Fauville wrote those letters in order to ruin his wife and the man
who was in love with her?"
"Yes."
"In that case--"
"What?"
"Knowing, at the same time, that he was threatened with death, he wished,
if ever the threat was realized, that his death should be laid to the
charge of his wife and her friend?"
"Yes."
"And, in order to avenge himself on their love for each other and to
gratify his hatred of them both, he wanted the whole set of facts to
point to them as guilty of the murder of which he would be the victim?"
"Yes."
"So that--so that M. Fauville, in one part of his accursed work,
was--what shall I say?--the accomplice of his own murder. He dreaded
death. He struggled against it. But he arranged that his hatred should
gain by it. That's it, isn't it? That's how it is?"
"Almost, Monsieur le Préfet. You are following the same stages by which I
travelled and, like myself, you are hesitating before the last truth,
before the truth which gives the tragedy its sinister character and
deprives it of all human proportions."
The Prefect struck the table with his two fists and, in a sudden fit of
revolt, cried:
"It's ridiculous! It's a perfectly preposterous theory! M. Fauville
threatened with death and contriving his wife's ruin with that
Machiavellian perseverance? Absurd! The man who came to my office, the
man whom you saw, was thinking of only one thing: how to escape dying! He
was obsessed by one dread alone, the dread of death.
"It is not at such moments," the Prefect emphasized, "that a man fits up
clockwork and lays traps, especially when those traps cannot take effect
unless he dies by foul play. Can you see M. Fauville working at his
automatic machine, putting in with his own hands letters which he has
taken the pains to write to a friend three months before and intercept,
arranging events so that his wife shall appear guilty and saying,
'There! If I die murdered, I'm easy in my mind: the person to be
arrested will be Marie!'
"No, you must confess, men don't take these gruesome precautions. Or, if
they do--if they do, it means that they're sure of being murdered. It
means that they agree to be murdered. It means that they are at one with
the murderer, so to speak, and meet him halfway. In short, it means--"
He interrupted himself, as if the sentences which he had spoken had
surprised him. And the others seemed equally disconcerted. And all of
them unconsciously drew from those sentences the conclusions which they
implied, and which they themselves did not yet fully perceive.
Don Luis did not remove his eyes from the Prefect, and awaited the
inevitable words.
M. Desmalions muttered:
"Come, come, you are not going to suggest that he had agreed--"
"I suggest nothing, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis. "So far, you have
followed the logical and natural trend of your thoughts; and that brings
you to your present position."
"Yes, yes, I know, but I am showing you the absurdity of your theory. It
can't be correct, and we can't believe in Marie Fauville's innocence
unless we are prepared to suppose an unheard-of thing, that M. Fauville
took part in his own murder. Why, it's laughable!"
And he gave a laugh; but it was a forced laugh and did not ring true.
"For, after all," he added, "you can't deny that that is where we stand."
"I don't deny it."
"Well?"
"Well, M. Fauville, as you say, took part in his own murder."
This was said in the quietest possible fashion, but with an air of such
certainty that no one dreamed of protesting. After the work of deduction
and supposition which Don Luis had compelled his hearers to undertake,
they found themselves in a corner which it was impossible for them to
leave without stumbling against unanswerable objections.
There was no longer any doubt about M. Fauville's share in his own death.
But of what did that share consist? What part had he played in the
tragedy of hatred and murder? Had he played that part, which ended in the
sacrifice of his life, voluntarily or under compulsion? Who, when all was
said and done, had served as his accomplice or his executioner?
All these questions came crowding upon the minds of M. Desmalions and the
others. They thought of nothing but of how to solve them, and Don Luis
could feel certain that his solution was accepted beforehand. From that
moment he had but to tell his story of what had happened without fear of
contradiction. He did so briefly, after the manner of a succinct report
limited to essentials:
"Three months before the crime, M. Fauville wrote a series of letters
to one of his friends, M. Langernault, who, as Sergeant Mazeroux will
have told you, Monsieur le Préfet, had been dead for several years, a
fact of which M. Fauville cannot have been ignorant. These letters were
posted, but were intercepted by some means which it is not necessary
that we should know for the moment. M. Fauville erased the postmarks
and the addresses and inserted the letters in a machine constructed for
the purpose, of which he regulated the works so that the first letter
should be delivered a fortnight after his death and the others at
intervals of ten days.
"At this moment it is certain that his plan was concerted down to the
smallest detail. Knowing that Sauverand was in love with his wife,
watching Sauverand's movements, he must obviously have noticed that his
detested rival used to pass under the windows of the house every
Wednesday and that Marie Fauville would go to her window.
"This is a fact of the first importance, one which was exceedingly
valuable to me; and it will impress you as being equal to a material
proof. Every Wednesday evening, I repeat, Sauverand used to wander round
the house. Now note this: first, the crime prepared by M. Fauville was
committed on a Wednesday evening; secondly, it was at her husband's
express request that Mme. Fauville went out that evening to go to the
opera and to Mme. d'Ersinger's."
Don Luis stopped for a few seconds and then continued:
"Consequently, on the morning of that Wednesday, everything was ready,
the fatal clock was wound up, the incriminating machinery was working to
perfection, and the proofs to come would confirm the immediate proofs
which M. Fauville held in reserve. Better still, Monsieur le Préfet, you
had received from him a letter in which he told you of the plot hatched
against him, and he implored your assistance for the morning of the next
day--that is to say, _after his death_!
"Everything, in short, led him to think that things would go according to
the 'hater's' wishes, when something occurred that nearly upset his
schemes: the appearance of Inspector Vérot, who had been sent by you,
Monsieur le Préfet, to collect particulars about the Mornington heirs.
What happened between the two men? Probably no one will ever know. Both
are dead; and their secret will not come to life again. But we can at
least say for certain that Inspector Vérot was here and took away with
him the cake of chocolate on which the teeth of the tiger were seen for
the first time, and also that Inspector Vérot succeeded, thanks to
circumstances with which we are unacquainted, in discovering M.
Fauville's projects."
"This we know," explained Don Luis, "because Inspector Vérot said so in
his own agonizing words; because it was through him that we learned that
the crime was to take place on the following night; and because he had
set down his discoveries in a letter which was stolen from him.
"And Fauville knew it also, because, to get rid of the formidable enemy
who was thwarting his designs, he poisoned him; because, when the poison
was slow in acting, he had the audacity, under a disguise which made him
look like Sauverand and which was one day to turn suspicion against
Sauverand, he had the audacity and the presence of mind to follow
Inspector Vérot to the Café du Pont-Neuf, to purloin the letter of
explanation which Inspector Vérot wrote you, to substitute a blank sheet
of paper for it, and then to ask a passer-by, who might become a witness
against Sauverand, the way to the nearest underground station for
Neuilly, where Sauverand lived! There's your man, Monsieur le Préfet."
Don Luis spoke with increasing force, with the ardour that springs from
conviction; and his logical and closely argued speech seemed to conjure
up the actual truth,
"There's your man, Monsieur le Préfet," he repeated. "There's your
scoundrel. And the situation in which he found himself was such, the fear
inspired by Inspector Vérot's possible revelations was such, that, before
putting into execution the horrible deed which he had planned, he came to
the police office to make sure that his victim was no longer alive and
had not been able to denounce him.
"You remember the scene, Monsieur le Préfet, the fellow's agitation and
fright: 'To-morrow evening,' he said. Yes, it was for the morrow that he
asked for your help, because he knew that everything would be over that
same evening and that next day the police would be confronted with a
murder, with the two culprits against whom he himself had heaped up the
charges, with Marie Fauville, whom he had, so to speak, accused in
advance....
"That was why Sergeant Mazeroux's visit and mine to his house, at nine
o'clock in the evening, embarrassed him so obviously. Who were those
intruders? Would they not succeed in shattering his plan? Reflection
reassured him, even as we, by our insistence, compelled him to give way."
"After all, what he did care?" asked Perenna.
"His measures were so well taken that no amount of watching could destroy
them or even make the watchers aware of them. What was to happen would
happen in our presence and unknown to us. Death, summoned by him, would
do its work.... And the comedy, the tragedy, rather, ran its course. Mme.
Fauville, whom he was sending to the opera, came to say good-night. Then
his servant brought him something to eat, including a dish of apples.
Then followed a fit of rage, the agony of the man who is about to die and
who fears death and a whole scene of deceit, in which he showed us his
safe and the drab-cloth diary which was supposed to contain the story of
the plot. ... That ended matters.
"Mazeroux and I retired to the hall passage, closing the door after us;
and M. Fauville remained alone and free to act. Nothing now could prevent
the fulfilment of his wishes. At eleven o'clock in the evening, Mme.
Fauville--to whom no doubt, in the course of the day, imitating
Sauverand's handwriting, he had sent a letter--one of those letters which
are always torn up at once, in which Sauverand entreated the poor woman
to grant him an interview at the Ranelagh--Mme. Fauville would leave the
opera and, before going to Mme. d'Ersinger's party, would spend an hour
not far from the house.
"On the other hand, Sauverand would be performing his usual Wednesday
pilgrimage less than half a mile away, in the opposite direction. During
this time the crime would be committed.
"Both of them would come under the notice of the police, either by M.
Fauville's allusions or by the incident at the Café du Pont-Neuf; both of
them, moreover, would be incapable either of providing an alibi or of
explaining their presence so near the house: were not both of them bound
to be accused and convicted of the crime? ... In the most unlikely event
that some chance should protect them, there was an undeniable proof lying
ready to hand in the shape of the apple containing the very marks of
Marie Fauville's teeth! And then, a few weeks later, the last and
decisive trick, the mysterious arrival at intervals of ten days, of the
letters denouncing the pair. So everything was settled.
"The smallest details were foreseen with infernal clearness. You
remember, Monsieur le Préfet, that turquoise which dropped out of my
ring and was found in the safe? There were only four persons who
could have seen it and picked it up. M. Fauville was one of them.
Well, he was just the one, whom we all excepted; and yet it was he
who, to cast suspicion upon me and to forestall an interference which
he felt would be dangerous, seized the opportunity and placed the
turquoise in the safe! ...
"This time the work was completed. Fate was about to be fulfilled.
Between the 'hater' and his victims there was but the distance of one
act. The act was performed. M. Fauville died."
Don Luis ceased. His words were followed by a long silence; and he felt
certain that the extraordinary story which he had just finished telling
met with the absolute approval of his hearers. They did not discuss, they
believed. And yet it was the most incredible truth that he was asking
them to believe.
M. Desmalions asked one last question.
"You were in that passage with Sergeant Mazeroux. There were detectives
outside the house. Admitting that M. Fauville knew that he was to be
killed that night and at that very hour of the night, who can have
killed him and who can have killed his son? There was no one within
these four walls."
"There was M. Fauville."
A sudden clamour of protests arose. The veil was promptly torn; and the
spectacle revealed by Don Luis provoked, in addition to horror, an
unforeseen outburst of incredulity and a sort of revolt against the too
kindly attention which had been accorded to those explanations. The
Prefect of Police expressed the general feeling by exclaiming:
"Enough of words! Enough of theories! However logical they may seem, they
lead to absurd conclusions."
"Absurd in appearance, Monsieur le Préfet; but how do we know that M.
Fauville's unheard-of conduct is not explained by very natural reasons?
Of course, no one dies with a light heart for the mere pleasure of
revenge. But how do we know that M. Fauville, whose extreme emaciation
and pallor you must have noted as I did, was not stricken by some mortal
illness and that, knowing himself doomed--"
"I repeat, enough of words!" cried the Prefect. "You go only by
suppositions. What I want is proofs, a proof, only one. And we are still
waiting for it."
"Here it is, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Eh? What's that you say?"
"Monsieur le Préfet, when I removed the chandelier from the plaster that
supported it, I found, outside the upper surface of the metal box, a
sealed envelope. As the chandelier was placed under the attic occupied by
M. Fauville's son, it is evident that M. Fauville was able, by lifting
the boards of the floor in his son's room, to reach the top of the
machine which he had contrived. This was how, during that last night, he
placed this sealed envelope in position, after writing on it the date of
the murder, '31 March, 11 P.M.,' and his signature, 'Hippolyte
Fauville.'"
M. Desmalions opened the envelope with an eager hand. His first glance at
the pages of writing which it contained made him give a start.
"Oh, the villain, the villain!" he said. "How was it possible for such a
monster to exist? What a loathsome brute!"
In a jerky voice, which became almost inaudible at times owing to his
amazement, he read:
"The end is reached. My hour is striking. Put to sleep by me, Edmond is
dead without having been roused from his unconsciousness by the fire of
the poison. My own death-agony is beginning. I am suffering all the
tortures of hell. My hand can hardly write these last lines. I suffer,
how I suffer! And yet my happiness is unspeakable.
"This happiness dates back to my visit to London, with Edmond, four
months ago. Until then, I was dragging on the most hideous existence,
hiding my hatred of the woman who detested me and who loved another,
broken down in health, feeling myself already eaten up with an
unrelenting disease, and seeing my son grow daily more weak and languid.
"In the afternoon I consulted a great physician and I no longer had the
least doubt left: the malady that was eating into me was cancer. And I
knew besides that, like myself, my son Edmond was on the road to the
grave, incurably stricken with consumption.
"That same evening I conceived the magnificent idea of revenge. And such
a revenge! The most dreadful of accusations made against a man and a
woman in love with each other! Prison! The assizes! Penal servitude! The
scaffold! And no assistance possible, not a struggle, not a hope!
Accumulated proofs, proofs so formidable as to make the innocent
themselves doubt their own innocence and remain hopelessly and helplessly
dumb. What a revenge!... And what a punishment! To be innocent and to
struggle vainly against the very facts that accuse you, the very
certainty that proclaims you guilty.
"And I prepared everything with a glad heart. Each happy thought, each
invention made me shout with laughter. Lord, how merry I was! You would
think that cancer hurts: not a bit of it! How can you suffer physical
pain when your soul is quivering with delight? Do you think I feel the
hideous burning of the poison at this moment?
"I am happy. The death which I have inflicted on myself is the beginning
of their torment. Then why live and wait for a natural death which to
them would mean the beginning of their happiness? And as Edmond had to
die, why not save him a lingering illness and give him a death which
would double the crime of Marie and Sauverand?
"The end is coming. I had to break off: the pain was too much for me. Now
to pull myself together.... How silent everything is! Outside the house
and in the house are emissaries of the police watching over my crime. At
no great distance, Marie, in obedience to my letter, is hurrying to the
trysting place, where her beloved will not come. And the beloved is
roaming under the windows where his darling will not appear.
"Oh, the dear little puppets whose string I pull! Dance! Jump! Skip!
Lord, what fun they are! A rope round your neck, sir; and, madam, a rope
round yours. Was it not you, sir, who poisoned Inspector Vérot this
morning and followed him to the Café du Pont-Neuf, with your grand ebony
walking-stick? Why, of course it was! And at night the pretty lady
poisons me and poisons her stepson. Prove it? Well, what about this
apple, madam, this apple which you did _not_ bite into and which all the
same will be found to bear the marks of your teeth? What fun! Dance!
Jump! Skip!
"And the letters! The trick of my letters to the late lamented
Langernault! That was my crowning triumph. Oh, the joy of it, when I
invented and constructed my little mechanical toy! Wasn't it nicely
thought out? Isn't it wonderfully neat and accurate? On the appointed
day, click, the first letter! And, ten days after, click, the second
letter! Come, there's no hope for you, my poor friends, you're nicely
done for. Dance! Jump! Skip!
"And what amuses me--for I am laughing now--is to think that nobody will
know what to make of it. Marie and Sauverand guilty: of that there is not
the least doubt. But, outside that, absolute mystery.
"Nobody will know nor ever will know anything. In a few weeks' time, when
the two criminals are irrevocably doomed, when the letters are in the
hands of the police, on the 25th, or, rather, at 3 o'clock on the morning
of the 26th of May, an explosion will destroy every trace of my work. The
bomb is in its place. A movement entirely independent of the chandelier
will explode it at the hour aforesaid.
"I have just laid beside it the drab-cloth manuscript book in which I
pretended that I wrote my diary, the phials containing the poison, the
needles which I used, an ebony walking-stick, two letters from Inspector
Vérot, in short, anything that might save the culprits. Then how can any
one know? No, nobody will know nor ever will know anything.
"Unless--unless some miracle happens--unless the bomb leaves the walls
standing and the ceiling intact. Unless, by some marvel of
intelligence and intuition, a man of genius, unravelling the threads
which I have tangled, should penetrate to the very heart of the riddle
and succeed, after a search lasting for months and months, in
discovering this final letter.
"It is for this man that I write, well knowing that he cannot exist.
But, after all, what do I care? Marie and Sauverand will be at the
bottom of the abyss by then, dead no doubt, or in any case separated
forever. And I risk nothing by leaving this evidence of my hatred in the
hands of chance.
"There, that's finished. I have only to sign. My hand shakes more and
more. The sweat is pouring from my forehead in great drops. I am
suffering the tortures of the damned and I am divinely happy! Aha, my
friends, you were waiting for my death!
"You, Marie, imprudently let me read in your eyes, which watched me
stealthily, all your delight at seeing me so ill! And you were both of
you so sure of the future that you had the courage to wait patiently for
my death! Well, here it is, my death! Here it is and there are you,
united above my grave, linked together with the handcuffs. Marie, be the
wife of my friend Sauverand. Sauverand, I bestow my spouse upon you. Be
joined together in holy matrimony. Bless you, my children!
"The examining magistrate will draw up the contract and the executioner
will read the marriage service. Oh, the delight of it! I suffer
agonies--but oh, the delight! What a fine thing is hatred, when it makes
death a joy! I am happy in dying. Marie is in prison. Sauverand is
weeping in the condemned man's cell. The door opens....
"Oh, horror! the men in black! They walk up to the bed: 'Gaston
Sauverand, your appeal is rejected. Courage! Be a man!' Oh, the cold,
dark morning--the scaffold! It's your turn, Marie, your turn! Would you
survive your lover? Sauverand is dead: it's your turn. See, here's a
rope for you. Or would you rather have poison? Die, will you, you hussy!
Die with your veins on fire--as I am doing, I who hate you--hate
you--hate you!"
M. Desmalions ceased, amid the silent astonishment of all those present.
He had great difficulty in reading the concluding lines, the writing
having become almost wholly shapeless and illegible.
He said, in a low voice, as he stared at the paper: "'Hippolyte
Fauville,' The signature is there. The scoundrel found a last remnant
of strength to sign his name clearly. He feared that a doubt might be
entertained of his villainy. And indeed how could any one have
suspected it?"
And, looking at Don Luis, he added:
"It needed, to solve the mystery, a really exceptional power of insight
and gifts to which we must all do homage, to which I do homage. All the
explanations which that madman gave have been anticipated in the most
accurate and bewildering fashion."
Don Luis bowed and, without replying to the praise bestowed upon
him, said:
"You are right, Monsieur le Préfet; he was a madman, and one of the most
dangerous kind, the lucid madman who pursues an idea from which nothing
will make him turn aside. He pursued it with superhuman tenacity and with
all the resources of his fastidious mind, enslaved by the laws of
mechanics.
"Another would have killed his victims frankly and brutally. He set his
wits to work to kill at a long date, like an experimenter who leaves to
time the duty of proving the excellence of his invention. And he
succeeded only too well, because the police fell into the trap and
because Mme. Fauville is perhaps going to die."
M. Desmalions made a gesture of decision. The whole business, in fact,
was past history, on which the police proceedings would throw the
necessary light. One fact alone was of importance to the present: the
saving of Marie Fauville's life.
"It's true," he said, "we have not a minute to lose. Mme. Fauville must
be told without delay. At the same time, I will send for the examining
magistrate; and the case against her is sure to be dismissed at once."
He swiftly gave orders for continuing the investigations and verifying
Don Luis's theories. Then, turning to Perenna:
"Come, Monsieur," he said. "It is right that Mme. Fauville should thank
her rescuer. Mazeroux, you come, too."
* * * * *
The meeting was over, that meeting in the course of which Don Luis had
given the most striking proofs of his genius. Waging war, so to speak,
upon the powers beyond the grave, he had forced the dead man to reveal
his secret. He disclosed, as though he had been present throughout, the
hateful vengeance conceived in the darkness and carried out in the tomb.
M. Desmalions showed all his admiration by his silence and by certain
movements of his head. And Perenna took a keen enjoyment in the strange
fact that he, who was being hunted down by the police a few hours ago,
should now be sitting in a motor car beside the head of that same force.
Nothing threw into greater relief the masterly manner in which he had
conducted the business and the importance which the police attached to
the results obtained. The value of his collaboration was such that they
were willing to forget the incidents of the last two days. The grudge
which Weber bore him was now of no avail against Don Luis Perenna.
M. Desmalions, meanwhile, began briefly to review the new solutions, and
he concluded by still discussing certain points.
"Yes, that's it ... there is not the least shadow of a doubt.... We
agree.... It's that and nothing else. Still, one or two things remain
obscure. First of all, the mark of the teeth. This, notwithstanding the
husband's admission, is a fact which we cannot neglect."
"I believe that the explanation is a very simple one, Monsieur le Préfet.
I will give it to you as soon as I am able to support it with the
necessary proofs."
"Very well. But another question: how is it that Weber, yesterday
morning, found that sheet of paper relating to the explosion in Mlle.
Levasseur's room?"
"And how was it," added Don Luis, laughing, "that I found there the list
of the five dates corresponding with the delivery of the letters?"
"So you are of my opinion?" said M. Desmalions. "The part played by Mlle.
Levasseur is at least suspicious."
"I believe that everything will be cleared up, Monsieur le Préfet, and
that you need now only question Mme. Fauville and Gaston Sauverand in
order to dispel these last obscurities and remove all suspicion from
Mlle. Levasseur."
"And then," insisted M. Desmalions, "there is one more fact that strikes
me as odd. Hippolyte Fauville does not once mention the Mornington
inheritance in his confession. Why? Did he not know of it? Are we to
suppose that there is no connection, beyond a mere casual coincidence,
between the series of crimes and that bequest?"
"There, I am entirely of your opinion, Monsieur le Préfet. Hippolyte
Fauville's silence as to that bequest perplexes me a little, I confess.
But all the same I look upon it as comparatively unimportant. The main
thing is Fauville's guilt and the prisoners' innocence."
Don Luis's delight was pure and unbounded. From his point of view, the
sinister tragedy was at an end with the discovery of the confession
written by Hippolyte Fauville. Anything not explained in those lines
would be explained by the details to be supplied by Mme. Fauville,
Florence Levasseur, and Gaston Sauverand. He himself had lost all
interest in the matter.
The car drew up at Saint-Lazare, the wretched, sordid old prison which is
still waiting to be pulled down.
The Prefect jumped out. The door was opened at once.
"Is the prison governor there?" he asked. "Quick! send for him,
it's urgent."
Then, unable to wait, he at once hastened toward the corridors leading to
the infirmary and, as he reached the first-floor landing, came up against
the governor himself.
"Mme. Fauville," he said, without waste of time. "I want to see her--"
But he stopped short when he saw the expression of consternation on the
prison governor's face.
"Well, what is it?" he asked. "What's the matter?"
"Why, haven't you heard, Monsieur le Préfet?" stammered the governor. "I
telephoned to the office, you know--"
"Speak! What is it?"
"Mme. Fauville died this morning. She managed somehow to take poison."
M. Desmalions seized the governor by the arm and ran to the infirmary,
followed by Perenna and Mazeroux.
He saw Marie Fauville lying on a bed in one of the rooms. Her pale face
and her shoulders were stained with brown patches, similar to those
which had marked the bodies of Inspector Vérot, Hippolyte Fauville, and
his son Edmond.
Greatly upset, the Prefect murmured:
"But the poison--where did it come from?"
"This phial and syringe were found under her pillow, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Under her pillow? But how did they get there? How did they reach her?
Who gave them to her?"
"We don't know yet, Monsieur le Préfet."
M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis. So Hippolyte Fauville's suicide had not
put an end to the series of crimes! His action had done more than aim at
Marie's death by the hand of the law: it had now driven her to take
poison! Was it possible? Was it admissible that the dead man's revenge
should still continue in the same automatic and anonymous manner?
Or rather--or rather, was there not some other mysterious will which
was secretly and as audaciously carrying on Hippolyte Fauville's
diabolical work?
* * * * *
Two days later came a fresh sensation: Gaston Sauverand was found dying
in his cell. He had had the courage to strangle himself with his
bedsheet. All efforts to restore him to life were vain.
On the table near him lay a half-dozen newspaper cuttings, which had been
passed to him by an unknown hand. All of them told the news of Marie
Fauville's death.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE HEIR TO THE HUNDRED MILLIONS
On the fourth evening after the tragic events related, an old
cab-driver, almost entirely hidden in a huge great-coat, rang at
Perenna's door and sent up a letter to Don Luis. He was at once shown
into the study on the first floor. Hardly taking time to throw off his
great-coat, he rushed at Don Luis:
"It's all up with you this time, Chief!" he exclaimed. "This is no moment
for joking: pack up your trunks and be off as quick as you can!"
Don Luis, who sat quietly smoking in an easy chair, answered:
"Which will you have, Mazeroux? A cigar or a cigarette?"
Mazeroux at once grew indignant.
"But look here, Chief, don't you read the papers?"
"Worse luck!"
"In that case, the situation must appear as clear to you as it does to me
and everybody else. During the last three days, since the double suicide,
or, rather, the double murder of Marie Fauville and her cousin Gaston
Sauverand, there hasn't been a newspaper but has said this kind of thing:
'And, now that M. Fauville, his son, his wife, and his cousin Gaston
Sauverand are dead, there's nothing standing between Don Luis Perenna and
the Mornington inheritance!'
"Do you understand what that means? Of course, people speak of the
explosion on the Boulevard Suchet and of Fauville's posthumous
revelations; and they are disgusted with that dirty brute of a Fauville;
and they don't know how to praise your cleverness enough. But there is
one fact that forms the main subject of every conversation and every
discussion.
"Now that the three branches of the Roussel family are extinct, who
remains? Don Luis Perenna. In default of the natural heirs, who inherits
the property? Don Luis Perenna."
"Lucky dog!"
"That's what people are saying, Chief. They say that this series of
murders and atrocities cannot be the effort of chance coincidences, but,
on the contrary, points to the existence of an all-powerful will which
began with the murder of Cosmo Mornington and ended with the capture of
the hundred millions. And to give a name to that will, they pitch on the
nearest, that of the extraordinary, glorious, ill-famed, bewildering,
mysterious, omnipotent, and ubiquitous person who was Cosmo Mornington's
intimate friend and who, from the beginning, has controlled events and
pieced them together, accusing and acquitting people, getting them
arrested, and helping them to escape.
"They say," he went on hurriedly, "that he manages the whole business and
that, if he works it in accordance with his interests, there are a
hundred millions waiting for him at the finish. And this person is Don
Luis Perenna, in other words, Arsène Lupin, the man with the unsavoury
reputation whom it would be madness not to think of in connection with so
colossal a job."
"Thank you!"
"That's what they say, Chief; I'm only telling you. As long as Mme.
Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were alive, people did not give much
thought to your claims as residuary legatee. But both of them died. Then,
you see, people can't help remarking the really surprising persistence
with which luck looks after Don Luis Perenna's interests. You know the
legal maxim: _fecit cui prodest_. Who benefits by the disappearance of
all the Roussel heirs? Don Luis Perenna."
"The scoundrel!"
"The scoundrel: that's the word which Weber goes roaring out all along
the passages of the police office and the criminal investigation
department. You are the scoundrel and Florence Levasseur is your
accomplice. And hardly any one dares protest.
"The Prefect of Police? What is the use of his defending you, of his
remembering that you have saved his life twice over and rendered
invaluable services to the police which he is the first to appreciate?
What is the use of his going to the Prime Minister, though we all know
that Valenglay protects you?
"There are others besides the Prefect of Police! There are others besides
the Prime Minister! There's the whole of the detective office, there's
the public prosecutor's staff, there's the examining magistrate, the
press and, above all, public opinion, which has to be satisfied and which
calls for and expects a culprit. That culprit is yourself or Florence
Levasseur. Or, rather, it's you and Florence Levasseur."
Don Luis did not move a muscle of his face. Mazeroux waited a moment
longer. Then, receiving no reply, he made a gesture of despair.
"Chief, do you know what you are compelling me to do? To betray my duty.
Well, let me tell you this: to-morrow morning you will receive a summons
to appear before the examining magistrate. At the end of your
examination, whatever questions may have been put to you and whatever you
may have answered, you will be taken straight to the lockup. The warrant
is signed. That is what your enemies have done."
"The devil!"
"And that's not all. Weber, who is burning to take his revenge, has asked
for permission to watch your house from this day onward, so that you may
not slip away as Florence Levasseur did. He will be here with his men in
an hour's time. What do you say to that, Chief?"
Without abandoning his careless attitude, Don Luis beckoned to Mazeroux.
"Sergeant, just look under that sofa between the windows."
Don Luis was serious. Mazeroux instinctively obeyed. Under the sofa was a
portmanteau.
"Sergeant, in ten minutes, when I have told my servants to go to bed,
carry the portmanteau to 143 _bis_ Rue de Rivoli, where I have taken a
small flat under the name of M. Lecocq."
"What for, Chief? What does it mean?"
"It means that, having no trustworthy person to carry that portmanteau
for me, I have been waiting for your visit for the last three days."
"Why, but--" stammered Mazeroux, in his confusion.
"Why but what?"
"Had you made up your mind to clear out?"
"Of course I had! But why hurry? The reason I placed you in the detective
office was that I might know what was being plotted against me. Since you
tell me that I'm in danger, I shall cut my stick."
And, as Mazeroux looked at him with increasing bewilderment, he tapped
him on the shoulder and said severely:
"You see, Sergeant, that it was not worth while to disguise yourself as a
cab-driver and betray your duty. You should never betray your duty,
Sergeant. Ask your own conscience: I am sure that it will judge you
according to your deserts."
Don Luis had spoken the truth. Recognizing how greatly the deaths of
Marie Fauville and Sauverand had altered the situation, he considered it
wise to move to a place of safety. His excuse for not doing so before was
that he hoped to receive news of Florence Levasseur either by letter or
by telephone. As the girl persisted in keeping silence, there was no
reason why Don Luis should risk an arrest which the course of events made
extremely probable.
And in fact his anticipations were correct. Next morning Mazeroux came to
the little flat in the Rue de Rivoli looking very spry.
"You've had a narrow escape, Chief. Weber heard this morning that the
bird had flown. He's simply furious! And you must confess that the tangle
is getting worse and worse. They're utterly at a loss at headquarters.
They don't even know how to set about prosecuting Florence Levasseur.
"You must have read about it in the papers. The examining magistrate
maintains that, as Fauville committed suicide and killed his son Edmond,
Florence Levasseur has nothing to do with the matter. In his opinion the
case is closed on that side. Well, he's a good one, the examining
magistrate! What about Gaston Sauverand's death? Isn't it as clear as
daylight that Florence had a hand in it, as well as in all the rest?
"Wasn't it in her room, in a volume of Shakespeare, that documents were
found relating to M. Fauville's arrangements about the letters and the
explosion? And then--"
Mazeroux interrupted himself, frightened by the look in Don Luis's eyes
and realizing that the chief was fonder of the girl then ever. Guilty or
not, she inspired him with the same passion.
"All right," said Mazeroux, "we'll say no more about it. The future will
bear me out, you'll see."
* * * * *
The days passed. Mazeroux called as often as possible, or else telephoned
to Don Luis all the details of the two inquiries that were being pursued
at Saint-Lazare and at the Santé Prison.
Vain inquiries, as we know. While Don Luis's statements relating to the
electric chandelier and the automatic distribution of the mysterious
letters were found to be correct, the investigation failed to reveal
anything about the two suicides.
At most, it was ascertained that, before his arrest, Sauverand had tried
to enter into correspondence with Marie through one of the tradesmen
supplying the infirmary. Were they to suppose that the phial of poison
and the hypodermic syringe had been introduced by the same means? It was
impossible to prove; and, on the other hand, it was impossible to
discover how the newspaper cuttings telling of Marie's suicide had found
their way into Gaston Sauverand's cell.
And then the original mystery still remained, the unfathomable mystery of
the marks of teeth in the apple. M. Fauville's posthumous confession
acquitted Marie. And yet it was undoubtedly Marie's teeth that had marked
the apple. The teeth that had been called the teeth of the tiger were
certainly hers. Well, then!
In short, as Mazeroux said, everybody was groping in the dark, so much
so that the Prefect, who was called upon by the will to assemble the
Mornington heirs at a date not less than three nor more than four months
after the testator's decease, suddenly decided that the meeting should
take place in the course of the following week and fixed it for the
ninth of June.
He hoped in this way to put an end to an exasperating case in which the
police displayed nothing but uncertainty and confusion. They would decide
about the inheritance according to circumstances and then close the
proceedings. And gradually people would cease to talk about the wholesale
slaughter of the Mornington heirs; and the mystery of the teeth of the
tiger would be gradually forgotten.
It was strange, but these last days, which were restless and feverish
like all the days that come before great battles--and every one felt that
this last meeting meant a great battle--were spent by Don Luis in an
armchair on his balcony in the Rue de Rivoli, where he sat quietly
smoking cigarettes, or blowing soap-bubbles which the wind carried toward
the garden of the Tuileries.
Mazeroux could not get over it.
"Chief, you astound me! How calm and careless you look!"
"I am calm and careless, Alexandre."
"But what do you mean? Doesn't the case interest you? Don't you intend to
avenge Mme. Fauville and Sauverand? You are openly accused and you sit
here blowing soap-bubbles!"
"There's no more delightful pastime, Alexandre."
"Shall I tell you what I think, Chief? You've discovered the solution of
the mystery!"
"Perhaps I have, Alexandre, and perhaps I haven't."
Nothing seemed to excite Don Luis. Hours and hours passed; and he did not
stir from his balcony. The sparrows now came and ate the crumbs which he
threw to them. It really seemed as if the case was coming to an end for
him and as if everything was turning out perfectly.
But, on the day of the meeting, Mazeroux entered with a letter in his
hand and a scared look on his face.
"This is for you, Chief. It was addressed to me, but with an envelope
inside it in your name. How do you explain that?"
"Quite easily, Alexandre. The enemy is aware of our cordial relations;
and, as he does not know where I am staying--"
"What enemy?"
"I'll tell you to-morrow evening."
Don Luis opened the envelope and read the following words, written
in red ink:
"There's still time, Lupin. Retire from the contest. If not, it means
your death, too. When you think that your object is attained, when your
hand is raised against me and you utter words of triumph, at that same
moment the ground will open beneath your feet. The place of your death is
chosen. The snare is laid. Beware, Lupin."
Don Luis smiled.
"Good," he said. "Things are taking shape,"
"Do you think so, Chief?"
"I do. And who gave you the letter?"
"Ah, we've been lucky for once, Chief! The policeman to whom it was
handed happened to live at Les Ternes, next door to the bearer of the
letter. He knows the fellow well. It was a stroke of luck, wasn't it?"
Don Luis sprang from his seat, radiant with delight.
"What do you mean? Out with it! You know who it is?"
"The chap's an indoor servant employed at a nursing-home in the Avenue
des Ternes."
"Let's go there. We've no time to lose."
"Splendid, Chief! You're yourself again."
"Well, of course! As long as there was nothing to do I was waiting for
this evening and resting, for I can see that the fight will be
tremendous. But, as the enemy has blundered at last, as he's given me a
trail to go upon, there's no need to wait, and I'll get ahead of him.
Have at the tiger, Mazeroux!"
* * * * *
It was one o'clock in the afternoon when Don Luis and Mazeroux arrived at
the nursing-home in the Avenue des Ternes. A manservant opened the door.
Mazeroux nudged Don Luis. The man was doubtless the bearer of the letter.
And, in reply to the sergeant's questions, he made no difficulty about
saying that he had been to the police office that morning.
"By whose orders?" asked Mazeroux.
"The mother superior's."
"The mother superior?"
"Yes, the home includes a private hospital, which is managed by nuns."
"Could we speak to the superior?"
"Certainly, but not now: she has gone out."
"When will she be in?"
"Oh, she may be back at any time!"
The man showed them into the waiting-room, where they spent over an hour.
They were greatly puzzled. What did the intervention of that nun mean?
What part was she playing in the case?
People came in and were taken to the patients whom they had called to
see. Others went out. There were also sisters moving silently to and fro
and nurses dressed in their long white overalls belted at the waist.
"We're not doing any good here, Chief," whispered Mazeroux.
"What's your hurry? Is your sweetheart waiting for you?"
"We're wasting our time."
"I'm not wasting mine. The meeting at the Prefect's is not till five."
"What did you say? You're joking, Chief! You surely don't intend to
go to it."
"Why not?"
"Why not? Well, the warrant--"
"The warrant? A scrap of paper!"
"A scrap of paper which will become a serious matter if you force the
police to act. Your presence will be looked upon as a provocation--"
"And my absence as a confession. A gentleman who comes into a hundred
millions does not lie low on the day of the windfall. So I must attend
that meeting, lest I should forfeit my claim. And attend it I will."
"Chief!"
A stifled cry was heard in front of them; and a woman, a nurse, who was
passing through the room, at once started running, lifted a curtain, and
disappeared.
Don Luis rose, hesitating, not knowing what to do. Then, after four or
five seconds of indecision, he suddenly rushed to the curtain and down
a corridor, came up against a large, leather-padded door which had
just closed, and wasted more time in stupidly fumbling at it with
shaking hands.
When he had opened it, he found himself at the foot of a back staircase.
Should he go up it? On the right, the same staircase ran down to the
basement. He went down it, entered a kitchen and, seizing hold of the
cook, said to her, in an angry voice:
"Has a nurse just gone out this way?"
"Do you mean Nurse Gertrude, the new one?"
"Yes, yes, quick! she's wanted upstairs."
"Who wants her?"
"Oh, hang it all, can't you tell me which way she went?"
"Through that door over there."
Don Luis darted away, crossed a little hall, and rushed out on to the
Avenue des Ternes.
"Well, here's a pretty race!" cried Mazeroux, joining him.
Don Luis stood scanning the avenue. A motor bus was starting on the
little square hard by, the Place Saint-Ferdinand.
"She's inside it," he declared. "This time, I shan't let her go."
He hailed a taxi.
"Follow that motor bus, driver, at fifty yards' distance."
"Is it Florence Levasseur?" asked Mazeroux.
"Yes."
"A nice thing!" growled the sergeant. And, yielding to a sudden
outburst: "But, look here, Chief, don't you see? Surely you're not as
blind as all that!"
Don Luis made no reply.
"But, Chief, Florence Levasseur's presence in the nursing-home proves as
clearly as A B C that it was she who told the manservant to bring me that
threatening letter for you! There's not a doubt about it: Florence
Levasseur is managing the whole business.
"You know it as well as I do. Confess! It's possible that, during the
last ten days, you've brought yourself, for love of that woman, to look
upon her as innocent in spite of the overwhelming proofs against her. But
to-day the truth hits you in the eye. I feel it, I'm sure of it. Isn't it
so, Chief? I'm right, am I not? You see it for yourself?"
This time Don Luis did not protest. With a drawn face and set eyes he
watched the motor bus, which at that moment was standing still at the
corner of the Boulevard Haussmann.
"Stop!" he shouted to the driver.
The girl alighted. It was easy to recognize Florence Levasseur under her
nurse's uniform. She cast round her eyes as if to make sure that she was
not being followed, and then took a cab and drove down the boulevard and
the Rue de la Pépinière, to the Gare Saint-Lazare.
Don Luis saw her from a distance climbing the steps that run up from the
Cour de Rome; and, on following her, caught sight of her again at the
ticket office at the end of the waiting hall.
"Quick, Mazeroux!" he said. "Get out your detective card and ask the
clerk what ticket she's taken. Run, before another passenger comes."
Mazeroux hurried and questioned the ticket clerk and returned:
"Second class for Rouen."
"Take one for yourself."
Mazeroux did so. They found that there was an express due to start in a
minute. When they reached the platform Florence was stepping into a
compartment in the middle of the train.
The engine whistled.
"Get in," said Don Luis, hiding himself as best he could. "Telegraph to
me from Rouen; and I'll join you this evening. Above all, keep your
eyes on her. Don't let her slip between your fingers. She's very
clever, you know."
"But why don't you come yourself, Chief? It would be much better--"
"Out of the question. The train doesn't stop before Rouen; and I
couldn't be back till this evening. The meeting at the Prefect's is at
five o'clock."
"And you insist on going?"
"More than ever. There, jump in!"
He pushed him into one of the end carriages. The train started and soon
disappeared in the tunnel.
Then Don Luis flung himself on a bench in a waiting room and remained
there for two hours, pretending to read the newspapers. But his eyes
wandered and his mind was haunted by the agonizing question that once
more forced itself upon him: was Florence guilty or not?
* * * * *
It was five o'clock exactly when Major Comte d'Astrignac, Maître
Lepertuis, and the secretary of the American Embassy were shown into M.
Desmalions's office. At the same moment some one entered the messengers'
room and handed in his card.
The messenger on duty glanced at the pasteboard, turned his head quickly
toward a group of men talking in a corner, and then asked the newcomer:
"Have you an appointment, sir?"
"It's not necessary. Just say that I'm here: Don Luis Perenna."
A kind of electric shock ran through the little group in the corner; and
one of the persons forming it came forward. It was Weber, the deputy
chief detective.
The two men looked each other straight in the eyes. Don Luis smiled
amiably. Weber was livid; he shook in every limb and was plainly striving
to contain himself.
Near him stood a couple of journalists and four detectives.
"By Jove! the beggars are there for me!" thought Don Luis. "But their
confusion shows that they did not believe that I should have the cheek to
come. Are they going to arrest me?"
Weber did not move, but in the end his face expressed a certain
satisfaction as though he were saying:
"I've got you this time, my fine fellow, and you shan't escape me."
The office messenger returned and, without a word, led the way for Don
Luis. Perenna passed in front of Weber with the politest of bows,
bestowed a friendly little nod on the detectives, and entered.
The Comte d'Astrignac hurried up to him at once, with hands outstretched,
thus showing that all the tittle-tattle in no way affected the esteem in
which he continued to hold Private Perenna of the Foreign Legion. But the
Prefect of Police maintained an attitude of reserve which was very
significant. He went on turning over the papers which he was examining
and conversed in a low voice with the solicitor and the American
Secretary of Embassy.
Don Luis thought to himself:
"My dear Lupin, there's some one going to leave this room with the
bracelets on his wrists. If it's not the real culprit, it'll be you, my
poor old chap."
And he remembered the early part of the case, when he was in the workroom
at Fauville's house, before the magistrates, and had either to deliver
the criminal to justice or to incur the penalty of immediate arrest. In
the same way, from the start to the finish of the struggle, he had been
obliged, while fighting the invisible enemy, to expose himself to the
attacks of the law with no means of defending himself except by
indispensable victories.
Harassed by constant onslaughts, never out of danger, he had successively
hurried to their deaths Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand, two innocent
people sacrificed to the cruel laws of war. Was he at last about to fight
the real enemy, or would he himself succumb at the decisive moment?
He rubbed his hands with such a cheerful gesture that M. Desmalions
could not help looking at him. Don Luis wore the radiant air of a man
who is experiencing a pure joy and who is preparing to taste others
even greater.
The Prefect of Police remained silent for a moment, as though asking
himself what that devil of a fellow could be so pleased with; then he
fumbled through his papers once more and, in the end, said:
"We have met again, gentlemen, as we did two months ago, to come to a
definite conclusion about the Mornington inheritance. Señor Caceres, the
attaché of the Peruvian legation, will not be here. I have received a
telegram from Italy to tell me that Señor Caceres is seriously ill.
However, his presence was not indispensable. There is no one lacking,
therefore--except those, alas, whose claims this meeting would gladly
have sanctioned, that is to say, Cosmo Mornington's heirs."
"There is one other person absent, Monsieur le Préfet." M. Desmalions
looked up. The speaker was Don Luis. The Prefect hesitated and then
decided to ask him to explain.
"Whom do you mean? What person?"
"The murderer of the Mornington heirs."
This time again Don Luis compelled attention and, in spite of the
resistance which he encountered, obliged the others to take notice of
his presence and to yield to his ascendancy. Whatever happened, they had
to listen to him. Whatever happened, they had to discuss with him things
which seemed incredible, but which were possible because he put them
into words.
"Monsieur le Préfet," he asked, "will you allow me to set forth the facts
of the matter as it now stands? They will form a natural sequel and
conclusion of the interview which we had after the explosion on the
Boulevard Suchet."
M. Desmalions's silence gave Don Luis leave to speak. He at once
continued:
"It will not take long, Monsieur le Préfet. It will not take long for two
reasons: first, because M. Fauville's confessions remain at our disposal
and we know definitely the monstrous part which he played; and, secondly,
because, after all, the truth, however complicated it may seem, is really
very simple.
"It all lies in the objection which you, Monsieur le Préfet, made to me
on leaving the wrecked house on the Boulevard Suchet: 'How is it,' you
asked, 'that the Mornington inheritance is not once mentioned in
Hippolyte Fauville's confession?' It all lies in that, Monsieur le
Préfet. Hippolyte Fauville did not say a word about the inheritance; and
the reason evidently is that he did not know of it.
"And the reason why Gaston Sauverand was able to tell me his whole
sensational story without making the least allusion to the inheritance
was that the inheritance played no sort of part in Gaston Sauverand's
story. He, too, knew nothing of it before those events, any more than
Marie Fauville did, or Florence Levasseur. There is no denying the
fact: Hippolyte Fauville was guided by revenge and by revenge alone.
If not, why should he have acted as he did, seeing that Cosmo
Mornington's millions reverted to him by the fullest of rights?
Besides, if he had wished to enjoy those millions, he would not have
begun by killing himself.
"One thing, therefore, is certain: the inheritance in no way affected
Hippolyte Fauville's resolves or actions. And, nevertheless, one after
the other, with inflexible regularity, as if they had been struck down in
the very order called for by the terms of the Mornington inheritance,
they all disappeared: Cosmo Mornington, then Hippolyte Fauville, then
Edmond Fauville, then Marie Fauville, then Gaston Sauverand. First, the
possessor of the fortune; next, all those whom he had appointed his
legatees; and, I repeat, in the very order in which the will enabled them
to lay claim to the fortune!"
"Is it not strange?" asked Perenna, "and are we not bound to suppose that
there was a controlling mind at the back of it all? Are we not bound to
admit that the formidable contest was influenced by that inheritance, and
that, above the hatred and jealousy of the loathsome Fauville, there
loomed a being endowed with even more tremendous energy, pursuing a
tangible aim and driving to their deaths, one by one, like so many
numbered victims, all the unconscious actors in the tragedy of which he
tied and of which he is now untying the threads?"
Don Luis leaned forward and continued earnestly:
"Monsieur le Préfet, the public instinct so thoroughly agrees with me, a
section of the police, with M. Weber, the deputy chief detective at its
head, argues in a manner so exactly identical with my own, that the
existence of that being is at once confirmed in every mind. There had to
be some one to act as the controlling brain, to provide the will and the
energy. That some one was myself. After all, why not? Did not I possess
the condition which was indispensable to make any one interested in the
murders? Was I not Cosmo Mornington's heir?
"I will not defend myself. It may be that outside interference, it may be
that circumstances, will oblige you, Monsieur le Préfet, to take
unjustifiable measures against me; but I will not insult you by believing
for one second that you can imagine the man whose acts you have been able
to judge for the last two months capable of such crimes. And yet the
public instinct is right in accusing me.
"Apart from Hippolyte Fauville, there is necessarily a criminal; and that
criminal is necessarily Cosmo Mornington's heir. As I am not the man,
another heir of Cosmo Mornington exists. It is he whom I accuse, Monsieur
le Préfet.
"There is something more than a dead man's will in the wicked business
that is being enacted before us. We thought for a time that there was
only that; but there is something more. I have not been fighting a dead
man all the time; more than once I have felt the very breath of life
strike against my face. More than once I have felt the teeth of the tiger
seeking to tear me.
"The dead man did much, but he did not do everything. And, even then, was
he alone in doing what he did? Was the being of whom I speak merely one
who executed his orders? Or was he also the accomplice who helped him in
his scheme? I do not know. But he certainly continued a work which he
perhaps began by inspiring and which, in any case, he turned to his own
profit, resolutely completed and carried out to the very end. And he did
so because he knew of Cosmo Mornington's will. It is he whom I accuse,
Monsieur le Préfet.
"I accuse him at the very least of that part of the crimes and felonies
which cannot be attributed to Hippolyte Fauville. I accuse him of
breaking open the drawer of the desk in which Maître Lepertuis, Cosmo
Mornington's solicitor, had put his client's will. I accuse him of
entering Cosmo Mornington's room and substituting a phial containing a
toxic fluid for one of the phials of glycero-phosphate which Cosmo
Mornington used for his hypodermic injections. I accuse him of playing
the part of a doctor who came to certify Cosmo Mornington's death and of
delivering a false certificate. I accuse him of supplying Hippolyte
Fauville with the poison which killed successively Inspector Vérot,
Edmond Fauville, and Hippolyte Fauville himself. I accuse him of arming
and turning against me the hand of Gaston Sauverand, who, acting under
his advice and his instructions, tried three times to take my life and
ended by causing the death of my chauffeur. I accuse him of profiting by
the relations which Gaston Sauverand had established with the infirmary
in order to communicate with Marie Fauville, and of arranging for Marie
Fauville to receive the hypodermic syringe and the phial of poison with
which the poor woman was able to carry out her plans of suicide."
Perenna paused to note the effect of these charges. Then he went on:
"I accuse him of conveying to Gaston Sauverand, by some unknown means,
the newspaper cuttings about Marie Fauville's death and, at the same
time, foreseeing the inevitable results of his act. To sum up, therefore,
without mentioning his share in the other crimes--the death of Inspector
Vérot, the death of my chauffeur--I accuse him of killing Cosmo
Mornington, Edmond Fauville, Hippolyte Fauville, Marie Fauville, and
Gaston Sauverand; in plain words, of killing all those who stood between
the millions and himself. These last words, Monsieur le Préfet, will tell
you clearly what I have in my mind.
"When a man does away with five of his fellow creatures in order to
secure a certain number of millions, it means that he is convinced that
this proceeding will positively and mathematically insure his entering
into possession of the millions. In short, when a man does away with a
millionaire and his four successive heirs, it means that he himself is
the millionaire's fifth heir. The man will be here in a moment."
"What!"
It was a spontaneous exclamation on the part of the Prefect of Police,
who was forgetting the whole of Don Luis Perenna's powerful and closely
reasoned argument, and thinking only of the stupefying apparition which
Don Luis announced. Don Luis replied:
"Monsieur le Préfet, his visit is the logical outcome of my accusations.
Remember that Cosmo Mornington's will explicitly states that no heir's
claim will be valid unless he is present at to-day's meeting."
"And suppose he does not come?" asked the Prefect, thus showing that Don
Luis's conviction had gradually got the better of his doubts.
"He will come, Monsieur le Préfet. If not, there would have been no sense
in all this business. Limited to the crimes and other actions of
Hippolyte Fauville, it could be looked upon as the preposterous work of a
madman. Continued to the deaths of Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand,
it demands, as its inevitable outcome, the appearance of a person who, as
the last descendant of the Roussels of Saint-Etienne and consequently as
Cosmo Mornington's absolute heir, taking precedence of myself, will come
to claim the hundred millions which he has won by means of his incredible
audacity."
"And suppose he does not come?" M. Desmalions once more exclaimed, in a
more vehement tone.
"Then, Monsieur le Préfet, you may take it that I am the culprit; and you
have only to arrest me. This day, between five and six o'clock, you will
see before you, in this room, the person who killed the Mornington heirs.
It is, humanly speaking, impossible that this should not be so.
Consequently, the law will be satisfied in any circumstances. He or I:
the position is quite simple."
M. Desmalions was silent. He gnawed his moustache thoughtfully and walked
round and round the table, within the narrow circle formed by the others.
It was obvious that objections to the supposition were springing up in
his mind. In the end, he muttered, as though speaking to himself:
"No, no. For, after all, how are we to explain that the man should have
waited until now to claim his rights?"
"An accident, perhaps, Monsieur le Préfet, an obstacle of some kind. Or
else--one can never tell--the perverse longing for a more striking
sensation. And remember, Monsieur le Préfet, how minutely and subtly the
whole business was worked. Each event took place at the very moment
fixed by Hippolyte Fauville. Cannot we take it that his accomplice is
pursuing this method to the end and that he will not reveal himself
until the last minute?"
M. Desmalions exclaimed, with a sort of anger:
"No, no, and again no! It is not possible. If a creature monstrous enough
to commit such a series of murders exists, he will not be such a fool as
to deliver himself into our hands."
"Monsieur le Préfet, he does not know the danger that threatens him if he
comes here, because no one has even contemplated the theory of his
existence. Besides, what risk does he run?"
"What risk? Why, if he has really committed those murders--"
"He has committed them, Monsieur le Préfet. He has _caused_ them to be
committed, which is a different thing. And you now see where the man's
unsuspected strength lies! He does not act in person. From the day
when the truth appeared to me, I have succeeded in gradually
discovering his means of action, in laying bare the machinery which he
controls, the tricks which he employs. He does not act in person.
There you have his method. You will find that it is the same
throughout the series of murders.
"In appearance, Cosmo Mornington died of the results of a carelessly
administered injection. In reality, it was this man who caused the
injection to prove fatal. In appearance, Inspector Vérot was killed by
Hippolyte Fauville. In reality, it must have been this man who contrived
the murder by pointing out the necessity to Fauville and, so to speak,
guiding his hand. And, in the same way, in appearance, Fauville killed
his son and committed suicide; Marie Fauville committed suicide; Gaston
Sauverand committed suicide. In reality, it was this man who wanted them
dead, who prompted them to commit suicide, and who supplied them with the
means of death.
"There you have the method, and there, Monsieur le Préfet, you have
the man." And, in a lower voice, that contained a sort of
apprehension, he added, "I confess that never before, in the course of
a life that has been full of strange meetings, have I encountered a
more terrifying person, acting with more devilish ability or greater
psychological insight."
His words created an ever-increasing sensation among his hearers. They
really saw that invisible being. He took shape in their imaginations.
They waited for him to arrive. Twice Don Luis had turned to the door and
listened. And his action did more than anything else to conjure up the
image of the man who was coming.
M. Desmalions said:
"Whether he acted in person or caused others to act, the law, once it has
hold of him, will know how to--"
"The law will find it no easy matter, Monsieur le Préfet! A man of his
powers and resource must have foreseen everything, even his arrest, even
the accusation of which he would be the subject; and there is little to
be brought against him but moral charges without proofs."
"Then you think--"
"I think, Monsieur le Préfet, that the thing will be to accept his
explanations as quite natural and not to show any distrust. What you
want is to know who he is. Later on, before long, you will be able to
unmask him."
The Prefect of Police continued to walk round the table. Major
d'Astrignac kept his eyes fixed on Perenna, whose coolness amazed him.
The solicitor and the secretary of Embassy seemed greatly excited. In
fact nothing could be more sensational than the thought that filled all
their minds. Was the abominable murderer about to appear before them?
"Silence!" said the Prefect, stopping his walk.
Some one had crossed the anteroom.
There was a knock at the door.
"Come in!"
The office messenger entered, carrying a card-tray. On the tray was a
letter; and in addition there was one of those printed slips on which
callers write their name and the object of their visit.
M. Desmalions hastened toward the messenger. He hesitated a moment before
taking up the slip. He was very pale. Then he glanced at it quickly.
"Oh!" he said, with a start.
He looked toward Don Luis, reflected, and then, taking the letter, he
said to the messenger:
"Is the bearer outside?"
"In the anteroom, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Show the person in when I ring."
The messenger left the room.
M. Desmalions stood in front of his desk, without moving. For the second
time Don Luis met his eyes; and a feeling of perturbation came over him.
What was happening?
With a sharp movement the Prefect of Police opened the envelope which he
held in his hand, unfolded the letter and began to read it.
The others watched his every gesture, watched the least change of
expression on his face. Were Perenna's predictions about to be fulfilled?
Was a fifth heir putting in his claim?
The moment he had read the first lines, M. Desmalions looked up and,
addressing Don Luis, murmured:
"You were right, Monsieur. This is a claim."
"On whose part, Monsieur le Préfet?" Don Luis could not help asking.
M. Desmalions did not reply. He finished reading the letter. Then he read
it again, with the attention of a man weighing every word. Lastly, he
read aloud:
"MONSIEUR LE PRÉFET:
"A chance correspondence has revealed to me the existence of an unknown
heir of the Roussel family. It was only to-day that I was able to
procure the documents necessary for identifying this heir; and, owing to
unforeseen obstacles, it is only at the last moment that I am able to
send them to you _by the person whom they concern_. Respecting a secret
which is not mine and wishing, as a woman, to remain outside a business
in which I have been only accidentally involved, I beg you, Monsieur le
Préfet, to excuse me if I do not feel called upon to sign my name to
this letter."
So Perenna had seen rightly and events were justifying his forecast. Some
one was putting in an appearance within the period indicated. The claim
was made in good time. And the very way in which things were happening at
the exact moment was curiously suggestive of the mechanical exactness
that had governed the whole business.
The last question still remained: who was this unknown person, the
possible heir, and therefore the five or six fold murderer? He was
waiting in the next room. There was nothing but a wall between him
and the others. He was coming in. They would see him. They would know
who he was.
The Prefect suddenly rang the bell.
A few tense seconds elapsed. Oddly enough, M. Desmalions did not remove
his eyes from Perenna. Don Luis remained quite master of himself, but
restless and uneasy at heart.
The door opened. The messenger showed some one in.
It was Florence Levasseur.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WEBER TAKES HIS REVENGE
Don Luis was for one moment amazed. Florence Levasseur here! Florence,
whom he had left in the train under Mazeroux's supervision and for whom
it was physically impossible to be back in Paris before eight o'clock in
the evening!
Then, despite his bewilderment, he at once understood. Florence, knowing
that she was being followed, had drawn them after her to the Gare
Saint-Lazare and simply walked through the railway carriage, getting out
on the other platform, while the worthy Mazeroux went on in the train to
keep his eye on the traveller who was not there.
But suddenly the full horror of the situation struck him. Florence was
here to claim the inheritance; and her claim, as he himself had said, was
a proof of the most terrible guilt.
Acting on an irresistible impulse, Don Luis leaped to the girl's side,
seized her by the arm and said, with almost malevolent force:
"What are you doing here? What have you come for? Why did you not
let me know?"
M. Desmalions stepped between them. But Don Luis, without letting go of
the girl's arm, exclaimed:
"Oh, Monsieur le Préfet, don't you see that this is all a mistake? The
person whom we are expecting, about whom I told you, is not this one. The
other is keeping in the background, as usual. Why it's impossible that
Florence Levasseur--"
"I have no preconceived opinion on the subject of this young lady," said
the Prefect of Police, in an authoritative voice. "But it is my duty to
question her about the circumstances that brought her here; and I shall
certainly do so."
He released the girl from Don Luis's grasp and made her take a seat. He
himself sat down at his desk; and it was easy to see how great an
impression the girl's presence made upon him. It afforded so to speak an
illustration of Don Luis's argument.
The appearance on the scene of a new person, laying claim to the
inheritance, was undeniably, to any logical mind, the appearance on the
scene of a criminal who herself brought with her the proofs of her
crimes. Don Luis felt this clearly and, from that moment, did not take
his eyes off the Prefect of Police.
Florence looked at them by turns as though the whole thing was the most
insoluble mystery to her. Her beautiful dark eyes retained their
customary serenity. She no longer wore her nurse's uniform; and her gray
gown, very simply cut and devoid of ornaments, showed her graceful
figure. She was grave and unemotional as usual.
M. Desmalions said:
"Explain yourself, Mademoiselle."
She answered:
"I have nothing to explain, Monsieur le Préfet. I have come to you on an
errand which I am fulfilling without knowing exactly what it is about."
"What do you mean? Without knowing what it is about?"
"I will tell you, Monsieur le Préfet. Some one in whom I have every
confidence and for whom I entertain the greatest respect asked me to hand
you certain papers. They appear to concern the question which is the
object of your meeting to-day."
"The question of awarding the Mornington inheritance?"
"Yes."
"You know that, if this claim had not been made in the course of the
present sitting, it would have had no effect?"
"I came as soon as the papers were handed to me."
"Why were they not handed to you an hour or two earlier?"
"I was not there. I had to leave the house where I am staying, in a
hurry."
Perenna did not doubt that it was his intervention that upset the enemy's
plans by causing Florence to take to flight.
The Prefect continued:
"So you are ignorant of the reasons why you received the papers?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
"And evidently you are also ignorant of how far they concern you?"
"They do not concern me, Monsieur le Préfet."
M. Desmalions smiled and, looking into Florence's eyes, said, plainly:
"According to the letter that accompanies them, they concern you
intimately. It seems that they prove, in the most positive manner, that
you are descended from the Roussel family and that you consequently have
every right to the Mornington inheritance."
"I?"
The cry was a spontaneous exclamation of astonishment and protest.
And she at once went on, insistently:
"I, a right to the inheritance? I have none at all, Monsieur le Préfet,
none at all. I never knew Mr. Mornington. What is this story? There is
some mistake."
She spoke with great animation and with an apparent frankness that would
have impressed any other man than the Prefect of Police. But how could he
forget Don Luis's arguments and the accusation made beforehand against
the person who would arrive at the meeting?
"Give me the papers," he said.
She took from her handbag a blue envelope which was not fastened down and
which he found to contain a number of faded documents, damaged at the
folds and torn in different places.
He examined them amid perfect silence, read them through, studied them
thoroughly, inspected the signatures and the seals through a magnifying
glass, and said:
"They bear every sign of being genuine. The seals are official."
"Then, Monsieur le Préfet--?" said Florence, in a trembling voice.
"Then, Mademoiselle, let me tell you that your ignorance strikes me as
most incredible."
And, turning to the solicitor, he said:
"Listen briefly to what these documents contain and prove. Gaston
Sauverand, Cosmo Mornington's heir in the fourth line, had, as you know,
an elder brother, called Raoul, who lived in the Argentine Republic. This
brother, before his death, sent to Europe, in the charge of an old nurse,
a child of five who was none other than his daughter, a natural but
legally recognized daughter whom he had had by Mlle. Levasseur, a French
teacher at Buenos Ayres.
"Here is the birth certificate. Here is the signed declaration written
entirely in the father's hand. Here is the affidavit signed by the old
nurse. Here are the depositions of three friends, merchants or
solicitors at Buenos Ayres. And here are the death certificates of the
father and mother.
"All these documents have been legalized and bear the seals of the French
consulate. For the present, I have no reason to doubt them; and I am
bound to look upon Florence Levasseur as Raoul Sauverand's daughter and
Gaston Sauverand's niece."
"Gaston Sauvarand's niece? ... His niece?" stammered Florence.
The mention of a father whom she had, so to speak, never known, left her
unmoved. But she began to weep at the recollection of Gaston Sauverand,
whom she loved so fondly and to whom she found herself linked by such a
close relationship.
Were her tears sincere? Or were they the tears of an actress able to play
her part down to the slightest details? Were those facts really revealed
to her for the first time? Or was she acting the emotions which the
revelation of those facts would produce in her under natural conditions?
Don Luis observed M. Desmalions even more narrowly than he did the girl,
and tried to read the secret thoughts of the man with whom the decision
lay. And suddenly he became certain that Florence's arrest was a matter
resolved upon as definitely as the arrest of the most monstrous criminal.
Then he went up to her and said:
"Florence."
She looked at him with her tear-dimmed eyes and made no reply.
Slowly, he said:
"To defend yourself, Florence--for, though I am sure you do not know it,
you are under that obligation--you must understand the terrible position
in which events have placed you.
"Florence, the Prefect of Police has been led by the logical outcome of
those events to come to the final conclusion that the person entering
this room with an evident claim to the inheritance is the person who
killed the Mornington heirs. You entered the room, Florence, and you are
undoubtedly Cosmo Mornington's heir."
He saw her shake from head to foot and turn as pale as death.
Nevertheless, she uttered no word and made no gesture of protest.
He went on:
"It is a formal accusation. Do you say nothing in reply?"
She waited some time and then declared:
"I have nothing to say. The whole thing is a mystery. What would you have
me reply? I do not understand!"
Don Luis stood quivering with anguish in front of her. He stammered:
"Is that all? Do you accept?"
After a second, she said, in an undertone:
"Explain yourself, I beg of you. What you mean, I suppose, is that, if I
do not reply, I accept the accusation?"
"Yes."
"And then?"
"Arrest--prison--"
"Prison!"
She seemed to be suffering hideously. Her beautiful features were
distorted with fear. To her mind, prison evidently represented the
torments undergone by Marie and Sauverand. It must mean despair, shame,
death, all those horrors which Marie and Sauverand had been unable to
avoid and of which she in her turn would become the victim.
An awful sense of hopelessness overcame her, and she moaned:
"How tired I am! I feel that there is nothing to be done! I am stifled by
the mystery around me! Oh, if I could only see and understand!"
There was another long pause. Leaning over her, M. Desmalions studied her
face with concentrated attention. Then, as she did not speak, he put his
hand to the bell on his table and struck it three times.
Don Luis did not stir from where he stood, with his eyes despairingly
fixed on Florence. A battle was raging within him between his love and
generosity, which led him to believe the girl, and his reason, which
obliged him to suspect her. Was she innocent or guilty? He did not know.
Everything was against her. And yet why had he never ceased to love her?
Weber entered, followed by his men. M. Desmalions spoke to him and
pointed to Florence. Weber went up to her.
"Florence!" said Don Luis.
She looked at him and looked at Weber and his men; and, suddenly,
realizing what was coming, she retreated, staggered for a moment,
bewildered and fainting, and fell back in Don Luis's arms:
"Oh, save me, save me! Do save me!"
The action was so natural and unconstrained, the cry of distress so
clearly denoted the alarm which only the innocent can feel, that Don
Luis was promptly convinced. A fervent belief in her lightened his
heart. His doubts, his caution, his hesitation, his anguish: all these
vanished before a certainty that dashed upon him like an irresistible
wave. And he cried:
"No, no, that must not be! Monsieur le Préfet, there are things that
cannot be permitted--"
He stooped over Florence, whom he was holding so firmly in his arms that
nobody could have taken her from him. Their eyes met. His face was close
to the girl's. He quivered with emotion at feeling her throbbing, so
weak, so utterly helpless; and he said to her passionately, in a voice
too low for any but her to hear:
"I love you, I love you.... Ah, Florence, if you only knew what I feel:
how I suffer and how happy I am! Oh, Florence, I love you, I love you--"
Weber had stood aside, at a sign from the Prefect, who wanted to witness
the unexpected conflict between those two mysterious beings, Don Luis
Perenna and Florence Levasseur.
Don Luis unloosed his arms and placed the girl in a chair. Then, putting
his two hands on her shoulders, face to face with her, he said:
"Though you do not understand, Florence, I am beginning to understand a
good deal; and I can already almost see my way in the mystery that
terrifies you. Florence, listen to me. It is not you who are doing all
this, is it? There is somebody else behind you, above you--somebody who
gives you your instructions, isn't there, while you yourself don't know
where he is leading you?"
"Nobody is instructing me. What do you mean? Explain."
"Yes, you are not alone in your life. There are many things which you do
because you are told to do them and because you think them right and
because you do not know their consequences or even that they can have any
consequences. Answer my question: are you absolutely free? Are you not
yielding to some influence?"
The girl seemed to have come to herself, and her face recovered some of
its usual calmness. Nevertheless, it seemed as if Don Luis's question
made an impression on her.
"No," she said, "there is no influence--none at all--I'm sure of it."
He insisted, with growing eagerness:
"No, you are not sure; don't say that. Some one is dominating you without
your knowing it. Think for a moment. You are Cosmo Mornington's heir,
heir to a fortune which you don't care about, I know, I swear! Well, if
you don't want that fortune, to whom will it belong? Answer me. Is there
any one who is interested or believes himself interested in seeing you
rich? The whole question lies in that. Is your life linked with that of
some one else? Is he a friend of yours? Are you engaged to him?"
She gave a start of revolt.
"Oh, never! The man of whom you speak is incapable--"
"Ah," he cried, overcome with jealousy, "you confess it! So the man of
whom I speak exists! I swear that the villain--"
He turned toward M. Desmalions, his face convulsed with hatred. He made
no further effort to contain himself:
"Monsieur le Préfet, we are in sight of the goal. I know the road that
will lead us to it. The wild beast shall be hunted down to-night, or
to-morrow at least. Monsieur le Préfet, the letter that accompanied those
documents, the unsigned letter which this young lady handed you, was
written by the mother superior who manages a nursing-home in the Avenue
des Ternes.
"By making immediate inquiries at that nursing-home, by questioning the
superior and confronting her with Mlle. Levasseur, we shall discover the
identity of the criminal himself. But we must not lose a minute, or we
shall be too late and the wild beast will have fled."
His outburst was irresistible. There was no fighting against the violence
of his conviction. Still, M. Desmalions objected:
"Mlle. Levasseur could tell us--"
"She will not speak, or at least not till later, when the man has been
unmasked in her presence. Monsieur le Préfet, I entreat you to have the
same confidence in me as before. Have not all my promises been fulfilled?
Have confidence, Monsieur le Préfet; cast aside your doubts. Remember how
Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were overwhelmed with charges, the
most serious charges, and how they succumbed in spite of their innocence.
"Does the law wish to see Florence Levasseur sacrificed as the two others
were? And, besides, what I ask for is not her release, but the means to
defend her--that is to say, an hour or two's delay. Let Deputy Chief
Weber be responsible for her safe custody. Let your detectives go with
us: these and more as well, for we cannot have too many to capture the
loathsome brute in his lair."
M. Desmalions did not reply. After a brief moment he took Weber
aside and talked to him for some minutes. M. Desmalions did not seem
very favourably disposed toward Don Luis's request. But Weber was
heard to say:
"You need have no fear, Monsieur le Préfet. We run no risk."
And M. Desmalions yielded.
A few moments later Don Luis Perenna and Florence Levasseur took their
seats in a motor car with Weber and two inspectors. Another car, filled
with detectives, followed.
The hospital was literally invested by the police force and Weber
neglected none of the precautions of a regular siege.
The Prefect of Police, who arrived in his own car, was shown by the
manservant into the waiting-room and then into the parlour, where the
mother superior came to him at once. Without delay or preamble of any
sort he put his questions to her, in the presence of Don Luis, Weber,
and Florence:
"Reverend mother," he said, "I have a letter here which was brought to
me at headquarters and which tells me of the existence of certain
documents concerning a legacy. According to my information, this letter,
which is unsigned and which is in a disguised hand, was written by you.
Is that so?"
The mother superior, a woman with a powerful face and a determined air,
replied, without embarrassment:
"That is so, Monsieur le Préfet. As I had the honour to tell you in my
letter, I would have preferred, for obvious reasons, that my name should
not be mentioned. Besides, the delivery of the documents was all that
mattered. However, since you know that I am the writer, I am prepared to
answer your questions."
M. Desmalions continued, with a glance at Florence:
"I will first ask you, Reverend Mother, if you know this young lady?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. Florence was with us for six months as a nurse,
a few years ago. She gave such satisfaction that I was glad to take her
back this day fortnight. As I had read her story in the papers, I simply
asked her to change her name. We had a new staff at the hospital, and it
was therefore a safe refuge for her."
"But, as you have read the papers, you must be aware of the accusations
against her?"
"Those accusations have no weight, Monsieur le Préfet, with any one who
knows Florence. She has one of the noblest characters and one of the
strictest consciences that I have ever met with."
The Prefect continued:
"Let us speak of the documents, Reverend Mother. Where do they
come from?"
"Yesterday, Monsieur le Préfet, I found in my room a communication in
which the writer proposed to send me some papers that interested Florence
Levasseur--"
"How did any one know that she was here?" asked M. Desmalions,
interrupting her.
"I can't tell you. The letter simply said that the papers would be at
Versailles, at the _poste restante_, in my name, on a certain day--that
is to say, this morning. I was also asked not to mention them to anybody
and to hand them at three o'clock this afternoon to Florence Levasseur,
with instructions to take them to the Prefect of Police at once. I was
also requested to have a letter conveyed to Sergeant Mazeroux."
"To Sergeant Mazeroux! That's odd."
"That letter appeared to have to do with the same business. Now, I am
very fond of Florence. So I sent the letter, and this morning went to
Versailles and found the papers there, as stated. When I got back,
Florence was out. I was not able to hand them to her until her return, at
about four o'clock."
"Where were the papers posted?"
"In Paris. The postmark on the envelope was that of the Avenue Niel,
which happens to be the nearest office to this."
"And did not the fact of finding that letter in your room strike you
as strange?"
"Certainly, Monsieur le Préfet, but no stranger than all the other
incidents in the matter."
"Nevertheless," continued M. Desmalions, who was watching Florence's pale
face, "nevertheless, when you saw that the instructions which you
received came from this house and that they concerned a person living in
this house, did you not entertain the idea that that person--"
"The idea that Florence had entered the room, unknown to me, for such a
purpose?" cried the superior. "Oh, Monsieur le Préfet, Florence is
incapable of doing such a thing!"
The girl was silent, but her drawn features betrayed the feelings of
alarm that upset her.
Don Luis went up to her and said:
"The mystery is clearing, Florence, isn't it? And you are suffering in
consequence. Who put the letter in Mother Superior's room? You know,
don't you? And you know who is conducting all this plot?"
She did not answer. Then, turning to the deputy chief, the Prefect said:
"Weber, please go and search the room which Mlle. Levasseur occupied."
And, in reply to the nun's protest:
"It is indispensable," he declared, "that we should know the reasons why
Mlle. Levasseur preserves such an obstinate silence."
Florence herself led the way. But, as Weber was leaving the room, Don
Luis exclaimed:
"Take care, Deputy Chief!"
"Take care? Why?"
"I don't know," said Don Luis, who really could not have said why
Florence's behaviour was making him uneasy. "I don't know. Still, I
warn you--"
Weber shrugged his shoulders and, accompanied by the superior, moved
away. In the hall he took two men with him. Florence walked ahead. She
went up a flight of stairs and turned down a long corridor, with rooms on
either side of it, which, after turning a corner, led to a short and very
narrow passage ending in a door.
This was her room. The door opened not inward, into the room, but
outward, into the passage. Florence therefore drew it to her, stepping
back as she did so, which obliged Weber to do likewise. She took
advantage of this to rush in and close the door behind her so quickly
that the deputy chief, when he tried to grasp the handle, merely
struck the air.
He made an angry gesture:
"The baggage! She means to burn some papers!"
And, turning to the superior:
"Is there another exit to the room?"
"No, Monsieur."
He tried to open the door, but she had locked and bolted it. Then he
stood aside to make way for one of his men, a giant, who, with one blow
of his fist, smashed a panel.
Weber pushed by him, put his arm through the opening, drew the bolt,
turned the key, pulled open the door and entered.
Florence was no longer in her room. A little open window opposite showed
the way she had taken.
"Oh, curse my luck!" he shouted. "She's cut off!"
And, hurrying back to the staircase, he roared over the balusters:
"Watch all the doors! She's got away! Collar her!"
M. Desmalions came hurrying up. Meeting the deputy, he received his
explanations and then went on to Florence's room. The open window looked
out on a small inner yard, a sort of well which served to ventilate a
part of the house. Some rain-pipes ran down the wall. Florence must have
let herself down by them. But what coolness and what an indomitable will
she must have displayed to make her escape in this manner!
The detectives had already distributed themselves on every side to bar
the fugitive's road. It soon became manifest that Florence, for whom they
were hunting on the ground floor and in the basement, had gone from the
yard into the room underneath her own, which happened to be the mother
superior's; that she had put on a nun's habit; and that, thus disguised,
she had passed unnoticed through the very men who were pursuing her.
They rushed outside. But it was now dark; and every search was bound to
be vain in so populous a quarter.
The Prefect of Police made no effort to conceal his displeasure. Don Luis
was also greatly disappointed at this flight, which thwarted his plans,
and enlarged openly upon Weber's lack of skill.
"I told you so, Deputy Chief! You should have taken your precautions.
Mlle. Levasseur's attitude ought to have warned you. She evidently knows
the criminal and wanted to go to him, ask him for explanations and, for
all we can tell, save him, if he managed to convince her. And what will
happen between them? When the villain sees that he is discovered, he will
be capable of anything."
M. Desmalions again questioned the mother superior and soon learned that
Florence, before taking refuge in the nursing-home, had spent forty-eight
hours in some furnished apartments on the Ile Saint-Louis.
The clue was not worth much, but they could not neglect it. The Prefect
of Police, who retained all his doubts with regard to Florence and
attached extreme importance to the girl's capture, ordered Weber and his
men to follow up this trail without delay. Don Luis accompanied the
deputy chief.
Events at once showed that the Prefect of Police was right. Florence had
taken refuge in the lodging-house on the Ile Saint-Louis, where she had
engaged a room under an assumed name. But she had no sooner arrived than
a small boy called at the house, asked for her, and went away with her.
They went up to her room and found a parcel done up in a newspaper,
containing a nun's habit. The thing was obvious.
Later, in the course of the evening, Weber succeeded in discovering the
small boy. He was the son of the porter of one of the houses in the
neighbourhood. Where could he have taken Florence? When questioned, he
definitely refused to betray the lady who had trusted him and who had
cried when she kissed him. His mother entreated him. His father boxed his
ears. He was inflexible.
In any case, it was not unreasonable to conclude that Florence had not
left the Ile Saint-Louis or its immediate vicinity. The detectives
persisted in their search all the evening. Weber established his
headquarters in a tap room where every scrap of information was
brought to him and where his men returned from time to time to receive
his orders. He also remained in constant communication with the
Prefect's office.
At half-past ten a squad of detectives, sent by the Prefect, placed
themselves at the deputy chief's disposal. Mazeroux, newly arrived from
Rouen and furious with Florence, joined them.
The search continued. Don Luis had gradually assumed its management; and
it was he who, so to speak, inspired Weber to ring at this or that door
and to question this or that person.
At eleven o'clock the hunt still remained fruitless; and Don Luis was the
victim of an increasing and irritating restlessness. But, shortly after
midnight, a shrill whistle drew all the men to the eastern extremity of
the island, at the end of the Quai d'Anjou.
Two detectives stood waiting for them, surrounded by a small crowd of
onlookers. They had just learned that, some distance farther away, on the
Quai Henri IV, which does not form part of the island, a motor car had
pulled up outside a house, that there was the noise of a dispute, and
that the cab had subsequently driven off in the direction of Vincennes.
They hastened to the Quai Henri IV and at once found the house. There was
a door on the ground floor opening straight on the pavement. The taxi had
stopped for a few minutes in front of this door. Two persons, a woman and
a man leading her along, had left the ground floor flat. When the door of
the taxi was shut, a man's voice had shouted from the inside:
"Drive down the Boulevard Saint-Germain and along the quays. Then take
the Versailles Road."
But the porter's wife was able to furnish more precise particulars.
Puzzled by the tenant of the ground floor, whom she had only seen once,
in the evening, who paid his rent by checks signed in the name of Charles
and who but very seldom came to his apartment, she had taken advantage of
the fact that her lodge was next to the flat to listen to the sound of
voices. The man and the woman were arguing. At one moment the man cried,
in a louder tone:
"Come with me, Florence. I insist upon it; and I will give you every
proof of my innocence to-morrow morning. And, if you nevertheless
refuse to become my wife, I shall leave the country. All my
preparations are made."
A little later he began to laugh and, again raising his voice, said:
"Afraid of what, Florence? That I shall kill you perhaps? No, no, have
no fear--"
The portress had heard nothing more. But was this not enough to justify
every alarm?
Don Luis caught hold of the deputy chief:
"Come along! I knew it: the man is capable of anything. It's the tiger!
He means to kill her!"
He rushed outside, dragging the deputy toward the two police
motors waiting five hundred yards down. Meanwhile, Mazeroux was
trying to protest:
"It would be better to search the house, to pick up some clues--"
"Oh," shouted Don Luis, increasing his pace, "the house and the clues
will keep! ... But he's gaining ground, the ruffian--and he has Florence
with him--and he's going to kill her! It's a trap! ... I'm sure of it--"
He was shouting in the dark, dragging the two men along with
irresistible force.
They neared the motors.
"Get ready!" he ordered as soon as he was in sight. "I'll drive myself."
He tried to get into the driver's seat. But Weber objected and pushed him
inside, saying:
"Don't trouble--the chauffeur knows his business. He'll drive faster than
you would."
Don Luis, the deputy chief, and two detectives crowded into the cab;
Mazeroux took his seat beside the chauffeur.
"Versailles Road!" roared Don Luis.
The car started; and he continued:
"We've got him! You see, it's a magnificent opportunity. He must be going
pretty fast, but without forcing the pace, because he doesn't think we're
after him. Oh, the villain, we'll make him sit up! Quicker, driver! But
what the devil are we loaded up like this for? You and I, Deputy Chief,
would have been enough. Hi, Mazeroux, get down and jump into the other
car! That'll be better, won't it, Deputy? It's absurd--"
He interrupted himself; and, as he was sitting on the back seat, between
the deputy chief and a detective, he rose toward the window and muttered:
"Why, look here, what's the idiot doing? That's not the road! I say, what
does this mean?"
A roar of laughter was the only answer. It came from Weber, who was
shaking with delight. Don Luis stifled an oath and, making a tremendous
effort, tried to leap from the car. Six hands fell upon him and held him
motionless. The deputy chief had him by the throat. The detectives
clutched his arms. There was no room for him to struggle within the
restricted space of the small car; and he felt the cold iron of a
revolver on his temple.
"None of your nonsense," growled Weber, "or I'll blow out your brains, my
boy! Aha! you didn't expect this! It's Weber's revenge, eh?"
And, when Perenna continued to wriggle, he went on, in a
threatening tone:
"You'll have only yourself to blame, mind!... I'm going to count three:
one, two--"
"But what's it all about?" bellowed Don Luis.
"Prefect's orders, received just now."
"What orders?"
"To take you to the lockup if the Florence girl escaped us again."
"Have you a warrant?"
"I have."
"And what next?"
"What next? Nothing: the Sante--the examining magistrate--"
"But, hang it all, the tiger's making tracks meanwhile! Oh, rot! Is it
possible to be so dense? What mugs those fellows are! Oh, dash it!"
He was fuming with rage, and when he saw that they were driving into
the prison yard, he gathered all his strength, knocked the revolver
out of the deputy's hand, and stunned one of the detectives with a
blow of his fist.
But ten men came crowding round the doors. Resistance was useless. He
understood this, and his rage increased.
"The idiots!" he shouted, while they surrounded him and searched him at
the door of the office. "The rotters! The bunglers! To go mucking up a
job like that! They can lay hands on the villain if they want to, and
they lock up the honest man--while the villain makes himself scarce! And
he'll do more murder yet! Florence! Florence ..."
Under the lamp light, in the midst of the detectives holding him, he was
magnificent in his helpless violence.
They dragged him away. With an unparalleled display of strength, he drew
himself up, shook off the men who were hanging on to him like a pack of
hounds worrying some animal at bay, got rid of Weber, and accosted
Mazeroux in familiar tones. He was gloriously masterful, almost calm, so
wholly did he appear to control his seething rage. He gave his orders in
breathless little sentences, curt as words of command.
"Mazeroux, run around to the Prefect's. Ask him to ring up Valenglay:
yes, the Prime Minister. I want to see him. Have him informed. Ask the
Prefect to say it's I: the man who made the German Emperor play his game.
My name? He knows. Or, if he forgets, the Prefect can tell him my name."
He paused for a second or two; and then, calmer still, he declared:
"Arsène Lupin! Telephone those two words to him and just say this:
'Arsène Lupin wishes to speak to the Prime Minister on very important
business.' Get that through to him at once. The Prime Minister would be
very angry if he heard afterward that they had neglected to communicate
my request. Go, Mazeroux, and then find the villain's tracks again."
The governor of the prison had opened the jail book.
"You can enter my name, Monsieur le Directeur," said Don Luis. "Put down
'Arsène Lupin.'"
The governor smiled and said:
"I should find a difficulty in putting down any other. It's on the
warrant: 'Arsène Lupin, alias Don Luis Perenna.'"
Don Luis felt a little shudder pass through him at the sound of those
words. The fact that he was arrested under the name of Arsène Lupin made
his position doubly dangerous.
"Ah," he said, "so they've resolved--"
"I should think so!" said Weber, in a tone of triumph. "We've resolved to
take the bull by the horns and to go straight for Lupin. Plucky of us,
eh? Never fear, we'll show you something better than that!"
Don Luis did not flinch. Turning to Mazeroux again, he said:
"Don't forget my instructions, Mazeroux."
But there was a fresh blow in store for him. The sergeant did not answer
his remark. Don Luis watched him closely and once more gave a start. He
had just perceived that Mazeroux also was surrounded by men who were
holding him tight. And the poor sergeant stood silently shedding tears.
Weber's liveliness increased.
"You'll have to excuse him, Lupin. Sergeant Mazeroux accompanies you to
prison, though not in the same cell."
"Ah!" said Don Luis, drawing himself up. "Is Mazeroux put into jail?"
"Prefect's orders, warrant duly executed."
"And on what charge?"
"Accomplice of Arsène Lupin."
"Mazeroux my accomplice? Get out! Mazeroux? The most honest man that
ever lived!"
"The most honest man that ever lived, as you say. That didn't prevent
people from going to him when they wanted to write to you or prevent him
from bringing you the letters. Which proves that he knew where you were
hanging out. And there's a good deal more which we'll explain to you,
Lupin, in good time. You'll have plenty of fun, I assure you."
Don Luis murmured:
"My poor Mazeroux!"
Then, raising his voice, he said:
"Don't cry, old chap. It's just a matter of the remainder of the night.
Yes, I'll share my cards with you and we'll turn the king and mark game
in a very few hours. Don't cry. I've got a much finer berth waiting for
you, a more honourable and above all a more lucrative position. I have
just what you want.
"You don't imagine, surely, that I wasn't prepared for this! Why, you
know me! Take it from me: I shall be at liberty to-morrow, and the
government, after setting you free, will pitch you into a colonelcy or
something, with a marshal's pay attached to it. So don't cry, Mazeroux."
Then, addressing Weber, he said to him in the voice of a principal giving
an order, and knowing that the order will be executed without discussion:
"Monsieur, I will ask you to fulfil the confidential mission which I was
entrusting to Mazeroux. First, inform the Prefect of Police that I have a
communication of the very highest importance to make to the Prime
Minister. Next, discover the tiger's tracks at Versailles before the
night is over. I know your merit, Monsieur, and I rely entirely upon your
diligence and your zeal. Meet me at twelve o'clock to-morrow."
And, still maintaining his attitude of a principal who has given his
instructions, he allowed himself to be taken to his cell.
It was ten to one. For the last fifty minutes the enemy had been bowling
along the highroad, carrying off Florence like a prey which it now seemed
impossible to snatch from him.
The door was locked and bolted.
Don Luis reflected:
"Even presuming that Monsieur le Prefect consents to ring up Valenglay,
he won't do so before the morning. So they've given the villain eight
hours' start before I'm free. Eight hours! Curse it!"
He thought a little longer, then shrugged his shoulders with the air of
one who, for the moment, has nothing better to do than wait, and flung
himself on his mattress, murmuring:
"Hushaby, Lupin!"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
OPEN SESAME!
In spite of his usual facility for sleep, Don Luis slept for three hours
at most. He was racked with too much anxiety; and, though his plan of
conduct was worked out mathematically, he could not help foreseeing all
the obstacles which were likely to frustrate that plan. Of course, Weber
would speak to M. Desmalions. But would M. Desmalions telephone to
Valenglay?
"He is sure to telephone," Don Luis declared, stamping his foot. "It
doesn't let him in for anything. And at the same time, he would be
running a big risk if he refused, especially as Valenglay must have
been consulted about my arrest and is obviously kept informed of all
that happens."
He next asked himself what exactly Valenglay could do, once he was told.
For, after all, was it not too much to expect that the head of the
government, that the Prime Minister, should put himself out to obey the
injunctions and assist the schemes of M. Arsène Lupin?
"He will come!" he cried, with the same persistent confidence. "Valenglay
doesn't care a hang for form and ceremony and all that nonsense. He will
come, even if it is only out of curiosity, to learn what the Kaiser's
friend can have to say to him. Besides, he knows me! I am not one of
those beggars who inconvenience people for nothing. There's always
something to be gained by meeting me. He'll come!"
But another question at once presented itself to his mind. Valenglay's
coming in no way implied his consent to the bargain which Perenna meant
to propose to him. And even if Don Luis succeeded in convincing him, what
risks remained! How many doubtful points to overcome! And then the
possibilities of failure!
Would Weber pursue the fugitive's motor car with the necessary decision
and boldness? Would he get on the track again? And, having got on the
track, would he be certain not to lose it?
And then--and then, even supposing that all the chances were favourable,
was it not too late? Taking for granted that they hunted down the wild
beast, that they drove him to bay, would he not meanwhile have killed his
prey? Knowing himself beaten, would a monster of that kind hesitate to
add one more murder to the long list of his crimes?
And this, to Don Luis, was the crowning terror. After all the
difficulties which, in his stubbornly confident imagination, he had
managed to surmount, he was brought face to face with the horrible vision
of Florence being sacrificed, of Florence dead!
"Oh, the torture of it!" he stammered. "I alone could have succeeded; and
they shut me up!"
He hardly put himself out to inquire into the reasons for which M.
Desmalions, suddenly changing his mind, had consented to his arrest, thus
bringing back to life that troublesome Arsène Lupin with whom the police
had not hitherto cared to hamper themselves. No, that did not interest
him. Florence alone mattered. And the minutes passed; and each minute
wasted brought Florence nearer to her doom.
He remembered a similar occasion when, some years before, he waited in
the same way for the door of his cell to open and the German Emperor to
appear. But how much greater was the solemnity of the present moment!
Before, it was at the very most his liberty that was at stake. This time
it was Florence's life which fate was about to offer or refuse him.
"Florence! Florence!" he kept repeating, in his despair.
He no longer had a doubt of her innocence. Nor did he doubt that the
other loved her and had carried her off not so much for the hostage of
a coveted fortune as for a love spoil, which a man destroys if he
cannot keep it.
"Florence! Florence!"
He was suffering from an extraordinary fit of depression. His defeat
seemed irretrievable. There was no question of hastening after Florence,
of catching the murderer. Don Luis was in prison under his own name of
Arsène Lupin; and the whole problem lay in knowing how long he would
remain there, for months or for years!
It was then that he fully realized what his love for Florence meant. He
perceived that it took the place in his life of his former passions, his
craving for luxury, his desire for mastery, his pleasure in fighting, his
ambition, his revenge. For two months he had been struggling to win her
and for nothing else. The search after the truth and the punishment of
the criminal were to him no more than means of saving Florence from the
dangers that threatened her.
If Florence had to die, if it was too late to snatch her from the enemy,
in that case he might as well remain in prison. Arsène Lupin spending the
rest of his days in a convict settlement was a fitting end to the spoilt
life of a man who had not even been able to win the love of the only
woman he had really loved.
It was a passing mood and, being totally opposed to Don Luis's nature,
finished abruptly in a state of utter confidence which no longer admitted
the least particle of anxiety or doubt. The sun had risen. The cell
gradually became filled with daylight. And Don Luis remembered that
Valenglay reached his office on the Place Beauveau at seven o'clock in
the morning.
From this moment he felt absolutely calm. Coming events presented an
entirely different aspect to him, as though they had, so to speak, turned
right round. The contest seemed to him easy, the facts free from
complications. He understood as clearly as if the actions had been
performed that his will could not but be obeyed. The deputy chief must
inevitably have made a faithful report to the Prefect of Police. The
Prefect of Police must inevitably that morning have transmitted Arsène
Lupin's request to Valenglay.
Valenglay would inevitably give himself the pleasure of an interview with
Arsène Lupin. Arsène Lupin would inevitably, in the course of that
interview, obtain Valenglay's consent. These were not suppositions, but
certainties; not problems awaiting solution, but problems already solved.
Starting from A and continuing along B and C, you arrive, whether you
wish it or not, at D.
Don Luis began to laugh:
"Come, come, Arsène, old chap, remember that you brought Mr. Hohenzollern
all the way from his Brandenburg Marches. Valenglay does not live as far
as that, by Jove! And, if necessary, you can put yourself out a
little.... That's it: I'll consent to take the first step. I will go and
call on M. de Beauveau. M. Valenglay, it is a pleasure to see you."
He went gayly to the door, pretending that it was open and that he had
only to walk through to be received when his turn came.
He repeated this child's play three times, bowing low and long, as though
holding a plumed hat in his hand, and murmuring:
"Open sesame!"
At the fourth time, the door opened, and a warder appeared.
Don Luis said, in a ceremonious tone:
"I hope I have not kept the Prime Minister waiting?"
There were four inspectors in the corridor.
"Are these gentlemen my escort?" he asked. "That's right. Announce Arsène
Lupin, grandee of Spain, his most Catholic Majesty's cousin. My lords, I
follow you. Turnkey, here are twenty crowns for your pains, my friend."
He stopped in the corridor.
"By Jupiter, no gloves; and I haven't shaved since yesterday!"
The inspectors had surrounded him and were pushing him a little roughly.
He seized two of them by the arm. They groaned.
"That'll teach you," he said. "You've no orders to thrash me, have you?
Nor even to handcuff me? That being so, young fellows, behave!"
The prison governor was standing in the hall.
"I've had a capital night, my dear governor," said Don "Your C.T.C. rooms
are the very acme of comfort. I'll see that the Lockup Arms receives a
star in the 'Baedeker.' Would you like me to write you a testimonial in
your jail book? You wouldn't? Perhaps you hope to see me again? Sorry, my
dear governor, but it's impossible. I have other things to do."
A motor car was waiting in the yard. Don Luis stepped in with the four
detectives:
"Place Beauveau," he said to the driver.
"No, Rue Vineuse," said one of the detectives, correcting him.
"Oho!" said Don Luis. "His Excellency's private residence! His Excellency
prefers that my visit should be kept secret. That's a good sign. By the
way, dear friends, what's the time?"
His question remained unanswered. And as the detectives had drawn the
blinds, he was unable to consult the clocks in the street.
* * * * *
It was not until he was at Valenglay's, in the Prime Minister's little
ground-floor flat near the Trocadero, that he saw a clock on the
mantelpiece:
"A quarter to seven!" he exclaimed. "Good! There's not been much
time lost."
Valenglay's study opened on a flight of steps that ran down to a
garden filled with aviaries. The room itself was crammed with books
and pictures.
A bell rang, and the detectives went out, following the old maidservant
who had shown them in. Don Luis was left alone.
He was still calm, but nevertheless felt a certain uneasiness, a longing
to be up and doing, to throw himself into the fray; and his eyes kept on
involuntarily returning to the face of the clock. The minute hand seemed
endowed with extraordinary speed.
At last some one entered, ushering in a second person. Don Luis
recognized Valenglay and the Prefect of Police.
"That's it," he thought. "I've got him."
He saw this by the sort of vague sympathy perceptible on the old
Premier's lean and bony face. There was not a sign of arrogance, nothing
to raise a barrier between the Minister and the suspicious individual
whom he was receiving: just a manifest, playful curiosity and sympathy,
It was a sympathy which Valenglay had never concealed, and of which he
even boasted when, after Arsène Lupin's sham death, he spoke of the
adventurer and the strange relations between them.
"You have not changed," he said, after looking at him for some time.
"Complexion a little darker, a trifle grayer over the temples,
that's all."
And putting on a blunt tone, he asked:
"And what is it you want?"
"An answer first of all, Monsieur le Président du Conseil. Has Deputy
Chief Weber, who took me to the lockup last night, traced the motor cab
in which Florence Levasseur was carried off?"
"Yes, the motor stopped at Versailles. The persons inside it hired
another cab which is to take them to Nantes. What else do you ask for,
besides that answer?"
"My liberty, Monsieur le Président."
"At once, of course?" said Valenglay, beginning to laugh.
"In thirty or thirty-five minutes at most."
"At half-past seven, eh?"
"Half-past seven at latest, Monsieur le Président."
"And why your liberty?"
"To catch the murderer of Cosmo Mornington, of Inspector Vérot, and of
the Roussel family."
"Are you the only one that can catch him?"
"Yes."
"Still, the police are moving. The wires are at work. The murderer will
not leave France. He shan't escape us."
"You can't find him."
"Yes, we can."
"In that case he will kill Florence Levasseur. She will be the
scoundrel's seventh victim. And it will be your doing."
Valenglay paused for a moment and then resumed:
"According to you, contrary to all appearances, and contrary to the
well-grounded suspicions of Monsieur le Préfet de Police, Florence
Levasseur is innocent?"
"Oh, absolutely, Monsieur le Président!"
"And you believe her to be in danger of death?"
"She is in danger of death."
"Are you in love with her?"
"I am."
Valenglay experienced a little thrill of enjoyment. Lupin in love! Lupin
acting through love and confessing his love! But how exciting!
He said:
"I have followed the Mornington case from day to day and I know every
detail of it. You have done wonders, Monsieur. It is evident that, but
for you, the case would never have emerged from the mystery that
surrounded it at the start. But I cannot help noticing that there are
certain flaws in it.
"These flaws, which astonished me on your part, are more easy to
understand when we know that love was the primary motive and the object
of your actions. On the other hand, and in spite of what you say,
Florence Levasseur's conduct, her claims as the heiress, her unexpected
escape from the hospital, leave little doubt in our minds as to the part
which she is playing."
Don Luis pointed to the clock:
"Monsieur le Ministre, it is getting late."
Valenglay burst out laughing.
"I never met any one like you! Don Luis Perenna, I am sorry that I am not
some absolute monarch. I should make you the head of my secret police."
"A post which the German Emperor has already offered me."
"Oh, nonsense!"
"And I refused it."
Valenglay laughed heartily; but the clock struck seven. Don Luis began to
grow anxious. Valenglay sat down and, coming straight to the point, said,
in a serious voice:
"Don Luis Perenna, on the first day of your reappearance--that is to
say, at the very moment of the murders on the Boulevard Suchet--Monsieur
le Préfet de Police and I made up our minds as to your identity. Perenna
was Lupin.
"I have no doubt that you understood the reason why we did not wish to
bring back to life the dead man that you were, and why we granted you a
sort of protection. Monsieur le Préfet de Police was entirely of my
opinion. The work which you were pursuing was a salutary work of justice;
and your assistance was so valuable to us that we strove to spare you any
sort of annoyance. As Don Luis Perenna was fighting the good fight, we
left Arsène Lupin in the background. Unfortunately--"
Valenglay paused again and declared:
"Unfortunately, Monsieur le Préfet de Police last night received a
denunciation, supported by detailed proofs, accusing you of being
Arsène Lupin."
"Impossible!" cried Don Luis. "That is a statement which no one is able
to prove by material evidence. Arsène Lupin is dead."
"If you like," Valenglay agreed. "But that does not show that Don Luis
Perenna is alive."
"Don Luis Perenna has a duly legalized existence, Monsieur le President."
"Perhaps. But it is disputed."
"By whom? There is only one man who would have the right; and to accuse
me would be his own undoing. I cannot believe him to be stupid enough--"
"Stupid enough, no; but crafty enough, yes."
"You mean Caceres, the Peruvian attaché?"
"Yes."
"But he is abroad!"
"More than that: he is a fugitive from justice, after embezzling the
funds of his legation. But before leaving the country he signed a
statement that reached us yesterday evening, declaring that he faked up a
complete record for you under the name of Don Luis Perenna. Here is your
correspondence with him and here are all the papers establishing the
truth of his allegations. Any one will be convinced, on examining them,
first, that you are not Don Luis Perenna, and, secondly, that you are
Arsène Lupin."
Don Luis made an angry gesture.
"That blackguard of a Caceres is a mere tool," he snarled. "The other
man's behind him, has paid him, and is controlling his actions. It's the
scoundrel himself; I recognize his touch. He has once more tried to get
rid of me at the decisive moment."
"I am quite willing to believe it," said the Prime Minister. "But as all
these documents, according to the letter that came with them, are only
photographs, and as, if you are not arrested this morning, the originals
are to be handed to a leading Paris newspaper to-night, we are obliged to
take note of the accusation."
"But, Monsieur le Président," exclaimed Don Luis, "as Caceres is abroad
and as the scoundrel who bought the papers of him was also obliged to
take to flight before he was able to execute his threats, there is no
fear now that the documents will be handed to the press."
"How do we know? The enemy must have taken his precautions. He may have
accomplices."
"He has none."
"How do we know?"
Don Luis looked at Valenglay and said:
"What is it that you really wish to say, Monsieur le Président?"
"I will tell you. Although pressure was brought to bear upon us by
Caceres's threats, Monsieur le Préfet de Police, anxious to see all
possible light shed on the plot played by Florence Levasseur, did not
interfere with your last night's expedition. As that expedition led to
nothing, he determined, at any rate, to profit by the fact that Don Luis
had placed himself at our disposal and to arrest Arsène Lupin.
"If we now let him go the documents will certainly be published; and
you can see the absurd and ridiculous position in which that will place
us in the eyes of the public. Well, at this very moment, you ask for
the release of Arsène Lupin, a release which would be illegal, uncalled
for, and inexcusable. I am obliged, therefore, to refuse it, and I do
refuse it."
He ceased; and then, after a few seconds, he added:
"Unless--"
"Unless?" asked Don Luis.
"Unless--and this is what I wanted to say--unless you offer me in
exchange something so extraordinary and so tremendous that I could
consent to risk the annoyance which the absurd release of Arsène Lupin
would bring down upon my head."
"But, Monsieur le President, surely, if I bring you the real criminal,
the murderer of--"
"I don't need your assistance for that."
"And if I give you my word of honour, Monsieur le Président, to return
the moment my task is done and give myself up?"
Valenglay struck the table with his fist and, raising his voice,
addressed Don Luis with a certain genial familiarity:
"Come, Arsène Lupin," he said, "play the game! If you really want to have
your way, pay for it! Hang it all, remember that after all this business,
and especially after the incidents of last night, you and Florence
Levasseur will be to the public what you already are: the responsible
actors in the tragedy; nay, more, the real and only criminals. And it is
now, when Florence Levasseur has taken to her heels, that you come and
ask me for your liberty! Very well, but damn it, set a price to it and
don't haggle with me!"
"I am not haggling, Monsieur le Président," declared Don Luis, in a very
straightforward manner and tone. "What I have to offer you is certainly
much more extraordinary and tremendous than you imagine. But if it were
twice as extraordinary and twice as tremendous, it would not count once
Florence Levasseur's life is in danger. Nevertheless, I was entitled to
try for a less expensive transaction. Of this your words remove all hope.
I will therefore lay my cards upon the table, as you demand, and as I had
made up my mind to do."
He sat down opposite Valenglay, in the attitude of a man treating with
another on equal terms.
"I shall not be long. A single sentence, Monsieur le President,
will express the bargain which I am proposing to the Prime Minister
of my country."
And, looking Valenglay straight in the eyes, he said slowly, syllable
by syllable:
"In exchange for twenty-four hours' liberty and no more, undertaking on
my honour to return here to-morrow morning and to return here either with
Florence, to give you every proof of her innocence, or without her, to
constitute myself a prisoner, I offer you--"
He took his time and, in a serious voice, concluded:
"I offer you a kingdom, Monsieur le Président du Conseil."
The sentence sounded bombastic and ludicrous, sounded silly enough to
provoke a shrug of the shoulders, sounded like one of those sentences
which only an imbecile or a lunatic could utter. And yet Valenglay
remained impassive. He knew that, in such circumstances as the present,
the man before him was not the man to indulge in jesting.
And he knew it so fully that, instinctively, accustomed as he was to
momentous political questions in which secrecy is of the utmost
importance, he cast a glance toward the Prefect of Police, as though M.
Desmalions's presence in the room hindered him.
"I positively insist," said Don Luis, "that Monsieur le Préfet de Police
shall stay and hear what I have to say. He is better able than any one
else to appreciate the value of it; and he will bear witness to its
correctness in certain particulars."
"Speak!" said Valenglay.
His curiosity knew no bounds. He did not much care whether Don Luis's
proposal could have any practical results. In his heart he did not
believe in it. But what he wanted to know was the lengths to which that
demon of audacity was prepared to go, and on what new prodigious
adventure he based the pretensions which he was putting forward so calmly
and frankly.
Don Luis smiled:
"Will you allow me?" he asked.
Rising and going to the mantelpiece, he took down from the wall a
small map representing Northwest Africa. He spread it on the table,
placed different objects on the four corners to hold it in position,
and resumed:
"There is one matter, Monsieur le Président, which puzzled Monsieur le
Préfet de Police and about which I know that he caused inquiries to be
made; and that matter is how I employed my time, or, rather, how Arsène
Lupin employed his time during the last three years of his service with
the Foreign Legion."
"Those inquiries were made by my orders," said Valenglay.
"And they led--?"
"To nothing."
"So that you do not know what I did during my captivity?"
"Just so."
"I will tell you, Monsieur le Président. It will not take me long."
Don Luis pointed with a pencil to a spot in Morocco marked on the map.
"It was here that I was taken prisoner on the twenty-fourth of July. My
capture seemed queer to Monsieur le Préfet de Police and to all who
subsequently heard the details of the incident. They were astonished that
I should have been foolish enough to get caught in ambush and to allow
myself to be trapped by a troop of forty Berber horse. Their surprise is
justified. My capture was a deliberate move on my part.
"You will perhaps remember, Monsieur le Président, that I enlisted in the
Foreign Legion after making a fruitless attempt to kill myself in
consequence of some really terrible private disasters. I wanted to die,
and I thought that a Moorish bullet would give me the final rest for
which I longed.
"Fortune did not permit it. My destiny, it seemed, was not yet fulfilled.
Then what had to be was. Little by little, unknown to myself, the thought
of death vanished and I recovered my love of life. A few rather striking
feats of arms had given me back all my self-confidence and all my desire
for action.
"New dreams seized hold of me. I fell a victim to a new ideal. From day
to day I needed more space, greater independence, wider horizons, more
unforeseen and personal sensations. The Legion, great as my affection was
for the plucky fellows who had welcomed me so cordially, was no longer
enough to satisfy my craving for activity.
"One day, without thinking much about it, in a blind prompting of my
whole being toward a great adventure which I did not clearly see, but
which attracted me in a mysterious fashion, one day, finding myself
surrounded by a band of the enemy, though still in a position to fight, I
allowed myself to be captured.
"That is the whole story, Monsieur le Président. As a prisoner, I was
free. A new life opened before me. However, the incident nearly turned
out badly. My three dozen Berbers, a troop detached from an important
nomad tribe that used to pillage and put to ransom the districts lying on
the middle chains of the Atlas Range, first galloped back to the little
cluster of tents where the wives of their chiefs were encamped under the
guard of some ten men. They packed off at once; and, after a week's march
which I found pretty arduous, for I was on foot, with my hands tied
behind my back, following a mounted party, they stopped on a narrow
upland commanded by rocky slopes and covered with skeletons mouldering
among the stones and with remains of French swords and other weapons.
"Here they planted a stake in the ground and fastened me to it. I
gathered from the behaviour of my captors and from a few words which I
overheard that my death was decided on. They meant to cut off my ears,
nose, and tongue, and then my head.
"However, they began by preparing their repast. They went to a well close
by, ate and drank and took no further notice of me except to laugh at me
and describe the various treats they held in store for me.... Another
night passed. The torture was postponed until the morning, a time that
suited them better. At break of day they crowded round me, uttering yells
and shouts with which were mingled the shrill cries of the women.
"When my shadow covered a line which they had marked on the sand the
night before, they ceased their din, and one of them, who was to perform
the surgical operations prescribed for me, stepped forward and ordered me
to put out my tongue. I did so. He took hold of it with a corner of his
burnous and, with his other hand, drew his dagger from its sheath.
"I shall never forget the ferocity, coupled with ingenuous delight, of
his expression, which was like that of a mischievous boy amusing himself
by breaking a bird's wings and legs. Nor shall I ever forget the man's
stupefaction when he saw that his dagger no longer consisted of anything
but the pommel and a harmless and ridiculously small stump of the blade,
just long enough to keep it in its sheath. His fury was revealed by a
splutter of curses and he at once rushed at one of his friends and
snatched his dagger from him.
"The same stupefaction followed: this dagger was also broken off at the
hilt. The next thing was a general tumult, in which one and all
brandished their knives. But all of them uttered howls of rage.
"There were forty-five men there; and their forty-five knives were
smashed.... The chief flew at me as if holding me responsible for this
incomprehensible phenomenon. He was a tall, lean old man, slightly
hunchbacked, blind of one eye, hideous to look upon. He aimed a huge
pistol point blank at my head and he struck me as so ugly that I burst
out laughing in his face. He pulled the trigger. The pistol missed fire.
He pulled it again. The pistol again missed fire....
"All of them at once began to dance around the stake to which I was
fastened. Gesticulating wildly, hustling one another and roaring like
thunder, they levelled their various firearms at me: muskets, pistols,
carbines, old Spanish blunderbusses. The hammers clicked. But the
muskets, pistols, carbines, and blunderbusses did not go off!
"It was a regular miracle. You should have seen their faces. I never
laughed so much in my life; and this completed their bewilderment.
"Some ran to the tents for more powder. Others hurriedly reloaded their
arms, only to meet with fresh failure, while I did nothing but laugh and
laugh! The thing could not go on indefinitely. There were plenty of other
means of doing away with me. They had their hands to strangle me with,
the butt ends of their muskets to smash my head with, pebbles to stone me
with. And there were over forty of them!
"The old chief picked up a bulky stone and stepped toward me, his
features distorted with hatred. He raised himself to his full height,
lifted the huge block, with the assistance of two of his men, above my
head and dropped it--in front of me, on the stake! It was a staggering
sight for the poor old man. I had, in one second, unfastened my bonds and
sprung backward; and I was standing at three paces from him, with my
hands outstretched before me, and holding in those outstretched hands the
two revolvers which had been taken from me on the day of my capture!
"What followed was the business of a few seconds. The chief now began
to laugh as I had laughed, sarcastically. To his mind, in the disorder
of his brain, those two revolvers with which I threatened him could
have no more effect than the useless weapons which had spared my life.
He took up a large pebble and raised his hand to hurl it at my face.
His two assistants did the same. And all the others were prepared to
follow his example.
"'Hands down!' I cried, 'or I fire!' The chief let fly his stone. At the
same moment three shots rang out. The chief and his two men fell dead to
the ground. 'Who's next?' I asked, looking round the band.
"Forty-two Moors remained. I had eleven bullets left. As none of the men
budged, I slipped one of my revolvers under my arm and took from my
pocket two small boxes of cartridges containing fifty more bullets. And
from my belt I drew three great knives, all of them nicely tapering and
pointed. Half of the troop made signs of submission and drew up in line
behind me. The other half capitulated a moment after. The battle was
over. It had not lasted four minutes."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ARSÈNE I EMPEROR OF MAURETANIA
Don Luis ceased. A smile of amusement played round his lips. The
recollection of those four minutes seemed to divert him immensely.
Valenglay and the Prefect of Police, who were neither of them men to be
unduly surprised at courage and coolness, had listened to him,
nevertheless, and were now looking at him in bewildered silence. Was it
possible for a human being to carry heroism to such unlikely lengths?
Meanwhile, he went up to the other side of the chimney and pointed to a
larger map, representing the French roads.
"You told me, Monsieur le Président, that the scoundrel's motor car had
left Versailles and was going toward Nantes?"
"Yes; and all our arrangements are made to arrest him either on the way,
or else at Nantes or at Saint-Nazaire, where he may intend to take ship."
Don Luis Perenna followed with his forefinger the road across France,
stopping here and there, marking successive stages. And nothing could
have been more impressive than this dumb show.
The man that he was, preserving his composure amid the overthrow of all
that he had most at heart, seemed by his calmness to dominate time and
circumstances. It was as though the murderer were running away at one end
of an unbreakable thread of which Don Luis held the other, and as though
Don Luis could stop his flight at any time by a mere movement of his
finger and thumb.
As he studied the map, the master seemed to command not only a sheet of
cardboard, but also the highroad on which a motor car was spinning along,
subject to his despotic will.
He went back to the table and continued:
"The battle was over. And there was no question of its being resumed. My
forty-two worthies found themselves face to face with a conqueror,
against whom revenge is always possible, by fair means or foul, but with
one who had subjugated them in a supernatural manner. There was no other
explanation of the inexplicable facts which they had witnessed. I was a
sorcerer, a kind of marabout, a direct emissary of the Prophet."
Valenglay laughed and said:
"Their interpretation was not so very unreasonable, for, after all, you
must have performed a sleight-of-hand trick which strikes me also as
being little less than miraculous."
"Monsieur le Président, do you know a curious short story of Balzac's
called 'A Passion in the Desert?'"
"Yes."
"Well, the key to the riddle lies in that."
"Does it? I don't quite see. You were not under the claws of a tigress.
There, was no tigress to tame in this instance."
"No, but there were women."
"Eh? How do you mean?"
"Upon my word, Monsieur le Président," said Don Luis gayly, "I should not
like to shock you. But I repeat that the troop which carried me off on
that week's march included women; and women are a little like Balzac's
tigress, creatures whom it is not impossible to tame, to charm, to break
in, until you make friends of them."
"Yes, yes," muttered the Premier, madly puzzled, "but that needs time."
"I had a week."
"And complete liberty of action."
"No, no, Monsieur le Président. The eyes are enough to start with. The
eyes give rise to sympathy, interest, affection, curiosity, a wish to
know you better. After that, the merest opportunity--"
"And did an opportunity offer?"
"Yes, one night. I was fastened up, or at least they thought I was. I
knew that the chief's favourite was alone in her tent close by. I went
there. I left her an hour afterward."
"And the tigress was tamed?"
"Yes, as thoroughly as Balzac's: tamed and blindly submissive."
"But there were several of them?"
"I know, Monsieur le President, and that was the difficulty. I was afraid
of rivalry. But all went well: the favourite was not jealous, far from
it. And then, as I have told you, her submission was absolute. In short,
I had five staunch, invisible friends, resolved to do anything I wanted
and suspected by nobody.
"My plan was being carried out before we reached the last halting-place.
My five secret agents collected all the arms during the night. They
dashed the daggers to the ground and broke them. They removed the bullets
from the pistols. They damped the powder. Everything was ready for
ringing up the curtain."
Valenglay bowed.
"My compliments! You are a man of resource. And your scheme was not
lacking in charm. For I take it that your five ladies were pretty?"
Don Luis put on a bantering expression. He closed his eyes, as if to
recall his bliss, and let fall the one word:
"Hags!"
The epithet gave rise to a burst of merriment. But Don Luis, as though in
a hurry to finish his story, at once went on:
"In any case, they saved my life, the hussies, and their aid never failed
me. My forty-two watch-dogs, deprived of their arms and shaking with fear
in those solitudes where everything is a trap and where death lies in
wait for you at any minute, gathered round me as their real protector.
When we joined the great tribe to which they belonged I was their actual
chief. And it took me less than three months of dangers faced in common,
of ambushes defeated under my advice, of raids and pillages effected by
my direction, to become the chief also of the whole tribe.
"I spoke their language, I practised their religion, I wore their
dress, I conformed to their customs: alas! had I not five wives?
Henceforward, my dream, which had gradually taken definite shape in my
mind, became possible.
"I sent one of my most faithful adherents to France, with sixty letters
to hand to sixty men whose names and addresses he learned by heart.
Those sixty men were sixty associates whom Arsène Lupin had disbanded
before he threw himself from the Capri cliffs. All had retired from
business, with a hundred thousand francs apiece in ready money and a
small trade or public post to keep them occupied. I had provided one
with a tobacconist's shop, another with a job as a park-keeper, others
with sinecures in the government offices. In short, they were
respectable citizens.
"To all of them--whether public servants, farmers, municipal
councillors, grocers, sacristans, or what not--I wrote the same letter,
made the same offer, and gave the same instructions in case they should
accept.... Monsieur le Président, I thought that, of the sixty, ten or
fifteen at most would come and join me: sixty came, Monsieur le
President, sixty, and not one less! Sixty men punctually arrived at the
appointed place.
"On the day fixed, at the hour named, my old armed cruiser, the
_Ascendam_, which they had brought back, anchored in the mouth of the
Wady Draa, on the Atlantic coast, between Cape Nun and Cape Juby. Two
longboats plied to and fro and landed my friends and the munitions of war
which they had brought with them: camp furniture, quick-firing guns,
ammunition, motor-boats, stores and provisions, trading wares, glass
beads, and cases of gold as well, for my sixty good men and true had
insisted on turning their share of the old profits into cash and on
putting into the new venture the six million francs which they had
received from their governor....
"Need I say more, Monsieur le Président? Must I tell you what a chief
like Arsène Lupin was able to attempt seconded by sixty fine fellows of
that stamp and backed by an army of ten thousand well-armed and
well-trained Moorish fanatics? He attempted it; and his success was
unparalleled.
"I do not think that there has ever been an idyl like that through which
we lived during those fifteen months, first on the heights of the Atlas
range and then in the infernal plains of the Sahara: an idyl of heroism,
of privation, of superhuman torture and superhuman joy; an idyl of hunger
and thirst, of total defeat and dazzling victory....
"My sixty trusty followers threw themselves into their work with might
and main. Oh, what men! You know them, Monsieur le Président du Conseil!
You've had them to deal with, Monsieur le Préfet de Police! The beggars!
Tears come to my eyes when I think of some of them.
"There were Charolais and his son, who distinguished themselves in the
case of the Princesse de Lamballe's tiara. There were Marco, who owed his
fame to the Kesselbach case, and Auguste, who was your chief messenger,
Monsieur le Président. There were the Growler and the Masher, who
achieved such glory in the hunt for the crystal stopper. There were the
brothers Beuzeville, whom I used to call the two Ajaxes. There were
Philippe d'Antrac, who was better born than any Bourbon, and Pierre Le
Grand and Tristan Le Roux and Joseph Le Jeune."
"And there was Arsène Lupin," said Valenglay, roused to enthusiasm by
this list of Homeric heroes.
"And there was Arsène Lupin," repeated Don Luis.
He nodded his head, smiled, and continued, in a very quiet voice:
"I will not speak of him, Monsieur le Président. I will not speak of him,
for the simple reason that you would not believe my story. What they tell
about him when he was with the Foreign Legion is mere child's play beside
what was to come later. Lupin was only a private soldier. In South
Morocco he was a general. Not till then did Arsène Lupin really show what
he could do. And, I say it without pride, not even I foresaw what that
was. The Achilles of the legend performed no greater feats. Hannibal and
Caesar achieved no more striking results.
"All I need tell you is that, in fifteen months, Arsène Lupin conquered a
kingdom twice the size of France. From the Berbers of Morocco, from the
indomitable Tuaregs, from the Arabs of the extreme south of Algeria, from
the negroes who overrun Senegal, from the Moors along the Atlantic coast,
under the blazing sun, in the flames of hell, he conquered half the
Sahara and what we may call ancient Mauretania.
"A kingdom of deserts and swamps? Partly, but a kingdom all the same,
with oases, wells, rivers, forests, and incalculable riches, a kingdom
with ten million men and a hundred thousand warriors. This is the kingdom
which I offer to France, Monsieur le Président du Conseil."
Valenglay did not conceal his amazement. Greatly excited and even
perturbed by what he had learned, looking over his extraordinary visitor,
with his hands clutching at the map of Africa, he whispered:
"Explain yourself; be more precise."
Don Luis answered:
"Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I will not remind you of the events of
the last few years. France, resolving to pursue a splendid dream of
dominion over North Africa, has had to part with a portion of the Congo.
I propose to heal the painful wound by giving her thirty times as much as
she has lost. And I turn the magnificent and distant dream into an
immediate certainty by joining the small slice of Morocco which you have
conquered to Senegal at one blow.
"To-day, Greater France in Africa exists. Thanks to me, it is a solid and
compact expanse. Millions of square miles of territory and a coastline
stretching for several thousand miles from Tunis to the Congo, save for a
few insignificant interruptions."
"It's a Utopia," Valenglay protested.
"It's a reality."
"Nonsense! It will take us twenty years' fighting to achieve."
"It will take you exactly five minutes!" cried Don Luis, with
irresistible enthusiasm. "What I offer you is not the conquest of an
empire, but a conquered empire, duly pacified and administered, in full
working order and full of life. My gift is a present, not a future gift.
"I, too, Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I, Arsène Lupin, had cherished
a splendid dream. After toiling and moiling all my life, after knowing
all the ups and downs of existence, richer than Croesus, because all the
wealth of the world was mine, and poorer than Job, because I had
distributed all my treasures, surfeited with everything, tired of
unhappiness, and more tired still of happiness, sick of pleasure, of
passion, of excitement, I wanted to do something that is incredible in
the present day: to reign!
"And a still more incredible phenomenon: when this thing was
accomplished, when the dead Arsène Lupin had come to life again as a
sultan out of the Arabian Nights, as a reigning, governing, law-giving
Arsène Lupin, head of the state and head of the church, I determined, in
a few years, at one stroke, to tear down the screen of rebel tribes
against which you were waging a desultory and tiresome war in the north
of Morocco, while I was quietly and silently building up my kingdom at
the back of it.
"Then, face to face with France and as powerful as herself, like a
neighbour treating on equal terms, I would have cried to her, 'It's I,
Arsène Lupin! Behold the former swindler and gentleman burglar! The
Sultan of Adrar, the Sultan of Iguidi, the Sultan of El Djouf, the Sultan
of the Tuaregs, the Sultan of Aubata, the Sultan of Brakna and Frerzon,
all these am I, the Sultan of Sultans, grandson of Mahomet, son of Allah,
I, I, I, Arsène Lupin!'
"And, before taking the little grain of poison that sets one free--for a
man like Arsène Lupin has no right to grow old--I should have signed the
treaty of peace, the deed of gift in which I bestowed a kingdom on
France, signed it, below the flourishes of my grand dignitaries, kaids,
pashas, and marabouts, with my lawful signature, the signature to which I
am fully entitled, which I conquered at the point of my sword and by my
all-powerful will: 'Arsène I, Emperor of Mauretania!'"
Don Luis uttered all these words in a strong voice, but without emphasis,
with the very simple emotion and pride of a man who has done much and who
knows the value of what he has done. There were but two ways of replying
to him: by a shrug of the shoulders, as one replies to a madman, or by
the silence that expresses reflection and approval.
The Prime Minister and the Prefect of Police said nothing, but their
looks betrayed their secret thoughts. And deep down within themselves
they felt that they were in the presence of an absolutely exceptional
specimen of mankind, created to perform immoderate actions and fashioned
by his own hand for a superhuman destiny.
Don Luis continued:
"It was a fine curtain, was it not, Monsieur le Président du Conseil? And
the end was worthy of the work. I should have been happy to have had it
so. Arsène Lupin dying on a throne, sceptre in hand, would have been a
spectacle not devoid of glamour. Arsène Lupin dying with his title of
Arsène I, Emperor of Mauretania and benefactor of France: what an
apotheosis! The gods have willed it otherwise. Jealous, no doubt, they
are lowering me to the level of my cousins of the old world and turning
me into that absurd creature, a king in exile. Their will be done! Peace
to the late Emperor of Mauretania. He has strutted and fretted his hour
upon the stage.
"Arsène I is dead: long live France! Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I
repeat my offer. Florence Levasseur is in danger. I alone can rescue her
from the monster who is carrying her away. It will take me twenty-four
hours. In return for twenty-four hours' liberty I will give you the
Mauretanian Empire. Do you accept, Monsieur le Président du Conseil?"
"Well, certainly, I accept," said Valenglay, laughing. "What do you say,
my dear Desmalions? The whole thing may not be very orthodox, but, hang
it! Paris is worth a mass and the Kingdom of Mauretania is a tempting
morsel. We'll risk the experiment."
Don Luis's face expressed so sincere a joy that one might have thought
that he had just achieved the most brilliant victory instead of
sacrificing a crown and flinging into the gutter the most fantastic dream
that mortal man had ever conceived and realized.
He asked:
"What guarantees do you require, Monsieur le Président?"
"None."
"I can show you treaties, documents to prove--"
"Don't trouble. We'll talk about all that to-morrow. Meanwhile, go ahead.
You are free."
The essential word, the incredible word, was spoken.
Don Luis took a few steps toward the door.
"One word more, Monsieur le Président," he said, stopping. "Among my
former companions is one for whom I procured a post suited to his
inclinations and his deserts. This man I did not send for to come to
Africa, thinking that some day or other he might be of use to me through
the position which he occupied. I am speaking of Mazeroux, a sergeant in
the detective service."
"Sergeant Mazeroux, whom Caceres denounced, with corroborating evidence,
as an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, is in prison."
"Sergeant Mazeroux is a model of professional honour, Monsieur le
Président. I owed his assistance only to the fact that I was helping the
police. I was accepted as an auxiliary and more or less patronized by
Monsieur le Préfet. Mazeroux thwarted me in anything I tried to do that
was at all illegal. And he would have been the first to take me by the
collar if he had been so instructed. I ask for his release."
"Oho!"
"Monsieur le Président, your consent will be an act of justice and I beg
you to grant it. Sergeant Mazerou shall leave France. He can be charged
by the government with a secret mission in the south of Morocco, with the
rank of colonial inspector."
"Agreed," said Valenglay, laughing heartily. And he added, "My dear
Préfect, once we depart from the strictly lawful path, there's no saying
where we come to. But the end justifies the means; and the end which we
have in view is to have done with this loathsome Mornington case."
"This evening everything will be settled," said Don Luis.
"I hope so. Our men are on the track."
"They are on the track, but they have to check that track at every town,
at every village, by inquiries made of every peasant they meet; they have
to find out if the motor has not branched off somewhere; and they are
wasting time. I shall go straight for the scoundrel."
"By what miracle?"
"That must be my secret for the present, Monsieur le Président."
"Very well. Is there anything you want?"
"This map of France."
"Take it."
"And a couple of revolvers."
"Monsieur le Préfet will be good enough to ask his inspectors for two
revolvers and to give them to you. Is that all? Any money?"
"No, thank you, Monsieur le Président. I always carry a useful fifty
thousand francs in my pocket-book, in case of need."
"In that case," said the Prefect of Police, "I shall have to send some
one with you to the lockup. I presume your pocket-book was among the
things taken from you."
Don Luis smiled:
"Monsieur le Préfet, the things that people can take from me are never of
the least importance. My pocket-book is at the lockup, as you say. But
the money--"
He raised his left leg, took his boot in his hands and gave a slight
twist to the heel. There was a little click, and a sort of double drawer
shot out of the front of the sole. It contained two sheafs of bank notes
and a number of diminutive articles, such as a gimlet, a watch spring,
and some pills.
"The wherewithal to escape," he said, "to live and--to die. Good-bye,
Monsieur le Président."
In the hall M. Desmalions told the inspectors to let their prisoner go
free. Don Luis asked:
"Monsieur le Préfet, did Deputy Chief Weber give you any particulars
about the brute's car?"
"Yes, he telephoned from Versailles. It's a deep-yellow car, belonging to
the Compagnie des Comètes. The driver's seat is on the left. He's wearing
a gray cloth cap with a black leather peak."
"Thank you, Monsieur le Préfet."
And he left the house.
* * * * *
An inconceivable thing had happened. Don Luis was free. Half an hour's
conversation had given him the power of acting and of fighting the
decisive battle.
He went off at a run. At the Trocadéro he jumped into a taxi.
"Go to Issy-les-Moulineaux!" he cried. "Full speed! Forty francs!"
The cab flew through Passy, crossed the Seine and reached the
Issy-les-Moulineaux aviation ground in ten minutes.
None of the aeroplanes was out, for there was a stiff breeze blowing. Don
Luis ran to the sheds. The owners' names were written over the doors.
"Davanne," he muttered. "That's the man I want."
The door of the shed was open. A short, stoutish man, with a long red
face, was smoking a cigarette and watching some mechanics working at a
monoplane. The little man was Davanne himself, the famous airman.
Don Luis took him aside and, knowing from the papers the sort of man that
he was, opened the conversation so as to surprise him from the start:
"Monsieur," he said, unfolding his map of France, "I want to catch up
some one who has carried off the woman I love and is making for Nantes by
motor. The abduction took place at midnight. It is now about eight
o'clock. Suppose that the motor, which is just a hired taxi with a driver
who has no inducement to break his neck, does an average of twenty miles
an hour, including stoppages--in twelve hours' time--that is to say, at
twelve o'clock--our man will have covered two hundred and forty miles and
reached a spot between Angers and Nantes, at this point on the map."
"Les Ponts-de-Drive," agreed Davanne, who was quietly listening.
"Very well. Suppose, on the other hand, that an aeroplane were to start
from Issy-les-Moulineaux at eight o'clock in the morning and travel at
the rate of sixty miles an hour, without stopping--in four hours'
time--that is to say, at twelve o'clock--it would reach Les
Ponts-de-Drive at the exact same moment as the motor. Am I right?"
"Perfectly."
"In that case, if we agree, all is well. Does your machine carry a
passenger?"
"Sometimes she does."
"We'll start at once. What are your terms?"
"It depends. Who are you?"
"Arsène Lupin."
"The devil you are!" exclaimed Davanne, a little taken aback.
"I am Arsène Lupin. You must know the best part of what has happened from
reading about it in the papers. Well, Florence Levasseur was kidnapped
last night. I want to save her. What's your price?"
"Nothing."
"That's too much!"
"Perhaps, but the adventure amuses me. It will be an advertisement."
"Very well. But your silence is necessary until to-morrow. I'll buy it.
Here's twenty thousand francs."
Ten minutes later Don Luis was dressed in an airman's suit, cap, and
goggles; and an aeroplane rose to a height of two thousand five hundred
feet to avoid the air currents, flew above the Seine, and darted due west
across France.
Versailles, Maintenon, Chartres....
Don Luis had never been up in an aeroplane. France had achieved the
conquest of the air while he was fighting with the Legion and in the
plains of the Sahara. Nevertheless, sensitive though he was to new
impressions--and what more exciting impression could he have than
this?--he did not experience the heavenly delight of the man who for the
first time soars above the earth. What monopolized his thoughts,
strained his nerves, and excited his whole being to an exquisite degree
was the as yet impossible but inevitable sight of the motor which they
were pursuing.
Amid the tremendous swarm of things beneath them, amid the unexpected din
of the wings and the engine, in the immensity of the sky, in the infinity
of the horizon, his eyes sought nothing but that, and his ears admitted
no other sound than the hum of the invisible car. His were the mighty and
brutal sensations of the hunter chasing his game. He was the bird of prey
whom the distraught quarry has no chance of escaping.
Nogent-le-Rotrou, La Ferté-Bernard, Le Mans....
The two companions did not exchange a single word. Before him Perenna
saw Davanne's broad back and powerful neck and shoulders. But, by
bending his head a little, he saw the boundless space beneath him; and
nothing interested him but the white ribbon of road that ran from town
to town and from village to village, at times quite straight, as though
a hand had stretched it, and at others lazily winding, broken by a river
or a church.
On this ribbon, at some place always closer and closer, were Florence and
her abductor!
He never doubted it! The yellow taxi was continuing its patient and
plucky little effort. Mile after mile, through plains and villages,
fields and forests, it was making Angers, with Les Ponts-de-Drive after,
and, right at the end of the ribbon, the unattainable goal: Nantes,
Saint-Nazaire, the steamer ready to start, and victory for the
scoundrel....
He laughed at the idea. As if there could be a question of any victory
but his, the victory of the falcon over its prey, the victory of the
flying bird over the game that runs afoot! Not for a second did he
entertain the thought that the enemy might have slunk away by taking
another road.
There are some certainties that are equivalent to facts. And this one
was so great that it seemed to him that his adversaries were obliged
to comply with it. The car was travelling along the road to Nantes.
It would cover an average of twenty miles an hour. And as he himself
was travelling at the rate of sixty miles, the encounter would take
place at the spot named, Les Ponts-de-Drive, and at the hour named,
twelve o'clock.
A cluster of houses, a huge castle, towers, steeples: Angers....
Don Luis asked Davanne the time. It was ten minutes to twelve.
Already Angers was a vanished vision. Once more the open country, broken
up with many-coloured fields. Through it all, a road.
And, on that road, a yellow motor.
The yellow motor! The brute's motor! The motor with Florence Levasseur!
Don Luis's joy contained no surprise. He knew so well that this was bound
to happen!
Davanne turned round and cried:
"That's the one, isn't it?"
"Yes, go straight for them."
The airship dipped through space and caught up the car almost at once.
Then Davanne slowed his engine and kept at six hundred feet above the car
and a little way behind.
From here they made out all the details. The driver was seated on the
left. He wore a gray cap with a black peak. It was one of the deep-yellow
taxis of the Compagnie des Comètes. It was the taxi which they were
pursuing. And Florence was inside with her abductor.
"At last," thought Don Luis, "I have them!"
They flew for some time, keeping the same distance.
Davanne waited for a signal which Don Luis was in no hurry to give. He
was revelling in the sensation of his power, with a force made up of
mingled pride, hatred, and cruelty. He was indeed the eagle hovering
overhead with its talons itching to rend live flesh. Escaped from the
cage in which he had been imprisoned, released from the bonds that
fastened him, he had come all the way at full flight and was ready to
swoop upon the helpless prey.
He lifted himself in his seat and gave Davanne his instructions:
"Be careful," he said, "not to brush too close by them. They might put a
bullet into us."
Another minute passed.
Suddenly they saw that, half a mile ahead, the road divided into three,
thus forming a very wide open space which was still further extended by
two triangular patches of grass where the three roads met.
"Now?" asked Davanne, turning to Don Luis.
The surrounding country was deserted.
"Off you go!" cried Don Luis.
The aeroplane seemed to shoot down suddenly, as though driven by an
irresistible force, which sent it flying like an arrow toward the mark.
It passed at three hundred feet above the car, and then, all at once,
checking its career, choosing the spot at which it meant to hit the
target, calmly, silently, like a night-bird, steering clear of the trees
and sign-posts, it alighted softly on the grass of the crossroads.
Don Luis sprang out and ran toward the motor, which was coming along at a
rapid pace. He stood in the middle of the road, levelled his two
revolvers, and shouted:
"Stop, or I fire!"
The terrified driver put on both brakes. The car pulled up.
Don Luis rushed to one of the doors.
"Thunder!" he roared, discharging one of his revolvers for no reason and
smashing a window-pane.
There was no one in the car.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"THE SNARE IS LAID. BEWARE, LUPIN!"
The power that had impelled Don Luis to battle and victory was so intense
that it suffered, so to speak, no cheek. Disappointment, rage,
humiliation, torture, were all swallowed up in an immediate desire for
action and information, together with a longing to continue the chase.
The rest was but an incident of no importance, which would soon be very
simply explained.
The petrified taxi-driver was gazing wildly at the peasants coming from
the distant farms, attracted by the sound of the aeroplane. Don Luis took
him by the throat and put the barrel of his revolver to the man's temple:
"Tell me what you know--or you're a dead man."
And when the unhappy wretch began to stammer out entreaties:
"It's no use moaning, no use hoping for assistance.... Those people won't
get here in time. So there's only one way of saving yourself: speak! Last
night a gentleman came to Versailles from Paris in a taxi, left it and
took yours: is that it?"
"Yes."
"The gentleman had a lady with him?"
"Yes."
"And he engaged you to take him to Nantes?"
"Yes."
"But he changed his mind on the way and told you to put him down?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Before we got to Mans, in a little road on the right, with a sort of
coach-house, looking like a shed, a hundred yards down it. They both got
out there."
"And you went on?"
"He paid me to."
"How much?"
"Five hundred francs. And there was another fare waiting at Nantes that I
was to pick up and bring back to Paris for a thousand francs more."
"Do you believe in that other fare?"
"No. I think he wanted to put people off the scent by sending them after
me to Nantes while he branched off. Still, I had my money."
"And, when you left them, weren't you curious to see what happened?"
"No."
"Take care! A movement of my finger and I blow out your brains. Speak!"
"Well, yes, then. I went back on foot, behind a bank covered with trees.
The man had opened the coach-house and was starting a small limousine
car. The lady did not want to get in. They argued pretty fiercely. He
threatened and begged by turns. But I could not hear what they said. She
seemed very tired. He gave her a glass of water, which he drew from a tap
in the wall. Then she consented. He closed the door on her and took his
seat at the wheel."
"A glass of water!" cried Don Luis. "Are you sure he put nothing else
into the glass?"
The driver seemed surprised at the question and then answered:
"Yes, I think he did. He took something from his pocket."
"Without the lady's knowledge?"
"Yes, she didn't see."
Don Luis mastered his horror. After all it was impossible that the
villain had poisoned Florence in that way, at that place, without
anything to warrant so great a hurry. No, it was more likely that he had
employed a narcotic, a drug of some sort which would dull Florence's
brain and make her incapable of noticing by what new roads and through
what towns he was taking her.
"And then," he repeated, "she decided to step in?"
"Yes; and he shut the door and got into the driver's seat. I went
away then."
"Before knowing which direction they took?"
"Yes."
"Did you suspect on the way that they thought that they were being
followed?"
"Certainly. He did nothing but put his head out of the window."
"Did the lady cry out at all?"
"No."
"Would you know him again if you saw him?"
"No, I'm sure I shouldn't. At Versailles it was dark. And this morning I
was too far away. Besides, it's curious, but the first time he struck me
as very tall, and this morning, on the contrary, he looked quite a short
man, as though bent in two. I can't understand it at all."
Don Luis reflected. It seemed to him that he had asked all the necessary
questions. Moreover, a gig drawn by a quick-trotting horse was
approaching the crossroads. There were two others behind it. And the
groups of peasants were now quite near. He must finish the business.
He said to the chauffeur:
"I can see by your face that you intend to talk about me. Don't do that,
my man: it would be foolish of you. Here's a thousand-franc note for
you. Only, if you blab, I'll make you repent it. That's all I have to
say to you."
He turned to Davanne, whose machine was beginning to block the traffic,
and asked:
"Can we start?"
"Whenever you like. Where are we going?"
Paying no attention to the movements of the people coming from every
side, Don Luis unfolded his map of France and spread it out before him.
He experienced a few seconds of anxiety at seeing the complicated tangle
of roads and picturing the infinite number of places to which the villain
might carry Florence. But he pulled himself together. He did not allow
himself to hesitate. He refused even to reflect.
He was determined to find out, and to find out everything, at once,
without clues, without useless consideration, simply by the marvellous
intuition which invariably guided him at any crisis in his life.
And his self-respect also required that he should give Davanne his answer
without delay, and that the disappearance of those whom he was pursuing
should not seem to embarrass him. With his eyes glued to the map, he
placed one finger on Paris and another on Le Mans and, even before he had
asked himself why the scoundrel had chosen that Paris-Le Mans-Angers
route, he knew the answer to the question.
The name of a town had struck him and made the truth appear like a flash
of lightning: Alençon! Then and there, by the light of his memory, he
penetrated the mystery.
He repeated:
"Where are we going? Back again, bearing to the left."
"Any particular place?"
"Alençon."
"All right," said Davanne. "Lend a hand, some of you. I can make an easy
start from that field just there."
Don Luis and a few others helped him, and the preparations were soon
made. Davanne tested his engine. Everything was in perfect order.
At that moment a powerful racing car, with a siren yelling like a vicious
animal, came tearing along the Angers Road and promptly stopped. Three
men got out and rushed up to the driver of the yellow taxicab. Don Luis
recognized them. They were Weber, the deputy chief, and the men who had
taken him to the lockup the night before, sent by the Prefect of Police
to follow up the scoundrel's tracks.
They had a brief interchange of words with the cab-driver, which seemed
to put them out; and they kept on gesticulating and plying him with fresh
questions while looking at their watches and consulting their road maps.
Don Luis went up to them. He was unrecognizable, with his head wrapped
in his aviation cap and his face concealed by his goggles. Changing
his voice:
"The birds have flown, Mr. Deputy Chief," he said.
Weber looked at him in utter amazement,
Don Luis grinned.
"Yes, flown. Our friend from the Ile Saint Louis is an artful dodger,
you know. My lord's in his third motor. After the yellow car of which
you heard at Versailles last night, he took another at Le
Mans--destination unknown."
The deputy chief opened his eyes in amazement. Who was this person who
was mentioning facts that had been telephoned to police headquarters only
at two o'clock that morning? He gasped:
"But who are you, Monsieur?"
"What? Don't you know me? What's the good of making appointments with
people? You strain every nerve to be punctual, and then they ask you who
you are! Come, Weber, confess that you're doing it to annoy me. Must you
gaze on my features in broad daylight? Here goes!"
He raised his mask.
"Arsène Lupin!" spluttered the detective.
"At your service, young fellow: on foot, in the saddle, and in mid air.
That's where I'm going now. Good-bye."
And so great was Weber's astonishment at seeing Arsène Lupin, whom he had
taken to the lockup twelve hours before, standing in front of him, free,
at two hundred and forty miles from Paris, that Don Luis, as he went back
to Davanne, thought:
"What a crusher! I've knocked him out in one round. There's no hurry. The
referee will count ten at least three times before Weber can say
'Mother!'"
* * * * *
Davanne was ready. Don Luis climbed into the monoplane. The peasants
pushed at the wheels. The machine started.
"North-northeast," Don Luis ordered. "Ninety miles an hour. Ten
thousand francs."
"We've the wind against us," said Davanne.
"Five thousand francs extra for the wind," shouted Don Luis.
He admitted no obstacle in his haste to reach Damigni. He now understood
the whole thing and, harking back to the very beginning, he was surprised
that his mind had never perceived the connection between the two
skeletons hanging in the barn and the series of crimes resulting from the
Mornington inheritance. Stranger still, how was it that the almost
certain murder of Langernault, Hippolyte Fauville's old friend, had not
afforded him all the clues which it contained? The crux of the sinister
plot lay in that.
Who could have intercepted, on Fauville's behalf, the letters of
accusation which Fauville was supposed to write to his old friend
Langernault, except some one in the village or some one who had lived in
the village?
And now everything was clear. It was the nameless scoundrel who had
started his career of crime by killing old Langernault and then the
Dedessuslamare couple. The method was the same as later on: it was not
direct murder, but anonymous murder, murder by suggestion. Like
Mornington the American, like Fauville the engineer, like Marie, like
Gaston Sauverand, old Langernault had been craftily done away with and
the Dedessuslamare couple driven to commit suicide in the barn.
It was from there that the tiger had come to Paris, where later he was to
find Fauville and Cosmo Mornington and plot the tragic affair of the
inheritance.
And it was there that he was now returning!
There was no doubt about that. To begin with, the fact that he had
administered a narcotic to Florence constituted an indisputable proof.
Was he not obliged to put Florence to sleep in order to prevent her from
recognizing the landscape at Alençon and Damigni, or the Old Castle,
which she had explored with Gaston Sauverand?
On the other hand, the Le Mans-Angers-Nantes route, which had been taken
to put the police on a false track, meant only an extra hour or two, at
most, for any one motoring to Alençon. Lastly, that coach-house near a
big town, that limousine waiting, ready charged with petrol, showed that
the villain, when he intended to visit his retreat, took the precaution
of stopping at Le Mans, in order to go from there, in his limousine, to
Langernault's deserted estate.
He would therefore reach his lair at ten o'clock that morning. And he
would arrive there with Florence Levasseur dead asleep!
The question forced itself upon him, the terrible persistent
question--what did he mean to do with Florence Levasseur?
"Faster! Faster!" cried Don Luis.
Now that he knew the scoundrel's haunt, the man's scheme became
hideously evident to him. Feeling himself hunted down, lost, an object
of hatred and terror to Florence, whose eyes were now opened to the true
state of things, what plan could he have in mind except his invariable
plan of murder?
"Faster!" cried Don Luis. "We're making no headway. Go faster,
can't you?"
Florence murdered! Perhaps the crime was not yet accomplished. No, it
could not be! Killing takes time. It is preceded by words, by the offer
of a bargain, by threats, by entreaties, by a wholly unspeakable scene.
But the thing was being prepared, Florence was going to die!
Florence was going to die by the hand of the brute who loved her. For he
loved her: Don Luis had an intuition of that monstrous love; and he was
bound to believe that such a love could only end in torture and
bloodshed.
Sablé ... Sillé-le-Guillaume....
The earth sped beneath them. The trees and houses glided by like shadows.
And then Alençon.
It was hardly more than a quarter to two when they landed in a meadow
between the town and Damigni. Don Luis made inquiries. A number of motor
cars had passed along the road to Damigni, including a small limousine
driven by a gentleman who had turned down a crossroad. And this crossroad
led to the woods at the back of Langernault's estate, the Old Castle.
Don Luis's conviction was so firm that, after taking leave of Davanne, he
helped him to start on his homeward flight. He had no further need of
him. He needed nobody. The final duel was at hand.
He ran along, guided by the tracks of the tires in the dust, and followed
the crossroad. To his great surprise this road went nowhere near the wall
behind the barn from which he had jumped a few weeks before. After
clearing the woods, Don Luis came out into a large untilled space where
the road turned back toward the estate and ended at an old two-winged
gate protected with iron sheets and bars.
The limousine had gone in that way.
"And I must get in this way, too," thought Don Luis. "I must get in at
all costs and immediately, without wasting time in looking for an opening
or a handy tree."
Now the wall was thirteen feet high at this spot. Don Luis got in. How he
managed it, by what superhuman effort, he himself could not have said
after he had done it.
Somehow or other, by hanging on to invisible projections, by digging a
knife which he had borrowed from Davanne into the interstices between the
stones, he managed it.
And when he was on the other side he discovered the tracks of the tires
running to the left, toward a part of the grounds which he did not know,
more undulating than the other and broken up with little hills and ruined
buildings covered with thick curtains of ivy.
Deserted though the rest of the park was, this portion seemed much more
uncivilized, in spite of the ragged remains of box and laurel hedges
that stood here and there amidst the nettles and brambles, and the
luxuriant swarm of tall wild-flowers, valerian, mullein, hemlock,
foxglove, and angelica.
Suddenly, on turning the corner of an old hedge of clipped yews, Don Luis
saw the limousine, which had been left, or, rather, hidden there in a
hollow. The door was open. The disorder of the inside of the car, the rug
hanging over the footboard, a broken window, a cushion on the floor, all
bore witness to a struggle. The scoundrel had no doubt taken advantage of
the fact that Florence was asleep to tie her up; and on arriving, when he
tried to take her out of the car, Florence must have clutched at
everything that offered.
Don Luis at once verified the correctness of his theory. As he went along
the very narrow, grass-grown path that led up the slope, he saw that the
grass was uniformly pressed down.
"Oh, the villain!" he thought. "The villain! He doesn't carry his victim,
he drags her!"
If he had listened only to his instinct, he would have rushed to
Florence's rescue. But his profound sense of what to do and what to avoid
saved him from committing any such imprudence. At the first alarm, at the
least sound, the tiger would have throttled his prey. To escape this
hideous catastrophe, Don Luis must take him by surprise and then and
there deprive him of his power of action. He controlled himself,
therefore, and slowly and cautiously mounted the incline.
The path ran upward between heaps of stones and fallen buildings, and
among clumps of shrubs overtopped by beeches and oaks. The place was
evidently the site of the old feudal castle which had given the estate
its name; and it was here, near the top, that the scoundrel had selected
one of his retreats.
The trail continued over the trampled herbage. And Don Luis even caught
sight of something shining on the ground, in a tuft of grass. It was a
ring, a tiny and very simple ring, consisting of a gold circlet and two
small pearls, which he had often noticed on Florence's finger. And the
fact that caught his attention was that a blade of grass passed and
repassed and passed a third time through the inside of the ring, like a
ribbon that had been rolled round it deliberately.
"It's a clear signal," said Perenna to himself. "The villain probably
stopped here to rest; and Florence, bound up; but with her fingers free,
was able to leave this evidence of her passage."
So the girl still hoped. She expected assistance. And Don Luis reflected
with emotion that it was perhaps to him that this last desperate appeal
was addressed.
Fifty steps farther--and this detail pointed to the rather curious
fatigue experienced by the scoundrel--there was a second halt and a
second clue, a flower, a field-sage, which the poor little hand had
picked and plucked of its petals. Next came the print of the five fingers
dug into the ground, and next a cross drawn with a pebble. And in this
way he was able to follow, minute by minute, all the successive stages of
the horrible journey.
The last stopping-place was near. The climb became steeper and rougher.
The fallen stones occasioned more frequent obstacles. On the right the
Gothic arches, the remains of a chapel, stood out against the blue sky.
On the left was a strip of wall with a mantelpiece still clinging to it.
Twenty steps farther Don Luis stopped. He seemed to hear something.
He listened. He was not mistaken. The sound was repeated, and it was the
sound of laughter. But such an awful laugh! A strident laugh, evil as the
laughter of a devil, and so shrill! It was more like the laugh of a
woman, of a madwoman.
Again silence. Then another noise, the noise of an implement striking the
ground, then silence again.
And this was happening at a distance which Don Luis estimated at a
hundred yards.
The path ended in three steps cut in the earth. At the top was a fairly
large plateau, also encumbered with rubbish and ruins. In the centre,
opposite Don Luis, stood a screen of immense laurels planted in a
semicircle. The marks of trodden grass led up to it.
Don Luis was a little surprised, for the screen presented an impenetrable
outline. He walked on and found that there had once been a cutting, and
that the branches had ended by meeting again. They were easy to push
aside; and it was through here that the scoundrel must have passed. To
all appearances he was there now, at the end of his journey, not far
away, occupied in some sinister task.
Indeed the air was rent by a chuckle, so close by that Don Luis gave a
start and felt as if the scoundrel were laughing beforehand at his
intervention. He remembered the letter with the words written in red ink:
There's still time, Lupin. Retire from the contest. If not, it means your
death, too. When you think that your object is attained, when your hand
is raised against me and you utter words of triumph, at the same moment
the ground will open beneath your feet. The place of your death is
chosen. The snare is laid. Beware, Lupin!
The whole letter passed through his brain, with its formidable threat.
And he felt a shiver of fear. But no fear could stay the man that he was.
He had already taken hold of the branches with his hands and was clearing
a way for himself.
He stopped. A last bulwark of leaves hid him from sight. He pulled some
of them aside at the level of his eyes.
And he saw ...
First of all, he saw Florence, alone at this moment, lying on the
ground, bound, at thirty yards in front of him; and he at once
perceived, to his intense delight, from certain movements of her head
that she was still alive. He had come in time. Florence was not dead.
She would not die. That was a certainty against which nothing could
prevail. Florence would not die.
Then he examined the things around. To the right and left of where he
stood the screen of laurels curved and embraced a sort of arena in which,
among yews that had once been clipped into cones, lay capitals, columns,
broken pieces of arches and vaults, obviously placed there to adorn the
formal garden that had been laid out on the ruins of the ancient
donjon-keep.
In the middle was a small circular space reached by two narrow paths, one
of which presented the same traces of trodden grass and was a
continuation of that by which Don Luis had come, while the other
intersected the first at right angles and joined the two ends of the
screen of shrubs.
Opposite was a confused heap of broken stones and natural rocks, cemented
with clay, bound together by the roots of gnarled trees, the whole
forming at the back of the picture a small, shallow grotto, full of
crevices that admitted the light. The floor, which Don Luis could easily
distinguish, consisted of three or four flagstones.
Florence Levasseur lay inside this grotto, bound hand and foot, looking
like the victim of some mysterious sacrifice about to be performed on the
altar of the grotto, in the amphitheatre of this old garden closed by the
wall of tall laurels and overlooked by a pile of ancestral ruins.
In spite of the distance, Don Luis was able to make out every detail of
her pale face. Though convulsed with anguish, it still retained a certain
serenity, an expression of waiting and even of expectancy, as if
Florence, believing, until the last moment, in the possibility of a
miracle, had not yet relinquished all hope of life.
Nevertheless, though she was not gagged, she did not call for help.
Perhaps she thought that it was useless, and that the road which she had
strewn with the marks of her passing was more likely to bring assistance
to her side than cries, which the villain would soon have stifled.
Strange to say, it seemed to Don Luis as if the girl's eyes were
obstinately fixed on the very spot where he was hiding. Possibly she
suspected his presence. Possibly she foresaw his help.
Suddenly Don Luis clutched one of his revolvers and half raised his arm,
ready to take aim. The sacrificer, the butcher, had just appeared, not
far from the altar on which the victim lay.
He came from between two rocks, of which a bush marked the intervening
space, which apparently afforded but a very low outlet, for he still
walked as though bent double, with his head bowed and his long arms
swinging so low as to touch the ground.
He went to the grotto and gave his horrible chuckle:
"You're still there, I see," he said. "No sign of the rescuer? Perseus is
a little late, I fear. He'd better hurry!"
The tone of his voice was so shrill that Don Luis heard every word, and
so odd, so unhuman, that it gave him a feeling of physical discomfort.
He gripped his revolver tightly, prepared to shoot at the first
suspicious movement.
"He'd better hurry!" repeated the scoundrel, with a laugh. "If not, all
will be over in five minutes. You see that I'm a man of method, eh,
Florence, my darling?"
He picked up something from the ground. It was a stick shaped like a
crutch. He put it under his left arm and, still bent in two, began to
walk like a man who has not the strength to stand erect. Then suddenly
and with no apparent cause to explain his change of attitude, he drew
himself up and used his crutch as he would a cane. He then walked round
the outside of the grotto, making a careful inspection, the meaning of
which escaped Don Luis for the time.
He was of a good height in this position; and Don Luis easily
understood why the driver of the yellow taxi, who had seen him under
two such different aspects, was unable to say whether he was very tall
or very short.
But his legs, slack and unsteady, gave way beneath him, as if any
prolonged exertion were beyond his power. He relapsed into his
first attitude.
The man was a cripple, smitten with some disease that affected his powers
of locomotion. He was excessively thin. Don Luis also saw his pallid
face, his cavernous cheeks, his hollow temples, his skin the colour of
parchment: the face of a sufferer from consumption, a bloodless face.
When he had finished his inspection, he came up to Florence and said:
"Though you've been very good, baby, and haven't screamed so far, we'd
better take our precautions and remove any possibility of a surprise by
giving you a nice little gag to wear, don't you think?"
He stooped over her and wound a large handkerchief round the lower part
of her face. Then, bending still farther down, he began to speak to her
in a very low voice, talking almost into her ear. But wild bursts of
laughter, horrible to hear, interrupted this whispering.
Feeling the imminence of the danger, dreading some movement on the
wretch's part, a sudden murderous attack, the prompt prick of a poisoned
needle, Don Luis had levelled his revolver and, confident of his skill,
waited events.
What was happening over there? What were the words spoken? What infamous
bargain was the villain proposing to Florence? At what shameful price
could she obtain her release?
The cripple stepped back angrily, shouting in furious accents:
"But don't you understand that you are done for? Now that I have nothing
more to fear, now that you have been silly enough to come with me and
place yourself in my power, what hope have you left? To move me, perhaps:
is that it? Because I'm burning with passion, you imagine--? Oh, you
never made a greater mistake, my pet! I don't care a fig if you do die.
Once dead, you cease to count....
"What else? Perhaps you consider that, being crippled, I shall not have
the strength to kill you? But there's no question of my killing you,
Florence. Have you ever known me kill people? Never! I'm much too big a
coward, I should be frightened, I should shake all over. No, no,
Florence, I shan't touch you, and yet--
"Here, look what's going to happen, see for yourself. I tell you the
thing's managed in my own style.... And, whatever you do, don't be
afraid. It's only a preliminary warning."
He had moved away and, helping himself with his hands, holding on to the
branches of a tree, he climbed up the first layers of rock that formed
the grotto on the right. Here he knelt down. There was a small pickaxe
lying beside him. He took it and gave three blows to the nearest heap of
stones. They came tumbling down in front of the grotto.
Don Luis sprang from his hiding-place with a roar of terror. He had
suddenly realized the position: The grotto, the accumulation of boulders,
the piles of granite, everything was so placed that its equilibrium could
be shattered at any moment, and that Florence ran the risk of being
buried under the rubbish. It was not a question, therefore, of slaying
the villain, but of saving Florence on the spot.
He was halfway across in two or three seconds. But here, in one of those
mental flashes which are even quicker than the maddest rush, he became
aware that the tracks of trampled grass did not cross the central circus
and that the scoundrel had gone round it. Why? That was one of the
questions which instinct, ever suspicious, puts, but which reason has not
the time to answer. Don Luis went straight ahead. And he had no sooner
set foot on the place than the catastrophe occurred.
It all happened with incredible suddenness, as though he had tried to
walk on space and found himself hurled into it. The ground gave way
beneath him. The clods of grass separated, and he fell.
He fell down a hole which was none other than the mouth of a well four
feet wide at most, the curb of which had been cut down level with the
ground. Only this was what took place: as he was running very fast, his
impetus flung him against the opposite wall in such a way that his
forearms lay on the outer ledge and his hands were able to clutch at the
roots of plants.
So great was his strength that he might just have been able to drag
himself up by his wrists. But responding to the attack, the scoundrel had
at once hurried to meet his assailant and was now standing at ten paces
from Don Luis, threatening him with his revolver:
"Don't move!" he cried, "or I'll smash you!"
Don Luis was thus reduced to helplessness, at the risk of receiving the
enemy's fire.
Their eyes met for a few seconds. The cripple's were burning with fever,
like the eyes of a sick man.
Crawling along, watching Don Luis's slightest movement, he came and
squatted beside the well. The revolver was levelled in his outstretched
hand. And his infernal chuckle rang out again:
"Lupin! Lupin! That's done it! Lupin's dive!... What a mug you must be! I
warned you, you know, warned you in blood-red ink. Remember my words:
'The place of your death is chosen. The snare is laid. Beware, Lupin!'
And here you are! So you're not in prison? You warded off that stroke,
you rogue, you! Fortunately, I foresaw events and took my precautions.
What do you say to it? What do you think of my little scheme? I said to
myself, 'All the police will come rushing at my heels. But there's only
one who's capable of catching me, and that's Lupin. So we'll show him the
way, we'll lead him on the leash all along a little path scraped clean by
the victim's body.'
"And then a few landmarks, scattered here and there. First, the fair
damsel's ring, with a blade of grass twisted round it; farther on a
flower without its petals; farther on the marks of five fingers in the
ground; next, the sign of the cross.' No mistaking them, was there? Once
you thought me fool enough to give Florence time to play
Hop-o'-my-Thumb's game, it was bound to lead you straight to the mouth of
the well, to the clods of turf which I dabbed across it, last month, in
anticipation of this windfall.
"Remember: 'The snare is laid.' And a snare after my own style, Lupin;
one of the best! Oh, I love getting rid of people with their kind
assistance. We work together like friends and partners. You've caught the
notion, haven't you?
"I don't do my own job. The others do it for me, hanging themselves or
giving themselves careless injections--unless they prefer the mouth of a
well, as you seem to do, Lupin. My poor old chap, what a sticky mess
you're in! I never saw such a face, never, on my word! Florence, do look
at the expression on your swain's mobile features!"
He broke off, seized with a fit of laughter that shook his outstretched
arm, imparted the most savage look to his face, and set his legs jerking
under his body like the legs of a dancing doll. His enemy was growing
weaker before his eyes. Don Luis's fingers, which had first gripped the
roots of the grass, were now vainly clutching the stones of the wall. And
his shoulders were sinking lower and lower into the well.
"We've done it!" spluttered the villain, in the midst of his convulsions
of merriment. "Lord, how good it is to laugh! Especially when one so
seldom does. Yes, I'm a wet blanket, I am; a first-rate man at a funeral!
You've never seen me laugh, Florence, have you? But this time it's really
too amusing. Lupin in his hole and Florence in her grotto; one dancing a
jig above the abyss and the other at her last gasp under her mountain.
What a sight!
"Come, Lupin, don't tire yourself! What's the use of those grimaces?
You're not afraid of eternity, are you? A good man like you, the Don
Quixote of modern times! Come, let yourself go. There's not even any
water in the well to splash about in. No, it's just a nice little slide
into infinity. You can't so much as hear the sound of a pebble when you
drop it in; and just now I threw a piece of lighted paper down and lost
sight of it in the dark. Brrrr! It sent a cold shiver down my back!
"Come, be a man. It'll only take a moment; and you've been through worse
than that! ... Good, you nearly did it then. You're making up your mind
to it.... I say, Lupin! ... Lupin! ... Aren't you going to say good-bye?
Not a smile, not a word of thanks? Au revoir, Lupin, an revoir--"
He ceased. He watched for the appalling end which he had so cleverly
prepared and of which all the incidents were following close on one
another in accordance with his inflexible will.
It did not take long. The shoulders had gone down; the chin; and then the
mouth convulsed with the death-grin; and then the eyes, drunk with
terror; and then the forehead and the hair: the whole head, in short, had
disappeared.
The cripple sat gazing wildly, as though in ecstasy, motionless, with an
expression of fierce delight, and without a word that could trouble the
silence and interrupt his hatred.
At the edge of the abyss nothing remained but the hands, the obstinate,
stubborn, desperate, heroic hands, the poor, helpless hands which alone
still lived, and which, gradually, retreating toward death, yielded and
fell back and let go.
The hands had slipped. For a moment the fingers held on like claws. So
natural was the effort which they made that it looked as if they did not
even yet despair, unaided, of resuscitating and bringing back to the
light of day the corpse already entombed in the darkness. And then they
in their turn gave way. And then--and then, suddenly, there was nothing
more to be seen and nothing more to be heard.
The cripple started to his feet, as though released by a spring, and
yelled with delight:
"Oof! That's done it! Lupin in the bottomless pit! One more adventure
finished! Oof!"
Turning in Florence's direction, he once more danced his dance of death.
He raised himself to his full height and then suddenly crouched down
again, throwing about his legs like the grotesque, ragged limbs of a
scarecrow. And he sang and whistled and belched forth insults and hideous
blasphemies.
Then he came back to the yawning mouth of the well and, standing some way
off, as if still afraid to come nearer, he spat into it three times.
Nor was this enough for his hatred. There were some broken pieces of
statuary on the ground. He took a carved head, rolled it along the grass,
and sent it crashing down the well. A little farther away was a stack of
old, rusty cannon balls. These also he rolled to the edge and pushed in.
Five, ten, fifteen cannon balls went scooting down, one after the other,
banging against the walls with a loud and sinister noise which the echo
swelled into the angry roar of distant thunder.
"There, take that, Lupin! I'm sick of you, you dirty cad!
That's for the spokes you put in my wheel, over that damned
inheritance! ... Here, take this, too!... And this!... And
this!... Here's a chocolate for you in case you're hungry.... Do you
want another? Here you are, old chap! catch!"
He staggered, seized with a sort of giddiness, and had to squat on his
haunches. He was utterly spent. However, obeying a last convulsion, he
still found the strength to kneel down by the well, and leaning over the
darkness, he stammered, breathlessly:
"Hi! I say! Corpse! Don't go knocking at the gate of hell at once!... The
little girl's joining you in twenty minutes.... Yes, that's it, at four
o'clock.... You know I'm a punctual man and keep my appointments to the
minute.... She'll be with you at four o'clock exactly.
"By the way, I was almost forgetting: the inheritance--you know,
Mornington's hundred millions--well, that's mine. Why, of course! You
can't doubt that I took all my precautions! Florence will explain
everything presently.... It's very well thought out--you'll
see--you'll see--"
He could not get out another word. The last syllables sounded more
like hiccoughs. The sweat poured from his hair and his forehead, and
he sank to the ground, moaning like a dying man tortured by the last
throes of death.
He remained like that for some minutes, with his head in his hands,
shivering all over his body. He appeared to be suffering everywhere, in
each anguished muscle, in each sick nerve. Then, under the influence of a
thought that seemed to make him act unconsciously, one of his hands crept
spasmodically down his side, and, groping, uttering hoarse cries of pain,
he managed to take from his pocket and put to his lips a phial out of
which he greedily drank two or three mouthfuls.
He at once revived, as though he had swallowed warmth and strength. His
eyes grew calmer, his mouth shaped itself into a horrible smile. He
turned to Florence and said:
"Don't flatter yourself, pretty one; I'm not gone yet, and I've plenty of
time to attend to you. And then, after that, there'll be no more worries,
no more of that scheming and fighting that wears one out. A nice, quiet,
uneventful life for me! ... With a hundred millions one can afford to
take life easy, eh, little girl? ... Come on, I'm feeling much better!"
CHAPTER TWENTY
FLORENCE'S SECRET
It was time for the second act of the tragedy. Don Luis Perenna's death
was to be followed by that of Florence. Like some monstrous butcher, the
cripple passed from one to the other with no more compassion than if he
were dealing with the oxen in a slaughter-house.
Still weak in his limbs, he dragged himself to where the girl lay,
took a cigarette from a gun-metal case, and, with a final touch of
cruelty, said:
"When this cigarette is quite burnt out, Florence, it will be your turn.
Keep your eyes on it. It represents the last minutes of your life reduced
to ashes. Keep your eyes on it, Florence, and think.
"I want you to understand this: all the owners of the estate, and old
Langernault in particular, have always considered that the heap of rocks
and stones overhanging your head was bound to fall to pieces sooner or
later. And I myself, for years, with untiring patience, believing in a
favourable opportunity, have amused myself by making it crumble away
still more, by undermining it with the rain water, in short, by working
at it in such a way that, upon my word, I can't make out how the thing
keeps standing at all. Or, rather, I do understand.
"The few strokes with the pickaxe which I gave it just now were merely
intended for a warning. But I have only to give one more stroke in the
right place, and knock out a little brick wedged in between two lumps of
stone, for the whole thing to tumble to the ground like a house of cards.
"A little brick, Florence," he chuckled, "a tiny little brick which
chance placed there, between two blocks of stone, and has kept in
position until now. Out comes the brick, down come the blocks, and
there's your catastrophe!"
He took breath and continued:
"After that? After that, Florence, this: either the smash will take
place in such a way that your body will not even be in sight, if any one
should dream of coming here to look for you, or else it will be partly
visible, in which case I shall at once cut and destroy the cords with
which you are tied.
"What will the law think then? Simply that Florence Levasseur, a fugitive
from justice, hid herself in a grotto which fell upon her and crushed
her. That's all. A few prayers for the rash creature's soul, and not
another word.
"As for me--as for me, when my work is done and my sweetheart dead--I
shall pack my traps, carefully remove all the traces of my coming, smooth
every inch of the trampled grass, jump into my motor car, sham death for
a little while, and then put in a sensational claim for the hundred
millions."
He gave a little chuckle, took two or three puffs at his cigarette, and
added, calmly:
"I shall claim the hundred millions and I shall get them. That's the
prettiest part of it. I shall claim them because I'm entitled to them;
and I explained to you just now before Master Lupin came interfering,
how, from the moment that you were dead, I had the most undeniable legal
right to them. And I shall get them, because it is physically impossible
to bring up the least sort of proof against me."
He moved closer.
"There's not a charge that can hurt me. Suspicions, yes, moral
presumptions, clues, anything you like, but not a scrap of material
evidence. Nobody knows me. One person has seen me as a tall man, another
as a short man. My very name is unknown. All my murders have been
committed anonymously. All my murders are more like suicides, or can be
explained as suicides.
"I tell you the law is powerless. With Lupin dead, and Florence Levasseur
dead, there's no one to bear witness against me. Even if they arrested
me, they would have to discharge me in the end for lack of evidence. I
shall be branded, execrated, hated, and cursed; my name will stink in
people's nostrils, as if I were the greatest of malefactors. But I shall
possess the hundred millions; and with that, pretty one, I shall possess
the friendship of all decent men!
"I tell you again, with Lupin and you gone, it's all over. There's
nothing left, nothing but some papers and a few little things which I
have been weak enough to keep until now, in this pocket-book here, and
which would be enough and more than enough to cost me my head, if I did
not intend to burn them in a few minutes and send the ashes to the bottom
of the well.
"So you see, Florence, all my measures are taken. You need not hope
for compassion from me, nor for help from anywhere else, since no one
knows where I have brought you, and Arsène Lupin is no longer alive.
Under these conditions, Florence, make your choice. The ending is in
your own hands: either you die, absolutely and irrevocably, or you
accept my love."
There was a moment of silence, then:
"Answer me yes or no. A movement of your head will decide your fate. If
it's no, you die. If it's yes, I shall release you. We will go from here
and, later, when your innocence is proved--and I'll see to that--you
shall become my wife. Is the answer yes, Florence?"
He put the question to her with real anxiety and with a restrained
passion that set his voice trembling. His knees dragged over the
flagstones. He begged and threatened, hungering to be entreated and, at
the same time, almost eager for a refusal, so great was his natural
murderous impulse.
"Is it yes, Florence? A nod, the least little nod, and I shall believe
you implicitly, for you never lie and your promise is sacred. Is it yes,
Florence? Oh, Florence, answer me! It is madness to hesitate. Your life
depends on a fresh outburst of my anger. Answer me! Here, look, my
cigarette is out. I'm throwing it away, Florence. A sign of your head: is
the answer yes or no?"
He bent over her and shook her by the shoulders, as if to force her to
make the sign which he asked for. But suddenly seized with a sort of
frenzy, he rose to his feet and exclaimed:
"She's crying! She's crying! She dares to weep! But, wretched girl, do
you think that I don't know what you're crying for? I know your secret,
pretty one, and I know that your tears do not come from any fear of
dying. You? Why, you fear nothing! No, it's something else! Shall I tell
you your secret? Oh, I can't, I can't--though the words scorch my lips.
Oh, cursed woman, you've brought it on yourself! You yourself want to
die, Florence, as you're crying--you yourself want to die--"
While he was speaking he hastened to get to work and prepare the horrible
tragedy. The leather pocket-book which he had mentioned as containing the
papers was lying on the ground; he put it in his pocket. Then, still
trembling, he pulled off his jacket and threw it on the nearest bush.
Next, he took up the pickaxe and climbed the lower stones, stamping with
rage and shouting:
"It's you who have asked to die, Florence! Nothing can prevent it now.
I can't even see your head, if you make a sign. It's too late! You
asked for it and you've got it! Ah, you're crying! You dare to cry!
What madness!"
He was standing almost above the grotto, on the right. His anger made him
draw himself to his full height. He looked horrible, hideous, atrocious.
His eyes filled with blood as he inserted the bar of the pickaxe between
the two blocks of granite, at the spot where the brick was wedged in.
Then, standing on one side, in a place of safety, he struck the brick,
struck it again. At the third stroke the brick flew out.
What happened was so sudden, the pyramid of stones and rubbish came
crashing with such violence into the hollow of the grotto and in front of
the grotto, that the cripple himself, in spite of his precautions, was
dragged down by the avalanche and thrown upon the grass. It was not a
serious fall, however, and he picked himself up at once, stammering:
"Florence! Florence!"
Though he had so carefully prepared the catastrophe, and brought it about
with such determination, its results seemed suddenly to stagger him. He
hunted for the girl with terrified eyes. He stooped down and crawled
round the chaos shrouded in clouds of dust. He looked through the
interstices. He saw nothing.
Florence was buried under the ruins, dead, invisible, as he had
anticipated.
"Dead!" he said, with staring eyes and a look of stupor on his face.
"Dead! Florence is dead!"
Once again he lapsed into a state of absolute prostration, which
gradually slackened his legs, brought him to the ground and paralyzed
him. His two efforts, following so close upon each other and ending in
disasters of which he had been the immediate witness, seemed to have
robbed him of all his remaining energy.
With no hatred in him, since Arsène Lupin no longer lived, with no love,
since Florence was no more, he looked like a man who has lost his last
motive for existence.
Twice his lips uttered the name of Florence. Was he regretting his
friend? Having reached the last of that appalling series of crimes, was
he imagining the several stages, each marked with a corpse? Was something
like a conscience making itself felt deep down in that brute? Or was it
not rather the sort of physical torpor that numbs the sated beast of
prey, glutted with flesh, drunk with blood, a torpor that is almost
voluptuousness?
Nevertheless, he once more repeated Florence's name, and tears rolled
down his cheeks.
He lay long in this condition, gloomy and motionless; and when, after
again taking a few sips of his medicine, he went back to his work, he
did so mechanically, with none of that gayety which had made him hop
on his legs and set about his murder as though he were going to a
pleasure party.
He began by returning to the bush from which Lupin had seen him emerge.
Behind this bush, between two trees, was a shelter containing tools and
arms, spades, rakes, guns, and rolls of wire and rope.
Making several journeys, he carried them to the well, intending to throw
them down it before he went away. He next examined every particle of the
little mound up which he had climbed, in order to make sure that he was
not leaving the least trace of his passage.
He made a similar examination of those parts of the lawn on which he had
stepped, except the path leading to the well, the inspection of which he
kept for the last. He brushed up the trodden grass and carefully smoothed
the trampled earth.
He was obviously anxious and seemed to be thinking of other things, while
at the same time mechanically doing those things which a murderer knows
by force of habit that it is wise to do.
One little incident seemed to wake him up. A wounded swallow fell to the
ground close by where he stood. He stooped, caught it, and crushed it in
his hands, kneading it like a scrap of crumpled paper. And his eyes shone
with a savage delight as he gazed at the blood that trickled from the
poor bird and reddened his hands.
But, when he flung the shapeless little body into a furze bush, he saw on
the spikes in the bush a hair, a long, fair hair; and all his depression
returned at the memory of Florence.
He knelt in front of the ruined grotto. Then, breaking two sticks
of wood, he placed the pieces in the form of a cross under one of
the stones.
As he was bending over, a little looking-glass slipped from his waistcoat
pocket and, striking a pebble, broke. This sign of ill luck made a great
impression on him, He cast a suspicious look around him and, shivering
with nervousness, as though he felt threatened by the invisible powers,
he muttered:
"I'm afraid--I'm afraid. Let's go away--"
His watch now marked half-past four. He took his jacket from the shrub on
which he had hung it, slipped his arms into the sleeves, and put his hand
in the right-hand outside pocket, where he had placed the pocket-book
containing his papers:
"Hullo!" he said, in great surprise. "I was sure I had--"
He felt in the left outside pocket, then in the handkerchief-pocket,
then, with feverish excitement, in both the inside pockets. The
pocket-book was not there. And, to his extreme amazement, all the
other things which he was absolutely certain that he had left in the
pockets of his jacket were gone: his cigarette-case, his box of
matches, his notebook.
He was flabbergasted. His features became distorted. He spluttered
incomprehensible words, while the most terrible thought took hold of his
mind so forcibly as to become a reality: there was some one within the
precincts of the Old Castle.
There was some one within the precincts of the Old Castle! And this some
one was now hiding near the ruins, in the ruins perhaps! And this some
one had seen him! And this some one had witnessed the death of Arsène
Lupin and the death of Florence Levasseur! And this some one, taking
advantage of his heedlessness and knowing from his words that the papers
existed, had searched his jacket and rifled the pockets!
His eyes expressed the alarm of a man accustomed to work in the darkness
unperceived, and who suddenly becomes aware that another's eyes have
surprised him at his hateful task and that he is being watched in every
movement for the first time in his life.
Whence did that look come that troubled him as the daylight troubles a
bird of the night? Was it an intruder hiding there by accident, or an
enemy bent upon his destruction? Was it an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, a
friend of Florence, one of the police? And was this adversary satisfied
with his stolen booty, or was he preparing to attack him?
The cripple dared not stir. He was there, exposed to assault, on open
ground, with nothing to protect him against the blows that might come
before he even knew where the adversary was.
At last, however, the imminence of the danger gave him back some of his
strength. Still motionless, he inspected his surroundings with an
attention so keen that it seemed as if no detail could escape him. He
would have sighted the most indistinct shape among the stones of the
ruined pile, or in the bushes, or behind the tall laurel screen.
Seeing nobody, he came along, supporting himself on his crutch. He walked
without the least sound of his feet or of the crutch, which probably had
a rubber shoe at the end of it. His raised right hand held a revolver.
His finger was on the trigger. The least effort of his will, or even less
than that, a spontaneous injunction of his instinct, was enough to put a
bullet into the enemy.
He turned to the left. On this side, between the extreme end of the
laurels and the first fallen rocks, there was a little brick path which
was more likely the top of a buried wall. The cripple followed this path,
by which the enemy might have reached the shrub on which the jacket hung
without leaving any traces.
The last branches of the laurels were in his way, and he pushed them
aside. There was a tangled mass of bushes. To avoid this, he skirted the
foot of the mound, after which he took a few more steps, going round a
huge rock. And then, suddenly, he started back and almost lost his
balance, while his crutch fell to the ground and his revolver slipped
from his hand.
What he had seen, what he saw, was certainly the most terrifying sight
that he could possibly have beheld. Opposite him, at ten paces distance,
with his hands in his pockets, his feet crossed, and one shoulder
resting lightly against the rocky wall, stood not a man: it was not a
man, and could not be a man, for this man, as the cripple knew, was
dead, had died the death from which there is no recovery. It was
therefore a ghost; and this apparition from the tomb raised the
cripple's terror to its highest pitch.
He shivered, seized with a fresh attack of fever and weakness. His
dilated pupils stared at the extraordinary phenomenon. His whole being,
filled with demoniacal superstition and dread, crumpled up under the
vision to which each second lent an added horror.
Incapable of flight, incapable of defence, he dropped upon his knees.
And he could not take his eyes from that dead man, whom hardly an hour
before he had buried in the depths of a well, under a shroud of iron
and granite.
Arsène Lupin's ghost!
A man you take aim at, you fire at, you kill. But a ghost! A thing which
no longer exists and which nevertheless disposes of all the supernatural
powers! What was the use of struggling against the infernal machinations
of that which is no more? What was the use of picking up the fallen
revolver and levelling it at the intangible spirit of Arsène Lupin?
And he saw an incomprehensible thing occur: the ghost took its hands out
of its pockets. One of them held a cigarette-case; and the cripple
recognized the same gun-metal case for which he had hunted in vain. There
was therefore not a doubt left that the creature who had ransacked the
jacket was the very same who now opened the case, picked out a cigarette
and struck a match taken from a box which also belonged to the cripple!
O miracle! A real flame came from the match! O incomparable marvel!
Clouds of smoke rose from the cigarette, real smoke, of which the cripple
at once knew the particular smell!
He hid his head in his hands. He refused to see more. Whether ghost
or optical illusion, an emanation from another world, or an image
born of his remorse and proceeding from himself, it should torture
his eyes no longer.
But he heard the sound of a step approaching him, growing more and more
distinct as it came closer! He felt a strange presence moving near him!
An arm was stretched out! A hand fell on his shoulder! That hand clutched
his flesh with an irresistible grip! And he heard words spoken by a voice
which, beyond mistake, was the human and living voice of Arsène Lupin!
"Why, my dear sir, what a state we're getting ourselves into! Of course,
I understand that my sudden return seems an unusual and even an
inconvenient proceeding, but still it does not do to be so uncontrollably
impressed. Men have seen much more extraordinary things than that, such
as Joshua staying the sun, and more sensational disasters, such as the
Lisbon earthquake of 1755.
"The wise man reduces events to their proper proportions and judges them,
not by their action upon his own destiny, but by the way in which they
influence the fortunes of the world. Now confess that your little mishap
is purely individual and does not affect the equilibrium of the solar
system. You know what Marcus Aurelius says, on page 84, of Charpentier's
edition--"
The cripple had plucked up courage to raise his head; and the real state
of things now became so obviously apparent that he could no longer get
away from the undeniable fact: Arsène Lupin was not dead! Arsène Lupin
whom he had hurled into the bowels of the earth and crushed as surely as
an insect is crushed with a hammer; Arsène Lupin was not dead!
How to explain so astounding a mystery the cripple did not even stop to
wonder. One thing alone mattered: Arsène Lupin was not dead. Arsène Lupin
looked and spoke as a living man does. Arsène Lupin was not dead. He
breathed, he smiled, he talked, he lived!
And it was so certainly life that the scoundrel saw before him that,
obeying a sudden impulse of his nature and of his hatred for life, he
flattened himself to his full length, reached his revolver, seized it,
and fired.
He fired; but it was too late. Don Luis had caused the weapon to swerve
with a kick of his boot. Another kick sent it flying out of the
cripple's hand.
The villain ground his teeth with fury and at once began hurriedly to
fumble in his pockets.
"Is this what you're looking for, sir?" asked Don Luis, holding up a
hypodermic syringe filled with a yellow fluid. "Excuse me, but I was
afraid lest you should prick yourself by mistake. That would have been a
fatal prick, would it not? And I should never have forgiven myself."
The cripple was disarmed. He hesitated for a moment, surprised that the
enemy did not attack him more violently, and sought to profit by the
delay. His small, blinking eyes wandered around him, looking for
something to throw. But an idea seemed to strike him and to restore his
confidence little by little; and, in a new and really unexpected fit of
delight, he indulged in one of his loudest chuckles:
"And what about Florence?" he shouted. "Don't forget Florence! For I've
got you there! I can miss you with my revolver and you can steal my
poison; but I have another means of hitting you, right in the heart. You
can't live without Florence, can you? Florence's death means your own
sentence, doesn't it? If Florence is dead, you'll put the rope round your
own neck, won't you, won't you, won't you?"
"Yes. If Florence were to die, I could not survive her!"
"She is dead!" cried the scoundrel, with a renewed burst of merriment,
hopping about on his knees. "She's dead, quite, quite dead! What am I
saying? She's more than dead! A dead person retains the appearance of a
live one for a time; but this is much better: there's no corpse here,
Lupin; just a mess of flesh and bone!
"The whole scaffolding of rocks has come down on top of her! You can
picture it, eh? What a sight! Come, quick, it's your turn to kick the
bucket. Would you like a length of rope? Ha, ha, ha! It's enough to make
one die with laughing. Didn't I say that you'd meet at the gates of hell?
Quick, your sweetheart's waiting for you. Do you hesitate? Where's your
old French politeness? You can't keep a lady waiting, you know. Hurry up,
Lupin! Florence is dead!"
He said this with real enjoyment, as though the mere word of death
appeared to him delicious.
Don Luis had not moved a muscle. He simply nodded his head and said:
"What a pity!"
The cripple seemed petrified. All his joyous contortions, all his
triumphal pantomime, stopped short. He blurted out:
"Eh? What did you say?"
"I say," declared Don Luis, preserving his calm and courteous demeanour
and refraining from echoing the cripple's familiarity, "I say, my dear
sir, that you have done very wrong. I never met a finer nature nor one
more worthy of esteem than that of Mlle. Levasseur. The incomparable
beauty of her face and figure, her youth, her charm, all these deserved a
better treatment. It would indeed be a matter for regret if such a
masterpiece of womankind had ceased to be."
The cripple remained astounded. Don Luis's serene manner dismayed him. He
said, in a blank voice:
"I tell you, she has ceased to be. Haven't you seen the grotto? Florence
no longer exists!"
"I refuse to believe it," said Don Luis quietly. "If that were so,
everything would look different. The sky would be clouded; the birds
would not be singing; and nature would wear her mourning garb. But the
birds are singing, the sky is blue, everything is as it should be: the
honest man is alive; and the rascal is crawling at his feet. How could
Florence be dead?"
A long silence followed upon these words. The two enemies, at three paces
distance, looked into each other's eyes: Don Luis still as cool as ever,
the cripple a prey to the maddest anguish. The monster understood.
Obscure as the truth was, it shone forth before him with all the light of
a blinding certainty: Florence also was alive! Humanly and physically
speaking, the thing was not possible; but the resurrection of Don Luis
was likewise an impossibility; and yet Don Luis was alive, with not a
scratch on his face, with not a speck of dust on his clothes.
The monster felt himself lost. The man who held him in the hollow of his
implacable hand was one of those men whose power knows no bounds. He was
one of those men who escape from the jaws of death and who triumphantly
snatch from death those of whom they have taken charge.
The monster retreated, dragging himself slowly backward on his knees
along the little brick path.
He retreated. He passed by the confused heap of stones that covered the
place where the grotto had been, and did not turn his eyes in that
direction, as if he were definitely convinced that Florence had come
forth safe and sound from the appalling sepulchre.
He retreated. Don Luis, who no longer had his eyes fixed on him, was busy
unwinding a coil of rope which he had picked up, and seemed to pay no
further attention to him.
He retreated.
And suddenly, after a glance at his enemy, he spun round, drew himself up
on his slack legs with an effort, and started running toward the well.
He was twenty paces from it. He covered one half, three quarters of the
distance. Already the mouth opened before him. He put out his arms, with
the movement of a man about to dive, and shot forward.
His rush was stopped. He rolled over on the ground, dragged back
violently, with his arms fixed so firmly to his body that he was
unable to stir.
It was Don Luis, who had never wholly lost sight of him, who had made a
slip-knot to his rope and who had lassoed the cripple at the moment when
he was going to fling himself down the abyss. The cripple struggled for a
few moments. But the slip-knot bit into his flesh. He ceased moving.
Everything was over.
Then Don Luis Perenna, holding the other end of the lasso, came up to him
and bound him hand and foot with what remained of the rope. The operation
was carefully performed. Don Luis repeated it time after time, using the
coils of rope which the cripple had brought to the well and gagging him
with a handkerchief. And, while applying himself to his work, he
explained, with affected politeness:
"You see, sir, people always come to grief through excessive
self-confidence. They never imagine that their adversaries can have
resources which they themselves do not possess. For instance, when you
got me to fall into your trap, how could you have supposed, my dear sir,
that a man like myself, a man like Arsène Lupin, hanging on the brim of a
well, with his arms resting on the brim and his feet against the inner
wall, would allow himself to drop down it like the first silly fool that
comes along?
"Look here: you were fifteen or twenty yards away; and do you think that
I had not the strength to leap out nor the courage to face the bullets of
your revolver, when it was a question of saving Florence Levasseur's life
and my own? Why, my poor sir, the tiniest effort would have been enough,
believe me!
"My reason for not making the effort was that I had something better to
do, something infinitely better. I will tell you why, that is, if you
care to know. Do you?
"Well, then, at the very first moment, my knees and feet, propped against
the inner wall, had smashed in a thick layer of plaster which closed up
an old excavation in the well; and this I at once perceived. It was a
stroke of luck, wasn't it? And it changed the whole situation. My plan
was settled at once. While I went on acting my little part of the
gentleman about to tumble down an abyss, putting on the most scared face,
the most staring eyes, the most hideous grin, I enlarged that excavation,
taking care to throw the chunks of plaster in front of me in such a way
that their fall made no noise. When the moment came, at the very second
when my swooning features vanished before your eyes, I simply jumped into
my retreat, thanks to a rather plucky little wriggle of the loins.
"I was saved, because the retreat was dug out on the side where you were
moving and because, being dark itself, it cast no light. All that I now
had to do was to wait.
"I listened quietly to your threatening speeches. I let the things you
flung down the well go past me. And, when I thought you had gone back to
Florence, I was preparing to leave my refuge, to return to the light of
day, and to fall upon you from behind, when--"
Don Luis turned the cripple over, as though he were a parcel which he was
tying up with string, and continued:
"Have you ever been to Tancarville, the old feudal castle in Normandy, on
the banks of the Seine? Haven't you? Well, you must know that, outside
the ruins of the keep, there is an old well which, like many other wells
of the period, possesses the peculiarity of having two openings, one at
the top, facing the sky, and the other a little lower down, hollowed out
sideways in the wall and leading to one of the rooms of the keep.
"At Tancarville this second opening is nowadays closed with a grating.
Here it was walled up with a layer of small stones and plaster. And it
was just the recollection of Tancarville that made me stay, all the more
as there was no hurry, since you had had the kindness to inform me that
Florence would not join me in the next world until four o'clock. I
therefore inspected my refuge and soon realized that, as I had already
felt by intuition, it was the foundation of a building which was now
demolished and which had the garden laid out on its ruins.
"Well, I went on, groping my way and following the direction which, above
ground, would have taken me to the grotto. My presentiments were not
deceived. A gleam of daylight made its way at the top of a staircase of
which I had struck the bottom step. I went up it and heard the sound of
your voice."
Don Luis turned the cripple over and over and was pretty rough about it.
Then he resumed:
"I wish to impress upon you, my dear sir, that the upshot would have been
exactly similar if I had attacked you directly and from the start in the
open air. But, having said this, I confess that chance favoured me to
some purpose. It has often failed me, in the course of our struggle, but
this time I had no cause to complain.
"I felt myself in such luck that I never doubted for a second that,
having found the entrance to the subterranean passage, I should also find
the way out. As a matter of fact, I had only to pull gently at the slight
obstacle of a few stacked bricks which hid the opening in order to make
my exit amid the remains of the castle keep.
"Guided by the sound of your voice, I slipped through the stones and thus
reached the back of the grotto in which Florence lay. Amusing, wasn't it?
"You can imagine what fun it was to hear you make your little speeches:
'Answer me, yes or no, Florence. A movement of your head will decide your
fate. If it's yes, I shall release you. If it's no, you die. Answer me,
Florence! A sign of your head: is the answer yes or no?' And the end,
above all, was delicious, when you scrambled to the top of the grotto and
started roaring from up there: 'It's you who have asked to die, Florence.
You asked for it and you've got it!'
"Just think what a joke it was: at that moment there was no one in the
grotto! Not a soul! With one effort, I had drawn Florence toward me and
put her under shelter. And all that you were able to crush with your
avalanche of rocks was one or two spiders, perhaps, and a few flies
dozing on the flagstones.
"The trick was done and the farce was nearly finished. Act first: Arsène
Lupin saved. Act second: Florence Levasseur saved. Act third and last:
the monster vanquished ... absolutely and with a vengeance!"
Don Luis stood up and contemplated his work with a satisfied eye.
"You look like a sausage, my son!" he cried, yielding at last to his
sarcastic nature and his habit of treating his enemies familiarly. "A
regular sausage! A bit on the thin side, perhaps: a saveloy for poor
people! But there, you don't much care what you look like, I suppose?
Besides, you're rather like that at all times; and, in any case, you're
just the thing for the little display of indoor gymnastics which I have
in mind for you. You'll see: it's an idea of my own, a really original
idea. Don't be impatient: we shan't be long."
He took one of the guns which the cripple had brought to the well and
tied to the middle of the gun the end of a twelve or fifteen yards'
length of rope, fastening the other end to the cords with which the
cripple was bound, just behind his back. He next took his captive round
the body and held him over the well:
"Shut your eyes, if you feel at all giddy. And don't be frightened. I'll
be very careful. Ready?"
He put the cripple down the yawning hole and next took hold of the rope
which he had just fastened. Then, little by little, inch by inch,
cautiously, so that it should not knock against the sides of the well,
the bundle was let down at arm's length.
When it reached a depth of twelve yards or so, the gun stopped its
further descent and there it remained, slung in the dark and in the exact
centre of the narrow circumference.
Don Luis set light to a number of pieces of paper, which went whirling
down, shedding their sinister gleams upon the walls. Then, unable to
resist the craving for a last speech, he leaned over, as the scoundrel
had done, and grinned:
"I selected the place with care, so that you shouldn't catch cold. I'm
bound to look after you, you see. I promised Florence that I wouldn't
kill you; and I promised the French Government to hand you over alive as
soon as possible. Only, as I didn't know what to do with you until
to-morrow morning, I've hung you up in the air.
"It's a pretty trick, isn't it? And you ought to appreciate it, for it's
so like your own way of doing things. Just think: the gun is resting on
its two ends, with hardly an inch to spare. So, if you start wriggling,
or moving, or even breathing too hard, either the barrel or the butt
end'll give way; and down you go! As for me, I've nothing to do with it!
"If you die, it'll be a pretty little case of suicide. All you've got to
do, old chap, is to keep quiet. And the beauty of my little contrivance
is that it will give you a foretaste of the few nights that will precede
your last hour, when they cut off your head. From this moment forward you
are alone with your conscience, face to face with what you perhaps call
your soul, without anything to disturb your silent soliloquy. It's nice
and thoughtful of me, isn't it? ...
"Well, I'll leave you. And remember: not a movement, not a sigh, not a
wink, not a throb of the heart! And, above all, no larks! If you start
larking, you're in the soup. Meditate: that's the best thing you can do.
Meditate and wait. Good-bye, for the present!"
And Don Luis, satisfied with his homily, went off, muttering:
"That's all right. I won't go so far as Eugène Sue, who says that great
criminals should have their eyes put out. But, all the same, a little
corporal punishment, nicely seasoned with fear, is right and proper and
good for the health and morals."
Don Luis walked away and, taking the brick path round the ruins, turned
down a little road, which ran along the outer wall to a clump of fir
trees, where he had brought Florence for shelter.
She was waiting for him, still aching from the horrible suffering which
she had endured, but already in full possession of her pluck, mistress of
herself, and apparently rid of all anxiety as to the issue of the fight
between Don Luis and the cripple.
"It's finished," he said, simply. "To-morrow I will hand him over to
the police."
She shuddered. But she did not speak; and he observed her in silence.
It was the first time that they were alone together since they had been
separated by so many tragedies, and next hurled against each other like
sworn enemies. Don Luis was so greatly excited that, in the end, he could
utter only insignificant sentences, having no connection with the
thoughts that came rushing through his mind.
"We shall find the motor car if we follow this wall and then strike off
to the left.... Do you think you can manage to walk so far? ... When
we're in the car, we'll go to Alençon. There's a quiet hotel close to the
chief square. You can wait there until things take a more favourable turn
for you--and that won't be long, as the criminal is caught."
"Let's go," she said.
He dared not offer to help her. For that matter, she stepped out firmly
and her graceful body swung from her hips with the same even rhythm as
usual. Don Luis once again felt all his old admiration and all his ardent
love for her. And yet that had never seemed more remote than at this
moment when he had saved her life by untold miracles of energy.
She had not vouchsafed him a word of thanks nor yet one of those milder
glances which reward an effort made; and she remained the same as on the
first day, the mysterious creature whose secret soul he had never
understood, and upon whom not even the storm of terrible events had cast
the faintest light.
What were her thoughts? What were her wishes? What aim was she pursuing?
These were obscure problems which he could no longer hope to solve.
Henceforth each of them must go his own way in life and each of them
could only remember the other with feelings of anger and spite.
"No!" he said to himself, as she took her place in the limousine. "No!
The separation shall not take place like that. The words that have to be
spoken between us shall be spoken; and, whether she wishes or not, I will
tear the veil that hides her."
* * * * *
The journey did not take long. At Alençon Don Luis entered Florence in
the visitors' book under the first name that occurred to him and left her
to herself. An hour later he came and knocked at her door.
This time again he had not the courage at once to ask her the question
which he had made up his mind to put to her. Besides, there were other
points which he wished to clear up.
"Florence," he said, "before I hand over that man, I should like to know
what he was to you."
"A friend, an unhappy friend, for whom I felt pity," she declared. "I
find it difficult to-day to understand my compassion for such a monster.
But, some years ago, when I first met him, I became attached to him
because of his wretchedness, his physical weakness, and all the symptoms
of death which he bore upon him even then. He had the opportunity of
doing me a few services; and, though he led a hidden life, which worried
me in certain respects, he gradually and without my knowing it acquired a
considerable influence over me.
"I believed in his insight, in his will, in his absolute devotion; and,
when the Mornington case started, it was he, as I now realize, who guided
my actions and, later, those of Gaston Sauverand. It was he who compelled
me to practise lying and deceit, persuading me that he was working for
Marie Fauville's safety. It was he who inspired us with such suspicion of
yourself and who taught us to be so silent, where he and his affairs were
concerned, that Gaston Sauverand did not even dare mention him in his
interview with you.
"I don't know how I can have been so blind. But it was so. Nothing opened
my eyes. Nothing made me suspect for a moment that harmless, ailing
creature, who spent half his life in hospitals or nursing-homes, who
underwent every possible sort of operation, and who, if he did sometimes
speak to me of his love, must have known that he could not hope to--"
Florence did not finish her sentence. Her eyes had encountered Don Luis's
eyes; and she received a deep impression that he was not listening to
what she said. He was looking at her; and that was all. The words she
uttered passed unheard.
To Don Luis any explanation concerning the tragedy itself mattered
nothing, so long as he was not enlightened on the one point that
interested him, on Florence's private thoughts about himself, thoughts of
aversion, of contempt. Outside that, anything that she could say was vain
and tedious.
He went up to her and, in a low voice, said:
"Florence, you know what I feel for you, do you not?"
She blushed, taken aback, as though the question was the very last that
she expected to hear. Nevertheless, she did not lower her eyes, and she
answered frankly:
"Yes, I know."
"But, perhaps," he continued, more eagerly, "you do not know how deeply I
feel it? Perhaps you do not know that my life has no other aim but you?"
"I know that also," she said.
"Then, if you know it," he said, "I must conclude that it was just that
which caused your hostility to me. From the beginning I tried to be your
friend and I tried only to defend you. And yet from the beginning I felt
that for you I was the object of an aversion that was both instinctive
and deliberate. Never did I see in your eyes anything but coldness,
dislike, contempt, and even repulsion.
"At moments of danger, when your life or your liberty was at stake, you
risked committing any imprudence rather than accept my assistance. I was
the enemy, the man to be distrusted, the man capable of every infamy, the
man to be avoided, and to be thought of only with a sort of dread. Isn't
that hatred? Is there anything but hatred to explain such an attitude?"
Florence did not answer at once. She seemed to be putting off the moment
at which to speak the words that rose to her lips. Her face, thin and
drawn with weariness and pain, was gentler than usual.
"Yes," she said, "there are other things than hatred to explain that
attitude."
Don Luis was dumfounded. He did not quite understand the meaning of the
reply; but Florence's tone of voice disconcerted him beyond measure, and
he also saw that Florence's eyes no longer wore their usual scornful
expression and that they were filled with smiling charm. And it was the
first time that Florence had smiled in his presence.
"Speak, speak, I entreat you!" he stammered.
"I mean to say that there is another feeling which explains coldness,
mistrust, fear, and hostility. It is not always those whom we detest that
we avoid with the greatest fear; and, if we avoid them, it is often
because we are afraid of ourselves, because we are ashamed, because we
rebel and want to resist and want to forget and cannot--"
She stopped; and, when he wildly stretched out his arms to her, as if
beseeching her to say more and still more, she nodded her head, thus
telling him that she need not go on speaking for him to read to the
very bottom of her soul and discover the secret of love which she kept
hidden there.
Don Luis staggered on his feet. He was intoxicated with happiness, almost
suffered physical pain from that unexpected happiness. After the horrible
minutes through which he had passed amid the impressive surroundings of
the Old Castle, it appeared to him madness to admit that such
extraordinary bliss could suddenly blossom forth in the commonplace
setting of that room at a hotel.
He could have longed for space around him, forest, mountains, moonlight,
a radiant sunset, all the beauty and all the poetry of the earth. With
one rush, he had reached the very acme of happiness. Florence's very life
came before him, from the instant of their meeting to the tragic moment
when the cripple, bending over her and seeing her eyes filled with tears,
had shouted:
"She's crying! She's crying! What madness! But I know your secret,
Florence! And you're crying! Florence, Florence, you yourself want to
die!"
It was a secret of love, a passionate impulse which, from the first day,
had driven her all trembling toward Don Luis. Then it had bewildered her,
filled her with fear, appeared to her as a betrayal of Marie and
Sauverand and, by turns urging her toward and drawing her away from the
man whom she loved and whom she admired for his heroism and loyalty,
rending her with remorse and overwhelming her as though it were a crime,
had ended by delivering her, feeble and disabled, to the diabolical
influence of the villain who coveted her.
Don Luis did not know what to do, did not know in what words to express
his rapture. His lips trembled. His eyes filled with tears. His nature
prompted him to take her in his arms, to kiss her as a child kisses, full
on the lips, with a full heart. But a feeling of intense respect
paralyzed his yearning. And, overcome with emotion, he fell at Florence's
feet, stammering words of love and adoration.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LUPIN'S LUPINS
Next morning, a little before eight o'clock, Valenglay was talking in his
own flat to the Prefect of Police, and asked:
"So you think as I do, my dear Prefect? He'll come?"
"I haven't the least doubt of it, Monsieur le Président. And he will come
with the same punctuality that has been shown throughout this business.
He will come, for pride's sake, at the last stroke of eight."
"You think so?"
"Monsieur le Président, I have been studying the man for months. As
things now stand, with Florence Levasseur's life in the balance, if he
has not smashed the villain whom he is hunting down, if he does not bring
him back bound hand and foot, it will mean that Florence Levasseur is
dead and that he, Arsène Lupin, is dead."
"Whereas Lupin is immortal," said Valenglay, laughing. "You're right.
Besides, I agree with you entirely. No one would be more astonished than
I if our good friend was not here to the minute. You say you were rung up
from Angers yesterday?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Président. My men had just seen Don Luis Perenna. He
had gone in front of them, in an aeroplane. After that, they telephoned
to me again from Le Mans, where they had been searching a deserted
coach-house.
"You may be sure that the search had already been made by Lupin, and that
we shall know the results. Listen: eight o'clock!"
At the same moment they heard the throbbing of a motor car. It stopped
outside the house; and the bell rang almost immediately after. Orders had
been given beforehand. The door opened and Don Luis Perenna was shown in.
To Valenglay and the Prefect of Police his arrival was certainly not
unexpected, for they had just been saying that they would have been
surprised if he had not come. Nevertheless, their attitude showed that
astonishment which we all experience in the face of events that seem to
pass the bounds of human possibility.
"Well?" cried the Prime Minister eagerly.
"It's done, Monsieur le Président."
"Have you collared the scoundrel?"
"Yes."
"By Jove!" said Valenglay. "You're a fine fellow!" And he went on to ask,
"An ogre, of course? An evil, undaunted brute?--"
"No, Monsieur le Président, a cripple, a degenerate, responsible for his
actions, certainly, but a man in whom the doctors will find every form of
wasting illness: disease of the spinal cord, tuberculosis, and all the
rest of it."
"And is that the man whom Florence Levasseur loved?"
"Monsieur le Président!" Don Luis violently protested. "Florence never
loved that wretch! She felt sorry for him, as any one would for a
fellow-creature doomed to an early death; and it was out of pity that she
allowed him to hope that she might marry him later, at some time in the
vague future."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Président, of that and of a good deal more besides, for
I have the proofs in my hands." Without further preamble, he continued:
"Monsieur le Président, now that the man is caught, it will be easy for
the police to find out every detail of his life. But meanwhile I can sum
up that monstrous life for you, looking only at the criminal side of it,
and passing briefly over three murders which have nothing to do with the
story of the Mornington case.
"Jean Vernocq was born at Alençon and brought up at old M. Langernault's
expense. He got to know the Dedessuslamare couple, robbed them of their
money and, before they had time to lodge a complaint against the unknown
thief, took them to a barn in the village of Damigni, where, in their
despair, stupefied and besotted with drugs, they hanged themselves.
"This barn stood in a property called the Old Castle, belonging to M.
Langernault, Jean Vernocq's protector, who was ill at the time. After his
recovery, as he was cleaning his gun, he received a full charge of shot
in the abdomen. The gun had been loaded without the old fellow's
knowledge. By whom? By Jean Vernocq, who had also emptied his patron's
cash box the night before ...
"In Paris, where he went to enjoy the little fortune which he had thus
amassed, Jean Vernocq bought from some rogue of his acquaintance papers
containing evidence of Florence Levasseur's birth and of her right to all
the inheritance of the Roussel family and Victor Sauverand, papers which
the friend in question had purloined from the old nurse who brought
Florence over from America. By hunting around, Jean Vernocq ended by
discovering first a photograph of Florence and then Florence herself.
"He made himself useful to her and pretended to be devoted to her, giving
up his whole life to her service. At that time he did not yet know what
profit he could derive from the papers stolen from the girl or from his
relations with her.
"Suddenly everything became different. An indiscreet word let fall by a
solicitor's clerk told him of a will in Maître Lepertuis's drawer which
would be interesting to look at. He obtained a sight of it by bribing the
clerk, who has since disappeared, with a thousand-franc note. The will,
as it happened, was Cosmo Mornington's; and in it Cosmo Mornington
bequeathed his immense wealth to the heirs of the Roussel sisters and of
Victor Sauverand....
"Jean Vernocq saw his chance. A hundred million francs! To get hold of
that sum, to obtain riches, luxury, power, and the means of buying health
and strength from the world's great healers, all that he had to do was
first to put away the different persons who stood between the inheritance
and Florence, and then, when all the obstacles were overcome, to make
Florence his wife.
"Jean Vernocq went to work. He had found among the papers of Hippolyte
Fauville's old friend Langernault particulars relating to the Roussel
family and to the discord that reigned in the Fauville household. Five
persons, all told, were in his way: first, of course, Cosmo Mornington;
next, in the order of their claims, Hippolyte Fauville, his son Edmond,
his wife Marie, and his cousin Gaston Sauverand.
"With Cosmo Mornington, the thing was easy enough. Introducing himself to
the American as a doctor, Jean Vernocq put poison into one of the phials
which Mornington used for his hypodermic injections.
"But in the case of Hippolyte Fauville, whose good will he had secured
through his acquaintance with old Langernault, and over whose mind he
soon obtained an extraordinary influence, he had a greater difficulty to
contend with. Knowing on the one hand that the engineer hated his wife
and on the other that he was stricken with a fatal disease, he took
occasion, after the consultation with the specialist in London, to
suggest to Fauville's terrified brain the incredible plan of suicide of
which you were subsequently able to trace the Machiavellian execution.
"In this way and with a single effort, anonymously, so to speak, and
without appearing in the business, without Fauville's even suspecting the
action brought to bear upon him, Jean Vernocq procured the deaths of
Fauville and his son, and got rid of Marie and Sauverand by the devilish
expedient of causing the charge of murder, of which no one could accuse
him, to fall upon them. The plan succeeded.
"There was only one hitch at the present time: the intervention of
Inspector Vérot. Inspector Vérot died. And there was only one danger in
the future: the intervention of myself, Don Luis Perenna, whose conduct
Vernocq was bound to foresee, as I was the residuary legatee by the terms
of Cosmo Mornington's will. This danger Vernocq tried to avert first by
giving me the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon to live in and
Florence Levasseur as a secretary, and next by making four attempts to
have me assassinated by Gaston Sauverand.
"He therefore held all the threads of the tragedy in his hands. Able to
come and go as he pleased in my house, enforcing himself upon Florence
and later upon Gaston Sauverand by the strength of his will and the
cunning of his character, he was within sight of the goal.
"When my efforts succeeded in proving the innocence of Marie Fauville and
Gaston Sauverand, he did not hesitate: Marie Fauville died; Gaston
Sauverand died.
"So everything was going well for him. The police pursued me. The police
pursued Florence. No one suspected him. And the date fixed for the
payment of the inheritance was at hand.
"This was two days ago. At that time, Jean Vernocq was in the midst of
the fray. He was ill and had obtained admission to the nursing-home in
the Avenue des Ternes. From there he conducted his operations, thanks to
his influence over Florence Levasseur and to the letters addressed to the
mother superior from Versailles. Acting under the superior's orders and
ignorant of the meaning of the step which she was taking, Florence went
to the meeting at the Prefect's office, and herself brought the documents
relating to her.
"Meanwhile, Jean Vernocq left the private hospital and took refuge near
the Ile Saint-Louis, where he awaited the result of an enterprise which,
at the worst, might tell against Florence, but which did not seem able to
compromise him in any case.
"You know the rest, Monsieur le Président," said Don Luis, concluding his
statement. "Florence, staggered by the sudden revelation of the part
which she had unconsciously taken in the matter, and especially by the
terrible part played by Jean Vernocq, ran away from the nursing-home
where the Prefect had brought her at my request. She had but one thought:
to see Jean Vernocq, demand an explanation of him, and hear what he had
to say in his defence. That same evening he carried her away by motor, on
the pretence of giving her proofs of his innocence. That is all, Monsieur
le Président."
Valenglay had listened with growing interest to this gruesome story of
the most malevolent genius conceivable to the mind of man. And he heard
it perhaps without too great disgust, because of the light which it threw
by contrast upon the bright, easy, happy, and spontaneous genius of the
man who had fought for the good cause.
"And you found them?" he asked.
"At three o'clock yesterday afternoon, Monsieur le Président. It was
time. I might even say that it was too late, for Jean Vernocq began by
sending me to the bottom of a well, and by crushing Florence under a
block of stone."
"Oh, so you're dead, are you?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Président."
"But why did that villain want to do away with Florence Levasseur? Her
death destroyed his indispensable scheme of matrimony."
"It takes two to get married, Monsieur le Président, and Florence
refused."
"Well--"
"Some time ago Jean Vernocq wrote a letter leaving all that he possessed
to Florence Levasseur. Florence, moved by pity for him, and not realizing
the importance of what she was doing, wrote a similar letter leaving her
property to him. This letter constitutes a genuine and indisputable will
in favor of Jean Vernocq.
"As Florence was Cosmo Mornington's legal and settled heiress by the mere
fact of her presence at yesterday's meeting with the documents proving
her descent from the Roussel family, her death caused her rights to pass
to her own legal and settled heir.
"Jean Vernocq would have come into the money without the possibility of
any litigation. And, as you would have been obliged to discharge him
after his arrest, for lack of evidence against him, he would have led a
quiet life, with fourteen murders on his conscience--I have added them
up--but with a hundred million francs in his pocket. To a monster of his
stamp, the one made up for the other."
"But do you possess all the proofs?" asked Valenglay eagerly.
"Here they are," said Perenna, producing the pocket-book which he had
taken out of the cripple's jacket. "Here are letters and documents which
the villain preserved, owing to a mental aberration common to all great
criminals. Here, by good luck, is his correspondence with Hippolyte
Fauville. Here is the original of the prospectus from which I learned
that the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon was for sale. Here is a
memorandum of Jean Vernocq's journeys to Alençon to intercept Fauville's
letters to old Langernault.
"Here is another memorandum showing that Inspector Vérot overheard a
conversation between Fauville and his accomplice, that he shadowed
Vernocq and robbed him of Florence Levasseur's photograph, and that
Vernocq sent Fauville in pursuit of him. Here is a third memorandum,
which is just a copy of the two found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare
and which proves that Jean Vernocq, to whom that set of Shakespeare
belonged, knew all about Fauville's machination. Here are his
correspondence with Caceres, the Peruvian attaché, and the letters
denouncing myself and Sergeant Mazeroux, which he intended to send to the
press. Here--
"But need I say more, Monsieur le Président? You have the complete
evidence in your hands. The magistrates will find that all the
accusations which I made yesterday, before the Prefect of Police, were
strictly true."
"And he?" cried Valenglay. "The criminal? Where is he?"
"Outside, in a motor car, in his motor car, rather."
"Have you told my men?" asked M. Desmalions anxiously.
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. Besides, the fellow is carefully tied up. Don't
be alarmed. He won't escape."
"Well, you've foreseen every contingency," said Valenglay, "and the
business seems to me to be finished. But there's one problem that remains
unexplained, the one perhaps that interested the public most. I mean the
marks of the teeth in the apple, the teeth of the tiger, as they have
been called, which were certainly Mme. Fauville's teeth, innocent though
she was. Monsieur le Préfet declares that you have solved this problem."
"Yes, Monsieur le Président, and Jean Vernocq's papers prove that I was
right. Besides, the problem is quite simple. The apple was marked with
Mme. Fauville's teeth, but Mme. Fauville never bit the apple."
"Come, come!"
"Monsieur le Président, Hippolyte Fauville very nearly said as much when
he mentioned this mystery in his posthumous confession."
"Hippolyte Fauville was a madman."
"Yes, but a lucid madman and capable of reasoning with the most appalling
logic. Some years ago, at Palermo, Mme. Fauville had a very bad fall,
hitting her mouth against the marble top of a table, with the result that
a number of her teeth, in both the upper and the lower jaw, were
loosened. To repair the damage and to make the gold plate intended to
strengthen the teeth, a plate which Mme. Fauville wore for several
months, the dentist, as usual, took an impression of her mouth.
"M. Fauville happened to have kept the mould; and he used it to print the
marks of his wife's teeth in the cake of chocolate shortly before his
death and in the apple on the night of his death. When this was done, he
put the mould with the other things which the explosion was meant to, and
did, destroy."
Don Luis's explanation was followed by a silence. The thing was so simple
that the Prime Minister was quite astonished. The whole tragedy, the
whole charge, everything that had caused Marie's despair and death and
the death of Gaston Sauverand: all this rested on an infinitely small
detail which had occurred to none of the millions and millions of people
who had interested themselves so enthusiastically in the mystery of the
teeth of the tiger.
The teeth of the tiger! Everybody had clung stubbornly to an apparently
invincible argument. As the marks on the apple and the print of Mme.
Fauville's teeth were identical, and as no two persons in the world were
able, in theory or practice, to produce the same print with their teeth,
Mme. Fauville must needs be guilty.
Nay, more, the argument seemed so absolute that, from the day on which
Mme. Fauville's innocence became known, the problem had remained
unsolved, while no one seemed capable of conceiving the one paltry idea:
that it was possible to obtain the print of a tooth in another way than
by a live bite of that same tooth!
"It's like the egg of Columbus," said Valenglay, laughing. "It had to be
thought of."
"You are right, Monsieur le Président. People don't think of those
things. Here is another instance: may I remind you that during the period
when Arsène Lupin was known at the same time as M. Lenormand and as
Prince Paul Sernine, no one noticed that the name Paul Sernine was merely
an anagram of Arsène Lupin? Well, it's just the same to-day: Luis Perenna
also is an anagram of Arsène Lupin. The two names are composed of the
same eleven letters, neither more nor less. And yet, although it was the
second time, nobody thought of making that little comparison. The egg of
Columbus again! It had to be thought of!"
Valenglay was a little surprised at the revelation. It seemed as if that
devil of a man had sworn to puzzle him up to the last moment and to
bewilder him by the most unexpected sensational news. And how well this
last detail depicted the fellow, a queer mixture of dignity and
impudence, of mischief and simplicity, of smiling chaff and disconcerting
charm, a sort of hero who, while conquering kingdoms by most incredible
adventures, amused himself by mixing up the letters on his name so as to
catch the public napping!
The interview was nearly at an end. Valenglay said to Perenna:
"Monsieur, you have done wonders in this business and ended by keeping
your word and handing over the criminal. I also will keep my word. You
are free."
"I thank you, Monsieur le Président. But what about Sergeant Mazeroux?"
"He will be released this morning. Monsieur le Préfet de Police has
arranged matters so that the public do not know of the arrest of either
of you. You are Don Luis Perenna. There is no reason why you should not
remain Don Luis Perenna."
"And Florence Levasseur, Monsieur le Président?"
"Let her go before the examining magistrate of her own accord. He is
bound to discharge her. Once free and acquitted of any charge or even
suspicion, she will certainly be recognized as Cosmo Mornington's legal
heiress and will receive the hundred millions."
"She will not keep it, Monsieur le Président."
"How do you mean?"
"Florence Levasseur doesn't want the money. It has been the cause of
unspeakably awful crimes. She hates the very thought of it."
"What then?"
"Cosmo Mornington's hundred millions will be wholly devoted to
making roads and building schools in the south of Morocco and the
northern Congo."
"In the Mauretanian Empire which you are giving us?" said Valenglay,
laughing. "By Jove, it's a fine work and I second it with all my heart.
An empire and an imperial budget to keep it up with! Upon my word, Don
Luis has behaved well to his country, and has handsomely paid the
debts--of Arsène Lupin!"
* * * * *
A month later Don Luis Perenna and Mazeroux embarked in the yacht which
had brought Don Luis to France. Florence was with them. Before sailing
they heard of the death of Jean Vernocq, who had managed to poison
himself in spite of all the precautions taken to prevent him.
On his arrival in Africa, Don Luis Perenna, Sultan of Mauretania, found
his old associates and accredited Mazeroux to them and to his grand
dignitaries. He organized the government to follow on his abdication and
precede the annexation of the new empire by France, and he had several
secret interviews on the Moorish border with General Léauty, commanding
the French troops, interviews in the course of which they thought out all
the measures to be executed in succession so as to lend to the conquest
of Morocco an appearance of facility which would otherwise be difficult
to explain.
The future was now assured. Soon the thin screen of rebellious tribes
standing between the French and the pacified districts would fall to
pieces, revealing an orderly empire, provided with a regular
constitution, with good roads, schools, and courts of law, a flourishing
empire in full working order.
Then, when his task was done, Don Luis abdicated.
* * * * *
He has now been back for over two years. Every one remembers the stir
caused by his marriage with Florence Levasseur. The controversy was
renewed; and many of the newspapers clamoured for Arsène Lupin's arrest.
But what could the authorities do?
Although nobody doubted who he really was, although the name of Arsène
Lupin and the name of Don Luis Perenna consisted of the same letters, and
people ended by remarking the coincidence, legally speaking, Arsène Lupin
was dead and Don Luis Perenna was alive; and there was no possibility of
bringing Arsène Lupin back to life or of killing Don Luis Perenna.
He is to-day living in the village of Saint-Maclou, among those charming
valleys which run down to the Oise. Who does not know his modest little
pink-washed house, with its green shutters and its garden filled with
bright flowers? People make up parties to go there from Paris on Sundays,
in the hope of catching a sight, through the elder hedges, of the man who
was Arsène Lupin, or of meeting him in the village square.
He is there, with his hair just touched with gray, his still youthful
features, and a young man's bearing; and Florence is there, too, with her
pretty figure and the halo of fair hair around her happy face, unclouded
by even the shadow of an unpleasant recollection.
Very often visitors come and knock at the little wooden gate. They are
unfortunate people imploring the master's aid, victims of oppression,
weaklings who have gone under in the struggle, reckless persons who have
been ruined by their passions.
For all these Don Luis is full of pity. He gives them his full
attention, the help of his far-seeing advice, his experience, his
strength, and even his time, disappearing for days and weeks to fight
the good fight once more.
And sometimes also it is an emissary from the Prefect's office or some
subordinate of the police who comes to submit a complex case to his
judgment. Here again Don Luis applies the whole of his wonderful mind to
the business.
In addition to this, in addition to his old books on ethics and
philosophy, to which he has returned with such pleasure, he cultivates
his garden. He dotes on his flowers. He is proud of them. He takes prizes
at the shows; and the success is still remembered of the treble
carnation, streaked red and yellow, which he exhibited as the "Arsène
carnation."
But he works hardest at certain large flowers that blossom in summer.
During July and the first half of August they fill two thirds of his lawn
and all the borders of his kitchen-garden. Beautiful, decorative plants,
standing erect like flag-staffs, they proudly raise their spiky heads of
all colours: blue, violet, mauve, pink, white.
They are lupins and include every variety: Cruikshank's lupin, the
two-coloured lupin, the scented lupin, and the last to appear, Lupin's
lupin. They are all there, resplendent, in serried ranks like an army of
soldiers, each striving to outstrip the others and to hold up the
thickest and gaudiest spike to the sun. They are all there; and, at the
entrance to the walk that leads to their motley beds, is a streamer with
this device, taken from an exquisite sonnet of Jose Maria de Heredia:
"And in my kitchen-garden lupins grow."
You will say that this is a confession. But why not?
In the evening, when a few privileged neighbours meet at his
house--the justice of the peace, the notary, Major Comte d'Astrignac,
who has also gone to live at Saint-Maclou--Don Luis is not afraid to
speak of Arsène Lupin.
"I used to see a great deal of him," he says. "He was not a bad man. I
will not go so far as to compare him with the Seven Sages, or even to
hold him up as an example to future generations, but still we must judge
him with a certain indulgence.
"He did a vast amount of good and a moderate amount of harm. Those who
suffered through him deserved what they got; and fate would have punished
them sooner or later if he had not forestalled her. Between a Lupin who
selected his victims among the ruck of wicked rich men and some big
company promoter who deliberately ruins numbers of poor people, would you
hesitate for a moment? Does not Lupin come out best?
"And, on the other hand, what a host of good actions! What countless
proofs of disinterested generosity! A burglar? I admit it. A swindler? I
don't deny it. He was all that. But he was something more than that. And,
while he amused the gallery with his skill and ingenuity, he roused the
general enthusiasm in other ways.
"People laughed at his practical jokes, but they loved his pluck, his
courage, his adventurous spirit, his contempt for danger, his shrewd
insight, his unfailing good humour, his reckless energy: all qualities
that stood out at a period when the most active virtues of our race had
reached their zenith, the period of the motor car and the aeroplane....
"One day," he said, as a joke, "I should like my epitaph to read, 'Here
lies Arsène Lupin, adventurer.'" That was quite correct. He was a master
of adventure.
"And, if the spirit of adventure led him too often to put his hand in
other people's pockets, it also led him to battlefields where it gives
those who are worthy opportunity to fight and win titles of distinction
which are not within reach of all. It was there that he gained his. It is
there that you should see him at work, spending his strength braving
death, and defying destiny. And it is because of this that you must
forgive him, even if he did sometimes get the better of a commissary of
police or steal the watch of an examining magistrate. Let us show some
indulgence to our professors of energy."
And, nodding his head, Don Luis concludes:
"Then, you see, he had another virtue which is not to be despised. It is
a virtue for which we should be grateful to him in these gray days of
ours: he knew how to smile!"
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Teeth of the Tiger, by Maurice Leblanc | null |
The Lerouge Case | Emile Gaboriau | 290 | ['Noël Gerdy'] | THE LEROUGE CASE
By Emile Gaboriau
CHAPTER I.
On Thursday, the 6th of March, 1862, two days after Shrove Tuesday, five
women belonging to the village of La Jonchere presented themselves at
the police station at Bougival.
They stated that for two days past no one had seen the Widow Lerouge,
one of their neighbours, who lived by herself in an isolated cottage.
They had several times knocked at the door, but all in vain. The
window-shutters as well as the door were closed; and it was impossible
to obtain even a glimpse of the interior.
This silence, this sudden disappearance alarmed them. Apprehensive of
a crime, or at least of an accident, they requested the interference of
the police to satisfy their doubts by forcing the door and entering the
house.
Bougival is a pleasant riverside village, peopled on Sundays by crowds
of boating parties. Trifling offences are frequently heard of in its
neighbourhood, but crimes are rare.
The commissary of police at first refused to listen to the women, but
their importunities so fatigued him that he at length acceded to their
request. He sent for the corporal of gendarmes, with two of his
men, called into requisition the services of a locksmith, and, thus
accompanied, followed the neighbours of the Widow Lerouge.
La Jonchere owes some celebrity to the inventor of the sliding railway,
who for some years past has, with more enterprise than profit, made
public trials of his system in the immediate neighbourhood. It is
a hamlet of no importance, resting upon the slope of the hill which
overlooks the Seine between La Malmaison and Bougival. It is about
twenty minutes’ walk from the main road, which, passing by Rueil and
Port-Marly, goes from Paris to St. Germain, and is reached by a steep
and rugged lane, quite unknown to the government engineers.
The party, led by the gendarmes, followed the main road which here
bordered the river until it reached this lane, into which it turned, and
stumbled over the rugged inequalities of the ground for about a hundred
yards, when it arrived in front of a cottage of extremely modest yet
respectable appearance. This cottage had probably been built by some
little Parisian shopkeeper in love with the beauties of nature; for
all the trees had been carefully cut down. It consisted merely of two
apartments on the ground floor with a loft above. Around it extended a
much-neglected garden, badly protected against midnight prowlers, by
a very dilapidated stone wall about three feet high, and broken and
crumbling in many places. A light wooden gate, clumsily held in its
place by pieces of wire, gave access to the garden.
“It is here,” said the women.
The commissary stopped. During his short walk, the number of his
followers had been rapidly increasing, and now included all the
inquisitive and idle persons of the neighbourhood. He found himself
surrounded by about forty individuals burning with curiosity.
“No one must enter the garden,” said he; and, to ensure obedience, he
placed the two gendarmes on sentry before the entrance, and advanced
towards the house, accompanied by the corporal and the locksmith.
He knocked several times loudly with his leaded cane, first at the door,
and then successively at all the window shutters. After each blow, he
placed his ear against the wood and listened. Hearing nothing, he turned
to the locksmith.
“Open!” said he.
The workman unstrapped his satchel, and produced his implements. He had
already introduced a skeleton key into the lock, when a loud exclamation
was heard from the crowd outside the gate.
“The key!” they cried. “Here is the key!”
A boy about twelve years old playing with one of his companions, had
seen an enormous key in a ditch by the roadside; he had picked it up and
carried it to the cottage in triumph.
“Give it to me youngster,” said the corporal. “We shall see.”
The key was tried, and it proved to be the key of the house.
The commissary and the locksmith exchanged glances full of sinister
misgivings. “This looks bad,” muttered the corporal. They entered the
house, while the crowd, restrained with difficulty by the gendarmes,
stamped with impatience, or leant over the garden wall, stretching their
necks eagerly, to see or hear something of what was passing within the
cottage.
Those who anticipated the discovery of a crime, were unhappily not
deceived. The commissary was convinced of this as soon as he crossed the
threshold. Everything in the first room pointed with a sad eloquence to
the recent presence of a malefactor. The furniture was knocked about,
and a chest of drawers and two large trunks had been forced and broken
open.
In the inner room, which served as a sleeping apartment, the disorder
was even greater. It seemed as though some furious hand had taken a
fiendish pleasure in upsetting everything. Near the fireplace, her face
buried in the ashes, lay the dead body of Widow Lerouge. All one side of
the face and the hair were burnt; it seemed a miracle that the fire had
not caught her clothing.
“Wretches!” exclaimed the corporal. “Could they not have robbed, without
assassinating the poor woman?”
“But where has she been wounded?” inquired the commissary, “I do not see
any blood.”
“Look! here between the shoulders,” replied the corporal; “two fierce
blows, by my faith. I’ll wager my stripes she had no time to cry out.”
He stooped over the corpse and touched it.
“She is quite cold,” he continued, “and it seems to me that she is no
longer very stiff. It is at least thirty-six hours since she received
her death-blow.”
The commissary began writing, on the corner of a table, a short official
report.
“We are not here to talk, but to discover the guilty,” said he to the
corporal. “Let information be at once conveyed to the justice of the
peace, and the mayor, and send this letter without delay to the Palais
de Justice. In a couple of hours, an investigating magistrate can be
here. In the meanwhile, I will proceed to make a preliminary inquiry.”
“Shall I carry the letter?” asked the corporal of gendarmes.
“No, send one of your men; you will be useful to me here in keeping
these people in order, and in finding any witnesses I may want. We
must leave everything here as it is. I will install myself in the other
room.”
A gendarme departed at a run towards the station at Rueil; and the
commissary commenced his investigations in regular form, as prescribed
by law.
“Who was Widow Lerouge? Where did she come from? What did she do? Upon
what means, and how did she live? What were her habits, her morals, and
what sort of company did she keep? Was she known to have enemies? Was
she a miser? Did she pass for being rich?”
The commissary knew the importance of ascertaining all this: but
although the witnesses were numerous enough, they possessed but
little information. The depositions of the neighbours, successively
interrogated, were empty, incoherent, and incomplete. No one knew
anything of the victim, who was a stranger in the country. Many
presented themselves as witnesses moreover, who came forward less to
afford information than to gratify their curiosity. A gardener’s wife,
who had been friendly with the deceased, and a milk-woman with whom
she dealt, were alone able to give a few insignificant though precise
details.
In a word, after three hours of laborious investigation, after having
undergone the infliction of all the gossip of the country, after
receiving evidence the most contradictory, and listened to commentaries
the most ridiculous, the following is what appeared the most reliable to
the commissary.
Twelve years before, at the beginning of 1850, the woman Lerouge had
made her appearance at Bougival with a large wagon piled with furniture,
linen, and her personal effects. She had alighted at an inn, declaring
her intention of settling in the neighbourhood, and had immediately gone
in quest of a house. Finding this one unoccupied, and thinking it would
suit her, she had taken it without trying to beat down the terms, at
a rental of three hundred and twenty francs payable half yearly and in
advance, but had refused to sign a lease.
The house taken, she occupied it the same day, and expended about a
hundred francs on repairs.
She was a woman about fifty-four or fifty-five years of age, well
preserved, active, and in the enjoyment of excellent health. No one
knew her reasons for taking up her abode in a country where she was an
absolute stranger. She was supposed to have come from Normandy, having
been frequently seen in the early morning to wear a white cotton cap.
This night-cap did not prevent her dressing very smartly during the day;
indeed, she ordinarily wore very handsome dresses, very showy ribbons
in her caps, and covered herself with jewels like a saint in a chapel.
Without doubt she had lived on the coast, for ships and the sea recurred
incessantly in her conversation.
She did not like speaking of her husband who had, she said, perished
in a shipwreck. But she had never given the slightest detail. On one
particular occasion she had remarked, in presence of the milk-woman and
three other persons, “No woman was ever more miserable than I during my
married life.” And at another she had said, “All new, all fine! A new
broom sweeps clean. My defunct husband only loved me for a year!”
Widow Lerouge passed for rich, or at the least for being very well off
and she was not a miser. She had lent a woman at La Malmaison sixty
francs with which to pay her rent, and would not let her return them.
At another time she had advanced two hundred francs to a fisherman of
Port-Marly. She was fond of good living, spent a good deal on her food,
and bought wine by the half cask. She took pleasure in treating her
acquaintances, and her dinners were excellent. If complimented on her
easy circumstances, she made no very strong denial. She had frequently
been heard to say, “I have nothing in the funds, but I have everything I
want. If I wished for more, I could have it.”
Beyond this, the slightest allusion to her past life, her country, or
her family had never escaped her. She was very talkative, but all she
would say would be to the detriment of her neighbours. She was supposed,
however, to have seen the world, and to know a great deal. She was very
distrustful and barricaded herself in her cottage as in a fortress. She
never went out in the evening, and it was well known that she got tipsy
regularly at her dinner and went to bed very soon afterwards. Rarely had
strangers been seen to visit her; four or five times a lady accompanied
by a young man had called, and upon one occasion two gentlemen, one
young, the other old and decorated, had come in a magnificent carriage.
In conclusion, the deceased was held in but little esteem by her
neighbours. Her remarks were often most offensive and odious in the
mouth of a woman of her age. She had been heard to give a young girl
the most detestable counsels. A pork butcher, belonging to Bougival,
embarrassed in his business, and tempted by her supposed wealth, had at
one time paid her his addresses. She, however, repelled his advances,
declaring that to be married once was enough for her. On several
occasions men had been seen in her house; first of all, a young one, who
had the appearance of a clerk of the railway company; then another,
a tall, elderly man, very sunburnt, who was dressed in a blouse, and
looked very villainous. These men were reported to be her lovers.
Whilst questioning the witnesses, the commissary wrote down their
depositions in a more condensed form, and he had got so far, when the
investigating magistrate arrived, attended by the chief of the detective
police, and one of his subordinates.
M. Daburon was a man thirty-eight years of age, and of prepossessing
appearance; sympathetic notwithstanding his coldness; wearing upon his
countenance a sweet, and rather sad expression. This settled melancholy
had remained with him ever since his recovery, two years before, from a
dreadful malady, which had well-nigh proved fatal.
Investigating magistrate since 1859, he had rapidly acquired the most
brilliant reputation. Laborious, patient, and acute, he knew with
singular skill how to disentangle the skein of the most complicated
affair, and from the midst of a thousand threads lay hold to the right
one. None better than he, armed with an implacable logic, could
solve those terrible problems in which X--in algebra, the unknown
quantity--represents the criminal. Clever in deducing the unknown from
the known, he excelled in collecting facts, and in uniting in a
bundle of overwhelming proofs circumstances the most trifling, and in
appearance the most insignificant.
Although possessed of qualifications for his office so numerous and
valuable, he was tremblingly distrustful of his own abilities and
exercised his terrible functions with diffidence and hesitation. He
wanted audacity to risk those sudden surprises so often resorted to by
his colleagues in the pursuit of truth.
Thus it was repugnant to his feelings to deceive even an accused person,
or to lay snares for him; in fact the mere idea of the possibility of a
judicial error terrified him. They said of him in the courts, “He is
a trembler.” What he sought was not conviction, nor the most probable
presumptions, but the most absolute certainty. No rest for him until the
day when the accused was forced to bow before the evidence; so much
so that he had been jestingly reproached with seeking not to discover
criminals but innocents.
The chief of detective police was none other than the celebrated Gevrol.
He is really an able man, but wanting in perseverance, and liable to be
blinded by an incredible obstinacy. If he loses a clue, he cannot bring
himself to acknowledge it, still less to retrace his steps. His audacity
and coolness, however, render it impossible to disconcert him; and
being possessed of immense personal strength, hidden under a most
meagre appearance, he has never hesitated to confront the most daring of
malefactors.
But his specialty, his triumph, his glory, is a memory of faces, so
prodigious as to exceed belief. Let him see a face for five minutes, and
it is enough. Its possessor is catalogued, and will be recognised at any
time. The impossibilities of place, the unlikelihood of circumstances,
the most incredible disguises will not lead him astray. The reason for
this, so he pretends, is because he only looks at a man’s eyes, without
noticing any other features.
This faculty was severely tested some months back at Poissy, by the
following experiment. Three prisoners were draped in coverings so as
to completely disguise their height. Over their faces were thick veils,
allowing nothing of the features to be seen except the eyes, for which
holes had been made; and in this state they were shown to Gevrol.
Without the slightest hesitation he recognised the prisoners and named
them. Had chance alone assisted him?
The subordinate Gevrol had brought with him, was an old offender,
reconciled to the law. A smart fellow in his profession, crafty as
a fox, and jealous of his chief, whose abilities he held in light
estimation. His name was Lecoq.
The commissary, by this time heartily tired of his responsibilities,
welcomed the investigating magistrate and his agents as liberators. He
rapidly related the facts collected and read his official report.
“You have proceeded very well,” observed the investigating magistrate.
“All is stated clearly; yet there is one fact you have omitted to
ascertain.”
“What is that, sir?” inquired the commissary.
“On what day was Widow Lerouge last seen, and at what hour?”
“I was coming to that presently. She was last seen and spoken to on the
evening of Shrove Tuesday, at twenty minutes past five. She was then
returning from Bougival with a basketful of purchases.”
“You are sure of the hour, sir?” inquired Gevrol.
“Perfectly, and for this reason; the two witnesses who furnished me
with this fact, a woman named Tellier and a cooper who lives hard by,
alighted from the omnibus which leaves Marly every hour, when they
perceived the widow in the cross-road, and hastened to overtake her.
They conversed with her and only left her when they reached the door of
her own house.”
“And what had she in her basket?” asked the investigating magistrate.
“The witnesses cannot say. They only know that she carried two sealed
bottles of wine, and another of brandy. She complained to them of
headache, and said, ‘Though it is customary to enjoy oneself on Shrove
Tuesday, I am going to bed.’”
“So, so!” exclaimed the chief of detective police. “I know where to
search!”
“You think so?” inquired M. Daburon.
“Why, it is clear enough. We must find the tall sunburnt man, the
gallant in the blouse. The brandy and the wine were intended for his
entertainment. The widow expected him to supper. He came, sure enough,
the amiable gallant!”
“Oh!” cried the corporal of gendarmes, evidently scandalised, “she was
very old, and terribly ugly!”
Gevrol surveyed the honest fellow with an expression of contemptuous
pity. “Know, corporal,” said he, “that a woman who has money is always
young and pretty, if she desires to be thought so!”
“Perhaps there is something in that,” remarked the magistrate; “but it
is not what strikes me most. I am more impressed by the remark of this
unfortunate woman. ‘If I wished for more, I could have it.’”
“That also attracted my attention,” acquiesced the commissary.
But Gevrol no longer took the trouble to listen. He stuck to his
own opinion, and began to inspect minutely every corner of the room.
Suddenly he turned towards the commissary. “Now that I think of it,”
cried he, “was it not on Tuesday that the weather changed? It had been
freezing for a fortnight past, and on that evening it rained. At what
time did the rain commence here?”
“At half-past nine,” answered the corporal. “I went out from supper to
make my circuit of the dancing halls, when I was overtaken opposite the
Rue des Pecheurs by a heavy shower. In less than ten minutes there was
half an inch of water in the road.”
“Very well,” said Gevrol. “Then if the man came after half-past nine his
shoes must have been very muddy. If they were dry, he arrived sooner.
This must have been noticed, for the floor is a polished one. Were there
any imprints of footsteps, M. Commissary?”
“I must confess we never thought of looking for them.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the chief detective, in a tone of irritation, “that is
vexatious!”
“Wait,” added the commissary; “there is yet time to see if there are
any, not in this room, but in the other. We have disturbed absolutely
nothing there. My footsteps and the corporal’s will be easily
distinguished. Let us see.”
As the commissary opened the door of the second chamber, Gevrol stopped
him. “I ask permission, sir,” said he to the investigating magistrate,
“to examine the apartment before any one else is permitted to enter. It
is very important for me.”
“Certainly,” approved M. Daburon.
Gevrol passed in first, the others remaining on the threshold. They
all took in at a glance the scene of the crime. Everything, as the
commissary had stated, seemed to have been overturned by some furious
madman. In the middle of the room was a table covered with a fine linen
cloth, white as snow. Upon this was placed a magnificent wineglass of
the rarest manufacture, a very handsome knife, and a plate of the finest
porcelain. There was an opened bottle of wine, hardly touched, and
another of brandy, from which about five or six small glassfuls had been
taken.
On the right, against the wall, stood two handsome walnut-wood
wardrobes, with ornamental locks; they were placed one on each side of
the window; both were empty, and the contents scattered about on all
sides. There were clothing, linen, and other effects unfolded, tossed
about, and crumpled. At the end of the room, near the fireplace, a large
cupboard used for keeping the crockery was wide open. On the other side
of the fireplace, an old secretary with a marble top had been forced,
broken, smashed into bits, and rummaged, no doubt, to its inmost
recesses. The desk, wrenched away, hung by a single hinge. The drawers
had been pulled out and thrown upon the floor.
To the left of the room stood the bed, which had been completely
disarranged and upset. Even the straw of the mattress had been pulled
out and examined.
“Not the slightest imprint,” murmured Gevrol disappointed. “He must have
arrived before half-past nine. You can all come in now.”
He walked right up to the corpse of the widow, near which he knelt.
“It can not be said,” grumbled he, “that the work is not properly done!
the assassin is no apprentice!”
Then looking right and left, he continued: “Oh! oh! the poor devil was
busy with her cooking when he struck her; see her pan of ham and eggs
upon the hearth. The brute hadn’t patience enough to wait for the
dinner. The gentleman was in a hurry, he struck the blow fasting;
therefore he can’t invoke the gayety of dessert in his defense!”
“It is evident,” said the commissary to the investigating magistrate,
“that robbery was the motive of the crime.”
“It is probable,” answered Gevrol in a sly way; “and that accounts for
the absence of the silver spoons from the table.”
“Look here! Some pieces of gold in this drawer!” exclaimed Lecoq, who
had been searching on his own account, “just three hundred and twenty
francs!”
“Well, I never!” cried Gevrol, a little disconcerted. But he soon
recovered from his embarrassment, and added: “He must have forgotten
them; that often happens. I have known an assassin, who, after
accomplishing the murder, became so utterly bewildered as to depart
without remembering to take the plunder, for which he had committed the
crime. Our man became excited perhaps, or was interrupted. Some one may
have knocked at the door. What makes me more willing to think so is,
that the scamp did not leave the candle burning. You see he took the
trouble to put it out.”
“Pooh!” said Lecoq. “That proves nothing. He is probably an economical
and careful man.”
The investigations of the two agents were continued all over the house;
but their most minute researches resulted in discovering absolutely
nothing; not one piece of evidence to convict; not the faintest
indication which might serve as a point of departure. Even the dead
woman’s papers, if she possessed any, had disappeared. Not a letter, not
a scrap of paper even, to be met with. From time to time Gevrol stopped
to swear or grumble. “Oh! it is cleverly done! It is a tiptop piece of
work! The scoundrel is a cool hand!”
“Well, what do you make of it?” at length demanded the investigating
magistrate.
“It is a drawn game monsieur,” replied Gevrol. “We are baffled for the
present. The miscreant has taken his measures with great precaution;
but I will catch him. Before night, I shall have a dozen men in pursuit.
Besides, he is sure to fall into our hands. He has carried off the plate
and the jewels. He is lost!”
“Despite all that,” said M. Daburon, “we are no further advanced than we
were this morning!”
“Well!” growled Gevrol. “A man can only do what he can!”
“Ah!” murmured Lecoq in a low tone, perfectly audible, however, “why is
not old Tirauclair here?”
“What could he do more than we have done?” retorted Gevrol, directing a
furious glance at his subordinate. Lecoq bowed his head and was silent,
inwardly delighted at having wounded his chief.
“Who is old Tirauclair?” asked M. Daburon. “It seems to me that I have
heard the name, but I can’t remember where.”
“He is an extraordinary man!” exclaimed Lecoq. “He was formerly a clerk
at the Mont de Piete,” added Gevrol; “but he is now a rich old fellow,
whose real name is Tabaret. He goes in for playing the detective by way
of amusement.”
“And to augment his revenues,” insinuated the commissary.
“He?” cried Lecoq. “No danger of that. He works so much for the glory
of success that he often spends money from his own pocket. It’s
his amusement, you see! At the Prefecture we have nicknamed him
‘Tirauclair,’ from a phrase he is constantly in the habit of repeating.
Ah! he is sharp, the old weasel! It was he who in the case of that
banker’s wife, you remember, guessed that the lady had robbed herself,
and who proved it.”
“True!” retorted Gevrol; “and it was also he who almost had poor Dereme
guillotined for killing his wife, a thorough bad woman; and all the
while the poor man was innocent.”
“We are wasting our time, gentlemen,” interrupted M. Daburon. Then,
addressing himself to Lecoq, he added:--“Go and find M. Tabaret. I have
heard a great deal of him, and shall be glad to see him at work here.”
Lecoq started off at a run, Gevrol was seriously humiliated. “You have
of course, sir, the right to demand the services of whom you please,”
commenced he, “but yet--”
“Do not,” interrupted M. Daburon, “let us lose our tempers, M. Gevrol.
I have known you for a long time, and I know your worth; but to-day we
happen to differ in opinion. You hold absolutely to your sunburnt man
in the blouse, and I, on my side, am convinced that you are not on the
right track!”
“I think I am right,” replied the detective, “and I hope to prove it. I
shall find the scoundrel, be he whom he may!”
“I ask nothing better,” said M. Daburon.
“Only, permit me, sir, to give--what shall I say without failing in
respect?--a piece of advice?”
“Speak!”
“I would advise you, sir, to distrust old Tabaret.”
“Really? And for what reason?”
“The old fellow allows himself to be carried away too much by
appearances. He has become an amateur detective for the sake of
popularity, just like an author; and, as he is vainer than a peacock,
he is apt to lose his temper and be very obstinate. As soon as he finds
himself in the presence of a crime, like this one, for example, he
pretends he can explain everything on the instant. And he manages to
invent a story that will correspond exactly with the situation. He
professes, with the help of one single fact, to be able to reconstruct
all the details of an assassination, as a savant pictures an
antediluvian animal from a single bone. Sometimes he divines correctly;
very often, though, he makes a mistake. Take, for instance, the case of
the tailor, the unfortunate Dereme, without me--”
“I thank you for your advice,” interrupted M. Daburon, “and will profit
by it. Now commissary,” he continued, “it is most important to ascertain
from what part of the country Widow Lerouge came.”
The procession of witnesses under the charge of the corporal of
gendarmes were again interrogated by the investigating magistrate.
But nothing new was elicited. It was evident that Widow Lerouge had been
a singularly discreet woman; for, although very talkative, nothing in
any way connected with her antecedents remained in the memory of the
gossips of La Jonchere.
All the people interrogated, however, obstinately tried to impart to
the magistrate their own convictions and personal conjectures. Public
opinion sided with Gevrol. Every voice denounced the tall sunburnt man
with the gray blouse. He must surely be the culprit. Everyone remembered
his ferocious aspect, which had frightened the whole neighbourhood. He
had one evening menaced a woman, and another day beaten a child. They
could point out neither the child nor the woman; but no matter: these
brutal acts were notoriously public. M. Daburon began to despair of
gaining the least enlightenment, when some one brought the wife of a
grocer of Bougival, at whose shop the victim used to deal, and a child
thirteen years old, who knew, it was said, something positive.
The grocer’s wife first made her appearance. She had heard Widow Lerouge
speak of having a son still living.
“Are you quite sure of that?” asked the investigating magistrate.
“As of my existence,” answered the woman, “for, on that evening, yes, it
was evening, she was, saving your presence, a little tipsy. She remained
in my shop more than an hour.”
“And what did she say?”
“I think I see her now,” continued the shopkeeper: “she was leaning
against the counter near the scales, jesting with a fisherman of Marly,
old Husson, who can tell you the same; and she called him a fresh water
sailor. ‘My husband,’ said she, ‘was a real sailor, and the proof is,
he would sometimes remain years on a voyage, and always used to bring me
back cocoanuts. I have a son who is also a sailor, like his dead father,
in the imperial navy.’”
“Did she mention her son’s name?”
“Not that time, but another evening, when she was, if I may say so, very
drunk. She told us that her son’s name was Jacques, and that she had not
seen him for a very long time.”
“Did she speak ill of her husband?”
“Never! She only said he was jealous and brutal, though a good man at
bottom, and that he led her a miserable life. He was weak-headed, and
forged ideas out of nothing at all. In fact he was too honest to be
wise.”
“Did her son ever come to see her while she lived here?”
“She never told me of it.”
“Did she spend much money with you?”
“That depends. About sixty francs a month; sometimes more, for she
always buys the best brandy. She paid cash for all she bought.”
The woman knowing no more was dismissed. The child, who was now brought
forward, belonged to parents in easy circumstances. Tall and strong
for his age, he had bright intelligent eyes, and features expressive of
watchfulness and cunning. The presence of the magistrate did not seem to
intimidate him in the least.
“Let us hear, my boy,” said M. Daburon, “what you know.”
“Well, sir, a few days ago, on Sunday last, I saw a man at Madame
Lerouge’s garden-gate.”
“At what time of the day?”
“Early in the morning. I was going to church, to serve in the second
mass.”
“Well,” continued the magistrate, “and this man was tall and sunburnt,
and dressed in a blouse?”
“No, sir, on the contrary, he was short, very fat, and old.”
“You are sure you are not mistaken?”
“Quite sure,” replied the urchin, “I saw him close face to face, for I
spoke to him.”
“Tell me, then, what occurred?”
“Well, sir, I was passing when I saw this fat man at the gate. He
appeared very much vexed, oh! but awfully vexed! His face was red, or
rather purple, as far as the middle of his head, which I could see very
well, for it was bare, and had very little hair on it.”
“And did he speak to you first?”
“Yes, sir, he saw me, and called out, ‘Halloa! youngster!’ as I came
up to him, and he asked me if I had got a good pair of legs? I answered
yes. Then he took me by the ear, but without hurting me, and said,
‘Since that is so, if you will run an errand for me, I will give you
ten sous. Run as far as the Seine; and when you reach the quay, you will
notice a large boat moored. Go on board, and ask to see Captain Gervais:
he is sure to be there. Tell him that he can prepare to leave, that I am
ready.’ Then he put ten sous in my hand; and off I went.”
“If all the witnesses were like this bright little fellow,” murmured the
commissary, “what a pleasure it would be!”
“Now,” said the magistrate, “tell us how you executed your commission?”
“I went to the boat, sir, found the man, and I told him; and that’s
all.”
Gevrol, who had listened with the most lively attention, leaned over
towards the ear of M. Daburon, and said in a low voice: “Will you permit
me, sir, to ask the brat a few questions?”
“Certainly, M. Gevrol.”
“Come now, my little friend,” said Gevrol, “if you saw this man again,
would you know him?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Then there was something remarkable about him?”
“Yes, I should think so! his face was the colour of a brick!”
“And is that all?”
“Well, yes, sir.”
“But you must remember how he was dressed; had he a blouse on?”
“No; he wore a jacket. Under the arms were very large pockets, and from
out of one of them peeped a blue spotted handkerchief.”
“What kind of trousers had he on?”
“I do not remember.”
“And his waistcoat?”
“Let me see,” answered the child. “I don’t think he wore a waistcoat.
And yet,--but no, I remember he did not wear one; he had a long cravat,
fastened near his neck by a large ring.”
“Ah!” said Gevrol, with an air of satisfaction, “you are a bright boy;
and I wager that if you try hard to remember you will find a few more
details to give us.”
The boy hung down his head, and remained silent. From the knitting of
his young brows, it was plain he was making a violent effort of memory.
“Yes,” cried he suddenly, “I remember another thing.”
“What?”
“The man wore very large rings in his ears.”
“Bravo!” cried Gevrol, “here is a complete description. I shall find the
fellow now. M. Daburon can prepare a warrant for his appearance whenever
he likes.”
“I believe, indeed, the testimony of this child is of the highest
importance,” said M. Daburon; and turning to the boy added, “Can you
tell us, my little friend, with what this boat was loaded?”
“No, sir, I couldn’t see because it was decked.”
“Which way was she going, up the Seine or down?”
“Neither, sir, she was moored.”
“We know that,” said Gevrol. “The magistrate asks you which way the prow
of the boat was turned,--towards Paris or towards Marly?”
“The two ends of the boat seemed alike to me.”
The chief of the detective of police made a gesture of disappointment.
“At least,” said he, addressing the child again, “you noticed the name
of the boat? you can read I suppose. One should always know the names of
the boats one goes aboard of.”
“No, I didn’t see any name,” said the little boy.
“If this boat was moored at the quay,” remarked M. Daburon, “it was
probably noticed by the inhabitants of Bougival.”
“That is true, sir,” approved the commissary.
“Yes,” said Gevrol, “and the sailors must have come ashore. I shall find
out all about it at the wine shop. But what sort of a man was Gervais,
the master, my little friend?”
“Like all the sailors hereabouts, sir.”
The child was preparing to depart when M. Daburon recalled him.
“Before you go, my boy, tell me, have you spoken to any one of this
meeting before to-day?”
“Yes, sir, I told all to mamma when I got back from church, and gave her
the ten sous.”
“And you have told us the whole truth?” continued the magistrate. “You
know that it is a very grave matter to attempt to impose on justice. She
always finds it out, and it is my duty to warn you that she inflicts the
most terrible punishment upon liars.”
The little fellow blushed as red as a cherry, and held down his head.
“I see,” pursued M. Daburon, “that you have concealed something from us.
Don’t you know that the police know everything?”
“Pardon! sir,” cried the boy, bursting into tears,--“pardon. Don’t
punish me, and I will never do so again.”
“Tell us, then, how you have deceived us?”
“Well, sir, it was not ten sous that the man gave me, it was twenty
sous. I only gave half to mamma; and I kept the rest to buy marbles
with.”
“My little friend,” said the investigating magistrate, “for this time I
forgive you. But let it be a lesson for the remainder of your life. You
may go now, and remember it is useless to try and hide the truth; it
always comes to light!”
CHAPTER II.
The two last depositions awakened in M. Daburon’s mind some slight
gleams of hope. In the midst of darkness, the humblest rush-light
acquires brilliancy.
“I will go at once to Bougival, sir, if you approve of this step,”
suggested Gevrol.
“Perhaps you would do well to wait a little,” answered M. Daburon. “This
man was seen on Sunday morning; we will inquire into Widow Lerouge’s
movements on that day.”
Three neighbours were called. They all declared that the widow had
kept her bed all Sunday. To one woman who, hearing she was unwell,
had visited her, she said, “Ah! I had last night a terrible accident.”
Nobody at the time attached any significance to these words.
“The man with the rings in his ears becomes more and important,” said
the magistrate, when the woman had retired. “To find him again is
indispensable: you must see to this, M. Gevrol.”
“Before eight days, I shall have him,” replied the chief of detective
police, “if I have to search every boat on the Seine, from its source
to the ocean. I know the name of the captain, Gervais. The navigation
office will tell me something.”
He was interrupted by Lecoq, who rushed into the house breathless. “Here
is old Tabaret,” he said. “I met him just as he was going out. What a
man! He wouldn’t wait for the train, but gave I don’t know how much to a
cabman; and we drove here in fifty minutes!”
Almost immediately, a man appeared at the door, whose aspect it must be
admitted was not at all what one would have expected of a person who had
joined the police for honour alone. He was certainly sixty years old and
did not look a bit younger. Short, thin, and rather bent, he leant
on the carved ivory handle of a stout cane. His round face wore that
expression of perpetual astonishment, mingled with uneasiness, which
has made the fortunes of two comic actors of the Palais-Royal theatre.
Scrupulously shaved, he presented a very short chin, large and good
natured lips, and a nose disagreeably elevated, like the broad end of
one of Sax’s horns. His eyes of a dull gray, were small and red at the
lids, and absolutely void of expression; yet they fatigued the observer
by their insupportable restlessness. A few straight hairs shaded his
forehead, which receded like that of a greyhound, and through their
scantiness barely concealed his long ugly ears. He was very comfortably
dressed, clean as a new franc piece, displaying linen of dazzling
whiteness, and wearing silk gloves and leather gaiters. A long and
massive gold chain, very vulgar-looking, was twisted thrice round his
neck, and fell in cascades into the pocket of his waistcoat.
M. Tabaret, surnamed Tirauclair, stood at the threshold, and bowed
almost to the ground, bending his old back into an arch, and in the
humblest of voices asked, “The investigating magistrate has deigned to
send for me?”
“Yes!” replied M. Daburon, adding under his breath; “and if you are a
man of any ability, there is at least nothing to indicate it in your
appearance.”
“I am here,” continued the old fellow, “completely at the service of
justice.”
“I wish to know,” said M. Daburon, “whether you can discover some clue
that will put us upon the track of the assassin. I will explain the--”
“Oh, I know enough of it!” interrupted old Tabaret. “Lecoq has told me
the principal facts, just as much as I desire to know.”
“Nevertheless--” commenced the commissary of police.
“If you will permit me, I prefer to proceed without receiving any
details, in order to be more fully master of my own impressions. When
one knows another’s opinion it can’t help influencing one’s judgment.
I will, if you please, at once commence my researches, with Lecoq’s
assistance.”
As the old fellow spoke, his little gray eyes dilated, and became
brilliant as carbuncles. His face reflected an internal satisfaction;
even his wrinkles seemed to laugh. His figure became erect, and his step
was almost elastic, as he darted into the inner chamber.
He remained there about half an hour; then came out running, then
re-entered and then again came out; once more he disappeared and
reappeared again almost immediately. The magistrate could not help
comparing him to a pointer on the scent, his turned-up nose even moved
about as if to discover some subtle odour left by the assassin. All
the while he talked loudly and with much gesticulation, apostrophising
himself, scolding himself, uttering little cries of triumph or
self-encouragement. He did not allow Lecoq to have a moment’s rest. He
wanted this or that or the other thing. He demanded paper and a pencil.
Then he wanted a spade; and finally he cried out for plaster of Paris,
some water and a bottle of oil.
When more than an hour had elapsed, the investigating magistrate began
to grow impatient, and asked what had become of the amateur detective.
“He is on the road,” replied the corporal, “lying flat in the mud, and
mixing some plaster in a plate. He says he has nearly finished, and that
he is coming back presently.”
He did in fact return almost instantly, joyous, triumphant, looking at
least twenty years younger. Lecoq followed him, carrying with the utmost
precaution a large basket.
“I have solved the riddle!” said Tabaret to the magistrate. “It is all
clear now, and as plain as noon-day. Lecoq, my lad, put the basket on
the table.”
Gevrol at this moment returned from his expedition equally delighted.
“I am on the track of the man with the earrings,” said he; “the boat
went down the river. I have obtained an exact description of the master
Gervais.”
“What have you discovered, M. Tabaret!” asked the magistrate.
The old fellow carefully emptied upon the table the contents of the
basket,--a big lump of clay, several large sheets of paper, and three
or four small lumps of plaster yet damp. Standing behind this table, he
presented a grotesque resemblance to those mountebank conjurers who in
the public squares juggle the money of the lookers-on. His clothes had
greatly suffered; he was covered with mud up to the chin.
“In the first place,” said he, at last, in a tone of affected modesty,
“robbery has had nothing to do with the crime that occupies our
attention.”
“Oh! of course not!” muttered Gevrol.
“I shall prove it,” continued old Tabaret, “by the evidence. By-and-by
I shall offer my humble opinion as to the real motive. In the second
place, the assassin arrived here before half-past nine; that is to
say, before the rain fell. No more than M. Gevrol have I been able to
discover traces of muddy footsteps; but under the table, on the spot
where his feet rested, I find dust. We are thus assured of the hour.
The widow did not in the least expect her visitor. She had commenced
undressing, and was winding up her cuckoo clock when he knocked.”
“These are absolute details!” cried the commissary.
“But easily established,” replied the amateur. “You see this cuckoo
clock above the secretary; it is one of those which run fourteen or
fifteen hours at most, for I have examined it. Now it is more than
probable, it is certain, that the widow wound it up every evening before
going to bed. How, then, is it that the clock has stopped at five?
Because she must have touched it. As she was drawing the chain, the
assassin knocked. In proof, I show this chair standing under the clock,
and on the seat a very plain foot-mark. Now look at the dress of the
victim; the body of it is off. In order to open the door more quickly,
she did not wait to put it on again, but hastily threw this old shawl
over her shoulders.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed the corporal, evidently struck.
“The widow,” continued the old fellow, “knew the person who knocked.
Her haste to open the door gives rise to this conjecture; what follows
proves it. The assassin then gained admission without difficulty. He
is a young man, a little above the middle height, elegantly dressed. He
wore on that evening a high hat. He carried an umbrella, and smoked a
trabucos cigar in a holder.”
“Ridiculous!” cried Gevrol. “This is too much.”
“Too much, perhaps,” retorted old Tabaret. “At all events, it is the
truth. If you are not minute in your investigations, I cannot help it;
anyhow, I am, I search, and I find. Too much, say you? Well deign to
glance at these lumps of damp plaster. They represent the heels of the
boots worn by the assassin, of which I found a most perfect impression
near the ditch, where the key was picked up. On these sheets of paper,
I have marked in outline the imprint of the foot which I cannot take
up, because it is on some sand. Look! heel high, instep pronounced, sole
small and narrow,--an elegant boot, belonging to a foot well cared for
evidently. Look for this impression all along the path; and you will
find it again twice. Then you will find it five times repeated in the
garden where no one else had been; and these footprints prove, by
the way, that the stranger knocked not at the door, but at the
window-shutter, beneath which shone a gleam of light. At the entrance to
the garden, the man leapt to avoid a flower bed! the point of the foot,
more deeply imprinted than usual, shows it. He leapt more than two yards
with ease, proving that he is active, and therefore young.”
Old Tabaret spoke in a low voice, clear and penetrating: and his eye
glanced from one to the other of his auditors, watching the impression
he was making.
“Does the hat astonish you, M. Gevrol?” he pursued. “Just look at the
circle traced in the dust on the marble top of the secretary. Is it
because I have mentioned his height that you are surprised? Take the
trouble to examine the tops of the wardrobes and you will see that the
assassin passed his hands across them. Therefore he is taller than I am.
Do not say that he got on a chair, for in that case, he would have seen
and would not have been obliged to feel. Are you astonished about the
umbrella? This lump of earth shows an admirable impression not only of
the end of the stick, but even of the little round piece of wood which
is always placed at the end of the silk. Perhaps you cannot get over the
statement that he smoked a cigar? Here is the end of a trabucos that
I found amongst the ashes. Has the end been bitten? No. Has it been
moistened with saliva? No. Then he who smoked it used a cigar-holder.”
Lecoq was unable to conceal his enthusiastic admiration, and noiselessly
rubbed his hands together. The commissary appeared stupefied, while
M. Daburon was delighted. Gevrol’s face, on the contrary, was sensibly
elongated. As for the corporal, he was overwhelmed.
“Now,” continued the old fellow, “follow me closely. We have traced the
young man into the house. How he explained his presence at this hour, I
do not know; this much is certain, he told the widow he had not dined.
The worthy woman was delighted to hear it, and at once set to work to
prepare a meal. This meal was not for herself; for in the cupboard I
have found the remains of her own dinner. She had dined off fish; the
autopsy will confirm the truth of this statement. Besides you can see
yourselves, there is but one glass on the table, and one knife. But
who is this young man? Evidently the widow looked upon him as a man of
superior rank to her own; for in the cupboard is a table-cloth still
very clean. Did she use it? No. For her guest she brought out a clean
linen one, her very best. It is for him this magnificent glass, a
present, no doubt, and it is evident she did not often use this knife
with the ivory handle.”
“That is all true,” murmured M. Daburon, “very true.”
“Now, then we have got the young man seated. He began by drinking a
glass of wine, while the widow was putting her pan on the fire. Then,
his heart failing him, he asked for brandy, and swallowed about five
small glassfuls. After an internal struggle of ten minutes (the time it
must have taken to cook the ham and eggs as much as they are), the young
man arose and approached the widow, who was squatting down and leaning
forward over her cooking. He stabbed her twice on the back; but she was
not killed instantly. She half arose seizing the assassin by the hands;
while he drew back, lifting her suddenly, and then hurling her down in
the position in which you see her. This short struggle is indicated by
the posture of the body; for, squatting down and being struck in the
back, it is naturally on her back that she ought to have fallen. The
murderer used a sharp narrow weapon, which was, unless I am deceived,
the end of a foil, sharpened, and with the button broken off. By
wiping the weapon upon his victim’s skirt, the assassin leaves us this
indication. He was not, however, hurt in the struggle. The victim must
have clung with a death-grip to his hands; but, as he had not taken off
his lavender kid gloves,--”
“Gloves! Why this is romance,” exclaimed Gevrol.
“Have you examined the dead woman’s finger-nails, M. Gevrol? No. Well,
do so, and then tell me whether I am mistaken. The woman, now dead,
we come to the object of her assassination. What did this well-dressed
young gentleman want? Money? Valuables? No! no! a hundred times no! What
he wanted, what he sought, and what he found, were papers, documents,
letters, which he knew to be in the possession of the victim. To find
them, he overturned everything, upset the cupboards, unfolded the linen,
broke open the secretary, of which he could not find the key, and even
emptied the mattress of the bed. At last he found these documents. And
then do you know what he did with them? Why, burned them, of course; not
in the fire-place, but in the little stove in the front room. His end
accomplished, what does he do next? He flies, carrying with him all
that he finds valuable, to baffle detection, by suggesting a robbery. He
wrapped everything he found worth taking in the napkin which was to have
served him at dinner, and blowing out the candle, he fled, locking the
door on the outside, and throwing the key into a ditch. And that is
all.”
“M. Tabaret,” said the magistrate, “your investigation is admirable; and
I am persuaded your inferences are correct.”
“Ah!” cried Lecoq, “is he not colossal, my old Tirauclair?”
“Pyramidal!” cried Gevrol ironically. “I fear, however, your
well-dressed young man must have been just a little embarrassed in
carrying a bundle covered with a snow white napkin, which could be so
easily seen from a distance.
“He did not carry it a hundred leagues,” responded old Tabaret. “You may
well believe, that, to reach the railway station, he was not fool enough
to take the omnibus. No, he returned on foot by the shortest way, which
borders the river. Now on reaching the Seine, unless he is more knowing
than I take him to be, his first care was to throw this tell-tale bundle
into the water.”
“Do you believe so, M. Tirauclair?” asked Gevrol.
“I don’t mind making a bet on it; and the best evidence of my belief
is, that I have sent three men, under the surveillance of a gendarme, to
drag the Seine at the nearest spot from here. If they succeed in finding
the bundle, I have promised them a recompense.”
“Out of your own pocket, old enthusiast?”
“Yes, M. Gevrol, out of my own pocket.”
“If they should however find this bundle!” murmured M. Daburon.
He was interrupted by the entrance of a gendarme, who said: “Here is a
soiled table-napkin, filled with plate, money, and jewels, which these
men have found; they claim the hundred francs’ reward, promised them.”
Old Tabaret took from his pocket-book a bank note, which he handed to
the gendarme. “Now,” demanded he, crushing Gevrol with one disdainful
glance, “what thinks the investigating magistrate after this?”
“That, thanks to your remarkable penetration, we shall discover--”
He did not finish. The doctor summoned to make the post-mortem
examination entered the room. That unpleasant task accomplished, it
only confirmed the assertions and conjectures of old Tabaret. The doctor
explained, as the old man had done, the position of the body. In his
opinion also, there had been a struggle. He pointed out a bluish circle,
hardly perceptible, round the neck of the victim, produced apparently
by the powerful grasp of the murderer; finally he declared that Widow
Lerouge had eaten about three hours before being struck.
Nothing now remained except to collect the different objects which would
be useful for the prosecution, and might at a later period confound
the culprit. Old Tabaret examined with extreme care the dead woman’s
finger-nails; and, using infinite precaution, he even extracted from
behind them several small particles of kid. The largest of these pieces
was not above the twenty-fifth part of an inch in length; but all the
same their colour was easily distinguishable. He put aside also the part
of the dress upon which the assassin had wiped his weapon. These with
the bundle recovered from the Seine, and the different casts taken by
the old fellow, were all the traces the murderer had left behind him.
It was not much; but this little was enormous in the eyes of M. Daburon;
and he had strong hopes of discovering the culprit. The greatest
obstacle to success in the unravelling of mysterious crimes is in
mistaking the motive. If the researches take at the first step a false
direction, they are diverted further and further from the truth, in
proportion to the length they are followed. Thanks to old Tabaret, the
magistrate felt confident that he was in the right path.
Night had come on. M. Daburon had now nothing more to do at La Jonchere;
but Gevrol, who still clung to his own opinion of the guilt of the man
with the rings in his ears, declared he would remain at Bougival. He
determined to employ the evening in visiting the different wine shops,
and finding if possible new witnesses. At the moment of departure, after
the commissary and the entire party had wished M. Daburon good-night,
the latter asked M. Tabaret to accompany him.
“I was about to solicit that honour,” replied the old fellow. They set
out together; and naturally the crime which had been discovered, and
with which they were mutually preoccupied, formed the subject of their
conversation.
“Shall we, or shall we not, ascertain the antecedents of this woman!”
repeated old Tabaret. “All depends upon that now!”
“We shall ascertain them, if the grocer’s wife has told the truth,”
replied M. Daburon. “If the husband of Widow Lerouge was a sailor, and
if her son Jacques is in the navy, the minister of marine can furnish
information that will soon lead to their discovery. I will write to the
minister this very night.”
They reached the station at Rueil, and took their places in the train.
They were fortunate enough to secure a 1st class carriage to themselves.
But old Tabaret was no longer disposed for conversation. He reflected,
he sought, he combined; and in his face might easily be read the working
of his thoughts. M. Daburon watched him curiously and felt singularly
attracted by this eccentric old man, whose very original taste had led
him to devote his services to the secret police of the Rue de Jerusalem.
“M Tabaret,” he suddenly asked, “have you been long associated with the
police?”
“Nine years, M. Daburon, more than nine years; and permit me to confess
I am a little surprised that you have never before heard of me.”
“I certainly knew you by reputation,” answered M. Daburon; “but your
name did not occur to me, and it was only in consequence of hearing you
praised that I had the excellent idea of asking your assistance.
But what, I should like to know, is your reason for adopting this
employment?”
“Sorrow, sir, loneliness, weariness. Ah! I have not always been happy!”
“I have been told, though, that you are rich.”
The old fellow heaved a deep sigh, which revealed the most cruel
deceptions. “I am well off, sir,” he replied; “but I have not always
been so. Until I was forty-five years old, my life was a series of
absurd and useless privations. I had a father who wasted my youth,
ruined my life, and made me the most pitiable of human creatures.”
There are men who can never divest themselves of their professional
habits. M. Daburon was at all times and seasons more or less an
investigating magistrate.
“How, M. Tabaret,” he inquired, “your father the author of all your
misfortunes?”
“Alas, yes, sir! I have forgiven him at last; but I used to curse him
heartily. In the first transports of my resentment, I heaped upon his
memory all the insults that can be inspired by the most violent hatred,
when I learnt,--But I will confide my history to you, M. Daburon. When
I was five and twenty years of age. I was earning two thousand francs a
year, as a clerk at the Monte de Piete. One morning my father entered
my lodging, and abruptly announced to me that he was ruined, and without
food or shelter. He appeared in despair, and talked of killing himself.
I loved my father. Naturally, I strove to reassure him; I boasted of my
situation, and explained to him at some length, that, while I earned
the means for living, he should want for nothing; and, to commence, I
insisted that henceforth we should live together. No sooner said than
done, and during twenty years I was encumbered with the old--”
“What! you repent of your admirable conduct, M. Tabaret?”
“Do I repent of it! That is to say he deserved to be poisoned by the
bread I gave him.”
M. Daburon was unable to repress a gesture of surprise, which did not
escape the old fellow’s notice.
“Hear, before you condemn me,” he continued. “There was I at
twenty-five, imposing upon myself the severest privations for the sake
of my father,--no more friends, no more flirtations, nothing. In the
evenings, to augment our scanty revenues, I worked at copying law
papers for a notary. I denied myself even the luxury of tobacco.
Notwithstanding this, the old fellow complained without ceasing; he
regretted his lost fortune; he must have pocket-money, with which to
buy this, or that; my utmost exertions failed to satisfy him. Ah, heaven
alone knows what I suffered! I was not born to live alone and grow old,
like a dog. I longed for the pleasures of a home and a family. My dream
was to marry, to adore a good wife, by whom I might be loved a little,
and to see innocent healthy little ones gambolling about my knees. But
pshaw! when such thoughts entered my heart and forced a tear or two from
my eyes, I rebelled against myself. I said: ‘My lad, when you earn but
three thousand francs a year, and have an old and cherished father to
support, it is your duty to stifle such desires, and remain a bachelor.’
And yet I met a young girl. It is thirty years now since that time;
well! just look at me, I am sure I am blushing as red as a tomato.
Her name was Hortense. Who can tell what has become of her? She was
beautiful and poor. Well, I was quite an old man when my father died,
the wretch, the--”
“M. Tabaret!” interrupted the magistrate, “for shame, M. Tabaret!”
“But I have already told you, I have forgiven him, sir. However, you
will soon understand my anger. On the day of his death, looking in his
secretary, I found a memorandum of an income of twenty thousand francs!”
“How so! was he rich?”
“Yes, very rich; for that was not all: he owned near Orleans a property
leased for six thousand francs a year. He owned, besides, the house I
now live in, where we lived together; and I, fool, sot, imbecile,
stupid animal that I was, used to pay the rent every three months to the
concierge!”
“That was too much!” M. Daburon could not help saying.
“Was it not, sir? I was robbing myself of my own money! To crown his
hypocrisy, he left a will wherein he declared, in the name of Holy
Trinity, that he had no other aim in view, in thus acting, than my own
advantage. He wished, so he wrote, to habituate me to habits of good
order and economy, and keep me from the commission of follies. And I was
forty-five years old, and for twenty years I had been reproaching myself
if ever I spent a single sou uselessly. In short, he had speculated on
my good heart, he had ... Bah! on my word, it is enough to disgust the
human race with filial piety!”
M. Tabaret’s anger, albeit very real and justified, was so highly
ludicrous, that M. Daburon had much difficulty to restrain his laughter,
in spite of the real sadness of the recital.
“At least,” said he, “this fortune must have given you pleasure.”
“Not at all, sir, it came too late. Of what avail to have the bread when
one has no longer the teeth? The marriageable age had passed. I resigned
my situation, however, to make way for some one poorer than myself. At
the end of a month I was sick and tired of life; and, to replace the
affections that had been denied me, I resolved to give myself a passion,
a hobby, a mania. I became a collector of books. You think, sir, perhaps
that to take an interest in books a man must have studied, must be
learned?”
“I know, dear M. Tabaret, that he must have money. I am acquainted with
an illustrious bibliomaniac who may be able to read, but who is most
certainly unable to sign his own name.”
“This is very likely. I, too, can read; and I read all the books I
bought. I collected all I could find which related, no matter how
little, to the police. Memoirs, reports, pamphlets, speeches, letters,
novels,--all suited me; and I devoured them. So much so, that little by
little I became attracted towards the mysterious power which, from the
obscurity of the Rue de Jerusalem, watches over and protects society,
which penetrates everywhere, lifts the most impervious veils, sees
through every plot, divines what is kept hidden, knows exactly the
value of a man, the price of a conscience, and which accumulates in its
portfolios the most terrible, as well as the most shameful secrets! In
reading the memoirs of celebrated detectives, more attractive to me
than the fables of our best authors I became inspired by an enthusiastic
admiration for those men, so keen scented, so subtle, flexible as steel,
artful and penetrating, fertile in expedients, who follow crime on
the trail, armed with the law, through the rushwood of legality, as
relentlessly as the savages of Cooper pursue their enemies in the depths
of the American forests. The desire seized me to become a wheel of this
admirable machine,--a small assistance in the punishment of crime
and the triumph of innocence. I made the essay; and I found I did not
succeed too badly.”
“And does this employment please you?”
“I owe to it, sir, my liveliest enjoyments. Adieu weariness! since I
have abandoned the search for books to the search for men. I shrug my
shoulders when I see a foolish fellow pay twenty-five francs for the
right of hunting a hare. What a prize! Give me the hunting of a man!
That, at least, calls the faculties into play, and the victory is not
inglorious! The game in my sport is equal to the hunter; they both
possess intelligence, strength, and cunning. The arms are nearly equal.
Ah! if people but knew the excitement of these games of hide and seek
which are played between the criminal and the detective, everybody
would be wanting employment at the office of the Rue de Jerusalem. The
misfortune is, that the art is becoming lost. Great crimes are now so
rare. The race of strong fearless criminals has given place to the mob
of vulgar pick-pockets. The few rascals who are heard of occasionally
are as cowardly as foolish. They sign their names to their misdeeds, and
even leave their cards lying about. There is no merit in catching them.
Their crime found out, you have only to go and arrest them,--”
“It seems to me, though,” interrupted M. Daburon, smiling, “that our
assassin is not such a bungler.”
“He, sir, is an exception; and I shall have greater delight in tracking
him. I will do everything for that, I will even compromise myself if
necessary. For I ought to confess, M. Daburon,” added he, slightly
embarrassed, “that I do not boast to my friends of my exploits; I even
conceal them as carefully as possible. They would perhaps shake hands
with me less warmly did they know that Tirauclair and Tabaret were one
and the same.”
Insensibly the crime became again the subject of conversation. It was
agreed, that, the first thing in the morning, M. Tabaret should install
himself at Bougival. He boasted that in eight days he should examine
all the people round about. On his side M. Daburon promised to keep him
advised of the least evidence that transpired, and recall him, if by any
chance he should procure the papers of Widow Lerouge.
“To you, M. Tabaret,” said the magistrate in conclusion, “I shall be
always at home. If you have any occasion to speak to me, do not hesitate
to come at night as well as during the day. I rarely go out, and you
will always find me either at my home, Rue Jacob, or in my office at the
Palais de Justice. I will give orders for your admittance whenever you
present yourself.”
The train entered the station at this moment. M. Daburon, having called
a cab, offered a seat to M. Tabaret. The old fellow declined.
“It is not worth while,” he replied, “for I live, as I have had the
honour of telling you, in the Rue St. Lazare, only a few steps from
here.”
“Till to-morrow, then!” said M. Daburon.
“Till to-morrow,” replied old Tabaret; and he added, “We shall succeed.”
CHAPTER III.
M. Tabaret’s house was in fact not more than four minutes’ walk from the
railway terminus of St. Lazare. It was a fine building carefully kept,
and which probably yielded a fine income though the rents were not too
high. The old fellow found plenty of room in it. He occupied on the
first floor, overlooking the street, some handsome apartments, well
arranged and comfortably furnished, the principal of which was his
collection of books. He lived very simply from taste, as well as habit,
waited on by an old servant, to whom on great occasions the concierge
lent a helping hand.
No one in the house had the slightest suspicion of the avocations of the
proprietor. Besides, even the humblest agent of police would be expected
to possess a degree of acuteness for which no one gave M. Tabaret
credit. Indeed, they mistook for incipient idiocy his continual
abstraction of mind.
It is true that all who knew him remarked the singularity of his
habits. His frequent absences from home had given to his proceedings an
appearance at once eccentric and mysterious. Never was young libertine
more irregular in his habits than this old man. He came or failed to
come home to his meals, ate it mattered not what or when. He went out
at every hour of the day and night, often slept abroad, and even
disappeared for entire weeks at a time. Then too he received the
strangest visitors, odd looking men of suspicious appearance, and
fellows of ill-favoured and sinister aspect.
This irregular way of living had robbed the old fellow of much
consideration. Many believed they saw in him a shameless libertine, who
squandered his income in disreputable places. They would remark to one
another, “Is it not disgraceful, a man of his age?”
He was aware of all this tittle-tattle, and laughed at it. This did not,
however, prevent many of his tenants from seeking his society and paying
court to him. They would invite him to dinner, but he almost invariably
refused.
He seldom visited but one person of the house, but with that one he
was very intimate, so much so indeed, that he was more often in her
apartment, than in his own. She was a widow lady, who for fifteen years
had occupied an apartment on the third floor. Her name was Madame Gerdy,
and she lived with her son Noel, whom she adored.
Noel Gerdy was a man thirty-three years of age, but looking older; tall
and well made, with a noble and intelligent face, large black eyes, and
black hair which curled naturally. An advocate, he passed for having
great talent, and greater industry, and had already gained a certain
amount of notoriety. He was an obstinate worker, cold and meditative,
though devoted to his profession, and affected, with some ostentation,
perhaps, a great rigidity of principle, and austerity of manners.
In Madame Gerdy’s apartment, old Tabaret felt himself quite at home. He
considered her as a relation, and looked upon Noel as a son. In spite
of her fifty years, he had often thought of asking the hand of this
charming widow, and was restrained less by the fear of a refusal than
its consequence. To propose and to be rejected would sever the existing
relations, so pleasurable to him. However, he had by his will, which
was deposited with his notary constituted this young advocate his sole
legatee; with the single condition of founding an annual prize of two
thousand francs to be bestowed on the police agent who during the year
had unravelled the most obscure and mysterious crime.
Short as was the distance to his house, old Tabaret was a good quarter
of an hour in reaching it. On leaving M. Daburon his thoughts reverted
to the scene of the murder; and, so blinded was the old fellow to
external objects, that he moved along the street, first jostled on the
right, then on the left, by the busy passers by, advancing one step and
receding two. He repeated to himself for the fiftieth time the words
uttered by Widow Lerouge, as reported by the milk-woman. “If I wished
for any more, I could have it.”
“All is in that,” murmured he. “Widow Lerouge possessed some important
secret, which persons rich and powerful had the strongest motives for
concealing. She had them in her power, and that was her fortune. She
made them sing to her tune; she probably went too far, and so they
suppressed her. But of what nature was this secret, and how did she
become possessed of it? Most likely she was in her youth a servant in
some great family; and whilst there, she saw, heard, or discovered,
something--What? Evidently there is a woman at the bottom of it. Did she
assist her mistress in some love intrigue? What more probable? And in
that case the affair becomes even more complicated. Not only must the
woman be found but her lover also; for it is the lover who has moved in
this affair. He is, or I am greatly deceived, a man of noble birth. A
person of inferior rank would have simply hired an assassin. This man
has not hung back; he himself has struck the blow and by that means
avoiding the indiscretion or the stupidity of an accomplice. He is a
courageous rascal, full of audacity and coolness, for the crime has
been admirably executed. The fellow left nothing behind of a nature to
compromise him seriously. But for me, Gevrol, believing in the robbery,
would have seen nothing. Fortunately, however, I was there. But yet it
can hardly be that,” continued the old man. “It must be something worse
than a mere love affair.”
Old Tabaret entered the porch of the house. The concierge seated by the
window of his lodge saw him as he passed beneath the gas lamp.
“Ah,” said he, “the proprietor has returned at last.”
“So he has,” replied his wife, “but it looks as though his princess
would have nothing to do with him to-night. He seems more loose than
ever.”
“Is it not positively indecent,” said the concierge, “and isn’t he in
a state! His fair ones do treat him well! One of these fine mornings I
shall have to take him to a lunatic asylum in a straight waistcoat.”
“Look at him now!” interrupted his wife, “just look at him now, in the
middle of the courtyard!”
The old fellow had stopped at the extremity of the porch. He had taken
off his hat, and, while talking to himself, gesticulated violently.
“No,” said he, “I have not yet got hold of the clue, I am getting near
it; but have not yet found it out.”
He mounted the staircase, and rang his bell, forgetting that he had his
latch-key in his pocket. His housekeeper opened the door.
“What, is it you, sir,” said she, “and at this hour!”
“What’s that you say?” asked the old fellow.
“I say,” replied the housekeeper, “that it is more than half-past eight
o’clock. I thought you were not coming back this evening. Have you at
least dined?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, fortunately I have kept your dinner warm. You can sit down to it
at once.”
Old Tabaret took his place at the table, and helped himself to soup,
but mounting his hobby-horse again, he forgot to eat, and remained, his
spoon in the air, as though suddenly struck by an idea.
“He is certainly touched in the head,” thought Manette, the housekeeper.
“Look at that stupid expression. Who in his senses would lead the life
he does?” She touched him on the shoulder, and bawled in his ear, as if
he were deaf,--“You do not eat. Are you not hungry?”
“Yes, yes,” muttered he, trying mechanically to escape the voice that
sounded in his ears, “I am very hungry, for since the morning I have
been obliged--” He interrupted himself, remaining with his mouth open,
his eyes fixed on vacancy.
“You were obliged--?” repeated Manette.
“Thunder!” cried he, raising his clenched fists towards the
ceiling,--“heaven’s thunder! I have it!”
His movement was so violent and sudden that the housekeeper was a little
alarmed, and retired to the further end of the dining-room, near the
door.
“Yes,” continued he, “it is certain there is a child!”
Manette approached him quickly. “A child?” she asked in astonishment.
“What next!” cried he in a furious tone. “What are you doing there? Has
your hardihood come to this that you pick up the words which escape me?
Do me the pleasure to retire to your kitchen, and stay there until I
call you.”
“He is going crazy!” thought Manette, as she disappeared very quickly.
Old Tabaret resumed his seat. He hastily swallowed his soup which was
completely cold. “Why,” said he to himself, “did I not think of it
before? Poor humanity! I am growing old, and my brain is worn out. For
it is clear as day; the circumstances all point to that conclusion.”
He rang the bell placed on the table beside him; the servant reappeared.
“Bring the roast,” he said, “and leave me to myself.”
“Yes,” continued he furiously carving a leg of Presale mutton--“Yes,
there is a child, and here is his history! The Widow Lerouge, when a
young woman, is in the service of a great lady, immensely rich. Her
husband, a sailor, probably had departed on a long voyage. The lady had
a lover--found herself enciente. She confided in the Widow Lerouge, and,
with her assistance, accomplished a clandestine accouchement.”
He called again.
“Manette, the dessert, and get out!”
Certainly such a master was unworthy of so excellent a cook as Manette.
He would have been puzzled to say what he had eaten for diner, or even
what he was eating at this moment; it was a preserve of pears.
“But what,” murmured he, “has become of the child? Has it been
destroyed? No; for the Widow Lerouge, an accomplice in an infanticide,
would be no longer formidable. The child has been preserved, and
confided to the care of our widow, by whom it has been reared. They have
been able to take the infant away from her, but not the proofs of its
birth and its existence. Here is the opening. The father is the man of
the fine carriage; the mother is the lady who came with the handsome
young man. Ha! ha! I can well believe the dear old dame wanted for
nothing. She had a secret worth a farm in Brie. But the old lady was
extravagant; her expenses and her demands have increased year by year.
Poor humanity! She has leaned upon the staff too heavily, and broken it.
She has threatened. They have been frightened, and said, ‘Let there be
an end of this!’ But who has charged himself with the commission? The
papa? No; he is too old. By jupiter! The son,--the child himself! He
would save his mother, the brave boy! He has slain the witness and burnt
the proofs!”
Manette all this time, her ear to the keyhole, listened with all her
soul; from time to time she gleaned a word, an oath, the noise of a blow
upon the table; but that was all.
“For certain,” thought she, “his women are running in his head.”
Her curiosity overcame her prudence. Hearing no more, she ventured to
open the door a little way. The old fellow caught her in the very act.
“Monsieur wants his coffee?” stammered she timidly.
“Yes, you may bring it to me,” he answered.
He attempted to swallow his coffee at a gulp, but scalded himself so
severely that the pain brought him suddenly from speculation to reality.
“Thunder!” growled he; “but it is hot! Devil take the case! it has set
me beside myself. They are right when they say I am too enthusiastic.
But who amongst the whole lot of them could have, by the sole exercise
of observation and reason, established the whole history of the
assassination? Certainly not Gevrol, poor man! Won’t he feel vexed and
humiliated, being altogether out of it. Shall I seek M. Daburon? No,
not yet. The night is necessary to me to sift to the bottom all the
particulars, and arrange my ideas systematically. But, on the other
hand, if I sit here all alone, this confounded case will keep me in a
fever of speculation, and as I have just eaten a great deal, I may get
an attack of indigestion. My faith! I will call upon Madame Gerdy: she
has been ailing for some days past. I will have a chat with Noel, and
that will change the course of my ideas.”
He got up from the table, put on his overcoat, and took his hat and
cane.
“Are you going out, sir?” asked Manette.
“Yes.”
“Shall you be late?”
“Possibly.”
“But you will return to-night?”
“I do not know.”
One minute later, M. Tabaret was ringing his friend’s bell.
Madame Gerdy lived in respectable style. She possessed sufficient for
her wants; and her son’s practice, already large, had made them almost
rich. She lived very quietly, and with the exception of one or two
friends, whom Noel occasionally invited to dinner, received very few
visitors. During more than fifteen years that M. Tabaret came familiarly
to the apartments, he had only met the cure of the parish, one of Noel’s
old professors, and Madame Gerdy’s brother, a retired colonel. When
these three visitors happened to call on the same evening, an event
somewhat rare, they played at a round game called Boston; on other
evenings piquet or all-fours was the rule. Noel, however, seldom
remained in the drawing-room, but shut himself up after dinner in
his study, which with his bedroom formed a separate apartment to his
mother’s, and immersed himself in his law papers. He was supposed to
work far into the night. Often in winter his lamp was not extinguished
before dawn.
Mother and son absolutely lived for one another, as all who knew them
took pleasure in repeating. They loved and honoured Noel for the care
he bestowed upon his mother, for his more than filial devotion, for the
sacrifices which all supposed he made in living at his age like an old
man.
The neighbours were in the habit of contrasting the conduct of this
exemplary young man with that of M. Tabaret, the incorrigible old rake,
the hairless dangler.
As for Madame Gerdy, she saw nothing but her son in all the world. Her
love had actually taken the form of worship. In Noel she believed she
saw united all the physical and moral perfections. To her he seemed of a
superior order to the rest of humanity. If he spoke, she was silent and
listened: his word was a command, his advice a decree of Providence. To
care for her son, study his tastes, anticipate his wishes, was the sole
aim of her life. She was a mother.
“Is Madame Gerdy visible?” asked old Tabaret of the girl who opened the
door; and, without waiting for an answer, he walked into the room like
a man assured that his presence cannot be inopportune, and ought to be
agreeable.
A single candle lighted the drawing-room, which was not in its
accustomed order. The small marble-top table, usually in the middle of
the room, had been rolled into a corner. Madame Gerdy’s large arm-chair
was near the window; a newspaper, all crumpled, lay before it on the
carpet.
The amateur detective took in the whole at a glance.
“Has any accident happened?” he asked of the girl.
“Do not speak of it, sir: we have just had a fright! oh, such a fright!”
“What was it? tell me quickly!”
“You know that madame has been ailing for the last month. She has eaten
I may say almost nothing. This morning, even, she said to me--”
“Yes, yes! but this evening?”
“After her dinner, madame went into the drawing-room as usual. She sat
down and took up one of M. Noel’s newspapers. Scarcely had she begun to
read, when she uttered a great cry,--oh, a terrible cry! We hastened to
her; madame had fallen on to the floor, as one dead. M. Noel raised
her in his arms, and carried her into her room. I wanted to fetch the
doctor, sir, but he said there was no need; he knew what was the matter
with her.”
“And how is she now?”
“She has come to her senses; that is to say, I suppose so; for M. Noel
made me leave the room. All that I do know is, that a little while ago
she was talking, and talking very loudly too, for I heard her. Ah, sir,
it is all the same, very strange!”
“What is strange?”
“What I heard Madame Gerdy say to M. Noel.”
“Ah ha! my girl!” sneered old Tabaret; “so you listen at key-holes, do
you?”
“No, sir, I assure you; but madame cried out like one lost. She said,--”
“My girl!” interrupted old Tabaret severely, “one always hears wrong
through key-holes. Ask Manette if that is not so.”
The poor girl, thoroughly confused, sought to excuse herself.
“Enough, enough!” said the old man. “Return to your work: you need not
disturb M. Noel; I can wait for him very well here.”
And satisfied with the reproof he had administered, he picked up the
newspaper, and seated himself beside the fire, placing the candle near
him so as to read with ease. A minute had scarcely elapsed when he in
his turn bounded in his chair, and stifled a cry of instinctive terror
and surprise. These were the first words that met his eye.
“A horrible crime has plunged the village of La Jonchere in
consternation. A poor widow, named Lerouge, who enjoyed the general
esteem and love of the community, has been assassinated in her home. The
officers of the law have made the usual preliminary investigations, and
everything leads us to believe that the police are already on the track
of the author of this dastardly crime.”
“Thunder!” said old Tabaret to himself, “can it be that Madame Gerdy?--”
The idea but flashed across his mind; he fell back into his chair, and,
shrugging his shoulders, murmured,--
“Really this affair of La Jonchere is driving me out of my senses! I
can think of nothing but this Widow Lerouge. I shall be seeing her in
everything now.”
In the mean while, an uncontrollable curiosity made him peruse the
entire newspaper. He found nothing with the exception of these lines, to
justify or explain even the slightest emotion.
“It is an extremely singular coincidence, at the same time,” thought
the incorrigible police agent. Then, remarking that the newspaper was
slightly torn at the lower part, and crushed, as if by a convulsive
grasp, he repeated,--
“It is strange!”
At this moment the door of Madame Gerdy’s room opened, and Noel appeared
on the threshold.
Without doubt the accident to his mother had greatly excited him; for
he was very pale and his countenance, ordinarily so calm, wore an
expression of profound sorrow. He appeared surprised to see old Tabaret.
“Ah, my dear Noel!” cried the old fellow. “Calm my inquietude. How is
your mother?”
“Madame Gerdy is as well as can be expected.”
“Madame Gerdy!” repeated the old fellow with an air of astonishment; but
he continued, “It is plain you have been seriously alarmed.”
“In truth,” replied the advocate, seating himself, “I have experienced a
rude shock.”
Noel was making visibly the greatest efforts to appear calm, to listen
to the old fellow, and to answer him. Old Tabaret, as much disquieted on
his side, perceived nothing.
“At least, my dear boy,” said he, “tell me how this happened?”
The young man hesitated a moment, as if consulting with himself. No
doubt he was unprepared for this point blank question, and knew not what
answer to make; at last he replied,--
“Madame Gerdy has suffered a severe shock in learning from a paragraph
in this newspaper that a woman in whom she takes a strong interest has
been assassinated.”
“Ah!” replied old Tabaret.
The old fellow was in a fever of embarrassment. He wanted to question
Noel, but was restrained by the fear of revealing the secret of his
association with the police. Indeed he had almost betrayed himself by
the eagerness with which he exclaimed,--
“What! your mother knew the Widow Lerouge?”
By an effort he restrained himself, and with difficulty dissembled his
satisfaction; for he was delighted to find himself so unexpectedly on
the trace of the antecedents of the victim of La Jonchere.
“She was,” continued Noel, “the slave of Madame Gerdy, devoted to her in
every way! She would have sacrificed herself for her at a sign from her
hand.”
“Then you, my dear friend, you knew this poor woman!”
“I had not seen her for a very long time,” replied Noel, whose voice
seemed broken by emotion, “but I knew her well. I ought even to say I
loved her tenderly. She was my nurse.”
“She, this woman?” stammered old Tabaret.
This time he was thunderstruck. Widow Lerouge Noel’s nurse? He was most
unfortunate. Providence had evidently chosen him for its instrument, and
was leading him by the hand. He was about to obtain all the information,
which half an hour ago he had almost despaired of procuring. He remained
seated before Noel amazed and speechless. Yet he understood, that,
unless he would compromise himself, he must speak.
“It is a great misfortune,” he murmured at last.
“What it is for Madame Gerdy, I cannot say,” replied Noel with a gloomy
air; “but, for me, it is an overwhelming misfortune! I am struck to
the heart by the blow which has slain this poor woman. Her death, M.
Tabaret, has annihilated all my dreams of the future, and probably
overthrown my most cherished hopes. I had to avenge myself for cruel
injuries; her death breaks the weapon in my hands, and reduces me to
despair, to impotence. Alas! I am indeed unfortunate.”
“You unfortunate?” cried old Tabaret, singularly affected by his dear
Noel’s sadness. “In heaven’s name, what has happened to you?”
“I suffer,” murmured the advocate, “and very cruelly. Not only do I fear
that the injustice is irreparable; but here am I totally without defence
delivered over to the shafts of calumny. I may be accused of inventing
falsehood, of being an ambitious intriguer, having no regard for truth,
no scruples of conscience.”
Old Tabaret was puzzled. What connection could possibly exist between
Noel’s honour and the assassination at La Jonchere? His brain was in
a whirl. A thousand troubled and confused ideas jostled one another in
inextricable confusion.
“Come, come, Noel,” said he, “compose yourself. Who would believe any
calumny uttered about you? Take courage, have you not friends? am I
not here? Have confidence, tell me what troubles you, and it will be
strange, indeed if between us two--”
The advocate started to his feet, impressed by a sudden resolution.
“Well! yes,” interrupted he, “yes, you shall know all. In fact, I am
tired of carrying all alone a secret that is stifling me. The part I
have been playing irritates and wearies me. I have need of a friend to
console me. I require a counsellor whose voice will encourage me, for
one is a bad judge of his own cause, and this crime has plunged me into
an abyss of hesitations.”
“You know,” replied M. Tabaret kindly, “that I regard you as my own son.
Do not scruple to let me serve you.”
“Know then,” commenced the advocate,--“but no, not here: what I have to
say must not be overheard. Let us go into my study.”
CHAPTER IV.
When Noel and old Tabaret were seated face to face in Noel’s study, and
the door had been carefully shut, the old fellow felt uneasy, and said:
“What if your mother should require anything.”
“If Madame Gerdy rings,” replied the young man drily, “the servant will
attend to her.”
This indifference, this cold disdain, amazed old Tabaret, accustomed as
he was to the affectionate relations always existing between mother and
son.
“For heaven’s sake, Noel,” said he, “calm yourself. Do not allow
yourself to be overcome by a feeling of irritation. You have, I see,
some little pique against your mother, which you will have forgotten
to-morrow. Don’t speak of her in this icy tone; but tell me what you
mean by calling her Madame Gerdy?”
“What I mean?” rejoined the advocate in a hollow tone,--“what I mean?”
Then rising from his arm-chair, he took several strides about the room,
and, returning to his place near the old fellow, said,--
“Because, M. Tabaret, Madame Gerdy is not my mother!”
This sentence fell like a heavy blow on the head of the amateur
detective.
“Oh!” he said, in the tone one assumes when rejecting an absurd
proposition, “do you really know what you are saying, Noel? Is it
credible? Is it probable?”
“It is improbable,” replied Noel with a peculiar emphasis which was
habitual to him: “it is incredible, if you will; but yet it is true.
That is to say, for thirty-three years, ever since my birth, this woman
has played a most marvellous and unworthy comedy, to ennoble and enrich
her son,--for she has a son,--at my expense!”
“My friend,” commenced old Tabaret, who in the background of the picture
presented by this singular revelation saw again the phantom of the
murdered Widow Lerouge.
But Noel heard not, and seemed hardly in a state to hear. The young man,
usually so cold, so self-contained, could no longer control his anger.
At the sound of his own voice, he became more and more animated, as a
good horse might at the jingling of his harness.
“Was ever man,” continued he, “more cruelly deceived, more miserably
duped, than I have been! I, who loved this woman, who knew not how to
show my affection for her, who, for her sake, sacrificed my youth! How
she must have laughed at me! Her infamy dates from the moment when for
the first time she took me on her knees; and, until these few days past,
she has sustained without faltering her execrable role. Her love for me
was nothing but hypocrisy! her devotion, falsehood! her caresses,
lies! And I adored her! Ah! why can I not take back all the embraces I
bestowed on her in exchange for her Judas kisses? And for what was all
this heroism of deception, this caution, this duplicity? To betray me
more securely, to despoil me, to rob me, to give to her bastard all
that lawfully appertained to me; my name, a noble name, my fortune, a
princely inheritance!”
“We are getting near it!” thought old Tabaret, who was fast relapsing
into the colleague of M. Gevrol; then aloud he said, “This is very
serious, all that you have been saying, my dear Noel, terribly serious.
We must believe Madame Gerdy possessed of an amount of audacity and
ability rarely to be met with in a woman. She must have been assisted,
advised, compelled perhaps. Who have been her accomplices? She could
never have managed this unaided; perhaps her husband himself.”
“Her husband!” interrupted the advocate, with a laugh. “Ah! you too have
believed her a widow. Pshaw! She never had a husband, the defunct Gerdy
never existed. I was a bastard, dear M. Tabaret, very much a bastard;
Noel, son of the girl Gerdy and an unknown father!”
“Ah!” cried the old fellow; “that then was the reason why your marriage
with Mademoiselle Levernois was broken off four years ago?”
“Yes, my friend, that was the reason. And what misfortunes might have
been averted by this marriage with a young girl whom I loved! However
I did not complain to her whom I then called my mother. She wept, she
accused herself, she seemed ready to die of grief: and I, poor fool! I
consoled her as best I could, I dried her tears, and excused her in her
own eyes. No, there was no husband. Do such women as she have husbands?
She was my father’s mistress; and, on the day when he had had enough of
her, he took up his hat and threw her three hundred thousand francs, the
price of the pleasures she had given him.”
Noel would probably have continued much longer to pour forth his furious
denunciations; but M. Tabaret stopped him. The old fellow felt he was
on the point of learning a history in every way similar to that which he
had imagined; and his impatience to know whether he had guessed aright,
almost caused him to forget to express any sympathy for his friend’s
misfortunes.
“My dear boy,” said he, “do not let us digress. You ask me for advice;
and I am perhaps the best adviser you could have chosen. Come, then,
to the point. How have you learned this? Have you any proofs? where are
they?”
The decided tone in which the old fellow spoke, should no doubt, have
awakened Noel’s attention; but he did not notice it. He had not leisure
to reflect. He therefore answered,--
“I have known the truth for three weeks past. I made the discovery by
chance. I have important moral proofs; but they are mere presumptive
evidence. A word from Widow Lerouge, one single word, would have
rendered them decisive. This word she cannot now pronounce, since they
have killed her; but she had said it to me. Now, Madame Gerdy will deny
all. I know her; with her head on the block, she will deny it. My father
doubtless will turn against me. I am certain, and I possess proofs; now
this crime makes my certitude but a vain boast, and renders my proofs
null and void!”
“Explain it all to me,” said old Tabaret after a pause--“all, you
understand. We old ones are sometimes able to give good advice. We will
decide what’s to be done afterwards.”
“Three weeks ago,” commenced Noel, “searching for some old documents,
I opened Madame Gerdy’s secretary. Accidentally I displaced one of the
small shelves: some papers tumbled out, and a packet of letters fell in
front of my eyes. A mechanical impulse, which I cannot explain, prompted
me to untie the string, and, impelled by an invincible curiosity, I read
the first letter which came to my hand.”
“You did wrong,” remarked M. Tabaret.
“Be it so; anyhow I read. At the end of ten lines, I was convinced that
these letters were from my father, whose name, Madame Gerdy, in spite of
my prayers, had always hidden from me. You can understand my emotion.
I carried off the packet, shut myself up in this room, and devoured the
correspondence from beginning to end.”
“And you have been cruelly punished my poor boy!”
“It is true; but who in my position could have resisted? These letters
have given me great pain; but they afford the proof of what I just now
told you.”
“You have at least preserved these letters?”
“I have them here, M. Tabaret,” replied Noel, “and, that you may
understand the case in which I have requested your advice, I am going to
read them to you.”
The advocate opened one of the drawers of his bureau, pressed an
invisible spring, and from a hidden receptacle constructed in the
thick upper shelf, he drew out a bundle of letters. “You understand, my
friend,” he resumed, “that I will spare you all insignificant details,
which, however, add their own weight to the rest. I am only going to
deal with the more important facts, treating directly of the affair.”
Old Tabaret nestled in his arm-chair, burning with curiosity; his face
and his eyes expressing the most anxious attention. After a selection,
which he was some time in making, the advocate opened a letter, and
commenced reading in a voice which trembled at times, in spite of his
efforts to render it calm.
“‘My dearly loved Valerie,’--
“Valerie,” said he, “is Madame Gerdy.”
“I know, I know. Do not interrupt yourself.”
Noel then resumed.
“‘My dearly loved Valerie,
“‘This is a happy day. This morning I received your darling letter, I
have covered it with kisses, I have re-read it a hundred times; and now
it has gone to join the others here upon my heart. This letter, oh, my
love! has nearly killed me with joy. You were not deceived, then; it was
true! Heaven has blessed our love. We shall have a son.
“‘I shall have a son, the living image of my adored Valerie! Oh! why are
we separated by such an immense distance? Why have I not wings that I
might fly to your feet and fall into your arms, full of the sweetest
voluptuousness! No! never as at this moment have I cursed the fatal
union imposed upon me by an inexorable family, whom my tears could not
move. I cannot help hating this woman, who, in spite of me bears my
name, innocent victim though she is of the barbarity of our parents.
And, to complete my misery, she too will soon render me a father.
Who can describe my sorrow when I compare the fortunes of these two
children?
“‘The one, the son of the object of my tenderest love, will have neither
father nor family, nor even a name, since a law framed to make lovers
unhappy prevents my acknowledging him. While the other, the son of
my detested wife, by the sole fact of his birth, will be rich, noble,
surrounded by devotion and homage, with a great position in the world.
I cannot bear the thought of this terrible injustice! How it is to be
prevented, I do not know: but rest assured I shall find a way. It is to
him who is the most desired, the most cherished, the most beloved, that
the greater fortune should come; and come to him it shall, for I so will
it.’”
“From where is that letter dated?” asked old Tabaret. The style in which
it was written had already settled one point in his mind.
“See,” replied Noel. He handed the letter to the old fellow, who read,--
“Venice, December, 1828.”
“You perceive,” resumed the advocate, “all the importance of this first
letter. It is like a brief statement of the facts. My father, married in
spite of himself, adores his mistress, and detests his wife. Both find
themselves enceinte at the same time, and his feelings towards the two
infants about to be born, are not at all concealed. Towards the end one
almost sees peeping forth the germ of the idea which later on he will
not be afraid to put into execution, in defiance of all law human or
divine!”
He was speaking as though pleading the cause, when old Tabaret
interrupted him.
“It is not necessary to explain it,” said he. “Thank goodness, what you
have just read is explicit enough. I am not an adept in such matters, I
am as simple as a juryman; however I understand it admirably so far.”
“I pass over several letters,” continued Noel, “and I come to this one
dated Jan. 23, 1829. It is very long, and filled with matters altogether
foreign to the subject which now occupies us. However, it contains
two passages, which attest the slow but steady growth of my father’s
project. ‘A destiny, more powerful than my will, chains me to this
country; but my soul is with you, my Valerie! Without ceasing, my
thoughts rest upon the adored pledge of our love which moves within you.
Take care, my darling, take care of yourself, now doubly precious. It
is the lover, the father, who implores you. The last part of your letter
wounds my heart. Is it not an insult to me, for you to express anxiety
as to the future of our child! Oh heaven! she loves me, she knows me,
and yet she doubts!’
“I skip,” said Noel, “two pages of passionate rhapsody, and stop at
these few lines at the end. ‘The countess’s condition causes her to
suffer very much! Unfortunate wife! I hate and at the same time pity
her. She seems to divine the reason of my sadness and my coldness. By
her timid submission and unalterable sweetness, one would think she
sought pardon for our unhappy union. Poor sacrificed creature! She also
may have given her heart to another, before being dragged to the altar.
Our fates would then be the same. Your good heart will pardon my pitying
her.’
“That one was my mother,” cried the advocate in a trembling voice. “A
saint! And he asks pardon for the pity she inspires! Poor woman.”
He passed his hands over his eyes, as if to force back his tears, and
added,--
“She is dead!”
In spite of his impatience, old Tabaret dared not utter a word. Besides
he felt keenly the profound sorrow of his young friend, and respected
it. After a rather long silence, Noel raised his head, and returned to
the correspondence.
“All the letters which follow,” said he, “carry traces of the
preoccupation of my father’s mind on the subject of his bastard son. I
lay them, however, aside. But this is what strikes me in the one written
from Rome, on March 5, 1829. ‘My son, our son, that is my great, my only
anxiety. How to secure for him the future position of which I dream?
The nobles of former times were not worried in this way. In those days
I would have gone to the king, who, with a word, would have assured
the child’s position in the world. To-day, the king who governs with
difficulty his disaffected subjects can do nothing. The nobility has
lost its rights, and the highest in the land are treated the same as
the meanest peasants!’ Lower down I find,--‘My heart loves to picture to
itself the likeness of our son. He will have the spirit, the mind, the
beauty, the grace, all the fascinations of his mother. He will inherit
from his father, pride, valour, and the sentiments of a noble race. And
the other, what will he be like? I tremble to think of it. Hatred can
only engender a monster. Heaven reserves strength and beauty for the
children of love!’ The monster, that is I!” said the advocate, with
intense rage. “Whilst the other--But let us ignore these preliminaries
to an outrageous action. I only desired up to the present to show you
the aberration of my father’s reason under the influence of his passion.
We shall soon come to the point.”
M. Tabaret was astonished at the strength of this passion, of which Noel
was disturbing the ashes. Perhaps, he felt it all the more keenly on
account of those expressions which recalled his own youth. He understood
how irresistible must have been the strength of such a love and he
trembled to speculate as to the result.
“Here is,” resumed Noel, holding up a sheet of paper, “not one of those
interminable epistles from which I have read you short extracts, but a
simple billet. It is dated from Venice at the beginning of May; it is
short but nevertheless decisive; ‘Dear Valerie,--Tell me, as near as
possible, the probable date of your confinement. I await your reply
with an anxiety you would imagine, could you but guess my projects with
regard to our child.’
“I do not know,” said Noel, “whether Madame Gerdy understood; anyhow
she must have answered at once, for this is what my father wrote on the
14th: ‘Your reply, my darling, is what I did not dare expect it to be.
The project I had conceived is now practicable. I begin to feel more
calm and secure. Our son shall bear my name; I shall not be obliged to
separate myself from him. He shall be reared by my side, in my mansion,
under my eyes, on my knees, in my arms. Shall I have strength enough to
bear this excess of happiness? I have a soul for grief, shall I have
one for joy? Oh! my adored one, oh! my precious child, fear nothing, my
heart is vast, enough to love you both! I set out to-morrow for Naples,
from whence I shall write to you at length. Happen what may, however,
though I should have to sacrifice the important interests confided to
me, I shall be in Paris for the critical hour. My presence will double
your courage; the strength of my love will diminish your sufferings.’”
“I beg your pardon for interrupting you, Noel,” said old Tabaret, “do
you know what important affairs detained your father abroad?”
“My father, my old friend,” replied the advocate, “was, in spite of his
youth, one of the friends, one of the confidants, of Charles X.; and he
had been entrusted by him with a secret mission to Italy. My father is
Count Rheteau de Commarin.”
“Whew!” exclaimed the old fellow; and the better to engrave the name
upon his memory, he repeated several times, between his teeth, “Rheteau
de Commarin.”
For a few minutes Noel remained silent. After having appeared to do
everything to control his resentment, he seemed utterly dejected, as
though he had formed the determination to attempt nothing to repair the
injury he had sustained.
“In the middle of the month of May, then,” he continued, “my father is
at Naples. It is whilst there, that he, a man of prudence and sense,
a dignified diplomatist, a nobleman, prompted by an insensate passion,
dares to confide to paper this most monstrous of projects. Listen!
“‘My adored one,--
“‘It is Germain, my old valet, who will hand you this letter. I am
sending him to Normandy, charged with a commission of the most delicate
nature. He is one of those servitors who may be trusted implicitly.
“‘The time has come for me to explain to you my projects respecting my
son. In three weeks, at the latest, I shall be in Paris.
“‘If my previsions are not deceited, the countess and you will be
confined at the same time. An interval of three or four days will not
alter my plan. This is what I have resolved.
“‘My two children will be entrusted to two nurses of Normandy, where my
estates are nearly all situated. One of these women, known to Germain,
and to whom I am sending him, will be in our interests. It is to this
person, Valerie, that our son will be confided. These two women will
leave Paris the same day, Germain accompanying her who will have charge
of the son of the countess.
“‘An accident, devised beforehand, will compel these two women to pass
one night on the road. Germain will arrange so they will have to sleep
in the same inn, and in the same chamber! During the night, our nurse
will change the infants in their cradles.
“‘I have foreseen everything, as I will explain to you, and every
precaution has been taken to prevent our secret from escaping. Germain
has instructions to procure, while in Paris, two sets of baby linen
exactly similar. Assist him with your advice.
“‘Your maternal heart, my sweet Valerie, may perhaps bleed at the
thought of being deprived of the innocent caresses of your child. You
will console yourself by thinking of the position secured to him by your
sacrifice. What excess of tenderness can serve him as powerfully as this
separation? As to the other, I know your fond heart, you will cherish
him. Will it not be another proof of your love for me? Besides, he will
have nothing to complain of. Knowing nothing he will have nothing to
regret; and all that money can secure in this world he shall have.
“‘Do not tell me that this attempt is criminal. No, my well beloved, no.
The success of our plan depends upon so many unlikely circumstances, so
many coincidences, independent of our will, that, without the evident
protection of Providence, we cannot succeed. If, then, success crowns
our efforts, it will be because heaven decreed it.
“‘Meanwhile I hope.’”
“Just what I expected,” murmured old Tabaret.
“And the wretched man,” cried Noel, “dares to invoke the aid of
Providence! He would make heaven his accomplice!”
“But,” asked the old fellow, “how did your mother,--pardon me, I would
say, how did Madame Gerdy receive this proposition?”
“She would appear to have rejected it, at first, for here are twenty
pages of eloquent persuasion from the count, urging her to agree to it,
trying to convince her. Oh, that woman!”
“Come my child,” said M. Tabaret, softly, “try not to be too unjust. You
seem to direct all your resentment against Madame Gerdy? Really, in my
opinion, the count is far more deserving of your anger than she is.”
“True,” interrupted Noel, with a certain degree of violence,--“true,
the count is guilty, very guilty. He is the author of the infamous
conspiracy, and yet I feel no hatred against him. He has committed a
crime, but he has an excuse, his passion. Moreover, my father has not
deceived me, like this miserable woman, every hour of my life, during
thirty years. Besides, M. de Commarin has been so cruelly punished,
that, at this present moment, I can only pardon and pity him.”
“Ah! so he has been punished?” interrogated the old fellow.
“Yes, fearfully, as you will admit. But allow me to continue. Towards
the end of May, or, rather, during the first days of June, the count
must have arrived in Paris, for the correspondence ceases. He saw Madame
Gerdy, and the final arrangements of the conspiracy were decided on.
Here is a note which removes all uncertainty on that point. On the day
it was written, the count was on service at the Tuileries, and unable
to leave his post. He has written it even in the king’s study, on the
king’s paper; see the royal arms! The bargain has been concluded, and
the woman who has consented to become the instrument of my father’s
projects is in Paris. He informs his mistress of the fact.”
“‘Dear Valerie,--Germain informs me of the arrival of your son’s, our
son’s nurse. She will call at your house during the day. She is to be
depended upon; a magnificent recompense ensures her discretion. Do not,
however, mention our plans to her; for she has been given to
understand that you know nothing. I wish to charge myself with the sole
responsibility of the deed; it is more prudent. This woman is a native
of Normandy. She was born on our estate, almost in our house. Her
husband is a brave and honest sailor. Her name is Claudine Lerouge.
“‘Be of good courage, my dear love I am exacting from you the greatest
sacrifice that a lover can hope for from a mother. Heaven, you can no
longer doubt it, protects us. Everything depends now upon our skill and
our prudence, so that we are sure to succeed!’”
On one point, at least, M. Tabaret was sufficiently enlightened. The
researches into the past life of widow Lerouge were no longer difficult.
He could not restrain an exclamation of satisfaction, which passed
unnoticed by Noel.
“This note,” resumed the advocate, “closes the count’s correspondence
with Madame Gerdy.”
“What!” exclaimed the old fellow, “you are in possession of nothing
more?”
“I have also ten lines, written many years later, which certainly have
some weight, but after all are only a moral proof.”
“What a misfortune!” murmured M. Tabaret. Noel laid on the bureau the
letters he had held in his hand, and, turning towards his old friend, he
looked at him steadily.
“Suppose,” said he slowly and emphasising every syllable,--“suppose that
all my information ends here. We will admit, for a moment, that I know
nothing more than you do now. What is your opinion?”
Old Tabaret remained some minutes without answering; he was estimating
the probabilities resulting from M. de Commarin’s letters.
“For my own part,” said he at length, “I believe on my conscience that
you are not Madame Gerdy’s son.”
“And you are right!” answered the advocate forcibly. “You will easily
believe, will you not, that I went and saw Claudine. She loved me, this
poor woman who had given me her milk, she suffered from the knowledge
of the injustice that had been done me. Must I say it, her complicity in
the matter weighed upon her conscience; it was a remorse too great for
her old age. I saw her, I interrogated her, and she told me all. The
count’s scheme, simply and yet ingeniously conceived, succeeded without
any effort. Three days after my birth, the crime was committed, and I,
poor, helpless infant, was betrayed, despoiled and disinherited by my
natural protector, by my own father! Poor Claudine! She promised me her
testimony for the day on which I should reclaim my rights!”
“And she is gone, carrying her secret with her!” murmured the old fellow
in a tone of regret.
“Perhaps!” replied Noel, “for I have yet one hope. Claudine had in her
possession several letters which had been written to her a long time
ago, some by the count, some by Madame Gerdy, letters both imprudent
and explicit. They will be found, no doubt, and their evidence will
be decisive. I have held these letters in my hands, I have read them;
Claudine particularly wished me to keep them, why did I not do so?”
No! there was no hope on that side, and old Tabaret knew so better than
any one. It was these very letters, no doubt, that the assassin of La
Jonchere wanted. He had found them and had burnt them with the other
papers, in the little stove. The old amateur detective was beginning to
understand.
“All the same,” said he, “from what I know of your affairs, which I
think I know as well as my own, it appears to me that the count has not
overwell kept the dazzling promises of fortune he made Madame Gerdy on
your behalf.”
“He never even kept them in the least degree, my old friend.”
“That now,” cried the old fellow indignantly, “is even more infamous
than all the rest.”
“Do not accuse my father,” answered Noel gravely; “his connection with
Madame Gerdy lasted a long time. I remember a haughty-looking man who
used sometimes to come and see me at school, and who could be no other
than the count. But the rupture came.”
“Naturally,” sneered M. Tabaret, “a great nobleman--”
“Wait before judging,” interrupted the advocate. “M. de Commarin had his
reasons. His mistress was false to him, he learnt it, and cast her
off with just indignation. The ten lines which I mentioned to you were
written then.”
Noel searched a considerable time among the papers scattered upon the
table, and at length selected a letter more faded and creased than the
others. Judging from the number of folds in the paper one could guess
that it had been read and re-read many times. The writing even was here
and there partly obliterated.
“In this,” said he in a bitter tone, “Madame Gerdy is no longer the
adored Valerie: ‘A friend, cruel as all true friends, has opened my
eyes. I doubted. You have been watched, and today, unhappily, I can
doubt no more. You, Valerie, you to whom I have given more than my life,
you deceive me and have been deceiving me for a long time past. Unhappy
man that I am! I am no longer certain that I am the father of your
child.’”
“But this note is a proof,” cried old Tabaret, “an overwhelming proof.
Of what importance to the count would be a doubt of his paternity, had
he not sacrificed his legitimate son to his bastard? Yes, you have said
truly, his punishment has been severe.”
“Madame Gerdy,” resumed Noel, “wished to justify herself. She wrote to
the count; but he returned her letters unopened. She called on him,
but he would not receive her. At length she grew tired of her useless
attempts to see him. She knew that all was well over when the count’s
steward brought her for me a legal settlement of fifteen thousand francs
a year. The son had taken my place, and the mother had ruined me!”
Three or four light knocks at the door of the study interrupted Noel.
“Who is there?” he asked, without stirring.
“Sir,” answered the servant from the other side of the door, “madame
wishes to speak to you.”
The advocate appeared to hesitate.
“Go, my son,” advised M. Tabaret; “do not be merciless, only bigots have
that right.”
Noel arose with visible reluctance, and passed into Madame Gerdy’s
sleeping apartment.
“Poor boy!” thought M. Tabaret when left alone. “What a fatal discovery!
and how he must feel it. Such a noble young man! such a brave heart!
In his candid honesty he does not even suspect from whence the blow has
fallen. Fortunately I am shrewd enough for two, and it is just when he
despairs of justice, I am confident of obtaining it for him. Thanks to
his information, I am now on the track. A child might now divine whose
hand struck the blow. But how has it happened? He will tell me without
knowing it. Ah! if I had one of those letters for four and twenty hours.
He has probably counted them. If I ask for one, I must acknowledge my
connection with the police. I had better take one, no matter which, just
to verify the handwriting.”
Old Tabaret had just thrust one of the letters into the depths of his
capacious pocket, when the advocate returned.
He was one of those men of strongly formed character, who never lose
their self-control. He was very cunning and had long accustomed himself
to dissimulation, that indispensable armour of the ambitious.
As he entered the room nothing in his manner betrayed what had taken
place between Madame Gerdy and himself. He was absolutely as calm as,
when seated in his arm-chair, he listened to the interminable stories of
his clients.
“Well,” asked old Tabaret, “how is she now?”
“Worse,” answered Noel. “She is now delirious, and no longer knows
what she says. She has just assailed me with the most atrocious abuse,
upbraiding me as the vilest of mankind! I really believe she is going
out of her mind.”
“One might do so with less cause,” murmured M. Tabaret; “and I think you
ought to send for the doctor.”
“I have just done so.”
The advocate had resumed his seat before his bureau, and was rearranging
the scattered letters according to their dates. He seemed to have
forgotten that he had asked his old friend’s advice; nor did he appear
in any way desirous of renewing the interrupted conversation. This was
not at all what old Tabaret wanted.
“The more I ponder over your history, my dear Noel,” he observed, “the
more I am bewildered. I really do not know what resolution I should
adopt, were I in your situation.”
“Yes, my old friend,” replied the advocate sadly, “it is a situation
that might well perplex even more profound experiences than yours.”
The old amateur detective repressed with difficulty the sly smile, which
for an instant hovered about his lips.
“I confess it humbly,” he said, taking pleasure in assuming an air of
intense simplicity, “but you, what have you done? Your first impulse
must have been to ask Madame Gerdy for an explanation.”
Noel made a startled movement, which passed unnoticed by old Tabaret,
preoccupied as he was in trying to give the turn he desired to the
conversation.
“It was by that,” answered Noel, “that I began.”
“And what did she say?”
“What could she say! Was she not overwhelmed by the discovery?”
“What! did she not attempt to exculpate herself?” inquired the detective
greatly surprised.
“Yes! she attempted the impossible. She pretended she could explain
the correspondence. She told me ... But can I remember what she said?
Lies, absurd, infamous lies.”
The advocate had finished gathering up his letters, without noticing the
abstraction. He tied them together carefully, and replaced them in the
secret drawer of his bureau.
“Yes,” continued he, rising and walking backwards and forward across
his study, as if the constant movement could calm his anger, “yes, she
pretended she could show me I was wrong. It was easy, was it not, with
the proofs I held against her? The fact is she adores her son, and her
heart is breaking at the idea that he may be obliged to restitute what
he has stolen from me. And I, idiot, fool, coward, almost wished not to
mention the matter to her. I said to myself, I will forgive, for after
all she has loved me! Loved? no. She would see me suffer the most
horrible tortures, without shedding a tear, to prevent a single hair
falling from her son’s head.”
“She has probably warned the count,” observed old Tabaret, still
pursuing his idea.
“She may have tried, but cannot have succeeded, for the count has been
absent from Paris for more than a month and is not expected to return
until the end of the week.”
“How do you know that?”
“I wished to see the count my father, to speak with him.”
“You?”
“Yes, I. Do you think that I shall not reclaim my own? Do you imagine
that I shall not raise my voice. On what account should I keep silent,
who have I to consider? I have rights, and I will make them good. What
do you find surprising in that?”
“Nothing, certainly, my friend. So then you called at M. de Commarin’s
house?”
“Oh! I did not decide on doing so all at once,” continued Noel. “At
first my discovery almost drove me mad. Then I required time to reflect.
A thousand opposing sentiments agitated me. At one moment, my fury
blinded me; the next, my courage deserted me. I would, and I would not.
I was undecided, uncertain, wild. The scandal that must arise from the
publicity of such an affair terrified me. I desired, I still desire to
recover my name, that much is certain. But on the eve of recovering it,
I wish to preserve it from stain. I was seeking a means of arranging
everything, without noise, without scandal.”
“At length, however, you made up your mind?”
“Yes, after a struggle of fifteen days, fifteen days of torture, of
anguish! Ah! what I suffered in that time! I neglected my business,
being totally unfit for work. During the day, I tried by incessant
action to fatigue my body, that at night I might find forgetfulness
in sleep. Vain hope! since I found these letters, I have not slept an
hour.”
From time to time, old Tabaret slyly consulted his watch. “M. Daburon
will be in bed,” thought he.
“At last one morning,” continued Noel, “after a night of rage, I
determined to end all uncertainty. I was in that desperate state of
mind, in which the gambler, after successive losses, stakes upon a card
his last remaining coin. I plucked up courage, sent for a cab, and was
driven to the de Commarin mansion.”
The old amateur detective here allowed a sigh of satisfaction to escape
him.
“It is one of the most magnificent houses, in the Faubourg St. Germain,
my friend, a princely dwelling, worthy a great noble twenty times
millionaire; almost a palace in fact. One enters at first a vast
courtyard, to the right and left of which are the stables, containing
twenty most valuable horses, and the coach-houses. At the end rises the
grand facade of the main building, majestic and severe, with its immense
windows, and its double flight of marble steps. Behind the house is
a magnificent garden, I should say a park, shaded by the oldest trees
which perhaps exist in all Paris.”
This enthusiastic description was not at all what M. Tabaret wanted. But
what could he do, how could he press Noel for the result of his visit!
An indiscreet word might awaken the advocate’s suspicions, and reveal to
him that he was speaking not to a friend, but to a detective.
“Were you then shown over the house and grounds?” asked the old fellow.
“No, but I have examined them alone. Since I discovered that I was the
only heir of the Rheteau de Commarin, I have found out the antecedents
of my new family.
“Standing before the dwelling of my ancestors,” continued Noel, “you
cannot comprehend the excess of my emotion. Here, said I, is the house
in which I was born. This is the house in which I should have been
reared; and, above all, this is the spot where I should reign to-day,
whereon I stand an outcast and a stranger, devoured by the sad and
bitter memories, of which banished men have died. I compared my
brother’s brilliant destinies with my sad and labourious career; and my
indignation well nigh overmastered reason. The mad impulse stirred me
to force the doors, to rush into the grand salon, and drive out the
intruder,--the son of Madame Gerdy,--who had taken the place of the
son of the Countess de Commarin! Out, usurper, out of this. I am master
here. The propriety of legal means at once recurred to my distracted
mind, however, and restrained me. Once more I stood before the
habitation of my fathers. How I love its old sculptures, its grand old
trees, its shaded walls, worn by the feet of my poor mother! I love
all, even to the proud escutcheon, frowning above the principal doorway,
flinging its defiance to the theories of this age of levellers.”
This last phrase conflicted so directly with the code of opinions
habitual to Noel, that old Tabaret was obliged to turn aside, to conceal
his amusement.
“Poor humanity!” thought he; “he is already the grand seigneur.”
“On presenting myself,” continued the advocate, “I demanded to see the
Count de Commarin. A Swiss porter, in grand livery, answered, the count
was travelling, but that the viscount was at home. This ran counter to
my designs; but I was embarked; so I insisted on speaking to the son in
default of the father. The Swiss porter stared at me with astonishment.
He had evidently seen me alight from a hired carriage, and so
deliberated for some moments as to whether I was not too insignificant a
person to have the honour of being admitted to visit the viscount.”
“But tell me, have you seen him?” asked old Tabaret, unable to restrain
his impatience.
“Of course, immediately,” replied the advocate in a tone of bitter
raillery. “Could the examination, think you, result otherwise than in
my favour? No. My white cravat and black costume produced their natural
effect. The Swiss porter entrusted me to the guidance of a chasseur with
a plumed hat, who led me across the yard to a superb vestibule, where
five or six footmen were lolling and gaping on their seats. One of these
gentlemen asked me to follow him. He led me up a spacious staircase,
wide enough for a carriage to ascend, preceded me along an extensive
picture gallery, guided me across vast apartments, the furniture of
which was fading under its coverings, and finally delivered me into the
hands of M. Albert’s valet. That is the name by which Madame Gerdy’s son
is known, that is to say, my name.”
“I understand, I understand.”
“I had passed an inspection; now I had to undergo an examination. The
valet desired to be informed who I was, whence I came, what was my
profession, what I wanted and all the rest. I answered simply, that,
quite unknown to the viscount, I desired five minutes’ conversation with
him on a matter of importance. He left me, requesting me to sit down and
wait. I had waited more than a quarter of an hour, when he reappeared.
His master graciously deigned to receive me.”
It was easy to perceive that the advocate’s reception rankled in his
breast, and that he considered it an insult. He could not forgive Albert
his lackeys and his valet. He forgot the words of the illustrious duke,
who said, “I pay my lackeys to be insolent, to save myself the trouble
and ridicule of being so.” Old Tabaret was surprised at his young
friend’s display of bitterness, in speaking of these trivial details.
“What narrow-mindedness,” thought he, “for a man of such intelligence!
Can it be true that the arrogance of lackeys is the secret of the
people’s hatred of an amiable and polite aristocracy?”
“I was ushered into a small apartment,” continued Noel, “simply
furnished, the only ornaments of which were weapons. These, ranged
against the walls, were of all times and countries. Never have I seen
in so small a space so many muskets, pistols, swords, sabres, and foils.
One might have imagined himself in a fencing master’s arsenal.”
The weapon used by Widow Lerouge’s assassin naturally recurred to the
old fellow’s memory.
“The viscount,” said Noel, speaking slowly, “was half lying on a divan
when I entered. He was dressed in a velvet jacket and loose trousers of
the same material, and had around his neck an immense white silk scarf.
I do not cherish any resentment against this young man; he has never to
his knowledge injured me: he was in ignorance of our father’s crime; I
am therefore able to speak of him with justice. He is handsome, bears
himself well, and nobly carries the name which does not belong to him.
He is about my height, of the same dark complexion, and would resemble
me, perhaps, if he did not wear a beard. Only he looks five or six
years younger; but this is readily explained, he has neither worked,
struggled, nor suffered. He is one of the fortunate ones who arrive
without having to start, or who traverse life’s road on such soft
cushions that they are never injured by the jolting of their carriage.
On seeing me, he arose and saluted me graciously.”
“You must have been dreadfully excited,” remarked old Tabaret.
“Less than I am at this moment. Fifteen preparatory days of mental
torture exhausts one’s emotions. I answered the question I saw upon
his lips. ‘Sir,’ said I, ‘you do not know me; but that is of little
consequence. I come to you, charged with a very grave, a very sad
mission, which touches the honour of the name you bear.’ Without doubt
he did not believe me, for, in an impertinent tone, he asked me, ‘Shall
you be long?’ I answered simply, ‘Yes.’”
“Pray,” interrupted old Tabaret, now become very attentive, “do not omit
a single detail; it may be very important, you understand.”
“The viscount,” continued Noel, “appeared very much put out. ‘The fact
is,’ he explained, ‘I had already disposed of my time. This is the hour
at which I call on the young lady to whom I am engaged, Mademoiselle
d’Arlange. Can we not postpone this conversation?’”
“Good! another woman!” said the old fellow to himself.
“I answered the viscount, that an explanation would admit of no delay;
and, as I saw him prepare to dismiss me, I drew from my pocket the
count’s correspondence, and presented one of the letters to him. On
recognizing his father’s handwriting, he became more tractable, declared
himself at my service, and asked permission to write a word of apology
to the lady by whom he was expected. Having hastily written the note
he handed it to his valet, and ordered him to send at once to Madame
d’Arlange. He then asked me to pass into the next room, which was his
library.”
“One word,” interrupted the old fellow; “was he troubled on seeing the
letters?”
“Not the least in the world. After carefully closing the door, he
pointed to a chair, seated himself, and said, ‘Now, sir, explain
yourself.’ I had had time to prepare myself for this interview whilst
waiting in the ante-room. I had decided to go straight to the point.
‘Sir,’ said I, ‘my mission is painful. The facts I am about to reveal to
you are incredible. I beg you, do not answer me until you have read the
letters I have here. I beseech you, above all, to keep calm.’ He looked
at me with an air of extreme surprise, and answered, ‘Speak! I can hear
all.’ I stood up, and said, ‘Sir, I must inform you that you are not the
legitimate son of M. de Commarin, as this correspondence will prove to
you. The legitimate son exists; and he it is who sends me.’ I kept my
eyes on his while speaking, and I saw there a passing gleam of fury.
For a moment I thought he was about to spring at my throat. He soon
recovered himself. ‘The letters,’ said he in a short tone. I handed them
to him.”
“How!” cried old Tabaret, “these letters,--the true ones? How
imprudent!”
“And why?”
“If he had--I don’t know; but--” the old fellow hesitated.
The advocate laid his hand upon his friend’s shoulder. “I was there,”
said he in a hollow tone; “and I promise you the letters were in no
danger.”
Noel’s features assumed such an expression of ferocity that the old
fellow was almost afraid, and recoiled instinctively. “He would have
killed him,” thought he.
“That which I have done for you this evening, my friend,” resumed the
advocate, “I did for the viscount. I obviated, at least for the moment,
the necessity of reading all of these hundred and fifty-six letters.
I told him only to stop at those marked with a cross, and to carefully
read the passages indicated with a red pencil.”
“It was an abridgment of his penance,” remarked old Tabaret.
“He was seated,” continued Noel, “before a little table, too fragile
even to lean upon. I was standing with my back to the fireplace in which
a fire was burning. I followed his slightest movements; and I scanned
his features closely. Never in my life have I seen so sad a spectacle,
nor shall I forget it, if I live for a thousand years. In less than five
minutes his face changed to such an extent that his own valet would not
have recognized him. He held his handkerchief in his hand, with which
from time to time he mechanically wiped his lips. He grew paler and
paler, and his lips became as white as his handkerchief. Large drops of
sweat stood upon his forehead, and his eyes became dull and clouded, as
if a film had covered them; but not an exclamation, not a sigh, not a
groan, not even a gesture, escaped him. At one moment, I felt such pity
for him that I was almost on the point of snatching the letters from his
hands, throwing them into the fire and taking him in my arms, crying,
‘No, you are my brother! Forget all; let us remain as we are and love
one another!’”
M. Tabaret took Noel’s hand, and pressed it. “Ah!” he said, “I recognise
my generous boy.”
“If I have not done this, my friend, it is because I thought to myself,
‘Once these letters destroyed, would he recognise me as his brother?’”
“Ah! very true.”
“In about half an hour, he had finished reading; he arose, and facing me
directly, said, ‘You are right, sir. If these letters are really written
by my father, as I believe them to be, they distinctly prove that I am
not the son of the Countess de Commarin.’ I did not answer. ‘Meanwhile,’
continued he, ‘these are only presumptions. Are you possessed of
other proofs?’ I expected, of course, a great many other objections.
‘Germain,’ said I, ‘can speak.’ He told me that Germain had been dead
for several years. Then I spoke of the nurse, Widow Lerouge--I explained
how easily she could be found and questioned, adding that she lived at
La Jonchere.”
“And what said he, Noel, to this?” asked old Tabaret anxiously.
“He remained silent at first, and appeared to reflect. All on a sudden
he struck his forehead, and said, ‘I remember; I know her. I have
accompanied my father to her house three times, and in my presence he
gave her a considerable sum of money.’ I remarked to him that this was
yet another proof. He made no answer, but walked up and down the room.
At length he turned towards me, saying, ‘Sir, you know M. de Commarin’s
legitimate son?’ I answered: ‘I am he.’ He bowed his head and murmured
‘I thought so.’ He then took my hand and added, ‘Brother, I bear you no
ill will for this.’”
“It seems to me,” remarked old Tabaret, “that he might have left that to
you to say, and with more reason and justice.”
“No, my friend, for he is more ill-used than I. I have not been lowered,
for I did not know, whilst he! ... .”
The old police agent nodded his head, he had to hide his thoughts, and
they were stifling him.
“At length,” resumed Noel, after a rather long pause, “I asked him what
he proposed doing. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I expect my father in about eight
or ten days. You will allow me this delay. As soon as he returns I will
have an explanation with him, and justice shall be done. I give you my
word of honour. Take back your letters and leave me to myself. This news
has utterly overwhelmed me. In a moment I lose everything: a great
name that I have always borne as worthily as possible, a magnificent
position, an immense fortune, and, more than all that, perhaps, the
woman who is dearer to me than life. In exchange, it is true, I shall
find a mother. We will console each other. And I will try, sir, to make
her forget you, for she must love you, and will miss you.’”
“Did he really say that?”
“Almost word for word.”
“Hypocrite!” growled the old fellow between his teeth.
“What did you say?” asked Noel.
“I say that he is a fine young man; and I shall be delighted to make his
acquaintance.”
“I did not show him the letter referring to the rupture,” added
Noel; “it is best that he should ignore Madame Gerdy’s misconduct. I
voluntarily deprived myself of this proof, rather than give him further
pain.”
“And now?”
“What am I to do? I am waiting the count’s return. I shall act more
freely after hearing what he has to say. Tomorrow I shall ask permission
to examine the papers belonging to Claudine. If I find the letters, I am
saved; if not,--but, as I have told you, I have formed no plan since I
heard of the assassination. Now, what do you advise?”
“The briefest counsel demands long reflection,” replied the old fellow,
who was in haste to depart. “Alas! my poor boy, what worry you have
had!”
“Terrible! and, in addition, I have pecuniary embarrassments.”
“How! you who spend nothing?”
“I have entered into various engagements. Can I now make use of Madame
Gerdy’s fortune, which I have hitherto used as my own? I think not.”
“You certainly ought not to. But listen! I am glad you have spoken of
this; you can render me a service.
“Very willingly. What is it?”
“I have, locked up in my secretary, twelve or fifteen thousand francs,
which trouble me exceedingly. You see, I am old, and not very brave, if
any one heard I had this money--”
“I fear I cannot--” commenced the advocate.
“Nonsense!” said the old fellow. “To-morrow I will give them to you
to take care of.” But remembering he was about to put himself at M.
Daburon’s disposal, and that perhaps he might not be free on the morrow,
he quickly added, “No, not to-morrow; but this very evening. This
infernal money shall not remain another night in my keeping.”
He hurried out, and presently reappeared, holding in his hand fifteen
notes of a thousand francs each. “If that is not sufficient,” said he,
handing them to Noel, “you can have more.”
“Anyhow,” replied the advocate, “I will give you a receipt for these.”
“Oh! never mind. Time enough to-morrow.”
“And if I die to-night?”
“Then,” said the old fellow to himself, thinking of his will, “I shall
still be your debtor. Good-night!” added he aloud. “You have asked my
advice, I shall require the night for reflection. At present my brain is
whirling; I must go into the air. If I go to bed now, I am sure to have
a horrible nightmare. Come, my boy; patience and courage. Who knows
whether at this very hour Providence is not working for you?”
He went out, and Noel, leaving his door open, listened to the sound of
his footsteps as he descended the stairs. Almost immediately the cry of,
“Open, if you please,” and the banging of the door apprised him that
M. Tabaret had gone out. He waited a few minutes and refilled his lamp.
Then he took a small packet from one of his bureau drawers, slipped
into his pocket the bank notes lent him by his old friend, and left his
study, the door of which he double-locked. On reaching the landing, he
paused. He listened intently as though the sound of Madame Gerdy’s moans
could reach him where he stood. Hearing nothing, he descended the stairs
on tiptoe. A minute later, he was in the street.
CHAPTER V.
Included in Madame Gerdy’s lease was a coach-house, which was used by
her as a lumber room. Here were heaped together all the old rubbish
of the household, broken pieces of furniture, utensils past service,
articles become useless or cumbrous. It was also used to store the
provision of wood and coal for the winter. This old coach-house had
a small door opening on the street, which had been in disuse for many
years; but which Noel had had secretly repaired and provided with a
lock. He could thus enter or leave the house at any hour without the
concierge or any one else knowing. It was by this door that the advocate
went out, though not without using the utmost caution in opening
and closing it. Once in the street, he stood still a moment, as if
hesitating which way to go. Then, he slowly proceeded in the direction
of the St. Lazare railway station, when a cab happening to pass, he
hailed it. “Rue du Faubourg Montmarte, at the corner of the Rue de
Provence,” said Noel, entering the vehicle, “and drive quick.”
The advocate alighted at the spot named, and dismissed the cabman. When
he had seen him drive off, Noel turned into the Rue de Provence, and,
after walking a few yards, rang the bell of one of the handsomest houses
in the street. The door was immediately opened. As Noel passed
before him the concierge made a most respectful, and at the same time
patronizing bow, one of those salutations which Parisian concierges
reserve for their favorite tenants, generous mortals always ready to
give. On reaching the second floor, the advocate paused, drew a key from
his pocket, and opening the door facing him, entered as if at home. But
at the sound of the key in the lock, though very faint, a lady’s maid,
rather young and pretty, with a bold pair of eyes, ran toward him.
“Ah! it is you, sir,” cried she.
This exclamation escaped her just loud enough to be audible at the
extremity of the apartment, and serve as a signal if needed. It was as
if she had cried, “Take care!”
Noel did not seem to notice it. “Madame is there?” asked he.
“Yes, sir, and very angry too. This morning she wanted to send some one
to you. A little while ago she spoke of going to find you, sir, herself.
I have had much difficulty in prevailing on her not to disobey your
orders.”
“Very well,” said the advocate.
“Madame is in the smoking room,” continued the girl “I am making her a
cup of tea. Will you have one, sir?”
“Yes,” replied Noel. “Show me a light, Charlotte.”
He passed successively through a magnificent dining-room, a splendid
gilded drawing-room in Louis XIV. style, and entered the smoking-room.
This was a rather large apartment with a very high ceiling. Once inside
one might almost fancy oneself three thousand miles from Paris, in
the house of some opulent mandarin of the celestial Empire. Furniture,
carpet, hangings, pictures, all had evidently been imported direct from
Hong Kong or Shanghai. A rich silk tapestry representing brilliantly
coloured figures, covered the walls, and hid the doors from view.
All the empire of the sun and moon was depicted thereon in vermillion
landscapes: corpulent mandarins surrounded by their lantern-bearers;
learned men lay stupefied with opium, sleeping under their parasols;
young girls with elevated eyebrows, stumbled upon their diminutive feet
swathed in bandages. The carpet of a manufacture unknown to Europeans,
was strewn with fruits and flowers, so true to nature that they might
have deceived a bee. Some great artist of Pekin had painted on the silk
which covered the ceiling numerous fantastic birds, opening on azure
ground their wings of purple and gold. Slender rods of lacquer, inlaid
with mother of pearl, bordered the draperies, and marked the angles of
the apartment. Two fantastic looking chests entirely occupied one side
of the room. Articles of furniture of capricious and incoherent forms,
tables with porcelain tops, and chiffoniers of precious woods encumbered
every recess or angle. There were also ornamental cabinets and shelves
purchased of Lien-Tsi, the Tahan of Sou-Tcheou, the artistic city, and
a thousand curiosities, both miscellaneous and costly, from the ivory
sticks which are used instead of forks, to the porcelain teacups,
thinner than soap bubbles,--miracles of the reign of Kien-Loung. A very
large and very low divan piled up with cushions, covered with tapestry
similar to the hangings, occupied one end of the room. There was no
regular window, but instead a large single pane of glass, fixed into the
wall of the house; in front of it was a double glass door with moveable
panes, and the space between was filled with the most rare flowers. The
grate was replaced by registers adroitly concealed, which maintained
in the apartment a temperature fit for hatching silkworms, thus truly
harmonising with the furniture.
When Noel entered, a woman, still young, was reclining on the divan,
smoking a cigarette. In spite of the tropical heat, she was enveloped
in heavy Cashmere shawls. She was small, but then only small women can
unite in their persons every perfection. Women who are above the medium
height must be either essays, or errors of nature. No matter how lovely
they may look, they invariably present some defect, like the work of a
statuary, who, though possessed of genius, attempts for the first time
sculpture on a grand scale. She was small, but her neck, her shoulders,
and her arms had the most exquisite contours. Her hands with their
tapering fingers and rosy nails looked like jewels preciously cared for.
Her feet, encased in silken stockings almost as thin as a spider’s-web,
were a marvel; not that they recalled the very fabulous foot which
Cinderella thrust into the glass slipper; but the other, very real, very
celebrated and very palpable foot, of which the fair owner (the lovely
wife of a well-known banker) used to present the model either in bronze
or in marble to her numerous admirers. Her face was not beautiful, nor
even pretty; but her features were such as one seldom forgets; for, at
the first glance, they startled the beholder like a flash of lightning.
Her forehead was a little high, and her mouth unmistakably large,
notwithstanding the provoking freshness of her lips. Her eyebrows were
so perfect they seem to have been drawn with India ink; but, unhappily
the pencil had been used too heavily; and they gave her an unpleasant
expression when she frowned. On the other hand, her smooth complexion
had a rich golden pallor; and her black and velvety eyes possessed
enormous magnetic power. Her teeth were of a pearly brilliancy and
whiteness, and her hair, of prodigious opulence, was black and fine, and
glossy as a raven’s wing.
On perceiving Noel, as he pushed aside the silken hangings, she half
arose and leaned upon her elbow. “So you have come at last?” she
observed in a tone of vexation; “you are very kind.”
The advocate felt almost suffocated by the oppressive temperature of the
room. “How warm it is!” said he; “it is enough to stifle one!”
“Do you find it so?” replied the young woman. “Well, I am actually
shivering! It is true though, that I am very unwell. Waiting is
unbearable to me, it acts upon my nerves; and I have been waiting for
you ever since yesterday.”
“It was quite impossible for me to come,” explained Noel, “quite
impossible!”
“You knew, however,” continued the lady, “that to-day was my settling
day; and that I had several heavy accounts to settle. The tradesmen all
came, and I had not a half-penny to give them. The coachmaker sent his
bill, but there was no money. Then that old rascal Clergot, to whom I
had given an acceptance for three thousand francs, came and kicked up a
frightful row. How pleasant all this is!”
Noel bowed his head like a schoolboy rebuked for having neglected his
lessons. “It is but one day behind,” he murmured.
“And that is nothing, is it?” retorted the young woman. “A man
who respects himself, my friend, may allow his own signature to be
dishonoured, but never that of his mistress! Do you wish to destroy
my credit altogether? You know very well that the only consideration I
receive is what my money pays for. So as soon as I am unable to pay, it
will be all up with me.”
“My dear Juliette,” began the advocate gently.
“Oh, yes! that’s all very fine,” interrupted she. “Your dear Juliette!
your adored Juliette! so long as you are here it is really charming;
but no sooner are you outside than you forget everything. Do you ever
remember then that there is such a person as Juliette?”
“How unjust you are!” replied Noel. “Do you not know that I am always
thinking of you; have I not proved it to you a thousand times? Look
here! I am going to prove it to you again this very instant.” He
withdrew from his pocket the small packet he had taken out of his bureau
drawer, and, undoing it, showed her a handsome velvet casket. “Here,”
said he exultingly, “is the bracelet you longed for so much a week ago
at Beaugrau’s.”
Madame Juliette, without rising, held out her hand to take the casket,
and, opening it with the utmost indifference, just glanced at the jewel,
and merely said, “Ah!”
“Is this the one you wanted?” asked Noel.
“Yes, but it looked much prettier in the shop window.” She closed the
casket, and threw it carelessly on to a small table near her.
“I am unfortunate this evening,” said the advocate, much mortified.
“How so?”
“I see plainly the bracelet does not please you.”
“Oh, but it does. I think it lovely ... besides, it will complete the
two dozen.”
It was now Noel’s turn to say: “Ah! ...” and as Juliette said nothing,
he added: “Well, if you are pleased, you do not show it.”
“Oh! so that is what you are driving at!” cried the lady. “I am not
grateful enough to suit you! You bring me a present, and I ought at once
to pay cash, fill the house with cries of joy, and throw myself upon my
knees before you, calling you a great and magnificent lord!”
Noel was unable this time to restrain a gesture of impatience, which
Juliette perceived plainly enough, to her great delight.
“Would that be sufficient?” continued she. “Shall I call Charlotte,
so that she may admire this superb bracelet, this monument of your
generosity? Shall I have the concierge up, and call the cook to tell
them how happy I am to possess such a magnificent lover.”
The advocate shrugged his shoulders like a philosopher, incapable of
noticing a child’s banter. “What is the use of these insulting jests?”
said he. “If you have any real complaint against me, better to say so
simply and seriously.”
“Very well,” said Juliette, “let us be serious. And, that being so, I
will tell you it would have been better to have forgotten the bracelet,
and to have brought me last night or this morning the eight thousand
francs I wanted.”
“I could not come.”
“You should have sent them; messengers are still to be found at the
street-corners.”
“If I neither brought nor sent them, my dear Juliette, it was because I
did not have them. I had trouble enough in getting them promised me for
to-morrow. If I have the sum this evening, I owe it to a chance upon
which I could not have counted an hour ago; but by which I profited, at
the risk of compromising myself.”
“Poor man!” said Juliette, with an ironical touch of pity in her
voice. “Do you dare to tell me you have had difficulty in obtaining ten
thousand francs,--you?”
“Yes,--I!”
The young woman looked at her lover, and burst into a fit of laughter.
“You are really superb when you act the poor young man!” said she.
“I am not acting.”
“So you say, my own. But I see what you are aiming at. This amiable
confession is the preface. To-morrow you will declare that your affairs
are very much embarrassed, and the day after to-morrow ... Ah! you are
becoming very avaricious. It is a virtue you used not to possess. Do you
not already regret the money you have given me?”
“Wretched woman!” murmured Noel, fast losing patience.
“Really,” continued the lady, “I pity you, oh! so much. Unfortunate
lover! Shall I get up a subscription for you? In your place, I would
appeal to public charity.”
Noel could stand it no longer, in spite of his resolution to remain
calm. “You think it a laughing matter?” cried he. “Well! let me tell
you, Juliette, I am ruined, and I have exhausted my last resources! I am
reduced to expedients!”
The eyes of the young woman brightened. She looked at her lover
tenderly. “Oh, if ‘twas only true, my big pet!” said she. “If I only
could believe you!”
The advocate was wounded to the heart. “She believes me,” thought he;
“and she is glad. She detests me.”
He was mistaken. The idea that a man had loved her sufficiently to ruin
himself for her, without allowing even a reproach to escape him, filled
this woman with joy. She felt herself on the point of loving the man,
now poor and humbled, whom she had despised when rich and proud. But the
expression of her eyes suddenly changed, “What a fool I am,” cried she,
“I was on the point of believing all that, and of trying to console
you. Don’t pretend that you are one of those gentlemen who scatter their
money broadcast. Tell that to somebody else, my friend! All men in our
days calculate like money-lenders. There are only a few fools who ruin
themselves now, some conceited youngsters, and occasionally an amorous
old dotard. Well, you are a very calm, very grave, and very serious
fellow, but above all, a very strong one.”
“Not with you, anyhow,” murmured Noel.
“Come now, stop that nonsense! You know very well what you are about.
Instead of a heart, you have a great big double zero, just like a
Homburg. When you took a fancy to me, you said to yourself, ‘I will
expend so much on passion,’ and you have kept your word. It is an
investment, like any other, in which one receives interest in the form
of pleasure. You are capable of all the extravagance in the world, to
the extent of your fixed price of four thousand francs a month! If it
required a franc more you would very soon take back your heart and
your hat, and carry them elsewhere; to one or other of my rivals in the
neighborhood.”
“It is true,” answered the advocate, coolly. “I know how to count, and
that accomplishment is very useful to me. It enables me to know exactly
how and where I have got rid of my fortune.”
“So you really know?” sneered Juliette.
“And I can tell you, madam,” continued he. “At first you were not very
exacting, but the appetite came with eating. You wished for luxury,
you have it; splendid furniture, you have it; a complete establishment,
extravagant dresses, I could refuse you nothing. You required a
carriage, a horse, I gave them you. And I do not mention a thousand
other whims. I include neither this Chinese cabinet nor the two dozen
bracelets. The total is four hundred thousand francs!”
“Are you sure?”
“As one can be who has had that amount, and has it no longer.”
“Four hundred thousand francs, only fancy! Are there no centimes?”
“No.”
“Then, my dear friend, if I make up my bill, you will still owe me
something.”
The entrance of the maid with the tea-tray interrupted this amorous
duet, of which Noel had experienced more than one repetition. The
advocate held his tongue on account of the servant. Juliette did the
same on account of her lover, for she had no secrets from Charlotte, who
had been with her three years, and with whom she had shared everything,
sometimes even her lovers.
Madame Juliette Chaffour was a Parisienne. She was born about 1839,
somewhere in the upper end of the Faubourg Montmarte. Her father was
unknown. Her infancy was a long alternation of beatings and caresses,
equally furious. She had lived as best she could, on sweetmeats and
damaged fruit; so that now her stomach could stand anything. At twelve
years old she was as thin as a nail, as green as a June apple, and more
depraved than the inmates of the prison of St. Lazare. Prudhomme would
have said that this precocious little hussy was totally destitute of
morality. She had not the slightest idea what morality was. She thought
the world was full of honest people living like her mother, and her
mother’s friends. She feared neither God nor devil, but she was afraid
of the police. She dreaded also certain mysterious and cruel persons,
whom she had heard spoken of, who dwell near the Palais de Justice, and
who experience a malicious pleasure in seeing pretty girls in trouble.
As she gave no promise of beauty, she was on the point of being placed
in a shop, when an old and respectable gentleman, who had known her
mamma some years previously, accorded her his protection. This
old gentleman, prudent and provident like all old gentlemen, was a
connoisseur, and knew that to reap one must sow. He resolved first of
all to give his protege just a varnish of education. He procured masters
for her, who in less than three years taught her to write, to play the
piano, and to dance. What he did not procure her, however, was a lover.
She therefore found one for herself, an artist who taught her nothing
very new, but who carried her off to offer her half of what he
possessed, that is to say nothing. At the end of three months, having
had enough of it, she left the nest of her first love, with all she
possessed tied up in a cotton pocket handkerchief.
During the four years which followed, she led a precarious existence,
sometimes with little else to live upon but hope, which never wholly
abandons a young girl who knows she has pretty eyes. By turns she sunk
to the bottom, or rose to the surface of the stream in which she found
herself. Twice had fortune in new gloves come knocking at her door, but
she had not the sense to keep her. With the assistance of a strolling
player, she had just appeared on the stage of a small theatre, and
spoken her lines rather well, when Noel by chance met her, loved her,
and made her his mistress. Her advocate, as she called him, did not
displease her at first. After a few months, though, she could not bear
him. She detested him for his polite and polished manners, his manly
bearing, his distinguished air, his contempt, which he did not care
to hide, for all that is low and vulgar, and, above all, for his
unalterable patience, which nothing could tire. Her great complaint
against him was that he was not at all funny, and also, that he
absolutely declined to conduct her to those places where one can give
a free vent to one’s spirits. To amuse herself, she began to squander
money; and her aversion for her lover increased at the same rate as her
ambition and his sacrifices. She rendered him the most miserable of men,
and treated him like a dog; and this not from any natural badness of
disposition, but from principle. She was persuaded that a woman is
beloved in proportion to the trouble she causes and the mischief she
does.
Juliette was not wicked, and she believed she had much to complain of.
The dream of her life was to be loved in a way which she felt, but could
scarcely have explained. She had never been to her lovers more than a
plaything. She understood this; and, as she was naturally proud, the
idea enraged her. She dreamed of a man who would be devoted enough to
make a real sacrifice for her, a lover who would descend to her level,
instead of attempting to raise her to his. She despaired of ever meeting
such a one. Noel’s extravagance left her as cold as ice. She believed he
was very rich, and singularly, in spite of her greediness, she did
not care much for money. Noel would have won her easier by a brutal
frankness that would have shown her clearly his situation. He lost her
love by the delicacy of his dissimulation, that left her ignorant of the
sacrifices he was making for her.
Noel adored Juliette. Until the fatal day he saw her, he had lived like
a sage. This, his first passion, burned him up; and, from the disaster,
he saved only appearances.
The four walls remained standing, but the interior of the edifice was
destroyed. Even heroes have their vulnerable parts, Achilles died from
a wound in the heel. The most artfully constructed armour has a flaw
somewhere. Noel was assailable by means of Juliette, and through her
was at the mercy of everything and every one. In four years, this
model young man, this advocate of immaculate reputation, this austere
moralist, had squandered not only his own fortune on her, but Madame
Gerdy’s also. He loved her madly, without reflection, without measure,
with his eyes shut. At her side, he forgot all prudence, and thought out
loud. In her boudoir, he dropped his mask of habitual dissimulation, and
his vices displayed themselves, at ease, as his limbs in a bath. He felt
himself so powerless against her, that he never essayed to struggle. She
possessed him. Once or twice he attempted to firmly oppose her ruinous
caprices; but she had made him pliable as the osier. Under the dark
glances of this girl, his strongest resolutions melted more quickly than
snow beneath an April sun. She tortured him; but she had also the power
to make him forget all by a smile, a tear, or a kiss. Away from the
enchantress, reason returned at intervals, and, in his lucid moments,
he said to himself, “She does not love me. She is amusing herself at
my expense!” But the belief in her love had taken such deep root in his
heart that he could not pluck it forth. He made himself a monster of
jealousy, and then argued with himself respecting her fidelity. On
several occasions he had strong reasons to doubt her constancy, but he
never had the courage to declare his suspicions. “If I am not mistaken,
I shall either have to leave her,” thought he, “or accept everything in
the future.” At the idea of a separation from Juliette, he trembled,
and felt his passion strong enough to compel him to submit to the lowest
indignity. He preferred even these heartbreaking doubts to a still more
dreadful certainty.
The presence of the maid who took a considerable time in arranging the
tea-table gave Noel an opportunity to recover himself. He looked at
Juliette; and his anger took flight. Already he began to ask himself if
he had not been a little cruel to her. When Charlotte retired, he came
and took a seat on the divan beside his mistress, and attempted to put
his arms round her. “Come,” said he in a caressing tone, “you have been
angry enough for this evening. If I have done wrong, you have punished
me sufficiently. Kiss me, and make it up.”
She repulsed him angrily, and said in a dry tone,--“Let me alone! How
many times must I tell you that I am very unwell this evening.”
“You suffer, my love?” resumed the advocate, “where? Shall I send for
the doctor?”
“There is no need. I know the nature of my malady; it is called ennui.
You are not at all the doctor who could do anything for me.”
Noel rose with a discouraged air, and took his place at the side of the
tea-table, facing her. His resignation bespoke how habituated he had
become to these rebuffs. Juliette snubbed him; but he returned always,
like the poor dog who lies in wait all day for the time when his
caresses will not be inopportune. “You have told me very often during
the last few months, that I bother you. What have I done?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Well, then, why--?”
“My life is nothing more than a continual yawn,” answered the young
woman; “is it my fault? Do you think it very amusing to be your
mistress? Look at yourself. Does there exist another being as sad,
as dull as you, more uneasy, more suspicious, devoured by a greater
jealousy!”
“Your reception of me, my dear Juliette,” ventured Noel “is enough to
extinguish gaiety and freeze all effusion. Then one always fears when
one loves!”
“Really! Then one should seek a woman to suit oneself, or have her made
to order; shut her up in the cellar, and have her brought upstairs once
a day, at the end of dinner, during dessert, or with the champagne just
by way of amusement.”
“I should have done better not to have come,” murmured the advocate.
“Of course. I am to remain alone here, without anything to occupy me
except a cigarette and a stupid book, that I go to sleep over? Do you
call this an existence, never to budge out of the house even?”
“It is the life of all the respectable women that I know,” replied the
advocate drily.
“Then I cannot compliment them on their enjoyment. Happily, though, I
am not a respectable woman, and I can tell you I am tired of living
more closely shut up than the wife of a Turk, with your face for sole
amusement.”
“You live shut up, you?”
“Certainly!” continued Juliette, with increased bitterness. “Come, have
you ever brought one of your friends here? No, you hide me. When
have you offered me your arm for a walk? Never, your dignity would be
sullied, if you were seen in my company. I have a carriage. Have you
entered it half a dozen times? Perhaps; but then you let down the
blinds! I go out alone. I walk about alone!”
“Always the same refrain,” interrupted Noel, anger getting the better of
him, “always these uncalled for complaints. As though you had still to
learn the reason why this state of things exists.”
“I know well enough,” pursued the young woman, “that you are ashamed of
me. Yet I know many bigger swells then you, who do not mind being seen
with their mistresses. My lord trembles for his fine name of Gerdy that
I might sully, while the sons of the most noble families are not afraid
of showing themselves in public places in the company of the stupidest
of kept women.”
At last Noel could stand it no longer, to the great delight of Madame
Chaffour.
“Enough of these recriminations!” cried he, rising. “If I hide our
relations, it is because I am constrained to do so. Of what do you
complain? You have unrestrained liberty; and you use it, too, and
so largely that your actions altogether escape me. You accuse me of
creating a vacuum around you. Who is to blame? Did I grow tired of a
happy and quiet existence? My friends would have come to see us in a
home in accordance with a modest competence. Can I bring them here? On
seeing all this luxury, this insolent display of my folly, they would
ask each other where I obtained all the money I have spent on you. I
may have a mistress, but I have not the right to squander a fortune that
does not belong to me. If my acquaintances learnt to-morrow that it is I
who keep you, my future prospects would be destroyed. What client would
confide his interests to the imbecile who ruined himself for the woman
who has been the talk of all Paris? I am not a great lord, I have
neither an historical name to tarnish, nor an immense fortune to lose. I
am plain Noel Gerdy, a advocate. My reputation is all that I possess. It
is a false one, I admit. Such as it is, however, I must keep it, and I
will keep it.”
Juliette who knew her Noel thoroughly, saw that she had gone far
enough. She determined, therefore, to put him in a good humor again. “My
friend,” said she, tenderly, “I did not wish to cause you pain. You must
be indulgent, I am so horribly nervous this evening.”
This sudden change delighted the advocate, and almost sufficed to calm
his anger. “You will drive me mad with your injustice,” said he. “While
I exhaust my imagination to find what can be agreeable to you, you are
perpetually attacking my gravity; yet it is not forty-eight hours since
we were plunged in all the gaiety of the carnival. I kept the fete of
Shrove Tuesday like a student. We went to a theatre; I then put on a
domino, and accompanied you to the ball at the opera, and even invited
two of my friends to sup with us.”
“It was very gay indeed!” answered the young woman, making a wry face.
“So I think.”
“Do you! Then you are not hard to please. We went to the Vaudeville, it
is true, but separately, as we always do, I alone above, you below. At
the ball you looked as though you were burying the devil. At the supper
table your friends were as melancholy as a pair of owls. I obeyed your
orders by affecting hardly to know you. You imbibed like a sponge,
without my being able to tell whether you were drunk or not.”
“That proves,” interrupted Noel, “that we ought not to force our tastes.
Let us talk of something else.”
He took a few steps in the room, then looking at his watch said: “Almost
one o’clock; my love, I must leave you.”
“What! you are not going to remain?”
“No, to my great regret; my mother is dangerously ill.”
He unfolded and counted out on the table the bank notes he had received
from old Tabaret.
“My little Juliette,” said he, “here are not eight thousand francs, but
ten thousand. You will not see me again for a few days.”
“Are you leaving Paris, then?”
“No; but my entire time will be absorbed by an affair of immense
importance to myself. If I succeed in my undertaking, my dear, our
future happiness is assured, and you will then see whether I love you!”
“Oh, my dear Noel, tell me what it is.”
“I cannot now.”
“Tell me I beseech you,” pleaded the young woman, hanging round his
neck, raising herself upon the tips of her toes to press her lips to
his. The advocate embraced her; and his resolution seemed to waver.
“No,” said he at length, “seriously I cannot. Of what use to awaken in
you hopes which can never be realized? Now, my darling, listen to me.
Whatever may happen, understand, you must under no pretext whatever
again come to my house, as you once had the imprudence to do. Do not
even write to me. By disobeying, you may do me an irreparable injury. If
any accident occurs, send that old rascal Clergot to me. I shall have
a visit from him the day after to-morrow, for he holds some bills of
mine.”
Juliette recoiled, menacing Noel with a mutinous gesture. “You will not
tell me anything?” insisted she.
“Not this evening, but very soon,” replied the advocate, embarrassed by
the piercing glance of his mistress.
“Always some mystery!” cried Juliette, piqued at the want of success
attending her blandishments.
“This will be the last, I swear to you!”
“Noel, my good man,” said the young woman in a serious tone, “you are
hiding something from me. I understand you, as you know; for several
days past there has been something or other the matter with you, you
have completely changed.”
“I swear to you, Juliette--”
“No, swear nothing; I should not believe you. Only remember, no attempt
at deceiving me, I forewarn you. I am a woman capable of revenge.”
The advocate was evidently ill at ease. “The affair in question,”
stammered he, “can as well fail as succeed.”
“Enough,” interrupted Juliette; “your will shall be obeyed. I promise
that. Come, sir, kiss me. I am going to bed.”
The door was hardly shut upon Noel when Charlotte was installed on the
divan near her mistress. Had the advocate been listening at the door,
he might have heard Madame Juliette saying, “No, really, I can no longer
endure him. What a bore he is, my girl. Ah! if I was not so afraid of
him, wouldn’t I leave him at once? But he is capable of killing me!”
The girl vainly tried to defend Noel; but her mistress did not listen.
She murmured, “Why does he absent himself, and what is he plotting? An
absence of eight days is suspicious. Can he by any chance intend to be
married? Ah! if I only knew. You weary me to death, my good Noel, and I
am determined to leave you to yourself one of these fine mornings; but
I cannot permit you to quit me first. Supposing he is going to get
married? But I will not allow it. I must make inquiries.”
Noel, however, was not listening at the door. He went along the Rue de
Provence as quickly as possible, gained the Rue St. Lazare, and entered
the house as he had departed, by the stable door. He had but just sat
down in his study, when the servant knocked.
“Sir,” cried she, “in heaven’s name answer me!”
He opened the door and said impatiently, “What is it?”
“Sir,” stammered the girl in tears, “this is the third time I have
knocked, and you have not answered. Come, I implore you. I am afraid
madame is dying!”
He followed her to Madame Gerdy’s room. He must have found the poor
woman terribly changed, for he could not restrain a movement of terror.
The invalid struggled painfully beneath her coverings. Her face was of
a livid paleness, as though there was not a drop of blood left in her
veins; and her eyes, which glittered with a sombre light, seemed filled
with a fine dust. Her hair, loose and disordered, falling over her
cheeks and upon her shoulders, contributed to her wild appearance.
She uttered from time to time a groan hardly audible, or murmured
unintelligible words. At times, a fiercer pang than the former ones
forced a cry of anguish from her. She did not recognise Noel.
“You see, sir,” said the servant.
“Yes. Who would have supposed her malady could advance so rapidly?
Quick, run to Dr. Herve’s, tell him to get up, and to come at once, tell
him it is for me.” And he seated himself in an arm-chair, facing the
suffering woman.
Dr. Herve was one of Noel’s friends, an old school-fellow, and the
companion of his student days. The doctor’s history differed in
nothing from that of most young men, who, without fortune, friends,
or influence, enter upon the practice of the most difficult, the most
hazardous of professions that exist in Paris, where one sees so many
talented young doctors forced, to earn their bread, to place themselves
at the disposition of infamous drug vendors. A man of remarkable courage
and self-reliance, Herve, his studies over, said to himself, “No, I will
not go and bury myself in the country, I will remain in Paris, I will
there become celebrated. I shall be surgeon-in-chief of an hospital, and
a knight of the Legion of Honour.”
To enter upon this path of thorns, leading to a magnificent triumphal
arch, the future academician ran himself twenty thousand francs in debt
to furnish a small apartment. Here, armed with a patience which
nothing could fatigue, an iron resolution that nothing could subdue, he
struggled and waited. Only those who have experienced it can understand
what sufferings are endured by the poor, proud man, who waits in a black
coat, freshly shaven, with smiling lips, while he is starving of hunger!
The refinements of civilization have inaugurated punishments which put
in the shade the cruelties of the savage. The unknown physician must
begin by attending the poor who cannot pay him. Sometimes too the
patient is ungrateful. He is profuse in promises whilst in danger; but,
when cured, he scorns the doctor, and forgets to pay him his fee.
After seven years of heroic perseverance, Herve has secured at last
a circle of patients who pay him. During this he lived and paid the
exorbitant interest of his debt, but he is getting on. Three or four
pamphlets, and a prize won without much intrigue, have attracted public
attention to him. But he is no longer the brave young enthusiast, full
of the faith and hope that attended him on his first visits. He still
wishes, and more than ever, to acquire distinction, but he no longer
expects any pleasure from his success. He used up that feeling in the
days when he had not wherewith to pay for his dinner. No matter how
great his fortune may be in the days to come, he has already paid too
dearly for it. For him future success is only a kind of revenge.
Less than thirty-five years old, he is already sick of the world, and
believes in nothing. Under the appearance of universal benevolence he
conceals universal scorn. His finesse, sharpened by the grindstone
of adversity, has become mischievous. And, while he sees through all
disguises worn by others, he hides his penetration carefully under a
mask of cheerful good nature and jovialness. But he is kind, he loves
his friends, and is devoted to them.
He arrived, hardly dressed, so great had been his haste. His first words
on entering were, “What is the matter?”
Noel pressed his hand in silence, and by way of answer, pointed to the
bed. In less than a minute, the doctor seized the lamp, examined the
sick woman, and returned to his friend. “What has happened?” he asked
sharply. “It is necessary I should know.”
The advocate started at the question. “Know what?” stammered he.
“Everything!” answered Herve. “She is suffering from inflammation of the
brain. There is no mistaking that. It is by no means a common complaint,
in spite of the constant working of that organ. What can have caused
it? There appears to be no injury to the brain or its bony covering, the
mischief, then, must have been caused by some violent emotion, a great
grief, some unexpected catastrophe ...”
Noel interrupted his friend by a gesture, and drew him into the
embrasure of the window. “Yes, my friend,” said he in a low tone,
“Madame Gerdy has experienced great mental suffering, she has been
frightfully tortured by remorse. Listen, Herve. I will confide our
secret to your honour and your friendship. Madame Gerdy is not my
mother; she despoiled me, to enrich her son with my fortune and my name.
Three weeks ago I discovered this unworthy fraud; she knows it, and
the consequences terrify her. Ever since, she has been dying minute by
minute.”
The advocate expected some exclamations of astonishment, and a host
of questions from his friend; but the doctor received the explanation
without remark, as a simple statement, indispensable to his
understanding the case.
“Three weeks,” he murmured; “then, that explains everything. Has she
appeared to suffer much during the time?”
“She complained of violent headaches, dimness of sight, and intolerable
pains in her ears, she attributed all that though to megrims. Do
not, however, conceal anything from me, Herve; is her complaint very
serious?”
“So serious, my friend, so invariably fatal, that I am almost
undertaking a hopeless task in attempting a cure.”
“Ah! good heaven!”
“You asked for the truth, and I have told it you. If I had that courage,
it was because you told me this poor woman is not your mother. Nothing
short of a miracle can save her; but this miracle we may hope and
prepare for. And now to work!”
CHAPTER VI.
The clock of the St. Lazare terminus was striking eleven as old Tabaret,
after shaking hands with Noel, left his house, still bewildered by what
he had just heard. Obliged to restrain himself at the time, he now fully
appreciated his liberty of action. It was with an unsteady gait that
he took his first steps in the street, like the toper, who, after being
shut up in a warm room, suddenly goes out into the open air. He was
beaming with pleasure, but at the same time felt rather giddy, from that
rapid succession of unexpected revelations, which, so he thought, had
suddenly placed him in possession of the truth.
Notwithstanding his haste to arrive at M. Daburon’s he did not take a
cab. He felt the necessity of walking. He was one of those who require
exercise to see things clearly. When he moved about his ideas fitted and
classified themselves in his brain, like grains of wheat when shaken in
a bushel. Without hastening his pace, he reached the Rue de la Chaussee
d’Antin, crossed the Boulevard with its resplendent cafes, and turned to
the Rue Richelieu.
He walked along, unconscious of external objects, tripping and stumbling
over the inequalities of the sidewalk, or slipping on the greasy
pavement. If he followed the proper road, it was a purely mechanical
impulse that guided him. His mind was wandering at random through the
field of probabilities, and following in the darkness the mysterious
thread, the almost imperceptible end of which he had seized at La
Jonchere.
Like all persons labouring under strong emotion without knowing it, he
talked aloud, little thinking into what indiscreet ears his exclamations
and disjointed phrases might fall. At every step, we meet in Paris
people babbling to themselves, and unconsciously confiding to the four
winds of heaven their dearest secrets, like cracked vases that allow
their contents to steal away. Often the passers-by mistake these
eccentric monologuists for lunatics. Sometimes the curious follow them,
and amuse themselves by receiving these strange confidences. It was
an indiscretion of this kind which told the ruin of Riscara the rich
banker. Lambreth, the assassin of the Rue de Venise, betrayed himself in
a similar manner.
“What luck!” exclaimed old Tabaret. “What an incredible piece of good
fortune! Gevrol may dispute it if he likes, but after all, chance is the
cleverest agent of the police. Who would have imagined such a history? I
was not, however, very far from the reality. I guessed there was a
child in the case. But who would have dreamed of a substitution?--an old
sensational effect, that playwrights no longer dare make use of. This
is a striking example of the danger of following preconceived ideas in
police investigation. We are affrighted at unlikelihood; and, as in this
case, the greatest unlikelihood often proves to be the truth. We
retire before the absurd, and it is the absurd that we should examine.
Everything is possible. I would not take a thousand crowns for what
I have learnt this evening. I shall kill two birds with one stone. I
deliver up the criminal; and I give Noel a hearty lift up to recover his
title and his fortune. There, at least; is one who deserves what he will
get. For once I shall not be sorry to see a lad get on, who has been
brought up in the school of adversity. But, pshaw! he will be like all
the rest. Prosperity will turn his brain. Already he begins to prate of
his ancestors... . Poor humanity he almost made me laugh... . But
it is mother Gerdy who surprises me most. A woman to whom I would have
given absolution without waiting to hear her confess. When I think that
I was on the point of proposing to her, ready to marry her! B-r-r-r!”
At this thought, the old fellow shivered. He saw himself married, and
all on a sudden, discovering the antecedents of Madame Tabaret, becoming
mixed up with a scandalous prosecution, compromised, and rendered
ridiculous.
“When I think,” he continued, “that my worthy Gevrol is running after
the man with the earrings! Run, my boy, run! Travel is a good thing for
youth. Won’t he be vexed? He will wish me dead. But I don’t care. If any
one wishes to do me an injury, M. Daburon will protect me. Ah! there is
one to whom I am going to do a good turn. I can see him now, opening his
eyes like saucers, when I say to him, ‘I have the rascal!’ He can boast
of owing me something. This investigation will bring him honour, or
justice is not justice. He will, at least, be made an officer of the
Legion of Honour. So much the better! I like him. If he is asleep, I am
going to give him an agreeable awaking. Won’t he just overpower me with
questions! He will want to know everything at once.”
Old Tabaret, who was now crossing the Pont des Saints-Peres, stopped
suddenly. “But the details!” said he. “By Jove! I have none. I only know
the bare facts.” He resumed his walk, and continued, “They are right
at the office, I am too enthusiastic; I jump at conclusions, as Gevrol
says. When I was with Noel, I should have cross-examined him, got hold
of a quantity of useful details; but I did not even think of doing so.
I drank in his words. I would have had him tell the story in a sentence.
All the same, it is but natural; when one is pursuing a stag, one does
not stop to shoot a blackbird. But I see very well now, I did not draw
him out enough. On the other hand, by questioning him more, I might have
awakened suspicions in Noel’s mind, and led him to discover that I am
working for the Rue de Jerusalem. To be sure, I do not blush for my
connection with the police, I am even vain of it; but at the same time,
I prefer that no one should know of it. People are so stupid, that
they detest the police, who protect them; I must be calm and on my best
behaviour, for here I am at the end of my journey.”
M. Daburon had just gone to bed, but had given orders to his servant; so
that M. Tabaret had but to give his name, to be at once conducted to the
magistrate’s sleeping apartment. At sight of his amateur detective,
M. Daburon raised himself in his bed, saying, “There is something
extraordinary! What have you discovered? have you got a clue?”
“Better than that,” answered the old fellow, smiling with pleasure.
“Speak quickly!”
“I know the culprit!”
Old Tabaret ought to have been satisfied; he certainly produced an
effect. The magistrate bounded in his bed. “Already!” said he. “Is it
possible?”
“I have the honour to repeat to you, sir,” resumed the old fellow, “that
I know the author of the crime of La Jonchere.”
“And I,” said M. Daburon, “I proclaim you the greatest of all
detectives, past or future. I shall certainly never hereafter undertake
an investigation without your assistance.”
“You are too kind, sir. I have had little or nothing to do in the
matter. The discovery is due to chance alone.”
“You are modest, M. Tabaret. Chance assists only the clever, and it is
that which annoys the stupid. But I beg you will be seated and proceed.”
Then with the lucidness and precision of which few would have believed
him capable, the old fellow repeated to the magistrate all that he had
learned from Noel. He quoted from memory the extracts from the letters,
almost without changing a word.
“These letters,” added he, “I have seen; and I have even taken one, in
order to verify the writing. Here it is.”
“Yes,” murmured the magistrate--“Yes, M. Tabaret, you have discovered
the criminal. The evidence is palpable, even to the blind. Heaven has
willed this. Crime engenders crime. The great sin of the father has made
the son an assassin.”
“I have not given you the names, sir,” resumed old Tabaret. “I wished
first to hear your opinion.”
“Oh! you can name them,” interrupted M. Daburon with a certain degree
of animation, “no matter how high he may have to strike, a French
magistrate has never hesitated.”
“I know it, sir, but we are going very high this time. The father who
has sacrificed his legitimate son for the sake of his bastard is Count
Rheteau de Commarin, and the assassin of Widow Lerouge is the bastard,
Viscount Albert de Commarin!”
M. Tabaret, like an accomplished artist, had uttered these words slowly,
and with a deliberate emphasis, confidently expecting to produce a
great impression. His expectation was more than realized. M. Daburon
was struck with stupor. He remained motionless, his eyes dilated with
astonishment. Mechanically he repeated like a word without meaning which
he was trying to impress upon his memory: “Albert de Commarin! Albert de
Commarin!”
“Yes,” insisted old Tabaret, “the noble viscount. It is incredible, I
know.” But he perceived the alteration in the magistrate’s face, and
a little frightened, he approached the bed. “Are you unwell, sir?” he
asked.
“No,” answered M. Daburon, without exactly knowing what he said. “I am
very well; but the surprise, the emotion,--”
“I understand that,” said the old fellow.
“Yes, it is not surprising, is it? I should like to be alone a few
minutes. Do not leave the house though; we must converse at some length
on this business. Kindly pass into my study, there ought still to be a
fire burning there. I will join you directly.”
Then M. Daburon slowly got out of bed, put on a dressing gown, and
seated himself, or rather fell, into an armchair. His face, to which
in the exercise of his austere functions he had managed to give the
immobility of marble, reflected the most cruel agitation; while his
eyes betrayed the inward agony of his soul. The name of Commarin,
so unexpectedly pronounced, awakened in him the most sorrowful
recollections, and tore open a wound but badly healed. This name
recalled to him an event which had rudely extinguished his youth and
spoilt his life. Involuntarily, he carried his thoughts back to this
epoch, so as to taste again all its bitterness. An hour ago, it had
seemed to him far removed, and already hidden in the mists of the past;
one word had sufficed to recall it, clear and distinct. It seemed to him
now that this event, in which the name of Albert de Commarin was mixed
up, dated from yesterday. In reality nearly two years elapsed since.
Pierre-Marie Daburon belonged to one of the oldest families of Poitou.
Three or four of his ancestors had filled successively the most
important positions in the province. Why, then, had they not bequeathed
a title and a coat of arms to their descendants?
The magistrate’s father possesses, round about the ugly modern chateau
which he inhabits, more than eight hundred thousand francs’ worth of the
most valuable land. By his mother, a Cottevise-Luxe, he is related to
the highest nobility of Poitou, one of the most exclusive that exists in
France, as every one knows.
When he received his nomination in Paris, his relationship caused him to
be received at once by five or six aristocratic families, and it was not
long before he extended his circle of acquaintance.
He possessed, however, none of the qualifications which ensure social
success. He was cold and grave even to sadness, reserved and timid
even to excess. His mind wanted brilliancy and lightness; he lacked
the facility of repartee, and the amiable art of conversing without a
subject; he could neither tell a lie, nor pay an insipid compliment.
Like most men who feel deeply, he was unable to interpret his
impressions immediately. He required to reflect and consider within
himself.
However, he was sought after for more solid qualities than these: for
the nobleness of his sentiments, his pleasant disposition, and the
certainty of his connections. Those who knew him intimately quickly
learned to esteem his sound judgment, his keen sense of honour, and to
discover under his cold exterior a warm heart, an excessive sensibility,
and a delicacy almost feminine. In a word, although he might be eclipsed
in a room full of strangers or simpletons, he charmed all hearts in a
smaller circle, where he felt warmed by an atmosphere of sympathy.
He accustomed himself to go about a great deal. He reasoned, wisely
perhaps, that a magistrate can make better use of his time than by
remaining shut up in his study, in company with books of law. He thought
that a man called upon to judge others, ought to know them, and for that
purpose study them. An attentive and discreet observer, he examined the
play of human interests and passions, exercised himself in disentangling
and manoeuvring at need the strings of the puppets he saw moving around
him. Piece by piece, so to say, he laboured to comprehend the working
of the complicated machine called society, of which he was charged to
overlook the movements, regulate the springs, and keep the wheels in
order.
And on a sudden, in the early part of the winter of 1860 and 1861, M.
Daburon disappeared. His friends sought for him, but he was nowhere to
be met with. What could he be doing? Inquiry resulted in the discovery
that he passed nearly all his evenings at the house of the Marchioness
d’Arlange. The surprise was as great as it was natural.
This dear marchioness was, or rather is,--for she is still in the land
of the living,--a personage whom one would consider rather out of date.
She is surely the most singular legacy bequeathed us by the eighteenth
century. How, and by what marvellous process she had been preserved
such as we see her, it is impossible to say. Listening to her, you would
swear that she was yesterday at one of those parties given by the queen
where cards and high stakes were the rule, much to the annoyance of
Louis XIV., and where the great ladies cheated openly in emulation of
each other.
Manners, language, habits, almost costume, she has preserved everything
belonging to that period about which authors have written only to
display the defects. Her appearance alone will tell more than an
exhaustive article, and an hour’s conversation with her, more than a
volume.
She was born in a little principality, where her parents had taken
refuge whilst awaiting the chastisements and repentance of an erring and
rebellious people. She had been brought up amongst the old nobles of
the emigration, in some very ancient and very gilded apartment, just as
though she had been in a cabinet of curiosities. Her mind had awakened
amid the hum of antediluvian conversations, her imagination had first
been aroused by arguments a little less profitable than those of an
assembly of deaf persons convoked to decide upon the merits of the work
of some distinguished musician. Here she imbibed a fund of ideas, which,
applied to the forms of society of to-day, are as grotesque as would
be those of a child shut up until twenty years of age in an Assyrian
museum.
The first empire, the restoration, the monarchy of July, the second
republic, the second empire, have passed beneath her windows, but she
has not taken the trouble to open them. All that has happened since ‘89
she considers as never having been. For her it is a nightmare from which
she is still awaiting a release. She has looked at everything, but then
she looks through her own pretty glasses which show her everything as
she would wish it, and which are to be obtained of dealers in illusions.
Though over sixty-eight years old she is as straight as a poplar, and
has never been ill. She is vivacious, and active to excess, and can only
keep still when asleep, or when playing her favorite game of piquet. She
has her four meals a day, eats like a vintager, and takes her wine neat.
She professes an undisguised contempt for the silly women of our century
who live for a week on a partridge, and inundate with water grand
sentiments which they entangle in long phrases. She has always been, and
still is, very positive, and her word is prompt and easily understood.
She never shrinks from using the most appropriate word to express her
meaning. So much the worse, if some delicate ears object! She heartily
detests hypocrisy.
She believes in God, but she believes also in M. de Voltaire, so that
her devotion is, to say the least, problematical. However, she is on
good terms with the curate of her parish, and is very particular about
the arrangement of her dinner on the days she honours him with an
invitation to her table. She seems to consider him a subaltern, very
useful to her salvation, and capable of opening the gate of paradise for
her.
Such as she is, she is shunned like the plague. Everybody dreads her
loud voice, her terrible indiscretion, and the frankness of speech which
she affects, in order to have the right of saying the most unpleasant
things which pass through her head. Of all her family, there only
remains her granddaughter, whose father died very young.
Of a fortune originally large, and partly restored by the indemnity
allowed by the government, but since administered in the most careless
manner, she has only been able to preserve an income of twenty thousand
francs, which diminishes day by day. She is, also, proprietor of the
pretty little house which she inhabits, situated near the Invalides,
between a rather narrow court-yard, and a very extensive garden.
So circumstanced, she considers herself the most unfortunate of God’s
creatures, and passes the greater part of her life complaining of her
poverty. From time to time, especially after some exceptionally bad
speculation, she confesses that what she fears most is to die in a
pauper’s bed.
A friend of M. Daburon’s presented him one evening to the Marchioness
d’Arlange, having dragged him to her house in a mirthful mood, saying,
“Come with me, and I will show you a phenomenon, a ghost of the past in
flesh and bone.”
The marchioness rather puzzled the magistrate the first time he was
admitted to her presence. On his second visit, she amused him very much;
for which reason, he came again. But after a while she no longer amused
him, though he still continued a faithful and constant visitor to the
rose-coloured boudoir wherein she passed the greater part of her life.
Madame d’Arlange conceived a violent friendship for him, and became
eloquent in his praises.
“A most charming young man,” she declared, “delicate and sensible! What
a pity he is not born!” (Her ladyship meant born of noble parentage,
but used the phrase as ignoring the fact of the unfortunates who are
not noble having been born at all) “One can receive him though, all
the same; his forefathers were very decent people, and his mother was a
Cottevise who, however, went wrong. I wish him well, and will do all I
can to push him forward.”
The strongest proof of friendship he received from her was, that she
condescended to pronounce his name like the rest of the world. She had
preserved that ridiculous affectation of forgetfulness of the names of
people who were not of noble birth, and who in her opinion had no right
to names. She was so confirmed in this habit, that, if by accident she
pronounced such a name correctly, she immediately repeated it with some
ludicrous alteration. During his first visit, M. Daburon was extremely
amused at hearing his name altered every time she addressed him.
Successively she made it Taburon, Dabiron, Maliron, Laliron, Laridon;
but, in three months time, she called him Daburon as distinctly as if he
had been a duke of something, and a lord of somewhere.
Occasionally she exerted herself to prove to the worthy magistrate that
he was a nobleman, or at least ought to be. She would have been happy,
if she could have persuaded him to adopt some title, and have a helmet
engraved upon his visiting cards.
“How is it possible,” said she, “that your ancestors, eminent, wealthy,
and influential, never thought of being raised from the common herd
and securing a title for their descendants? Today you would possess a
presentable pedigree.--”
“My ancestors were wise,” responded M. Daburon. “They preferred being
foremost among their fellow-citizens to becoming last among the nobles.”
Upon which the marchioness explained, and proved to demonstration, that
between the most influential and wealthy citizen and the smallest scion
of nobility, there was an abyss that all the money in the world could
not fill up.
They who were so surprised at the frequency of the magistrate’s
visits to this celebrated “relic of the past” did not know that lady’s
granddaughter, or, at least, did not recollect her; she went out so
seldom! The old marchioness did not care, so she said, to be bothered
with a young spy who would be in her way when she related some of her
choice anecdotes.
Claire d’Arlange was just seventeen years old. She was extremely
graceful and gentle in manner, and lovely in her natural innocence. She
had a profusion of fine light brown hair, which fell in ringlets over
her well-shaped neck and shoulders. Her figure was still rather slender;
but her features recalled Guide’s most celestial faces. Her blue eyes,
shaded by long lashes of a hue darker than her hair, had above all an
adorable expression.
A certain air of antiquity, the result of her association with her
grandmother, added yet another charm to the young girl’s manner. She had
more sense, however, than her relative; and, as her education had not
been neglected, she had imbibed pretty correct ideas of the world in
which she lived. This education, these practical ideas, Claire owed
to her governess, upon whose shoulders the marchioness had thrown the
entire responsibility of cultivating her mind.
This governess, Mademoiselle Schmidt, chosen at hazard, happened by
the most fortunate chance to be both well informed and possessed of
principle. She was, what is often met with on the other side of
the Rhine, a woman at once romantic and practical, of the tenderest
sensibility and the severest virtue. This good woman, while she carried
her pupil into the land of sentimental phantasy and poetical imaginings,
gave her at the same time the most practical instruction in matters
relating to actual life. She revealed to Claire all the peculiarities
of thought and manner that rendered her grandmother so ridiculous, and
taught her to avoid them, but without ceasing to respect them.
Every evening, on arriving at Madame d’Arlange’s, M. Daburon was sure to
find Claire seated beside her grandmother, and it was for that that
he called. Whilst listening with an inattentive ear to the old lady’s
rigmaroles and her interminable anecdotes of the emigration, he gazed
upon Claire, as a fanatic upon his idol. Often in his ecstasy he forgot
where he was for the moment and became absolutely oblivious of the old
lady’s presence, although her shrill voice was piercing the tympanum
of his ear like a needle. Then he would answer her at cross-purposes,
committing the most singular blunders, which he labored afterwards to
explain. But he need not have taken the trouble. Madame d’Arlange did
not perceive her courtier’s absence of mind; her questions were of such
a length, that she did not care about the answers. Having a listener,
she was satisfied, provided that from time to time he gave signs of
life.
When obliged to sit down to play piquet, he cursed below his breath the
game and its detestable inventor. He paid no attention to his cards.
He made mistakes every moment, discarding what he should keep in
and forgetting to cut. The old lady was annoyed by these continual
distractions, but she did scruple to profit by them. She looked at the
discard, changed the cards which did not suit her, while she audaciously
scored points she never made, and pocketed the money thus won without
shame or remorse.
M. Daburon’s timidity was extreme, and Claire was unsociable to excess,
they therefore seldom spoke to each other. During the entire winter, the
magistrate did not directly address the young girl ten times; and, on
these rare occasions, he had learned mechanically by heart the phrase he
proposed to repeat to her, well knowing that, without this precaution,
he would most likely be unable to finish what he had to say.
But at least he saw her, he breathed the same air with her, he heard her
voice, whose pure and harmonious vibrations thrilled his very soul.
By constantly watching her eyes, he learned to understand all their
expressions. He believed he could read in them all her thoughts, and
through them look into her soul like through an open window.
“She is pleased to-day,” he would say to himself; and then he would
be happy. At other times, he thought, “She has met with some annoyance
to-day;” and immediately he became sad.
The idea of asking for her hand many times presented itself to his
imagination; but he never dared to entertain it. Knowing, as he did,
the marchioness’s prejudices, her devotion to titles, her dread of any
approach to a misalliance, he was convinced she would shut his mouth
at the first word by a very decided “no,” which she would maintain. To
attempt the thing would be to risk, without a chance of success, his
present happiness which he thought immense, for love lives upon its own
misery.
“Once repulsed,” thought he, “the house is shut against me; and then
farewell to happiness, for life will end for me.” Upon the other
hand, the very rational thought occurred to him that another might
see Mademoiselle d’Arlange, love her, and, in consequence, ask for and
obtain her. In either case, hazarding a proposal, or hesitating still,
he must certainly lose her in the end. By the commencement of spring,
his mind was made up.
One fine afternoon, in the month of April, he bent his steps towards the
residence of Madame d’Arlange, having truly need of more bravery than
a soldier about to face a battery. He, like the soldier, whispered to
himself, “Victory or death!” The marchioness who had gone out shortly
after breakfast had just returned in a terrible rage, and was uttering
screams like an eagle.
This was what had taken place. She had some work done by a neighboring
painter some eight or ten months before; and the workman had presented
himself a hundred times to receive payment, without avail. Tired of this
proceeding, he had summoned the high and mighty Marchioness d’Arlange
before the Justice of the Peace.
This summons had exasperated the marchioness; but she kept the matter
to herself, having decided, in her wisdom, to call upon the judge and
request him to reprimand the insolent painter who had dared to plague
her for a paltry sum of money. The result of this fine project may be
guessed. The judge had been compelled to eject her forcibly from his
office; hence her fury.
M. Daburon found her in the rose-colored boudoir half undressed, her
hair in disorder, red as a peony, and surrounded by the debris of the
glass and china which had fallen under her hands in the first moments of
her passion. Unfortunately, too, Claire and her governess were gone out.
A maid was occupied in inundating the old lady with all sorts of waters,
in the hope of calming her nerves.
She received Daburon as a messenger direct from Providence. In a little
more than half an hour, she told her story, interlarded with numerous
interjections and imprecations.
“Do you comprehend this judge?” cried she. “He must be some frantic
Jacobin,--some son of the furies, who washed their hands in the blood of
their king. Ah! my friend, I read stupor and indignation in your glance.
He listened to the complaint of that impudent scoundrel whom I enabled
to live by employing him! And when I addressed some severe remonstrances
to this judge, as it was my duty to do, he had me turned out! Do you
hear? turned out!”
At this painful recollection, she made a menacing gesture with her arm.
In her sudden movement, she struck a handsome scent bottle that her maid
held in her hand. The force of the blow sent it to the other end of the
room, where it broke into pieces.
“Stupid, awkward fool!” cried the marchioness, venting her anger upon
the frightened girl.
M. Daburon, bewildered at first, now endeavored to calm her
exasperation. She did not allow him to pronounce three words.
“Happily you are here,” she continued; “you are always willing to serve
me, I know. I count upon you! you will exercise your influence, your
powerful friends, your credit, to have this pitiful painter and this
miscreant of a judge flung into some deep ditch, to teach them the
respect due to a woman of my rank.”
The magistrate did not permit himself even to smile at this imperative
demand. He had heard many speeches as absurd issue from her lips without
ever making fun of them. Was she not Claire’s grandmother? for that
alone he loved and venerated her. He blessed her for her granddaughter,
as an admirer of nature blesses heaven for the wild flower that delights
him with its perfume.
The fury of the old lady was terrible; nor was it of short duration. At
the end of an hour, however, she was, or appeared to be, pacified. They
replaced her head-dress, repaired the disorder of her toilette, and
picked up the fragments of broken glass and china. Vanquished by her
own violence, the reaction was immediate and complete. She fell back
helpless and exhausted into an arm-chair.
This magnificent result was due to the magistrate. To accomplish it, he
had had to use all his ability, to exercise the most angelic patience,
the greatest tact. His triumph was the more meritorious, because he
came completely unprepared for this adventure, which interfered with his
intended proposal. The first time that he had felt sufficient courage
to speak, fortune seemed to declare against him, for this untoward event
had quite upset his plans.
Arming himself, however, with his professional eloquence, he talked the
old lady into calmness. He was not so foolish as to contradict her. On
the contrary, he caressed her hobby. He was humorous and pathetic by
turns. He attacked the authors of the revolution, cursed its errors,
deplored its crimes, and almost wept over its disastrous results.
Commencing with the infamous Marat he eventually reached the rascal of a
judge who had offended her. He abused his scandalous conduct in good set
terms, and was exceedingly severe upon the dishonest scamp of a painter.
However, he thought it best to let them off the punishment they so
richly deserved; and ended by suggesting that it would perhaps be
prudent, wise, noble even to pay.
The unfortunate word “pay” brought Madame d’Arlange to her feet in the
fiercest attitude.
“Pay!” she screamed. “In order that these scoundrels may persist in
their obduracy! Encourage them by a culpable weakness! Never! Besides to
pay one must have money! and I have none!”
“Why!” said M. Daburon, “it amounts to but eighty-seven francs!”
“And is that nothing?” asked the marchioness; “you talk very foolishly,
my dear sir. It is easy to see that you have money; your ancestors were
people of no rank; and the revolution passed a hundred feet above their
heads. Who can tell whether they may not have been the gainers by it? It
took all from the d’Arlanges. What will they do to me, if I do not pay?”
“Well, madame, they can do many things; almost ruin you, in costs. They
may seize your furniture.”
“Alas!” cried the old lady, “the revolution is not ended yet. We shall
all be swallowed up by it, my poor Daburon! Ah! you are happy, you who
belong to the people! I see plainly that I must pay this man without
delay, and it is frightfully sad for me, for I have nothing, and am
forced to make such sacrifices for the sake of my grandchild!”
This statement surprised the magistrate so strongly that involuntarily
he repeated half-aloud, “Sacrifices?”
“Certainly!” resumed Madame d’Arlange. “Without her, would I have to
live as I am doing, refusing myself everything to make both ends meet?
Not a bit of it! I would invest my fortune in a life annuity. But I
know, thank heaven, the duties of a mother; and I economise all I can
for my little Claire.”
This devotion appeared so admirable to M. Daburon, that he could not
utter a word.
“Ah! I am terribly anxious about this dear child,” continued the
marchioness. “I confess M. Daburon, it makes me giddy when I wonder how
I am to marry her.”
The magistrate reddened with pleasure. At last his opportunity had
arrived; he must take advantage of it at once.
“It seems to me,” stammered he, “that to find Mademoiselle Claire a
husband ought not to be difficult.”
“Unfortunately, it is. She is pretty enough, I admit, although rather
thin, but, now-a-days, beauty goes for nothing. Men are so mercenary
they think only of money. I do not know of one who has the manhood to
take a d’Arlange with her bright eyes for a dowry.”
“I believe that you exaggerate,” remarked M. Daburon, timidly.
“By no means. Trust to my experience which is far greater than yours.
Besides, when I find a son-in-law, he will cause me a thousand troubles.
Of this, I am assured by my lawyer. I shall be compelled, it seems, to
render an account of Claire’s patrimony. As if ever I kept accounts!
It is shameful! Ah! if Claire had any sense of filial duty, she would
quietly take the veil in some convent. I would use every effort to pay
the necessary dower; but she has no affection for me.”
M. Daburon felt that now was the time to speak. He collected his
courage, as a good horseman pulls his horse together when going to leap
a hedge, and in a voice, which he tried to render firm, he said: “Well!
Madame, I believe I know a party who would suit Mademoiselle Claire,--an
honest man, who loves her, and who will do everything in the world to
make her happy.”
“That,” said Madame d’Arlange, “is always understood.”
“The man of whom I speak,” continued the magistrate, “is still young,
and is rich. He will be only too happy to receive Mademoiselle Claire
without a dowry. Not only will he decline an examination of your
accounts of guardianship, but he will beg you to invest your fortune as
you think fit.”
“Really! Daburon, my friend, you are by no means a fool!” exclaimed the
old lady.
“If you prefer not to invest your fortune in a life-annuity, your
son-in-law will allow you sufficient to make up what you now find
wanting.”
“Ah! really I am stifling,” interrupted the marchioness. “What! you know
such a man, and have never yet mentioned him to me! You ought to have
introduced him long ago.”
“I did not dare, madame, I was afraid--”
“Quick! tell me who is this admirable son-in-law, this white blackbird?
where does he nestle?”
The magistrate felt a strange fluttering of the heart; he was going
to stake his happiness on a word. At length he stammered, “It is I,
madame!”
His voice, his look, his gesture were beseeching. He was surprised at
his own audacity, frightened at having vanquished his timidity, and was
on the point of falling at the old lady’s feet. She, however, laughed
until the tears came into her eyes, then shrugging her shoulders, she
said: “Really, dear Daburon is too ridiculous, he will make me die of
laughing! He is so amusing!” After which she burst out laughing again.
But suddenly she stopped, in the very height of her merriment, and
assumed her most dignified air. “Are you perfectly serious in all you
have told me, M. Daburon?” she asked.
“I have stated the truth,” murmured the magistrate.
“You are then very rich?”
“I inherited, madame, from my mother, about twenty thousand francs a
year. One of my uncles, who died last year, bequeathed me over a hundred
thousand crowns. My father is worth about a million. Were I to ask him
for the half to-morrow, he would give it to me; he would give me all
his fortune, if it were necessary to my happiness, and be but too well
contented, should I leave him the administration of it.”
Madame d’Arlange signed to him to be silent; and, for five good minutes
at least, she remained plunged in reflection, her forehead resting in
her hands. At length she raised her head.
“Listen,” said she. “Had you been so bold as to make this proposal to
Claire’s father, he would have called his servants to show you the door.
For the sake of our name I ought to do the same; but I cannot do so. I
am old and desolate; I am poor; my grandchild’s prospects disquiet me;
that is my excuse. I cannot, however, consent to speak to Claire of this
horrible misalliance. What I can promise you, and that is too much,
is that I will not be against you. Take your own measures; pay your
addresses to Mademoiselle d’Arlange, and try to persuade her. If she
says ‘yes,’ of her own free will, I shall not say ‘no.’”
M. Daburon, transported with happiness, could almost have embraced the
old lady. He thought her the best, the most excellent of women, not
noticing the facility with which this proud spirit had been brought to
yield. He was delirious, almost mad.
“Wait!” said the old lady; “your cause is not yet gained. Your mother,
it is true, was a Cottevise, and I must excuse her for marrying so
wretchedly; but your father is simple M. Daburon. This name, my dear
friend, is simply ridiculous. Do you think it will be easy to make a
Daburon of a young girl who for nearly eighteen years has been called
d’Arlange?”
This objection did not seem to trouble the magistrate.
“After all,” continued the old lady, “your father gained a Cottevise,
so you may win a d’Arlange. On the strength of marrying into noble
families, the Daburons may perhaps end by ennobling themselves. One last
piece of advice; you believe Claire to be just as she looks,--timid,
sweet, obedient. Undeceive yourself, my friend. Despite her innocent
air, she is hardy, fierce, and obstinate as the marquis her father, who
was worse than an Auvergne mule. Now you are warned. Our conditions are
agreed to, are they not? Let us say no more on the subject. I almost
wish you to succeed.”
This scene was so present to the magistrate’s mind, that as he sat at
home in his arm-chair, though many months had passed since these events,
he still seemed to hear the old lady’s voice, and the word “success”
still sounded in his ears.
He departed in triumph from the d’Arlange abode, which he had entered
with a heart swelling with anxiety. He walked with his head erect, his
chest dilated, and breathing the fresh air with the full strength of his
lungs. He was so happy! The sky appeared to him more blue, the sun
more brilliant. This grave magistrate felt a mad desire to stop the
passers-by, to press them in his arms, to cry to them,--“Have you heard?
The marchioness consents!”
He walked, and the earth seemed to him to give way beneath his
footsteps; it was either too small to carry so much happiness, or else
he had become so light that he was going to fly away towards the stars.
What castles in the air he built upon what Madame d’Arlange had said to
him! He would tender his resignation. He would build on the banks of the
Loire, not far from Tours, an enchanting little villa. He already saw
it, with its facade to the rising sun, nestling in the midst of flowers,
and shaded with wide-spreading trees. He furnished this dwelling in the
most luxuriant style. He wished to provide a marvellous casket, worthy
the pearl he was about to possess. For he had not a doubt; not a cloud
obscured the horizon made radiant by his hopes, no voice at the bottom
of his heart raised itself to cry, “Beware!”
From that day, his visits to the marchioness became more frequent.
He might almost be said to live at her house. While he preserved his
respectful and reserved demeanour towards Claire, he strove assiduously
to be something in her life. True love is ingenious. He learnt to
overcome his timidity, to speak to the well-beloved of his soul, to
encourage her to converse with him, to interest her. He went in quest
of all the news, to amuse her. He read all the new books, and brought to
her all that were fit for her to read.
Little by little he succeeded, thanks to the most delicate persistence,
in taming this shy young girl. He began to perceive that her fear of him
had almost disappeared, that she no longer received him with the cold
and haughty air which had previously kept him at a distance. He felt
that he was insensibly gaining her confidence. She still blushed when
she spoke to him; but she no longer hesitated to address the first word.
She even ventured at times to ask him a question. If she had heard a
play well spoken of and wished to know the subject, M. Daburon would at
once go to see it, and commit a complete account of it to writing, which
he would send her through the post. At times she intrusted him with
trifling commissions, the execution of which he would not have exchanged
for the Russian embassy.
Once he ventured to send her a magnificent bouquet. She accepted it with
an air of uneasy surprise, but begged him not to repeat the offering.
The tears came to his eyes; he left her presence broken-hearted, and the
unhappiest of men. “She does not love me,” thought he, “she will never
love me.” But, three days after, as he looked very sad, she begged him
to procure her certain flowers, then very much in fashion, which she
wished to place on her flower-stand. He sent enough to fill the house
from the garret to the cellar. “She will love me,” he whispered to
himself in his joy.
These events, so trifling but yet so great, had not interrupted the
games of piquet; only the young girl now appeared to interest herself
in the play, nearly always taking the magistrate’s side against the
marchioness. She did not understand the game very well; but, when
the old gambler cheated too openly, she would notice it, and say,
laughingly,--“She is robbing you, M. Daburon,--she is robbing you!” He
would willingly have been robbed of his entire fortune, to hear that
sweet voice raised on his behalf.
It was summer time. Often in the evening she accepted his arm, and,
while the marchioness remained at the window, seated in her arm-chair,
they walked around the lawn, treading lightly upon the paths spread with
gravel sifted so fine that the trailing of her light dress effaced the
traces of their footsteps. She chatted gaily with him, as with a beloved
brother, while he was obliged to do violence to his feelings, to refrain
from imprinting a kiss upon the little blonde head, from which the light
breeze lifted the curls and scattered them like fleecy clouds. At such
moments, he seemed to tread an enchanted path strewn with flowers, at
the end of which appeared happiness.
When he attempted to speak of his hopes to the marchioness, she would
say: “You know what we agreed upon. Not a word. Already does the
voice of conscience reproach me for lending my countenance to such an
abomination. To think that I may one day have a granddaughter calling
herself Madame Daburon! You must petition the king, my friend, to change
your name.”
If instead of intoxicating himself with dreams of happiness, this acute
observer had studied the character of his idol, the effect might have
been to put him upon his guard. In the meanwhile, he noticed singular
alterations in her humour. On certain days, she was gay and careless
as a child. Then, for a week, she would remain melancholy and dejected.
Seeing her in this state the day following a ball, to which her
grandmother had made a point of taking her, he dared to ask her the
reason of her sadness.
“Oh! that,” answered she, heaving a deep sigh, “is my secret,--a secret
of which even my grandmother knows nothing.”
M. Daburon looked at her. He thought he saw a tear between her long
eyelashes.
“One day,” continued she, “I may confide in you: it will perhaps be
necessary.”
The magistrate was blind and deaf. “I also,” answered he, “have a
secret, which I wish to confide to you in return.”
When he retired towards midnight, he said to himself, “To-morrow I will
confess everything to her.” Then passed a little more than fifty days,
during which he kept repeating to himself,--“To-morrow!”
It happened at last one evening in the month of August; the heat all
day had been overpowering; towards dusk a breeze had risen, the leaves
rustled; there were signs of a storm in the atmosphere.
They were seated together at the bottom of the garden, under the arbour,
adorned with exotic plants, and, through the branches, they perceived
the fluttering gown of the marchioness, who was taking a turn after her
dinner. They had remained a long time without speaking, enjoying the
perfume of the flowers, the calm beauty of the evening.
M. Daburon ventured to take the young girl’s hand. It was the first
time, and the touch of her fine skin thrilled through every fibre of his
frame, and drove the blood surging to his brain.
“Mademoiselle,” stammered he, “Claire--”
She turned towards him her beautiful eyes, filled with astonishment.
“Forgive me,” continued he, “forgive me. I have spoken to your
grandmother, before daring to raise my eyes to you. Do you not
understand me? A word from your lips will decide my future happiness or
misery. Claire, mademoiselle, do not spurn me: I love you!”
While the magistrate was speaking, Mademoiselle d’Arlange looked at him
as though doubtful of the evidence of her senses; but at the words, “I
love you!” pronounced with the trembling accents of the most devoted
passion, she disengaged her hand sharply, and uttered a stifled cry.
“You,” murmured she, “is this really you?”
M. Daburon, at this the most critical moment of his life was powerless
to utter a word. The presentiment of an immense misfortune oppressed his
heart. What were then his feelings, when he saw Claire burst into tears.
She hid her face in her hands, and kept repeating,--
“I am very unhappy, very unhappy!”
“You unhappy?” exclaimed the magistrate at length, “and through me?
Claire, you are cruel! In heaven’s name, what have I done? What is the
matter? Speak! Anything rather then this anxiety which is killing me.”
He knelt before her on the gravelled walk, and again made an attempt to
take her hand. She repulsed him with an imploring gesture.
“Let me weep,” said she: “I suffer so much, you are going to hate me,
I feel it. Who knows! you will, perhaps, despise me, and yet I swear
before heaven that I never expected what you have just said to me, that
I had not even a suspicion of it!”
M. Daburon remained upon his knees, awaiting his doom.
“Yes,” continued Claire, “you will think you have been the victim of a
detestable coquetry. I see it now! I comprehend everything! It is not
possible, that, without a profound love, a man can be all that you
have been to me. Alas! I was but a child. I gave myself up to the great
happiness of having a friend! Am I not alone in the world, and as if
lost in a desert? Silly and imprudent, I thoughtlessly confided in you,
as in the best, the most indulgent of fathers.”
These words revealed to the unfortunate magistrate the extent of
his error. The same as a heavy hammer, they smashed into a thousand
fragments the fragile edifice of his hopes. He raised himself slowly,
and, in a tone of involuntary reproach, he repeated,--“Your father!”
Mademoiselle d’Arlange felt how deeply she had wounded this man whose
intense love she dare not even fathom. “Yes,” she resumed, “I love you
as a father! Seeing you, usually so grave and austere, become for me
so good, so indulgent, I thanked heaven for sending me a protector to
replace those who are dead.”
M. Daburon could not restrain a sob; his heart was breaking.
“One word,” continued Claire,--“one single word, would have enlightened
me. Why did you not pronounce it! It was with such happiness that I
leant on you as a child on its mother; and with what inward joy I said
to myself, ‘I am sure of one friend, of one heart into which runs the
overflow of mine!’ Ah! why was not my confidence greater? Why did I
withhold my secret from you? I might have avoided this fearful calamity.
I ought to have told you long since. I no longer belong to myself freely
and with happiness, I have given my life to another.”
To hover in the clouds, and suddenly to fall rudely to the earth, such
was M. Daburon’s fate; his sufferings are not to be described.
“Far better to have spoken,” answered he; “yet no. I owe to your
silence, Claire, six months of delicious illusions, six months of
enchanting dreams. This shall be my share of life’s happiness.”
The last beams of closing day still enabled the magistrate to see
Mademoiselle d’Arlange. Her beautiful face had the whiteness and the
immobility of marble. Heavy tears rolled silently down her cheeks. It
seemed to M. Daburon that he was beholding the frightful spectacle of a
weeping statue.
“You love another,” said he at length, “another! And your grandmother
does not know it. Claire, you can only have chosen a man worthy of your
love. How is it the marchioness does not receive him?”
“There are certain obstacles,” murmured Claire, “obstacles which perhaps
we may never be able to remove; but a girl like me can love but once.
She marries him she loves, or she belongs to heaven!”
“Certain obstacles!” said M. Daburon in a hollow voice. “You love a man,
he knows it, and he is stopped by obstacles?”
“I am poor,” answered Mademoiselle d’Arlange, “and his family is
immensely rich. His father is cruel, inexorable.”
“His father,” cried the magistrate, with a bitterness he did not dream
of hiding, “his father, his family, and that withholds him! You are
poor, he is rich, and that stops him! And yet he knows you love him!
Ah! why am I not in his place? and why have I not the entire universe
against me? What sacrifice can compare with love? such as I understand
it. Nay, would it be a sacrifice? That which appears most so, is it not
really an immense joy? To suffer, to struggle, to wait, to hope always,
to devote oneself entirely to another; that is my idea of love.”
“It is thus I love,” said Claire with simplicity.
This answer crushed the magistrate. He could understand it. He knew that
for him there was no hope; but he felt a terrible enjoyment in torturing
himself, and proving his misfortune by intense suffering.
“But,” insisted he, “how have you known him, spoken to him? Where? When?
Madame d’Arlange receives no one.”
“I ought now to tell you everything, sir,” answered Claire proudly.
“I have known him for a long time. It was at the house of one of my
grandmother’s friends, who is a cousin of his,--old Mademoiselle Goello,
that I saw him for the first time. There we spoke to each other; there
we meet each other now.”
“Ah!” exclaimed M. Daburon, whose eyes were suddenly opened, “I remember
now. A few days before your visit to Mademoiselle Goello, you are gayer
than usual; and, when you return, you are often sad.”
“That is because I see how much he is pained by the obstacles he cannot
overcome.”
“Is his family, then, so illustrious,” asked the magistrate harshly,
“that it disdains alliance with yours?”
“I should have told you everything, without waiting to be questioned,
sir,” answered Mademoiselle d’Arlange, “even his name. He is called
Albert de Commarin.”
The marchioness at this moment, thinking she had walked enough,
was preparing to return to her rose-coloured boudoir. She therefore
approached the arbour, and exclaimed in her loud voice:--
“Worthy magistrate, piquet awaits you.”
Mechanically the magistrate arose, stammering, “I am coming.”
Claire held him back. “I have not asked you to keep my secret, sir,”
said she.
“O mademoiselle!” said M. Daburon, wounded by this appearance of doubt.
“I know,” resumed Claire, “that I can count upon you; but, come what
will, my tranquillity is gone.”
M. Daburon looked at her with an air of surprise; his eyes questioned
her.
“It is certain,” continued she, “that what I, a young and inexperienced
girl, have failed to see, has not passed unnoticed by my grandmother.
That she has continued to receive you is a tacit encouragement of your
addresses; which I consider, permit me to say, as very honourable to
myself.”
“I have already mentioned, mademoiselle,” replied the magistrate, “that
the marchioness has deigned to authorise my hopes.”
And briefly he related his interview with Madame d’Arlange, having the
delicacy, however, to omit absolutely the question of money, which had
so strongly influenced the old lady.
“I see very plainly what effect this will have on my peace,” said Claire
sadly. “When my grandmother learns that I have not received your homage,
she will be very angry.”
“You misjudge me, mademoiselle,” interrupted M. Daburon. “I have nothing
to say to the marchioness. I will retire, and all will be concluded. No
doubt she will think that I have altered my mind!”
“Oh! you are good and generous, I know!”
“I will go away,” pursued M. Daburon; “and soon you will have forgotten
even the name of the unfortunate whose life’s hopes have just been
shattered.”
“You do not mean what you say,” said the young girl quickly.
“Well, no. I cherish this last illusion, that later on you will remember
me with pleasure. Sometimes you will say, ‘He loved me,’ I wish all the
same to remain your friend, yes, your most devoted friend.”
Claire, in her turn, clasped M. Daburon’s hands, and said with great
emotion:--“Yes, you are right, you must remain my friend. Let us forget
what has happened, what you have said to-night, and remain to me, as in
the past, the best, the most indulgent of brothers.”
Darkness had come, and she could not see him; but she knew he was
weeping, for he was slow to answer.
“Is it possible,” murmured he at length, “what you ask of me? What! is
it you who talk to me of forgetting? Do you feel the power to forget?
Do you not see that I love you a thousand times more than you love--”
He stopped, unable to pronounce the name of Commarin; and then, with an
effort he added: “And I shall love you always.”
They had left the arbour, and were now standing not far from the steps
leading to the house.
“And now, mademoiselle,” resumed M. Daburon, “permit me to say, adieu!
You will see me again but seldom. I shall only return often enough to
avoid the appearance of a rupture.”
His voice trembled, so that it was with difficulty he made it distinct.
“Whatever may happen,” he added, “remember that there is one unfortunate
being in the world who belongs to you absolutely. If ever you have need
of a friend’s devotion, come to me, come to your friend. Now it is over
... I have courage. Claire, mademoiselle, for the last time, adieu!”
She was but little less moved than he was. Instinctively she approached
him, and for the first and last time he touched lightly with his cold
lips the forehead of her he loved so well. They mounted the steps, she
leaning on his arm, and entered the rose-coloured boudoir where the
marchioness was seated, impatiently shuffling the cards, while awaiting
her victim.
“Now, then, incorruptible magistrate,” cried she.
But M. Daburon felt sick at heart. He could not have held the cards. He
stammered some absurd excuses, spoke of pressing affairs, of duties to
be attended to, of feeling suddenly unwell, and went out, clinging to
the walls.
His departure made the old card-player highly indignant. She turned to
her grand-daughter, who had gone to hide her confusion away from the
candles of the card table, and asked, “What is the matter with Daburon
this evening?”
“I do not know, madame,” stammered Claire.
“It appears to me,” continued the marchioness, “that the little
magistrate permits himself to take singular liberties. He must be
reminded of his proper place, or he will end by believing himself our
equal.”
Claire tried to explain the magistrate’s conduct: “He has been
complaining all the evening, grandmamma; perhaps he is unwell.”
“And what if he is?” exclaimed the old lady. “Is it not his duty to
exercise some self-denial, in return for the honour of our company? I
think I have already related to you the story of your granduncle, the
Duke de St Hurluge, who, having been chosen to join the king’s card
party on their return from the chase, played all through the evening and
lost with the best grace in the world two hundred and twenty pistoles.
All the assembly remarked his gaiety and his good humour. On the
following day only it was learned, that, during the hunt, he had fallen
from his horse, and had sat at his majesty’s card table with a broken
rib. Nobody made any remark, so perfectly natural did this act of
ordinary politeness appear in those days. This little Daburon, if he is
unwell, would have given proof of his breeding by saying nothing about
it, and remaining for my piquet. But he is as well as I am. Who can tell
what games he has gone to play elsewhere!”
CHAPTER VII.
M. Daburon did not return home on leaving Mademoiselle d’Arlange. All
through the night he wandered about at random, seeking to cool his
heated brow, and to allay his excessive weariness.
“Fool that I was!” said he to himself, “thousand times fool to have
hoped, to have believed, that she would ever love me. Madman! how
could I have dared to dream of possessing so much grace, nobleness, and
beauty! How charming she was this evening, when her face was bathed in
tears! Could anything be more angelic? What a sublime expression her
eyes had in speaking of him! How she must love him! And I? She loves me
as a father, she told me so,--as a father! And could it be otherwise?
Is it not justice? Could she see a lover in a sombre and severe-looking
magistrate, always as sad as his black coat? Was it not a crime to dream
of uniting that virginal simplicity to my detestable knowledge of the
world? For her, the future is yet the land of smiling chimeras; and long
since experience has dissipated all my illusions. She is as young as
innocence, and I am as old as vice.”
The unfortunate magistrate felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. He
understood Claire, and excused her. He reproached himself for having
shown her how he suffered; for having cast a shadow upon her life. He
could not forgive himself for having spoken of his love. Ought he not
to have foreseen what had happened?--that she would refuse him, that he
would thus deprive himself of the happiness of seeing her, of hearing
her, and of silently adoring her?
“A young and romantic girl,” pursued he, “must have a lover she can
dream of,--whom she can caress in imagination, as an ideal, gratifying
herself by seeing in him every great and brilliant quality, imagining
him full of nobleness, of bravery, of heroism. What would she see,
if, in my absence, she dreamed of me? Her imagination would present me
dressed in a funeral robe, in the depth of a gloomy dungeon, engaged
with some vile criminal. Is it not my trade to descend into all moral
sinks, to stir up the foulness of crime? Am I not compelled to wash
in secrecy and darkness the dirty linen of the most corrupt members of
society? Ah! some professions are fatal. Ought not the magistrate, like
the priest, to condemn himself to solitude and celibacy? Both know all,
they hear all, their costumes are nearly the same; but, while the priest
carries consolation in the folds of his black robe, the magistrate
conveys terror. One is mercy, the other chastisement. Such are the
images a thought of me would awaken; while the other,--the other--”
The wretched man continued his headlong course along the deserted quays.
He went with his head bare, his eyes haggard. To breathe more freely, he
had torn off his cravat and thrown it to the winds.
Sometimes, unconsciously, he crossed the path of a solitary wayfarer,
who would pause, touched with pity, and turn to watch the retreating
figure of the unfortunate wretch he thought deprived of reason. In a
by-road, near Grenelle, some police officers stopped him, and tried to
question him. He mechanically tendered them his card. They read it, and
permitted him to pass, convinced that he was drunk.
Anger,--a furious anger, began to replace his first feeling of
resignation. In his heart arose a hate, stronger and more violent than
even his love for Claire. That other, that preferred one, that haughty
viscount, who could not overcome those paltry obstacles, oh, that he had
him there, under his knee!
At that moment, this noble and proud man, this severe and grave
magistrate experienced an irresistible longing for vengeance. He began
to understand the hate that arms itself with a knife, and lays in ambush
in out-of-the-way places; which strikes in the dark, whether in front
or from behind matters little, but which strikes, which kills, whose
vengeance blood alone can satisfy.
At that very hour he was supposed to be occupied with an inquiry
into the case of an unfortunate, accused of having stabbed one of her
wretched companions. She was jealous of the woman, who had tried to
take her lover from her. He was a soldier, coarse in manners, and always
drunk.
M. Daburon felt himself seized with pity for this miserable creature,
whom he had commenced to examine the day before. She was very ugly, in
fact truly repulsive; but the expression of the eyes, when speaking of
her soldier, returned to the magistrate’s memory.
“She loves him sincerely,” thought he. “If each one of the jurors had
suffered what I am suffering now, she would be acquitted. But how many
men in this world have loved passionately? Perhaps not one in twenty.”
He resolved to recommend this girl to the indulgence of the tribunal,
and to extenuate as much as possible her guilt.
For he himself had just determined upon the commission of a crime. He
was resolved to kill Albert de Commarin.
During the rest of the night he became all the more determined in this
resolution, demonstrating to himself by a thousand mad reasons, which he
found solid and inscrutable, the necessity for and the justifiableness
of this vengeance.
At seven o’clock in the morning, he found himself in an avenue of the
Bois de Boulogne, not far from the lake. He made at once for the Porte
Maillot, procured a cab, and was driven to his house.
The delirium of the night continued, but without suffering. He was
conscious of no fatigue. Calm and cool, he acted under the power of an
hallucination, almost like a somnambulist.
He reflected and reasoned, but without his reason. As soon as he arrived
home he dressed himself with care, as was his custom formerly when
visiting the Marchioness d’Arlange, and went out. He first called at an
armourer’s and bought a small revolver, which he caused to be carefully
loaded under his own eyes, and put it into his pocket. He then called on
the different persons he supposed capable of informing him to what club
the viscount belonged. No one noticed the strange state of his mind, so
natural were his manners and conversations.
It was not until the afternoon that a young friend of his gave him the
name of Albert de Commarin’s club, and offered to conduct him thither,
as he too was a member.
M. Daburon accepted warmly, and accompanied his friend. While passing
along, he grasped with frenzy the handle of the revolver which he kept
concealed, thinking only of the murder he was determined to commit, and
the means of insuring the accuracy of his aim.
“This will make a terrible scandal,” thought he, “above all if I do not
succeed in blowing my own brains out. I shall be arrested, thrown
into prison, and placed upon my trial at the assizes. My name will be
dishonoured! Bah! what does that signify? Claire does not love me, so
what care I for all the rest? My father no doubt will die of grief, but
I must have my revenge!”
On arriving at the club, his friend pointed out a very dark young man,
with a haughty air, or what appeared so to him, who, seated at a table,
was reading a review. It was the viscount.
M. Daburon walked up to him without drawing his revolver. But when
within two paces, his heart failed him; he turned suddenly and fled,
leaving his friend astonished at a scene, to him, utterly inexplicable.
Only once again will Albert de Commarin be as near death.
On reaching the street, it seemed to M. Daburon that the ground was
receding from beneath him, that everything was turning around him. He
tried to cry out, but could not utter a sound; he struck at the air with
his hands, reeled for an instant, and then fell all of a heap on the
pavement.
The passers-by ran and assisted the police to raise him. In one of his
pockets they found his address, and carried him home. When he recovered
his senses, he was in his bed, at the foot of which he perceived his
father.
“What has happened?” he asked. With much caution they told him, that
for six weeks he had wavered between life and death. The doctors had
declared his life saved; and, now that reason was restored, all would go
well.
Five minutes’ conversation exhausted him. He shut his eyes, and tried to
collect his ideas; but they whirled hither and thither wildly, as autumn
leaves in the wind. The past seemed shrouded in a dark mist; yet, in
the midst of the darkness and confusion, all that concerned Mademoiselle
d’Arlange stood out clear and luminous. All his actions from the moment
when he embraced Claire appeared before him. He shuddered, and his hair
was in a moment soaking with perspiration.
He had almost become an assassin. The proof that he was restored to full
possession of his faculties was, that a question of criminal law crossed
his brain.
“The crime committed,” said he to himself, “should I have been
condemned? Yes. Was I responsible? No. Is crime merely the result of
mental alienation? Was I mad? Or was I in that peculiar state of mind
which usually precedes an illegal attempt? Who can say? Why have not all
judges passed through an incomprehensible crisis such as mine? But who
would believe me, were I to recount my experience?”
Some days later, he was sufficiently recovered to tell his father all.
The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders, and assured him it was but a
reminiscence of his delirium.
The good old man was moved at the story of his son’s luckless wooing,
without seeing therein, however, an irreparable misfortune. He advised
him to think of something else, placed at his disposal his entire
fortune, and recommended him to marry a stout Poitevine heiress, very
gay and healthy, who would bear him some fine children. Then, as his
estate was suffering by his absence, he returned home. Two months later,
the investigating magistrate had resumed his ordinary avocations. But
try as he would, he only went through his duties like a body without a
soul. He felt that something was broken.
Once he ventured to pay a visit to his old friend, the marchioness. On
seeing him, she uttered a cry of terror. She took him for a spectre, so
much was he changed in appearance.
As she dreaded dismal faces, she ever after shut her door to him.
Claire was ill for a week after seeing him. “How he loved me,” thought
she! “It has almost killed him! Can Albert love me as much?” She did not
dare to answer herself. She felt a desire to console him, to speak to
him, attempt something; but he came no more.
M. Daburon was not, however, a man to give way without a struggle. He
tried, as his father advised him, to distract his thoughts. He sought
for pleasure, and found disgust, but not forgetfulness. Often he went
so far as the threshold of debauchery; but the pure figure of Claire,
dressed in white garments, always barred the doors against him.
Then he took refuge in work, as in a sanctuary; condemned himself to the
most incessant labour, and forbade himself to think of Claire, as the
consumptive forbids himself to meditate upon his malady.
His eagerness, his feverish activity, earned him the reputation of an
ambitious man, who would go far; but he cared for nothing in the world.
At length, he found, not rest, but that painless benumbing which
commonly follows a great catastrophe. The convalescence of oblivion was
commencing.
These were the events, recalled to M. Daburon’s mind when old Tabaret
pronounced the name of Commarin. He believed them buried under the ashes
of time; and behold they reappeared, just the same as those characters
traced in sympathetic ink when held before a fire. In an instant they
unrolled themselves before his memory, with the instantaneousness of a
dream annihilating time and space.
During some minutes, he assisted at the representation of his own life.
At once actor and spectator, he was there seated in his arm-chair,
and at the same time he appeared on the stage. He acted, and he judged
himself.
His first thought, it must be confessed, was one of hate, followed by
a detestable feeling of satisfaction. Chance had, so to say, delivered
into his hands this man preferred by Claire, this man, now no longer a
haughty nobleman, illustrious by his fortune and his ancestors, but the
illegitimate offspring of a courtesan. To retain a stolen name, he had
committed a most cowardly assassination. And he, the magistrate, was
about to experience the infinite gratification of striking his enemy
with the sword of justice.
But this was only a passing thought. The man’s upright conscience
revolted against it, and made its powerful voice heard.
“Is anything,” it cried, “more monstrous than the association of these
two ideas,--hatred and justice? Can a magistrate, without despising
himself more than he despises the vile beings he condemns, recollect
that a criminal, whose fate is in his hands, has been his enemy? Has an
investigating magistrate the right to make use of his exceptional powers
in dealing with a prisoner; so long as he harbours the least resentment
against him?”
M. Daburon repeated to himself what he had so frequently thought during
the year, when commencing a fresh investigation: “And I also, I almost
stained myself with a vile murder!”
And now it was his duty to cause to be arrested, to interrogate, and
hand over to the assizes the man he had once resolved to kill.
All the world, it is true, ignored this crime of thought and intention;
but could he himself forget it? Was not this, of all others, a case in
which he should decline to be mixed up? Ought he not to withdraw, and
wash his hands of the blood that had been shed, leaving to another the
task of avenging him in the name of society?
“No,” said he, “it would be a cowardice unworthy of me.”
A project of mad generosity occurred to the bewildered man. “If I save
him,” murmured he, “if for Claire’s sake I leave him his honour and his
life. But how can I save him? To do so I shall be obliged to suppress
old Tabaret’s discoveries, and make an accomplice of him by ensuring his
silence. We shall have to follow a wrong track, join Gevrol in running
after some imaginary murderer. Is this practicable? Besides, to spare
Albert is to defame Noel; it is to assure impunity to the most odious of
crimes. In short, it is still sacrificing justice to my feelings.”
The magistrate suffered greatly. How choose a path in the midst of
so many perplexities! Impelled by different interests, he wavered,
undecided between the most opposite decisions, his mind oscillating from
one extreme to the other.
What could he do? His reason after this new and unforeseen shock vainly
sought to regain its equilibrium.
“Resign?” said he to himself. “Where, then, would be my courage? Ought
I not rather to remain the representative of the law, incapable of
emotion, insensible to prejudice? am I so weak that, in assuming my
office, I am unable to divest myself of my personality? Can I not, for
the present, make abstraction of the past? My duty is to pursue this
investigation. Claire herself would desire me to act thus. Would she wed
a man suspected of a crime? Never. If he is innocent, he will be saved;
if guilty, let him perish!”
This was very sound reasoning; but, at the bottom of his heart, a
thousand disquietudes darted their thorns. He wanted to reassure
himself.
“Do I still hate this young man?” he continued. “No, certainly. If
Claire has preferred him to me, it is to Claire and not to him I owe my
suffering. My rage was no more than a passing fit of delirium. I will
prove it, by letting him find me as much a counsellor as a magistrate.
If he is not guilty, he shall make use of all the means in my power to
establish his innocence. Yes, I am worthy to be his judge. Heaven, who
reads all my thoughts, sees that I love Claire enough to desire with all
my heart the innocence of her lover.”
Only then did M. Daburon seem to be vaguely aware of the lapse of time.
It was nearly three o’clock in the morning.
“Goodness!” cried he; “why, old Tabaret is waiting for me. I shall
probably find him asleep.”
But M. Tabaret was not asleep. He had noticed the passage of time no
more than the magistrate.
Ten minutes had sufficed him to take an inventory of the contents of M.
Daburon’s study, which was large, and handsomely furnished in accordance
with his position and fortune. Taking up a lamp, he first admired six
very valuable pictures, which ornamented the walls; he then examined
with considerable curiosity some rare bronzes placed about the room, and
bestowed on the bookcase the glance of a connoisseur.
After which, taking an evening paper from the table, he approached the
hearth, and seated himself in a vast armchair.
He had not read a third of the leading article, which, like all leading
articles of the time, was exclusively occupied with the Roman question,
when, letting the paper drop from his hands, he became absorbed
in meditation. The fixed idea, stronger than one’s will, and more
interesting to him than politics, brought him forcibly back to La
Jonchere, where lay the murdered Widow Lerouge. Like the child who again
and again builds up and demolishes his house of cards, he arranged and
entangled alternately his chain of inductions and arguments.
In his own mind there was certainly no longer a doubt as regards this
sad affair, and it seemed to him that M. Daburon shared his opinions.
But yet, what difficulties there still remained to encounter!
There exists between the investigating magistrate and the accused a
supreme tribunal, an admirable institution which is a guarantee for all,
a powerful moderator, the jury.
And the jury, thank heaven! do not content themselves with a moral
conviction. The strongest probabilities cannot induce them to give an
affirmative verdict.
Placed upon a neutral ground, between the prosecution and the defence,
it demands material and tangible proofs. Where the magistrate would
condemn twenty times for one, in all security of conscience, the jury
acquit for lack of satisfying evidence.
The deplorable execution of Lesurques has certainly assured impunity to
many criminals; but, it is necessary to say it justifies hesitation in
receiving circumstantial evidence in capital crimes.
In short, save where a criminal is taken in the very act, or confesses
his guilt, it is not certain that the minister of justice can secure a
conviction. Sometimes the judge of inquiry is as anxious as the accused
himself. Nearly all crimes are in some particular point mysterious,
perhaps impenetrable to justice and the police; and the duty of the
advocate is, to discover this weak point, and thereon establish his
client’s defence. By pointing out this doubt to the jury, he insinuates
in their minds a distrust of the entire evidence; and frequently the
detection of a distorted induction, cleverly exposed, can change the
face of a prosecution, and make a strong case appear to the jury a weak
one. This uncertainty explains the character of passion which is so
often perceptible in criminal trials.
And, in proportion to the march of civilisation, juries in important
trials will become more timid and hesitating. The weight of
responsibility oppresses the man of conscientious scruple. Already
numbers recoil from the idea of capital punishment; and, whenever a jury
can find a peg to hang a doubt on, they will wash their hands of the
responsibility of condemnation. We have seen numbers of persons signing
appeals for mercy to a condemned malefactor, condemned for what crime?
Parricide! Every juror, from the moment he is sworn, weighs infinitely
less the evidence he has come to listen to than the risk he runs of
incurring the pangs of remorse. Rather than risk the condemnation of one
innocent man, he will allow twenty scoundrels to go unpunished.
The accusation must then come before the jury, armed at all points, with
abundant proofs. A task often tedious to the investigating magistrate,
and bristling with difficulties, is the arrangement and condensation of
this evidence, particularly when the accused is a cool hand, certain of
having left no traces of his guilt. Then from the depths of his dungeon
he defies the assault of justice, and laughs at the judge of inquiry. It
is a terrible struggle, enough to make one tremble at the responsibility
of the magistrate, when he remembers, that after all, this man
imprisoned, without consolation or advice, may be innocent. How hard is
it, then for the judge to resist his moral convictions!
Even when presumptive evidence points clearly to the criminal,
and common sense recognises him, justice is at times compelled to
acknowledge her defeat, for lack of what the jury consider sufficient
proof of guilt. Thus, unhappily, many crimes escape punishment. An old
advocate-general said one day that he knew as many as three assassins,
living rich, happy, and respected, who would probably end by dying in
their beds, surrounded by their families, and being followed to
the grave with lamentations, and praised for their virtues in their
epitaphs.
At the idea that a murderer might escape the penalty of his crime, and
steal away from the assize court, old Tabaret’s blood fairly boiled in
his veins, as at the recollection of some deadly insult.
Such a monstrous event, in his opinion, could only proceed from the
incapacity of those charged with the preliminary inquiry, the clumsiness
of the police, or the stupidity of the investigating magistrate.
“It is not I,” he muttered, with the satisfied vanity of success, “who
would ever let my prey escape. No crime can be committed, of which the
author cannot be found, unless, indeed, he happens to be a madman, whose
motive it would be difficult to understand. I would pass my life in
pursuit of a criminal, before avowing myself vanquished, as Gevrol has
done so many times.”
Assisted by chance, he had again succeeded, so he kept repeating to
himself, but what proofs could he furnish to the accusation, to that
confounded jury, so difficult to convince, so precise and so cowardly?
What could he imagine to force so cunning a culprit to betray himself?
What trap could he prepare? To what new and infallible stratagem could
he have recourse?
The amateur detective exhausted himself in subtle but impracticable
combinations, always stopped by that exacting jury, so obnoxious to
the agents of the Rue de Jerusalem. He was so deeply absorbed in his
thoughts that he did not hear the door open, and was utterly unconscious
of the magistrate’s presence.
M. Daburon’s voice aroused him from his reverie.
“You will excuse me, M. Tabaret, for having left you so long alone.”
The old fellow rose and bowed respectfully.
“By my faith, sir,” replied he, “I have not had the leisure to perceive
my solitude.”
M. Daburon crossed the room, and seated himself, facing his agent before
a small table encumbered with papers and documents relating to the
crime. He appeared very much fatigued.
“I have reflected a good deal,” he commenced, “about this affair--”
“And I,” interrupted old Tabaret, “was just asking myself what was
likely to be the attitude assumed by the viscount at the moment of his
arrest. Nothing is more important, according to my idea, than his manner
of conducting himself then. Will he fly into a passion? Will he attempt
to intimidate the agents? Will he threaten to turn them out of the
house? These are generally the tactics of titled criminals. My opinion,
however, is, that he will remain perfectly cool. He will declare himself
the victim of a misunderstanding, and insist upon an immediate interview
with the investigating magistrate. Once that is accorded him, he will
explain everything very quickly.”
The old fellow spoke of matters of speculation in such a tone of
assurance that M. Daburon was unable to repress a smile.
“We have not got as far as that yet,” said he.
“But we shall, in a few hours,” replied M. Tabaret quickly. “I presume
you will order young M. de Commarin’s arrest at daybreak.”
The magistrate trembled, like the patient who sees the surgeon deposit
his case of instruments upon the table on entering the room.
The moment for action had come. He felt now what a distance lies between
a mental decision and the physical action required to execute it.
“You are prompt, M. Tabaret,” said he; “you recognize no obstacles.”
“None, having ascertained the criminal. Who else can have committed this
assassination? Who but he had an interest in silencing Widow Lerouge,
in suppressing her testimony, in destroying her papers? He, and only he.
Poor Noel! who is as dull as honesty, warned him, and he acted. Should
we fail to establish his guilt, he will remain de Commarin more than
ever; and my young advocate will be Noel Gerdy to the grave.”
“Yes, but--”
The old man fixed his eyes upon the magistrate with a look of
astonishment.
“You see, then, some difficulties, sir?” he asked.
“Most decidedly!” replied M. Daburon. “This is a matter demanding the
utmost circumspection. In cases like the present, one must not strike
until the blow is sure, and we have but presumptions. Suppose we are
mistaken. Justice, unhappily, cannot repair her errors. Her hand once
unjustly placed upon a man, leaves an imprint of dishonour that can
never be effaced. She may perceive her error, and proclaim it aloud,
but in vain! Public opinion, absurd and idiotic, will not pardon the man
guilty of being suspected.”
It was with a sinking heart that the old fellow listened to these
remarks. He would not be withheld by such paltry considerations.
“Our suspicions are well grounded,” continued the magistrate. “But,
should they lead us into error, our precipitation would be a terrible
misfortune for this young man, to say nothing of the effect it would
have in abridging the authority and dignity of justice, of weakening
the respect which constitutes her power. Such a mistake would call for
discussion, provoke examination, and awaken distrust, at an epoch in our
history when all minds are but too much disposed to defy the constituted
authorities.”
He leaned upon the table, and appeared to reflect profoundly.
“I have no luck,” thought old Tabaret. “I have to do with a trembler.
When he should act, he makes speeches; instead of signing warrants, he
propounds theories. He is astounded at my discovery, and is not equal to
the situation. Instead of being delighted by my appearance with the news
of our success, he would have given a twenty-franc piece, I dare say, to
have been left undisturbed. Ah! he would very willingly have the little
fishes in his net, but the big ones frighten him. The big fishes are
dangerous, and he prefers to let them swim away.”
“Perhaps,” said M. Daburon, aloud, “it will suffice to issue a
search-warrant, and a summons for the appearance of the accused.”
“Then all is lost!” cried old Tabaret.
“And why, pray?”
“Because we are opposed by a criminal of marked ability. A most
providential accident has placed us upon his track. If we give him time
to breathe, he will escape.”
The only answer was an inclination of the head, which M. Daburon may
have intended for a sign of assent.
“It is evident,” continued the old fellow, “that our adversary has
foreseen everything, absolutely everything, even the possibility of
suspicion attaching to one in his high position. Oh! his precautions
are all taken. If you are satisfied with demanding his appearance, he
is saved. He will appear before you as tranquilly as your clerk, as
unconcerned as if he came to arrange the preliminaries of a duel. He
will present you with a magnificent _alibi_, an _alibi_ that can not be
gainsayed. He will show you that he passed the evening and the night
of Tuesday with personages of the highest rank. In short, his little
machine will be so cleverly constructed, so nicely arranged, all its
little wheels will play so well, that there will be nothing left for you
but to open the door and usher him out with the most humble apologies.
The only means of securing conviction is to surprise the miscreant by
a rapidity against which it is impossible he can be on his guard. Fall
upon him like a thunder-clap, arrest him as he wakes, drag him hither
while yet pale with astonishment, and interrogate him at once. Ah! I
wish I were an investigating magistrate.”
Old Tabaret stopped short, frightened at the idea that he had been
wanting in respect; but M. Daburon showed no sign of being offended.
“Proceed,” said he, in a tone of encouragement, “proceed.”
“Suppose, then,” continued the detective, “I am the investigating
magistrate. I cause my man to be arrested, and, twenty minutes later,
he is standing before me. I do not amuse myself by putting questions to
him, more or less subtle. No, I go straight to the mark. I overwhelm him
at once by the weight of my certainty, prove to him so clearly that I
know everything, that he must surrender, seeing no chance of escape.
I should say to him, ‘My good man, you bring me an _alibi_; it is very
well; but I am acquainted with that system of defence. It will not do
with me. I know all about the clocks that don’t keep proper time, and
all the people who never lost sight of you. In the meantime, this is
what you did. At twenty minutes past eight, you slipped away adroitly;
at thirty-five minutes past eight, you took the train at the St Lazare
station; at nine o’clock, you alighted at the station at Rueil, and
took the road to La Jonchere; at a quarter past nine, you knocked at the
window-shutter of Widow Lerouge’s cottage. You were admitted. You asked
for something to eat, and, above all, something to drink. At twenty
minutes past nine, you planted the well-sharpened end of a foil between
her shoulders. You killed her! You then overturned everything in the
house, and burned certain documents of importance; after which, you tied
up in a napkin all the valuables you could find, and carried them off,
to lead the police to believe the murder was the work of a robber. You
locked the door, and threw away the key. Arrived at the Seine, you threw
the bundle into the water, then hurried off to the railway station on
foot, and at eleven o’clock you reappeared amongst your friends.
Your game was well played; but you omitted to provide against two
adversaries, a detective, not easily deceived, named Tirauclair, and
another still more clever, named chance. Between them, they have got the
better of you. Moreover, you were foolish to wear such small boots, and
to keep on your lavender kid gloves, besides embarrassing yourself with
a silk hat and an umbrella. Now confess your guilt, for it is the only
thing left you to do, and I will give you permission to smoke in your
dungeon some of those excellent trabucos you are so fond of, and which
you always smoke with an amber mouthpiece.’”
During this speech, M. Tabaret had gained at least a couple of inches in
height, so great was his enthusiasm. He looked at the magistrate, as if
expecting a smile of approbation.
“Yes,” continued he, after taking breath, “I would say that, and nothing
else; and, unless this man is a hundred times stronger than I suppose
him to be, unless he is made of bronze, of marble, or of steel, he would
fall at my feet and avow his guilt.”
“But supposing he were of bronze,” said M. Daburon, “and did not fall at
your feet, what would you do next?”
The question evidently embarrassed the old fellow.
“Pshaw!” stammered he; “I don’t know; I would see; I would search; but
he would confess.”
After a prolonged silence, M. Daburon took a pen, and hurriedly wrote a
few lines.
“I surrender,” said he. “M. Albert de Commarin shall be arrested;
that is settled. The different formalities to be gone through and
the perquisitions will occupy some time, which I wish to employ in
interrogating the Count de Commarin, the young man’s father, and your
friend M. Noel Gerdy, the young advocate. The letters he possesses are
indispensable to me.”
At the name of Gerdy, M. Tabaret’s face assumed a most comical
expression of uneasiness.
“Confound it,” cried he, “the very thing I most dreaded.”
“What?” asked M. Daburon.
“The necessity for the examination of those letters. Noel will discover
my interference. He will despise me: he will fly from me, when he knows
that Tabaret and Tirauclair sleep in the same nightcap. Before eight
days are past, my oldest friends will refuse to shake hands with me, as
if it were not an honour to serve justice. I shall be obliged to change
my residence, and assume a false name.”
He almost wept, so great was his annoyance. M. Daburon was touched.
“Reassure yourself, my dear M. Tabaret,” said he. “I will manage that
your adopted son, your Benjamin, shall know nothing. I will lead him to
believe I have reached him by means of the widow’s papers.”
The old fellow seized the magistrate’s hand in a transport of gratitude,
and carried it to his lips. Oh! thanks, sir, a thousand thanks! I should
like to be permitted to witness the arrest; and I shall be glad to
assist at the perquisitions.”
“I intended to ask you to do so, M. Tabaret,” answered the magistrate.
The lamps paled in the gray dawn of the morning; already the rumbling of
vehicles was heard; Paris was awaking.
“I have no time to lose,” continued M. Daburon, “if I would have all my
measures well taken. I must at once see the public prosecutor, whether
he is up or not. I shall go direct from his house to the Palais de
Justice, and be there before eight o’clock; and I desire, M. Tabaret,
that you will there await my orders.”
The old fellow bowed his thanks and was about to leave, when the
magistrate’s servant appeared.
“Here is a note, sir,” said he, “which a gendarme has just brought from
Bougival. He waits an answer.”
“Very well,” replied M. Daburon. “Ask the man to have some refreshment;
at least offer him a glass of wine.”
He opened the envelope. “Ah!” he cried, “a letter from Gevrol;” and he
read:
“‘To the investigating magistrate. Sir, I have the honour to inform you,
that I am on the track of the man with the earrings. I heard of him at
a wine shop, which he entered on Sunday morning, before going to Widow
Lerouge’s cottage. He bought, and paid for two litres of wine; then,
suddenly striking his forehead, he cried, “Old fool! to forget that
to-morrow is the boat’s fete day!” and immediately called for three
more litres. According to the almanac the boat must be called the
Saint-Martin. I have also learned that she was laden with grain. I write
to the Prefecture at the same time as I write to you, that inquiries may
be made at Paris and Rouen. He will be found at one of those places. I
am in waiting, sir, etc.’”
“Poor Gevrol!” cried old Tabaret, bursting with laughter. “He sharpens
his sabre, and the battle is over. Are you not going to put a stop to
his inquiries, sir?”
“No; certainly not,” answered M. Daburon; “to neglect the slightest clue
often leads one into error. Who can tell what light we may receive from
this mariner?”
CHAPTER VIII.
On the same day that the crime of La Jonchere was discovered, and
precisely at the hour that M. Tabaret made his memorable examination
in the victim’s chamber, the Viscount Albert de Commarin entered his
carriage, and proceeded to the Northern railway station, to meet his
father.
The young man was very pale: his pinched features, his dull eyes, his
blanched lips, in fact his whole appearance denoted either overwhelming
fatigue or unusual sorrow. All the servants had observed, that, during
the past five days, their young master had not been in his ordinary
condition: he spoke but little, ate almost nothing, and refused to see
any visitors. His valet noticed that this singular change dated from
the visit, on Sunday morning, of a certain M. Noel Gerdy, who had been
closeted with him for three hours in the library.
The Viscount, gay as a lark until the arrival of this person, had, from
the moment of his departure, the appearance of a man at the point of
death. When setting forth to meet his father, the viscount appeared to
suffer so acutely that M. Lubin, his valet, entreated him not to go out;
suggesting that it would be more prudent to retire to his room, and call
in the doctor.
But the Count de Commarin was exacting on the score of filial duty, and
would overlook the worst of youthful indiscretions sooner than what he
termed a want of reverence. He had announced his intended arrival
by telegraph, twenty-four hours in advance; therefore the house was
expected to be in perfect readiness to receive him, and the absence of
Albert at the railway station would have been resented as a flagrant
omission of duty.
The viscount had been but five minutes in the waiting-room, when the
bell announced the arrival of the train. Soon the doors leading on
to the platform were opened, and the travelers crowded in. The throng
beginning to thin a little, the count appeared, followed by a servant,
who carried a travelling pelisse lined with rare and valuable fur.
The Count de Commarin looked a good ten years less than his age. His
beard and hair, yet abundant, were scarcely gray. He was tall and
muscular, held himself upright, and carried his head high. His
appearance was noble, his movements easy. His regular features presented
a study to the physiognomist, all expressing easy, careless good
nature, even to the handsome, smiling mouth; but in his eyes flashed the
fiercest and the most arrogant pride. This contrast revealed the secret
of his character. Imbued quite as deeply with aristocratic prejudice
as the Marchioness d’Arlange, he had progressed with his century or at
least appeared to have done so. As fully as the marchioness, he held in
contempt all who were not noble; but his disdain expressed itself in a
different fashion. The marchioness proclaimed her contempt loudly and
coarsely; the count had kept eyes and ears open and had seen and heard
a good deal. She was stupid, and without a shade of common sense. He was
witty and sensible, and possessed enlarged views of life and politics.
She dreamed of the return of the absurd traditions of a former age;
he hoped for things within the power of events to bring forth. He was
sincerely persuaded that the nobles of France would yet recover slowly
and silently, but surely, all their lost power, with its prestige and
influence.
In a word, the count was the flattered portrait of his class; the
marchioness its caricature. It should be added, that M. de Commarin knew
how to divest himself of his crushing urbanity in the company of his
equals. There he recovered his true character, haughty, self-sufficient,
and intractable, enduring contradiction pretty much as a wild horse the
application of the spur. In his own house, he was a despot.
Perceiving his father, Albert advanced towards him. They shook hands
and embraced with an air as noble as ceremonious, and, in less than
a minute, had exchanged all the news that had transpired during the
count’s absence. Then only did M. de Commarin perceive the alteration in
his son’s face.
“You are unwell, viscount,” said he.
“Oh, no, sir,” answered Albert, laconically.
The count uttered “Ah!” accompanied by a certain movement of the head,
which, with him, expressed perfect incredulity; then, turning to his
servant, he gave him some orders briefly.
“Now,” resumed he, “let us go quickly to the house. I am in haste to
feel at home; and I am hungry, having had nothing to-day, but some
detestable broth, at I know not what way station.”
M. de Commarin had returned to Paris in a very bad temper, his journey
to Austria had not brought the results he had hoped for. To crown his
dissatisfaction, he had rested, on his homeward way, at the chateau of
an old friend, with whom he had had so violent a discussion that they
had parted without shaking hands. The count was hardly seated in his
carriage before he entered upon the subject of this disagreement.
“I have quarrelled with the Duke de Sairmeuse,” said he to his son.
“That seems to me to happen whenever you meet,” answered Albert, without
intending any raillery.
“True,” said the count: “but this is serious. I passed four days at his
country-seat, in a state of inconceivable exasperation. He has entirely
forfeited my esteem. Sairmeuse has sold his estate of Gondresy, one of
the finest in the north of France. He has cut down the timber, and
put up to auction the old chateau, a princely dwelling, which is to be
converted into a sugar refinery; all this for the purpose, as he says,
of raising money to increase his income!”
“And was that the cause of your rupture?” inquired Albert, without much
surprise.
“Certainly it was! Do you not think it a sufficient one?”
“But, sir, you know the duke has a large family, and is far from rich.”
“What of that? A French noble who sells his land commits an unworthy
act. He is guilty of treason against his order!”
“Oh, sir,” said Albert, deprecatingly.
“I said treason!” continued the count. “I maintain the word. Remember
well, viscount, power has been, and always will be, on the side of
wealth, especially on the side of those who hold the soil. The men of
‘93 well understood this principle, and acted upon it. By impoverishing
the nobles, they destroyed their prestige more effectually than by
abolishing their titles. A prince dismounted, and without footmen, is
no more than any one else. The Minister of July, who said to the people,
‘Make yourselves rich,’ was not a fool. He gave them the magic formula
for power. But they have not the sense to understand it. They want to
go too fast. They launch into speculations, and become rich, it is true;
but in what? Stocks, bonds, paper,--rags, in short. It is smoke they are
locking in their coffers. They prefer to invest in merchandise, which
pays eight or ten per cent, to investing in vines or corn which will
return but three. The peasant is not so foolish. From the moment he owns
a piece of ground the size of a handkerchief, he wants to make it as
large as a tablecloth. He is slow as the oxen he ploughs with, but as
patient, as tenacious, and as obstinate. He goes directly to his object,
pressing firmly against the yoke; and nothing can stop or turn him
aside. He knows that stocks may rise or fall, fortunes be won or lost on
‘change; but the land always remains,--the real standard of wealth. To
become landholders, the peasant starves himself, wears sabots in winter;
and the imbeciles who laugh at him will be astonished by and by when he
makes his ‘93, and the peasant becomes a baron in power if not in name.”
“I do not understand the application,” said the viscount.
“You do not understand? Why, what the peasant is doing is what the
nobles ought to have done! Ruined, their duty was to reconstruct their
fortunes. Commerce is interdicted to us; be it so: agriculture remains.
Instead of grumbling uselessly during the half-century, instead of
running themselves into debt, in the ridiculous attempt to support an
appearance of grandeur, they ought to have retreated to their provinces,
shut themselves up in their chateaux; there worked, economised, denied
themselves, as the peasant is doing, purchased the land piece by piece.
Had they taken this course, they would to-day possess France. Their
wealth would be enormous; for the value of land rises year after year.
I have, without effort, doubled my fortune in thirty years. Blauville,
which cost my father a hundred crowns in 1817, is worth to-day more
than a million: so that, when I hear the nobles complain, I shrug the
shoulder. Who but they are to blame? They impoverish themselves from
year to year. They sell their land to the peasants. Soon they will be
reduced to beggary, and their escutcheons. What consoles me is, that
the peasant, having become the proprietor of our domains will then be
all-powerful, and will yoke to his chariot wheels these traders in scrip
and stocks, whom he hates as much as I execrate them myself.”
The carriage at this moment stopped in the court-yard of the de Commarin
mansion, after having described that perfect half-circle, the glory of
coachmen who preserve the old tradition.
The count alighted first, and leaning upon his son’s arm, ascended the
steps of the grand entrance. In the immense vestibule, nearly all the
servants, dressed in rich liveries, stood in a line. The count gave them
a glance, in passing, as an officer might his soldiers on parade, and
proceeded to his apartment on the first floor, above the reception
rooms.
Never was there a better regulated household than that of the Count
de Commarin. He possessed in a high degree the art, more rare than is
generally supposed, of commanding an army of servants. The number of his
domestics caused him neither inconvenience nor embarrassment. They were
necessary to him. So perfect was the organisation of this household,
that its functions were performed like those of a machine,--without
noise, variation, or effort.
Thus when the count returned from his journey, the sleeping hotel was
awakened as if by the spell of an enchanter. Each servant was at his
post; and the occupations, interrupted during the past six weeks,
resumed without confusion. As the count was known to have passed the day
on the road, the dinner was served in advance of the usual hour. All the
establishment, even to the lowest scullion, represented the spirit
of the first article of the rules of the house, “Servants are not to
execute orders, but anticipate them.”
M. de Commarin had hardly removed the traces of his journey, and changed
his dress, when his butler announced that the dinner was served.
He went down at once; and father and son met upon the threshold of the
dining-room. This was a large apartment, with a very high ceiling,
as were all the rooms of the ground floor, and was most magnificently
furnished. The count was not only a great eater, but was vain of his
enormous appetite. He was fond of recalling the names of great men,
noted for their capacity of stomach. Charles V. devoured mountains of
viands. Louis XIV. swallowed at each repast as much as six ordinary men
would eat at a meal. He pretended that one can almost judge of men’s
qualities by their digestive capacities; he compared them to lamps,
whose power of giving light is in proportion to the oil they consume.
During the first half hour, the count and his son both remained silent.
M. de Commarin ate conscientiously, not perceiving or not caring to
notice that Albert ate nothing, but merely sat at the table as if to
countenance him. The old nobleman’s ill-humour and volubility returned
with the dessert, apparently increased by a Burgundy of which he was
particularly fond, and of which he drank freely.
He was partial, moreover, to an after dinner argument, professing a
theory that moderate discussion is a perfect digestive. A letter which
had been delivered to him on his arrival, and which he had found time to
glance over, gave him at once a subject and a point of departure.
“I arrived home but an hour ago;” said he, “and I have already received
a homily from Broisfresnay.”
“He writes a great deal,” observed Albert.
“Too much; he consumes himself in ink. He mentions a lot more of his
ridiculous projects and vain hopes, and he mentions a dozen names of men
of his own stamp who are his associates. On my word of honour, they seem
to have lost their senses! They talk of lifting the world, only
they want a lever and something to rest it on. It makes me die with
laughter!”
For ten minutes the count continued to discharge a volley of abuse and
sarcasm against his best friends, without seeming to see that a great
many of their foibles which he ridiculed were also a little his own.
“If,” continued he more seriously,--“if they only possessed a little
confidence in themselves, if they showed the least audacity! But
no! they count upon others to do for them what they ought to do for
themselves. In short, their proceedings are a series of confessions of
helplessness, of premature declarations of failure.”
The coffee having been served, the count made a sign, and the servants
left the room.
“No,” continued he, “I see but one hope for the French aristocracy, but
one plank of salvation, one good little law, establishing the right of
primogeniture.”
“You will never obtain it.”
“You think not? Would you then oppose such a measure, viscount?”
Albert knew by experience what dangerous ground his father was
approaching, and remained silent.
“Let us put it, then, that I dream of the impossible!” resumed the
count. “Then let the nobles do their duty. Let all the younger sons and
the daughters of our great families forego their rights, by giving up
the entire patrimony to the first-born for five generations, contenting
themselves each with a couple of thousand francs a year. By that means
great fortunes can be reconstructed, and families, instead of being
divided by a variety of interests, become united by one common desire.”
“Unfortunately,” objected the viscount, “the time is not favorable to
such devotedness.”
“I know it, sir,” replied the count quickly; “and in my own house I have
the proof of it. I, your father, have conjured you to give up all
idea of marrying the granddaughter of that old fool, the Marchioness
d’Arlange. And all to no purpose; for I have at last been obliged to
yield to your wishes.”
“Father--” Albert commenced.
“It is well,” interrupted the count. “You have my word; but remember my
prediction: you will strike a fatal blow at our house. You will be one
of the largest proprietors in France; but have half a dozen children,
and they will be hardly rich. If they also have as many, you will
probably see your grandchildren in poverty!”
“You put all at the worst, father.”
“Without doubt: it is the only means of pointing out the danger, and
averting the evil. You talk of your life’s happiness. What is that? A
true noble thinks of his name above all. Mademoiselle d’Arlange is
very pretty, and very attractive; but she is penniless. I had found an
heiress for you.”
“Whom I should never love!”
“And what of that? She would have brought you four millions in her
apron,--more than the kings of to-day give their daughters. Besides
which she had great expectations.”
The discussion upon this subject would have been interminable, had
Albert taken an active share in it; but his thoughts were far away. He
answered from time to time so as not to appear absolutely dumb, and then
only a few syllables. This absence of opposition was more irritating to
the count than the most obstinate contradiction. He therefore directed
his utmost efforts to excite his son to argue.
However he was vainly prodigal of words, and unsparing in unpleasant
allusions, so that at last he fairly lost his temper, and, on receiving
a laconic reply, he burst forth: “Upon my word, the butler’s son would
say the same as you! What blood have you in your veins? You are more
like one of the people than a Viscount de Commarin!”
There are certain conditions of mind in which the least conversation
jars upon the nerves. During the last hour, Albert had suffered an
intolerable punishment. The patience with which he had armed himself at
last escaped him.
“Well, sir,” he answered, “if I resemble one of the people, there are
perhaps good reasons for it.”
The glance with which the viscount accompanied his speech was so
expressive that the count experienced a sudden shock. All his animation
forsook him, and in a hesitating voice, he asked: “What is that you say,
viscount?”
Albert had no sooner uttered the sentence than he regretted his
precipitation, but he had gone too far to stop.
“Sir,” he replied with some embarrassment, “I have to acquaint you with
some important matters. My honour, yours, the honour of our house, are
involved. I intended postponing this conversation till to-morrow, not
desiring to trouble you on the evening of your return. However, as you
wish me to explain, I will do so.”
The count listened with ill-concealed anxiety. He seemed to have divined
what his son was about to say, and was terrified at himself for having
divined it.
“Believe me, sir,” continued Albert slowly, “whatever may have been
your acts, my voice will never be raised to reproach you. Your constant
kindness to me--”
M. de Commarin held up his hand. “A truce to preambles; let me have the
facts without phrases,” said he sternly.
Albert was some time without answering, he hesitated how to commence.
“Sir,” said he at length, “during your absence, I have read all your
correspondence with Madame Gerdy. All!” added he, emphasising the word,
already so significant.
The count, as though stung by a serpent, started up with such violence
that he overturned his chair.
“Not another word!” cried he in a terrible voice. “I forbid you to
speak!” But he no doubt soon felt ashamed of his violence, for he
quietly raised his chair, and resumed in a tone which he strove to
render light and rallying: “Who will hereafter refuse to believe in
presentiments? A couple of hours ago, on seeing your pale face at
the railway station, I felt that you had learned more or less of this
affair. I was sure of it.”
There was a long silence. With one accord, father and son avoided
letting their eyes meet, lest they might encounter glances too eloquent
to bear at so painful a moment.
“You were right, sir,” continued the count, “our honour is involved. It
is important that we should decide on our future conduct without delay.
Will you follow me to my room?”
He rang the bell, and a footman appeared almost immediately.
“Neither the viscount nor I am at home to any one,” said M. de Commarin,
“no matter whom.”
CHAPTER IX.
The revelation which had just taken place, irritated much more than
it surprised the Count de Commarin. For twenty years, he had been
constantly expecting to see the truth brought to light. He knew that
there can be no secret so carefully guarded that it may not by some
chance escape; and his had been known to four people, three of whom were
still living.
He had not forgotten that he had been imprudent enough to trust it to
paper, knowing all the while that it ought never to have been written.
How was it that he, a prudent diplomat, a statesman, full of precaution,
had been so foolish? How was it that he had allowed this fatal
correspondence to remain in existence! Why had he not destroyed, at no
matter what cost, these overwhelming proofs, which sooner or later might
be used against him? Such imprudence could only have arisen from an
absurd passion, blind and insensible, even to madness.
So long as he was Valerie’s lover, the count never thought of asking
the return of his letters from his beloved accomplice. If the idea had
occurred to him, he would have repelled it as an insult to the character
of his angel. What reason could he have had to suspect her discretion?
None. He would have been much more likely to have supposed her desirous
of removing every trace, even the slightest, of what had taken place.
Was it not her son who had received the benefits of the deed, who had
usurped another’s name and fortune?
When eight years after, believing her to be unfaithful, the count had
put an end to the connection which had given him so much happiness he
thought of obtaining possession of this unhappy correspondence. But he
knew not how to do so. A thousand reasons prevented his moving in the
matter.
The principal one was, that he did not wish to see this woman, once so
dearly loved. He did not feel sufficiently sure either of his anger or
of his firmness. Could he, without yielding, resist the tearful pleading
of those eyes, which had so long held complete sway over him?
To look again upon this mistress of his youth would, he feared, result
in his forgiving her; and he had been too cruelly wounded in his pride
and in his affection to admit the idea of a reconciliation.
On the other hand, to obtain the letters though a third party was
entirely out of the question. He abstained, then, from all action,
postponing it indefinitely. “I will go to her,” said he to himself; “but
not until I have so torn her from my heart that she will have become
indifferent to me. I will not gratify her with the sight of my grief.”
So months and years passed on; and finally he began to say and believe
that it was too late. And for now more than twenty years, he had never
passed a day without cursing his inexcusable folly. Never had he been
able to forget that above his head a danger more terrible than the sword
of Damocles hung, suspended by a thread, which the slightest accident
might break.
And now that thread had broken. Often, when considering the possibility
of such a catastrophe, he had asked himself how he should avert it? He
had formed and rejected many plans: he had deluded himself, like all men
of imagination, with innumerable chimerical projects, and now he found
himself quite unprepared.
Albert stood respectfully, while his father sat in his great armorial
chair, just beneath the large frame in which the genealogical tree
of the illustrious family of Rheteau de Commarin spread its luxuriant
branches. The old gentleman completely concealed the cruel apprehensions
which oppressed him. He seemed neither irritated nor dejected; but
his eyes expressed a haughtiness more than usually disdainful, and a
self-reliance full of contempt.
“Now viscount,” he began in a firm voice, “explain yourself. I need say
nothing to you of the position of a father, obliged to blush before his
son; you understand it, and will feel for me. Let us spare each other,
and try to be calm. Tell me, how did you obtain your knowledge of this
correspondence?”
Albert had had time to recover himself, and prepare for the present
struggle, as he had impatiently waited four days for this interview.
The difficulty he experienced in uttering the first words had now given
place to a dignified and proud demeanor. He expressed himself clearly
and forcibly, without losing himself in those details which in serious
matters needlessly defer the real point at issue.
“Sir,” he replied, “on Sunday morning, a young man called here, stating
that he had business with me of the utmost importance. I received
him. He then revealed to me that I, alas! am only your natural son,
substituted through your affection, for the legitimate child borne you
by Madame de Commarin.”
“And did you not have this man kicked out of doors?” exclaimed the
count.
“No, sir. I was about to answer him very sharply, of course; but,
presenting me with a packet of letters, he begged me to read them before
replying.”
“Ah!” cried M. de Commarin, “you should have thrown them into the fire,
for there was a fire, I suppose? You held them in your hands; and they
still exist! Why was I not there?”
“Sir!” said Albert, reproachfully. And, recalling the position Noel had
occupied against the mantelpiece, and the manner in which he stood, he
added,--“Even if the thought had occurred to me, it was impracticable.
Besides, at the first glance, I recognised your handwriting. I therefore
took the letters, and read them.”
“And then?”
“And then, sir, I returned the correspondence to the young man, and
asked for a delay of eight days; not to think over it myself--there
was no need of that,--but because I judged an interview with you
indispensable. Now, therefore, I beseech you, tell me whether this
substitution really did take place.
“Certainly it did,” replied the count violently, “yes, certainly. You
know that it did, for you have read what I wrote to Madame Gerdy, your
mother.”
Albert had foreseen, had expected this reply; but it crushed him
nevertheless.
There are misfortunes so great, that one must constantly think of them
to believe in their existence. This flinching, however, lasted but an
instant.
“Pardon me, sir,” he replied. “I was almost convinced; but I had not
received a formal assurance of it. All the letters that I read spoke
distinctly of your purpose, detailed your plan minutely; but not one
pointed to, or in any way confirmed, the execution of your project.”
The count gazed at his son with a look of intense surprise. He
recollected distinctly all the letters; and he could remember, that,
in writing to Valerie, he had over and over again rejoiced at their
success, thanking her for having acted in accordance with his wishes.
“You did not go to the end of them, then, viscount,” he said, “you did
not read them all?”
“Every line, sir, and with an attention that you may well understand.
The last letter shown me simply announced to Madame Gerdy the arrival
of Claudine Lerouge, the nurse who was charged with accomplishing the
substitution. I know nothing beyond that.”
“These proofs amount to nothing,” muttered the count. “A man may form a
plan, cherish it for a long time, and at the last moment abandon it; it
often happens so.”
He reproached himself for having answered so hastily. Albert had had
only serious suspicions, and he had changed them to certainty. What
stupidity!
“There can be no possible doubt,” he said to himself; “Valerie has
destroyed the most conclusive letters, those which appeared to her the
most dangerous, those I wrote after the substitution. But why has she
preserved these others, compromising enough in themselves? and why,
after having preserved them, has she let them go out of her possession?”
Without moving, Albert awaited a word from the count. What would it be?
No doubt, the old nobleman was at that moment deciding what he should
do.
“Perhaps she is dead!” said M. de Commarin aloud.
And at the thought that Valerie was dead, without his having again seen
her, he started painfully. His heart, after more than twenty years of
voluntary separation, still suffered, so deeply rooted was this first
love of his youth. He had cursed her; at this moment he pardoned her.
True, she had deceived him; but did he not owe to her the only years of
happiness he had ever known? Had she not formed all the poetry of his
youth? Had he experienced, since leaving her, one single hour of joy
or forgetfulness? In his present frame of mind, his heart retained only
happy memories, like a vase which, once filled with precious perfumes,
retains the odour until it is destroyed.
“Poor woman!” he murmured.
He sighed deeply. Three or four times his eyelids trembled, as if a tear
were about to fall. Albert watched him with anxious curiosity. This was
the first time since the viscount had grown to man’s estate that he had
surprised in his father’s countenance other emotion than ambition or
pride, triumphant or defeated. But M. de Commarin was not the man to
yield long to sentiment.
“You have not told me, viscount,” he said, “who sent you that messenger
of misfortune.”
“He came in person, sir, not wishing, he told me to mix any others up in
this sad affair. The young man was no other than he whose place I have
occupied,--your legitimate son, M. Noel Gerdy himself.”
“Yes,” said the count in a low tone, “Noel, that is his name, I
remember.” And then, with evident hesitation, he added: “Did he speak to
you of his--of your mother?”
“Scarcely, sir. He only told me that he came unknown to her; that he had
accidentally discovered the secret which he revealed to me.”
M. de Commarin asked nothing further. There was more for him to learn.
He remained for some time deep in thought. The decisive moment had come;
and he saw but one way to escape.
“Come, viscount,” he said, in a tone so affectionate that Albert was
astonished, “do not stand; sit down here by me, and let us discuss
this matter. Let us unite our efforts to shun, if possible, this great
misfortune. Confide in me, as a son should in his father. Have you
thought of what is to be done? have you formed any determination?”
“It seems to me, sir, that hesitation is impossible.”
“In what way?”
“My duty, father, is very plain. Before your legitimate son, I ought
to give way without a murmur, if not without regret. Let him come. I
am ready to yield to him everything that I have so long kept from him
without a suspicion of the truth--his father’s love, his fortune and his
name.”
At this most praiseworthy reply, the old nobleman could scarcely
preserve the calmness he had recommended to his son in the earlier part
of the interview. His face grew purple; and he struck the table with his
fist more furiously than he had ever done in his life. He, usually so
guarded, so decorous on all occasions, uttered a volley of oaths that
would not have done discredit to an old cavalry officer.
“And I tell you, sir, that this dream of yours shall never take place.
No; that it sha’n’t. I swear it. I promise you, whatever happens,
understand, that things shall remain as they are; because it is my will.
You are Viscount de Commarin, and Viscount de Commarin you shall remain,
in spite of yourself, if necessary. You shall retain the title to your
death, or at least to mine; for never, while I live, shall your absurd
idea be carried out.”
“But, sir,” began Albert, timidly.
“You are very daring to interrupt me while I am speaking, sir,”
exclaimed the count. “Do I not know all your objections beforehand? You
are going to tell me that it is a revolting injustice, a wicked robbery.
I confess it, and grieve over it more than you possibly can. Do you
think that I now for the first time repent of my youthful folly? For
twenty years, sir, I have lamented my true son; for twenty years I have
cursed the wickedness of which he is the victim. And yet I learnt how to
keep silence, and to hide the sorrow and remorse which have covered my
pillow with thorns. In a single instant, your senseless yielding would
render my long sufferings of no avail. No, I will never permit it!”
The count read a reply on his son’s lips: he stopped him with a
withering glance.
“Do you think,” he continued, “that I have never wept over the thought
of my legitimate son passing his life struggling for a competence? Do
you think that I have never felt a burning desire to repair the wrong
done him? There have been times, sir, when I would have given half of my
fortune simply to embrace that child of a wife too tardily appreciated.
The fear of casting a shadow of suspicion upon your birth prevented me.
I have sacrificed myself to the great name I bear. I received it from my
ancestors without a stain. May you hand it down to your children equally
spotless! Your first impulse was a worthy one, generous and noble;
but you must forget it. Think of the scandal, if our secret should
be disclosed to the public gaze. Can you not foresee the joy of our
enemies, of that herd of upstarts which surrounds us? I shudder at the
thought of the odium and the ridicule which would cling to our name. Too
many families already have stains upon their escutcheons; I will have
none on mine.”
M. de Commarin remained silent for several minutes, during which Albert
did not dare say a word, so much had he been accustomed since infancy to
respect the least wish of the terrible old gentleman.
“There is no possible way out of it,” continued the count. “Can I
discard you to-morrow, and present this Noel as my son, saying, ‘Excuse
me, but there has been a slight mistake; this one is the viscount?’ And
then the tribunals will get hold of it. What does it matter who is named
Benoit, Durand, or Bernard? But, when one is called Commarin, even but
for a single day, one must retain that name through life. The same
moral does not do for everyone; because we have not the same duties to
perform. In our position, errors are irreparable. Take courage, then,
and show yourself worthy of the name you bear. The storm is upon you;
raise your head to meet it.”
Albert’s impassibility contributed not a little to increase M. de
Commarin’s irritation. Firm in an unchangeable resolution, the viscount
listened like one fulfilling a duty: and his face reflected no emotion.
The count saw that he was not shaken.
“What have you to reply?” he asked.
“It seems to me sir, that you have no idea of all the dangers which I
foresee. It is difficult to master the revolts of conscience.”
“Indeed!” interrupted the count contemptuously; “your conscience
revolts, does it? It has chosen its time badly. Your scruples come
too late. So long as you saw that your inheritance consisted of an
illustrious title and a dozen or so of millions, it pleased you. To-day
the name appears to you laden with a heavy fault, a crime, if you will;
and your conscience revolts. Renounce this folly. Children, sir, are
accountable to their fathers; and they should obey them. Willing or
unwilling, you must be my accomplice; willing or unwilling, you must
bear the burden, as I have borne it. And, however much you may suffer,
be assured your sufferings can never approach what I have endured for so
many years.”
“Ah, sir!” cried Albert, “is it then I, the dispossessor, who has made
this trouble? is it not, on the contrary, the dispossessed! It is not I
who you have to convince, it is M. Noel Gerdy.”
“Noel!” repeated the count.
“Your legitimate son, yes, sir. You act as if the issue of this unhappy
affair depended solely upon my will. Do you then, imagine that M. Gerdy
will be so easily disposed of, so easily silenced? And, if he should
raise his voice, do you hope to move him by the considerations you have
just mentioned?”
“I do not fear him.”
“Then you are wrong, sir, permit me to tell you. Suppose for a moment
that this young man has a soul sufficiently noble to relinquish his
claim upon your rank and your fortune. Is there not now the accumulated
rancour of years to urge him to oppose you? He cannot help feeling a
fierce resentment for the horrible injustice of which he has been the
victim. He must passionately long for vengeance, or rather reparation.”
“He has no proofs.”
“He has your letters, sir.”
“They are not decisive, you yourself have told me so.”
“That is true, sir; and yet they convinced me, who have an interest in
not being convinced. Besides, if he needs witnesses, he will find them.”
“Who? Yourself, viscount?”
“Yourself, sir. The day when he wishes it, you will betray us. Suppose
you were summoned before a tribunal, and that there, under oath, you
should be required to speak the truth, what answer would you make?”
M. de Commarin’s face darkened at this very natural supposition. He
hesitated, he whose honour was usually so great.
“I would save the name of my ancestors,” he said at last.
Albert shook his head doubtfully. “At the price of a lie, my father,”
he said. “I never will believe it. But let us suppose even that. He
will then call Madame Gerdy.”
“Oh, I will answer for her!” cried the count, “her interests are the
same as ours. If necessary, I will see her. Yes,” he added with an
effort, “I will call on her, I will speak to her; and I will guarantee
that she will not betray us.”
“And Claudine,” continued the young man; “will she be silent, too?”
“For money, yes; and I will give her whatever she asks.”
“And you would trust, father, to a paid silence, as if one could ever
be sure of a purchased conscience? What is sold to you may be sold to
another. A certain sum may close her mouth; a larger will open it.”
“I will frighten her.”
“You forget, father, that Claudine Lerouge was Noel Gerdy’s nurse, that
she takes an interest in his happiness, that she loves him. How do you
know that he has not already secured her aid? She lives at Bougival. I
went there, I remember, with you. No doubt, he sees her often; perhaps
it is she who put him on the track of this correspondence. He spoke to
me of her, as though he were sure of her testimony. He almost proposed
my going to her for information.”
“Alas!” cried the count, “why is not Claudine dead instead of my
faithful Germain?”
“You see, sir,” concluded Albert, “Claudine Lerouge would alone render
all your efforts useless.”
“Ah, no!” cried the count; “I shall find some expedient.”
The obstinate old gentleman was not willing to give in to this argument,
the very clearness of which blinded him. The pride of his blood
paralyzed his usual practical good sense. To acknowledge that he was
conquered humiliated him, and seemed to him unworthy of himself. He did
not remember to have met during his long career an invincible resistance
or an absolute impediment. He was like all men of imagination, who
fall in love with their projects, and who expect them to succeed on all
occasions, as if wishing hard was all that was necessary to change their
dreams into realities.
Albert this time broke the silence, which threatened to be prolonged.
“I see, sir,” he said, “that you fear, above all things, the publicity
of this sad history; the possible scandal renders you desperate. But,
unless we yield, the scandal will be terrible. There will be a trial
which will be the talk of all Europe. The newspapers will print the
facts, accompanied by heavens knows what comments of their own. Our
name, however the trial results, will appear in all the papers of the
world. This might be borne, if we were sure of succeeding; but we are
bound to lose, my father, we shall lose. Then think of the exposure!
think of the dishonour branded upon us by public opinion.”
“I think,” said the count, “that you can have neither respect nor
affection for me, when you speak in that way.”
“It is my duty, sir, to point out to you the evils I see threatening,
and which there is yet time to shun. M. Noel Gerdy is your legitimate
son, recognize him, acknowledge his just pretensions, and receive him.
We can make the change very quietly. It is easy to account for it,
through a mistake of the nurse, Claudine Lerouge, for instance. All
parties being agreeable, there can be no trouble about it. What is
to prevent the new Viscount de Commarin from quitting Paris, and
disappearing for a time? He might travel about Europe for four or five
years; by the end of that time, all will be forgotten, and no one will
remember me.”
M. de Commarin was not listening; he was deep in thought.
“But instead of contesting, viscount,” he cried, “we might compromise.
We may be able to purchase these letters. What does this young fellow
want? A position and a fortune? I will give him both. I will make him
as rich as he can wish. I will give him a million; if need be, two,
three,--half of all I possess. With money, you see, much money--”
“Spare him, sir; he is your son.”
“Unfortunately! and I wish him to the devil! I will see him, and he will
agree to what I wish. I will prove to him the bad policy of the earthen
pot struggling with the iron kettle; and, if he is not a fool, he will
understand.”
The count rubbed his hands while speaking. He was delighted with this
brilliant plan of negotiation. It could not fail to result favorably. A
crowd of arguments occurred to his mind in support of it. He would buy
back again his lost rest.
But Albert did not seem to share his father’s hopes, “You will perhaps
think it unkind in me, sir,” said he, sadly, “to dispel this last
illusion of yours; but I must. Do not delude yourself with the idea of
an amicable arrangement; the awakening will only be the more painful.
I have seen M. Gerdy, my father, and he is not one, I assure you, to be
intimidated. If there is an energetic will in the world, it is his.
He is truly your son; and his expression, like yours, shows an iron
resolution, that may be broken but never bent. I can still hear his
voice trembling with resentment, while he spoke to me. I can still see
the dark fire of his eyes. No, he will never accept a compromise. He
will have all or nothing; and I cannot say that he is wrong. If you
resist, he will attack you without the slightest consideration. Strong
in his rights, he will cling to you with stubborn animosity. He will
drag you from court to court; he will not stop short of utter defeat or
complete triumph.”
Accustomed to absolute obedience from his son, the old nobleman was
astounded at this unexpected obstinacy.
“What is your object in saying all this?” he asked.
“It is this, sir. I should utterly despise myself, if I did not spare
your old age this greatest of calamities. Your name does not belong to
me; I will take my own. I am your natural son; I will give up my place
to your legitimate son. Permit me to withdraw with at least the honour
of having freely done my duty. Do not force me to wait till I am driven
out in disgrace.”
“What!” cried the count, stunned, “you will abandon me? You refuse to
help me, you turn against me, you recognize the rights of this man in
spite of my wishes?”
Albert bowed his head. He was much moved, but still remained firm.
“My resolution is irrevocably taken,” he replied. “I can never consent
to despoil your son.”
“Cruel, ungrateful boy!” cried M. de Commarin. His wrath was such,
that, when he found he could do nothing by abuse, he passed at once to
jeering. “But no,” he continued, “you are great, you are noble, you are
generous; you are acting after the most approved pattern of chivalry,
viscount, I should say, my dear M. Gerdy; after the fashion of
Plutarch’s time! So you give up my name and my fortune, and you leave
me. You will shake the dust from your shoes upon the threshold of my
house; and you will go out into the world. I see only one difficulty in
your way. How do you expect to live, my stoic philosopher? Have you a
trade at your fingers’ ends, like Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Emile? Or,
worthy M. Gerdy, have you learned economy from the four thousand francs
a month I allow you for waxing your moustache? Perhaps you have made
money on the Bourse! Then my name must have seemed very burdensome to
you to bear, since you so eagerly introduced it into such a place! Has
dirt, then, so great an attraction for you that you must jump from
your carriage so quickly? Say, rather, that the company of my friends
embarrasses you, and that you are anxious to go where you will be among
your equals.”
“I am very wretched, sir,” replied Albert to this avalanche of insults,
“and you would crush me!”
“You wretched! Well, whose fault is it? But let us get back to my
question. How and on what will you live?”
“I am not so romantic as you are pleased to say, sir. I must confess
that, as regards the future, I have counted upon your kindness. You are
so rich, that five hundred thousand francs would not materially affect
your fortune; and, on the interest of that sum, I could live quietly, if
not happily.”
“And suppose I refuse you this money?”
“I know you well enough, sir, to feel sure that you will not do so. You
are too just to wish that I alone should expiate wrongs that are not of
my making. Left to myself, I should at my present age have achieved a
position. It is late for me to try and make one now; but I will do my
best.”
“Superb!” interrupted the count; “you are really superb! One never heard
of such a hero of romance. What a character! But tell me, what do you
expect from all this astonishing disinterestedness?”
“Nothing, sir.”
The count shrugged his shoulders, looked sarcastically at his son, and
observed: “The compensation is very slight. And you expect me to believe
all this! No, sir, mankind is not in the habit of indulging in such fine
actions for its pleasure alone. You must have some reason for acting so
grandly; some reason which I fail to see.”
“None but what I have already told you.”
“Therefore it is understood you intend to relinquish everything;
you will even abandon your proposed union with Mademoiselle Claire
d’Arlange? You forget that for two years I have in vain constantly
expressed my disappointment of this marriage.”
“No, sir. I have seen Mademoiselle Claire; I have explained my unhappy
position to her. Whatever happens, she has sworn to be my wife.”
“And do you think that Madame d’Arlange will give her granddaughter to
M. Gerdy?”
“We hope so, sir. The marchioness is sufficiently infected with
aristocratic ideas to prefer a nobleman’s bastard to the son of some
honest tradesman; but should she refuse, we would await her death,
though without desiring it.”
The calm manner in which Albert said this enraged the count.
“Can this be my son?” he cried. “Never! What blood have you then in your
veins, sir? Your worthy mother alone might tell us, provided, however,
she herself knows.”
“Sir,” cried Albert menacingly, “think well before you speak! She is
my mother, and that is sufficient. I am her son, not her judge. No one
shall insult her in my presence, I will not permit it, sir; and I will
suffer it least of all from you.”
The count made great efforts to keep his anger within bounds, but
Albert’s behavior thoroughly enraged him. What, his son rebelled, he
dared to brave him to his face, he threatened him! The old fellow jumped
from his chair, and moved towards the young man as if he would strike
him.
“Leave the room,” he cried, in a voice choking with rage, “leave the
room instantly! Retire to your apartments, and take care not to leave
them without my orders. To-morrow I will let you know my decision.”
Albert bowed respectfully, but without lowering his eyes and walked
slowly to the door. He had already opened it, when M. de Commarin
experienced one of those revulsions of feeling, so frequent in violent
natures.
“Albert,” said he, “come here and listen to me.”
The young man turned back, much affected by this change.
“Do not go,” continued the count, “until I have told you what I think.
You are worthy of being the heir of a great house, sir. I may be angry
with you; but I can never lose my esteem for you. You are a noble man,
Albert. Give me your hand.”
It was a happy moment for these two men, and such a one as they had
scarcely ever experienced in their lives, restrained as they had been by
cold etiquette. The count felt proud of his son, and recognised in
him himself at that age. For a long time their hands remained clasped,
without either being able to utter a word.
At last, M. de Commarin resumed his seat.
“I must ask you to leave me, Albert,” he said kindly. “I must be alone
to reflect, to try and accustom myself to this terrible blow.”
And, as the young man closed the door, he added, as if giving vent to
his inmost thoughts, “If he, in whom I have placed all my hope, deserts
me, what will become of me? And what will the other one be like?”
Albert’s features, when he left the count’s study, bore traces of the
violent emotions he had felt during the interview. The servants whom he
met noticed it the more, as they had heard something of the quarrel.
“Well,” said an old footman who had been in the family thirty years,
“the count has had another unhappy scene with his son. The old fellow
has been in a dreadful passion.”
“I got wind of it at dinner,” spoke up a valet de chambre: “the count
restrained himself enough not to burst out before me; but he rolled his
eyes fiercely.”
“What can be the matter?”
“Pshaw! that’s more than they know themselves. Why, Denis, before
whom they always speak freely, says that they often wrangle for hours
together, like dogs, about things which he can never see through.”
“Ah,” cried out a young fellow, who was being trained to service, “if
I were in the viscount’s place, I’d settle the old gent pretty
effectually!”
“Joseph, my friend,” said the footman pointedly, “you are a fool. You
might give your father his walking ticket very properly, because you
never expect five sous from him; and you have already learned how to
earn your living without doing any work at all. But the viscount, pray
tell me what he is good for, what he knows how to do? Put him in the
centre of Paris, with only his fine hands for capital, and you will
see.”
“Yes, but he has his mother’s property in Normandy,” replied Joseph.
“I can’t for the life of me,” said the valet de chambre, “see what
the count finds to complain of; for his son is a perfect model, and
I shouldn’t be sorry to have one like him. There was a very different
pair, when I was in the Marquis de Courtivois’s service. He was one
who made it a point never to be in good humor. His eldest son, who is
a friend of the viscount’s, and who comes here occasionally, is a pit
without a bottom, as far as money is concerned. He will fritter away a
thousand-franc note quicker than Joseph can smoke a pipe.”
“But the marquis is not rich,” said a little old man, who himself had
perhaps the enormous wages of fifteen francs; “he can’t have more than
sixty thousand francs’ income at the most.”
“That’s why he gets angry. Every day there is some new story about
his son. He had an apartment in the house; he went in and out when he
pleased; he passed his nights in gaming and drinking; he cut up so with
the actresses that the police had to interfere. Besides all this, I have
many a time had to help him up to his room, and put him to bed, when the
waiters from the restaurants brought him home in a carriage, so drunk
that he could scarcely say a word.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Joseph enthusiastically, “this fellow’s service must be
mighty profitable.”
“That was according to circumstances. When he was at play, he was lavish
with his money; but he always lost: and, when he was drunk, he had a
quick temper, and didn’t spare the blows. I must do him the justice to
say, though, that his cigars were splendid. But he was a ruffian; while
the viscount here is a true child of wisdom. He is severe upon our
faults, it is true; but he is never harsh nor brutal to his servants.
Then he is uniformly generous; which in the long run pays us best. I
must say that he is better than the majority, and that the count is very
unreasonable.”
Such was the judgment of the servants. That of society was perhaps less
favorable.
The Viscount de Commarin was not one of those who possess the rather
questionable and at times unenviable accomplishment of pleasing every
one. He was wise enough to distrust those astonishing personages who
are always praising everybody. In looking about us, we often see men of
success and reputation, who are simply dolts, without any merit except
their perfect insignificance. That stupid propriety which offends
no one, that uniform politeness which shocks no one’s vanity, have
peculiarly the gift of pleasing and of succeeding.
One cannot meet certain persons without saying, “I know that face; I
have seen it somewhere, before;” because it has no individuality, but
simply resembles faces seen in a common crowd. It is precisely so with
the minds of certain other people. When they speak, you know exactly
what they are going to say; you have heard the same thing so many times
already from them, you know all their ideas by heart. These people are
welcomed everywhere: because they have nothing peculiar about them; and
peculiarity, especially in the upper classes, is always irritating and
offensive; they detest all innovations.
Albert was peculiar; consequently much discussed, and very differently
estimated. He was charged with sins of the most opposite character, with
faults so contradictory that they were their own defence. Some accused
him, for instance, of entertaining ideas entirely too liberal for one
of his rank; and, at the same time, others complained of his excessive
arrogance. He was charged with treating with insulting levity the most
serious questions, and was then blamed for his affectation of gravity.
People knew him scarcely well enough to love him, while they were
jealous of him and feared him.
He wore a bored look in all fashionable reunions, which was considered
very bad taste. Forced by his relations, by his father, to go into
society a great deal, he was bored, and committed the unpardonable sin
of letting it be seen. Perhaps he had been disgusted by the constant
court made to him, by the rather coarse attentions which were never
spared the noble heir of one of the richest families in France. Having
all the necessary qualities for shining, he despised them. Dreadful sin!
He did not abuse his advantages; and no one ever heard of his getting
into a scrape.
He had had once, it was said, a very decided liking for Madame Prosny,
perhaps the naughtiest, certainly the most mischievous woman in Paris;
but that was all. Mothers who had daughters to dispose of upheld him;
but, for the last two years, they had turned against him, when his love
for Mademoiselle d’Arlange became well known.
At the club they rallied him on his prudence. He had had, like others,
his run of follies; but he had soon got disgusted with what it is the
fashion to call pleasure. The noble profession of bon vivant appeared
to him very tame and tiresome. He did not enjoy passing his nights at
cards; nor did he appreciate the society of those frail sisters, who in
Paris give notoriety to their lovers. He affirmed that a gentleman
was not necessarily an object of ridicule because he would not expose
himself in the theatre with these women. Finally, none of his friends
could ever inoculate him with a passion for the turf.
As doing nothing wearied him, he attempted, like the parvenu, to give
some meaning to life by work. He purposed, after a while, to take part
in public affairs; and, as he had often been struck with the gross
ignorance of many men in power, he wished to avoid their example. He
busied himself with politics; and this was the cause of all his quarrels
with his father. The one word of “liberal” was enough to throw the count
into convulsions; and he suspected his son of liberalism, ever since
reading an article by the viscount, published in the “Revue des Deux
Mondes.”
His ideas, however, did not prevent his fully sustaining his rank. He
spent most nobly on the world the revenue which placed his father and
himself a little above it. His establishment, distinct from the count’s,
was arranged as that of a wealthy young gentleman’s ought to be. His
liveries left nothing to be desired; and his horses and equipages were
celebrated. Letters of invitation were eagerly sought for to the grand
hunting parties, which he formed every year towards the end of October
at Commarin,--an admirable piece of property, covered with immense
woods.
Albert’s love for Claire--a deep, well-considered love--had contributed
not a little to keep him from the habits and life of the pleasant and
elegant idleness indulged in by his friends. A noble attachment is
always a great safeguard. In contending against it, M. de Commarin had
only succeeded in increasing its intensity and insuring its continuance.
This passion, so annoying to the count, was the source of the most
vivid, the most powerful emotions in the viscount. Ennui was banished
from his existence.
All his thoughts took the same direction; all his actions had but one
aim. Could he look to the right or the left, when, at the end of his
journey, he perceived the reward so ardently desired? He resolved that
he would never have any wife but Claire; his father absolutely refused
his consent. The effort to change this refusal had long been the
business of his life. Finally, after three years of perseverance, he
had triumphed; the count had given his consent. And now, just as he was
reaping the happiness of success, Noel had arrived, implacable as fate,
with his cursed letters.
On leaving M. de Commarin, and while slowly mounting the stairs which
led to his apartments, Albert’s thoughts reverted to Claire. What was
she doing at that moment? Thinking of him no doubt. She knew that the
crisis would come that very evening, or the next day at the latest. She
was probably praying. Albert was thoroughly exhausted; his head felt
dizzy, and seemed ready to burst. He rang for his servant, and ordered
some tea.
“You do wrong in not sending for the doctor, sir,” said Lubin, his
valet. “I ought to disobey you, and send for him myself.”
“It would be useless,” replied Albert sadly; “he could do nothing for
me.”
As the valet was leaving the room, he added,--“Say nothing about my
being unwell to any one, Lubin; it is nothing at all. If I should feel
worse, I will ring.”
At that moment, to see any one, to hear a voice, to have to reply, was
more than he could bear. He longed to be left entirely to himself.
After the painful emotions arising from his explanations with the count,
he could not sleep. He opened one of the library windows, and looked
out. It was a beautiful night: and there was a lovely moon. Seen at this
hour, by the mild, tremulous evening light, the gardens attached to
the mansion seemed twice their usual size. The moving tops of the great
trees stretched away like an immense plain, hiding the neighbouring
houses; the flower-beds, set off by the green shrubs, looked like great
black patches, while particles of shell, tiny pieces of glass, and
shining pebbles sparkled in the carefully kept walks. The horses stamped
in the stable and the rattling of their halter chains against the bars
of the manger could be distinctly heard. In the coach-house the men were
putting away for the night the carriage, always kept ready throughout
the evening, in case the count should wish to go out.
Albert was reminded by these surroundings, of the magnificence of his
past life. He sighed deeply.
“Must I, then, lose all this?” he murmured. “I can scarcely, even for
myself, abandon so much splendour without regret; and thinking of
Claire makes it hard indeed. Have I not dreamed of a life of exceptional
happiness for her, a result almost impossible to realise without
wealth?”
Midnight sounded from the neighbouring church of St. Clotilde, and as
the night was chilly, he closed the window, and sat down near the fire,
which he stirred. In the hope of obtaining a respite from his
thoughts, he took up the evening paper, in which was an account of the
assassination at La Jonchere; but he found it impossible to read: the
lines danced before his eyes. Then he thought of writing to Claire. He
sat down at his desk, and wrote, “My dearly loved Claire,” but he could
go no further; his distracted brain could not furnish him with a single
sentence.
At last, at break of day, he threw himself on to a sofa, and fell into a
heavy sleep peopled with phantoms.
At half-past nine in the morning, he was suddenly awakened, by the noise
of the door being hastily opened. A servant entered, with a scared look
on his face, and so out of breath from having come up the stairs four at
a time, that he could scarcely speak.
“Sir,” said he, “viscount, be quick, fly and hide, save yourself, they
are here, it is the--”
A commissary of police, wearing his sash, appeared at the door. He
was followed by a number of men, among whom M. Tabaret could be seen,
keeping as much out of sight as possible.
The commissary approached Albert.
“You are,” he asked, “Guy Louis Marie Albert de Rheteau de Commarin?”
“Yes, sir.”
The commissary placed his hand upon him, while pronouncing the usual
formula: “M. de Commarin, in the name of the law I arrest you.”
“Me, sir? me?”
Albert, aroused suddenly from his painful dreams, seemed hardly to
comprehend what was taking place, seemed to ask himself,--“Am I really
awake? Is not this some hideous nightmare?”
He threw a stupid, astonished look upon the commissary of police, his
men, and M. Tabaret, who had not taken his eyes off him.
“Here is the warrant,” added the commissary, unfolding the paper.
Mechanically Albert glanced over it.
“Claudine assassinated!” he cried.
Then very low, but distinct enough to be heard by the commissary, by one
of his officers, and by old Tabaret, he added,--“I am lost!”
While the commissary was making inquiries, which immediately follow
all arrests, the police officers spread through the apartments, and
proceeded to a searching examination of them. They had received orders
to obey M. Tabaret, and the old fellow guided them in their search,
made them ransack drawers and closets, and move the furniture to look
underneath or behind. They seized a number of articles belonging to the
viscount,--documents, manuscripts, and a very voluminous correspondence;
but it was with especial delight that M. Tabaret put his hands on
certain articles, which were carefully described in their proper order
in the official report:
found behind a sofa. This foil has a peculiar handle, and is unlike
those commonly sold. It is ornamented with the count’s coronet, and
the initials A. C. It has been broken at about the middle; and the end
cannot be found. When questioned, the viscount declared that he did not
know what had become of the missing end.
still damp, and bearing stains of mud or rather of mould. All one side
is smeared with greenish moss, like that which grows on walls. On the
front are numerous rents; and one near the knee is about four inches
long. These trousers had not been hung up with the other clothes; but
appear to have been hidden between two large trunks full of clothing.
lavender kid gloves. The palm of the right hand glove bears a large
greenish stain, produced by grass or moss. The tips of the fingers
have been worn as if by rubbing. Upon the backs of both gloves are some
scratches, apparently made by finger-nails.
which, though clean and polished, was still very damp; and an umbrella
recently wetted, the end of which was still covered with a light
coloured mud.
the trabucos brand, and on the mantel-shelf a number of cigar-holders in
amber and meerschaum.
The last article noted down, M. Tabaret approached the commissary of
police.
“I have everything I could desire,” he whispered.
“And I have finished,” replied the commissary. “Our prisoner does not
appear to know exactly how to act. You heard what he said. He gave in at
once. I suppose YOU will call it lack of experience.”
“In the middle of the day,” replied the amateur detective in a whisper,
“he would not have been quite so crestfallen. But early in the morning,
suddenly awakened, you know--Always arrest a person early in the
morning, when he’s hungry, and only half awake.”
“I have questioned some of the servants. Their evidence is rather
peculiar.”
“Very well; we shall see. But I must hurry off and find the
investigating magistrate, who is impatiently expecting me.”
Albert was beginning to recover a little from the stupor into which he
had been plunged by the entrance of the commissary of police.
“Sir,” he asked, “will you permit me to say a few words in your presence
to the Count de Commarin? I am the victim of some mistake, which will be
very soon discovered.”
“It’s always a mistake,” muttered old Tabaret.
“What you ask is impossible,” replied the commissary. “I have special
orders of the strictest sort. You must not henceforth communicate with
a living soul. A cab is in waiting below. Have the goodness to accompany
me to it.”
In crossing the vestibule, Albert noticed a great stir among the
servants; they all seemed to have lost their senses. M. Denis gave some
orders in a sharp, imperative tone. Then he thought he heard that the
Count de Commarin had been struck down with apoplexy. After that, he
remembered nothing. They almost carried him to the cab which drove off
as fast as the two little horses could go. M. Tabaret had just hastened
away in a more rapid vehicle.
CHAPTER X.
The visitor who risks himself in the labyrinth of galleries and
stairways in the Palais de Justice, and mounts to the third story in
the left wing, will find himself in a long, low-studded gallery, badly
lighted by narrow windows, and pierced at short intervals by little
doors, like a hall at the ministry or at a lodging-house.
It is a place difficult to view calmly, the imagination makes it appear
so dark and dismal.
It needs a Dante to compose an inscription to place above the doors
which lead from it. From morning to night, the flagstones resound under
the heavy tread of the gendarmes, who accompany the prisoners. You can
scarcely recall anything but sad figures there. There are the parents or
friends of the accused, the witnesses, the detectives. In this gallery,
far from the sight of men, the judicial curriculum is gone through with.
Each one of the little doors, which has its number painted over it in
black, opens into the office of a judge of inquiry. All the rooms are
just alike: if you see one, you have seen them all. They have nothing
terrible nor sad in themselves; and yet it is difficult to enter one of
them without a shudder. They are cold. The walls all seem moist with
the tears which have been shed there. You shudder, at thinking of the
avowals wrested from the criminals, of the confessions broken with sobs
murmured there.
In the office of the judge of inquiry, Justice clothes herself in none
of that apparel which she afterwards dons in order to strike fear into
the masses. She is still simple, and almost disposed to kindness. She
says to the prisoner,--
“I have strong reasons for thinking you guilty; but prove to me your
innocence, and I will release you.”
On entering one of these rooms, a stranger would imagine that he got
into a cheap shop by mistake. The furniture is of the most primitive
sort, as is the case in all places where important matters are
transacted. Of what consequence are surroundings to the judge hunting
down the author of a crime, or to the accused who is defending his life?
A desk full of documents for the judge, a table for the clerk, an
arm-chair, and one or two chairs besides comprise the entire furniture
of the antechamber of the court of assize. The walls are hung with green
paper; the curtains are green, and the floors are carpeted in the same
color. Monsieur Daburon’s office bore the number fifteen.
M. Daburon had arrived at his office in the Palais de Justice at nine
o’clock in the morning, and was waiting. His course resolved upon,
he had not lost an instant, understanding as well as old Tabaret the
necessity for rapid action. He had already had an interview with the
public prosecutor, and had arranged everything with the police.
Besides issuing the warrant against Albert, he had summoned the Count de
Commarin, Madame Gerdy, Noel, and some of Albert’s servants, to appear
before him with as little delay as possible.
He thought it essential to question all these persons before examining
the prisoner. Several detectives had started off to execute his orders,
and he himself sat in his office, like a general commanding an army,
who sends off his aide-de-camp to begin the battle, and who hopes that
victory will crown his combinations.
Often, at this same hour, he had sat in this office, under circumstances
almost identical. A crime had been committed, and, believing he had
discovered the criminal, he had given orders for his arrest. Was not
that his duty? But he had never before experienced the anxiety of mind
which disturbed him now. Many a time had he issued warrants of arrest,
without possessing even half the proofs which guided him in the present
case. He kept repeating this to himself; and yet he could not quiet his
dreadful anxiety, which would not allow him a moment’s rest.
He wondered why his people were so long in making their appearance. He
walked up and down the room, counting the minutes, drawing out his watch
three times within a quarter of an hour, to compare it with the clock.
Every time he heard a step in the passage, almost deserted at that
hour, he moved near the door, stopped and listened. At length some
one knocked. It was his clerk, whom he had sent for. There was nothing
particular in this man; he was tall rather than big, and very slim.
His gait was precise, his gestures were methodical, and his face was as
impassive as if it had been cut out of a piece of yellow wood. He was
thirty-four years of age and during fifteen years had acted as clerk
to four investigating magistrates in succession. He could hear the most
astonishing things without moving a muscle. His name was Constant.
He bowed to the magistrate, and excused himself for his tardiness. He
had been busy with some book-keeping, which he did every morning; and
his wife had had to send after him.
“You are still in good time,” said M. Daburon: “but we shall soon have
plenty of work: so you had better get your paper ready.”
Five minutes later, the usher introduced M. Noel Gerdy. He entered
with an easy manner, like an advocate who was well acquainted with the
Palais, and who knew its winding ways. He in no wise resembled, this
morning, old Tabaret’s friend; still less could he have been recognized
as Madame Juliette’s lover. He was entirely another being, or rather he
had resumed his every-day bearing. From his firm step, his placid
face, one would never imagine that, after an evening of emotion and
excitement, after a secret visit to his mistress, he had passed the
night by the pillow of a dying woman, and that woman his mother, or at
least one who had filled his mother’s place.
What a contrast between him and the magistrate!
M. Daburon had not slept either: but one could easily see that in his
feebleness, in his anxious look, in the dark circles about his eyes.
His shirt-front was all rumpled, and his cuffs were far from clean.
Carried away by the course of events, the mind had forgotten the body.
Noel’s well-shaved chin, on the contrary, rested upon an irreproachably
white cravat; his collar did not show a crease; his hair and his
whiskers had been most carefully brushed. He bowed to M. Daburon, and
held out the summons he had received.
“You summoned me, sir,” he said; “and I am here awaiting your orders.”
The investigating magistrate had met the young advocate several times in
the lobbies of the Palais; and he knew him well by sight. He remembered
having heard M. Gerdy spoken of as a man of talent and promise,
whose reputation was fast rising. He therefore welcomed him as a
fellow-workman, and invited him to be seated.
The preliminaries common in the examinations of all witnesses ended;
the name, surname, age, place of business, and so on having been written
down, the magistrate, who had followed his clerk with his eyes while he
was writing, turned towards Noel.
“I presume you know, M. Gerdy,” he began, “the matters in connection
with which you are troubled with appearing before me?”
“Yes, sir, the murder of that poor old woman at La Jonchere.”
“Precisely,” replied M. Daburon. Then, calling to mind his promise to
old Tabaret, he added, “If justice has summoned you so promptly, it
is because we have found your name often mentioned in Widow Lerouge’s
papers.”
“I am not surprised at that,” replied the advocate: “we were greatly
interested in that poor woman, who was my nurse; and I know that Madame
Gerdy wrote to her frequently.”
“Very well; then you can give me some information about her.”
“I fear, sir, that it will be very incomplete. I know very little about
this poor old Madame Lerouge. I was taken from her at a very early
age; and, since I have been a man, I have thought but little about her,
except to send her occasionally a little aid.”
“You never went to visit her?”
“Excuse me. I have gone there to see her many times, but I remained only
a few minutes. Madame Gerdy, who has often seen her, and to whom she
talked of all her affairs, could have enlightened you much better than
I.”
“But,” said the magistrate, “I expect shortly to see Madame Gerdy here;
she, too, must have received a summons.”
“I know it, sir, but it is impossible for her to appear. She is ill in
bed.”
“Seriously?”
“So seriously that you will be obliged, I think, to give up all hope of
her testimony. She is attacked with a disease which, in the words of my
friend, Dr. Herve, never forgives. It is something like inflammation of
the brain, if I am not mistaken. It may be that her life will be saved,
but she will never recover her reason. If she does not die, she will be
insane.”
M. Daburon appeared greatly vexed. “This is very annoying,” he muttered.
“And you think, my dear sir, that it will be impossible to obtain any
information from her?”
“It is useless even to hope for it. She has completely lost her reason.
She was, when I left her, in such a state of utter prostration that I
fear she can not live through the day.”
“And when was she attacked by this illness?”
“Yesterday evening.”
“Suddenly?”
“Yes, sir; at least, apparently so, though I myself think she has been
unwell for the last three weeks at least. Yesterday, however, on rising
from dinner, after having eaten but little, she took up a newspaper;
and, by a most unfortunate hazard, her eyes fell exactly upon the lines
which gave an account of this crime. She at once uttered a loud cry,
fell back in her chair, and thence slipped to the floor, murmuring, ‘Oh,
the unhappy man, the unhappy man!’”
“The unhappy woman, you mean.”
“No, sir. She uttered the words I have just repeated. Evidently the
exclamation did not refer to my poor nurse.”
Upon this reply, so important and yet made in the most unconscious tone,
M. Daburon raised his eyes to the witness. The advocate lowered his
head.
“And then?” asked the magistrate, after a moment’s silence, during which
he had taken a few notes.
“Those words, sir, were the last spoken by Madame Gerdy. Assisted by our
servant, I carried her to her bed. The doctor was sent for; and, since
then, she has not recovered consciousness. The doctor--”
“It is well,” interrupted M. Daburon. “Let us leave that for the
present. Do you know, sir, whether Widow Lerouge had any enemies?”
“None that I know of, sir.”
“She had no enemies? Well, now tell me, does there exist to your
knowledge any one having the least interest in the death of this poor
woman?”
As he asked this question the investigating magistrate kept his eyes
fixed on Noel’s, not wishing him to turn or lower his head.
The advocate started, and seemed deeply moved. He was disconcerted; he
hesitated, as if a struggle was going on within him.
Finally, in a voice which was by no means firm, he replied, “No, no
one.”
“Is that really true?” asked the magistrate, looking at him more
searchingly. “You know no one whom this crime benefits, or whom it might
benefit,--absolutely no one?”
“I know only one thing, sir,” replied Noel; “and that is, that, as far
as I am concerned, it has caused me an irreparable injury.”
“At last,” thought M. Daburon, “we have got at the letters; and I have
not betrayed poor old Tabaret. It would be too bad to cause the least
trouble to that zealous and invaluable man.” He then added aloud: “An
injury to you, my dear sir? You will, I hope, explain yourself.”
Noel’s embarrassment, of which he had already given some signs, appeared
much more marked.
“I am aware, sir,” he replied, “that I owe justice not merely the truth,
but the whole truth; but there are circumstances involved so delicate
that the conscience of a man of honour sees danger in them. Besides, it
is very hard to be obliged to unveil such sad secrets, the revelation of
which may sometimes--”
M. Daburon interrupted with a gesture. Noel’s sad tone impressed him.
Knowing, beforehand, what he was about to hear, he felt for the young
advocate. He turned to his clerk.
“Constant!” said he in a peculiar tone. This was evidently a signal; for
the tall clerk rose methodically, put his pen behind his ear, and went
out in his measured tread.
Noel appeared sensible of this kindness. His face expressed the
strongest gratitude; his look returned thanks.
“I am very much obliged to you, sir,” he said with suppressed warmth,
“for your considerateness. What I have to say is very painful; but it
will be scarcely an effort to speak before you now.”
“Fear nothing,” replied the magistrate; “I will only retain of your
deposition, my dear sir, what seems to me absolutely indispensable.”
“I feel scarcely master of myself, sir,” began Noel; “so pray pardon
my emotion. If any words escape me that seem charged with bitterness,
excuse them; they will be involuntary. Up to the past few days, I always
believed that I was the offspring of illicit love. My history is short.
I have been honourably ambitious; I have worked hard. He who has no
name must make one, you know. I have passed a quiet life, retired and
austere, as people must, who, starting at the foot of the ladder, wish
to reach the top. I worshipped her whom I believed to be my mother; and
I felt convinced that she loved me in return. The stain of my birth had
some humiliations attached to it; but I despised them. Comparing my
lot with that of so many others, I felt that I had more than common
advantages. One day, Providence placed in my hands all the letters which
my father, the Count de Commarin, had written to Madame Gerdy during
the time she was his mistress. On reading these letters, I was convinced
that I was not what I had hitherto believed myself to be,--that Madame
Gerdy was not my mother!”
And, without giving M. Daburon time to reply, he laid before him the
facts which, twelve hours before, he had related to M. Tabaret. It
was the same story, with the same circumstances, the same abundance of
precise and conclusive details; but the tone in which it was told was
entirely changed. When speaking to the old detective, the young
advocate had been emphatic and violent; but now, in the presence of the
investigating magistrate, he restrained his vehement emotions.
One might imagine that he adapted his style to his auditors, wishing to
produce the same effect on both, and using the method which would best
accomplish his purpose.
To an ordinary mind like M. Tabaret’s he used the exaggeration of anger;
but to a man of superior intelligence like M. Daburon, he employed the
exaggeration of restraint. With the detective he had rebelled against
his unjust lot; but with the magistrate he seemed to bow, full of
resignation, before a blind fatality.
With genuine eloquence and rare facility of expression, he related his
feelings on the day following the discovery,--his grief, his perplexity,
his doubts.
To support this moral certainty, some positive testimony was needed.
Could he hope for this from the count or from Madame Gerdy, both
interested in concealing the truth? No. But he had counted upon that of
his nurse,--the poor old woman who loved him, and who, near the close of
her life, would be glad to free her conscience from this heavy load. She
was dead now; and the letters became mere waste paper in his hands.
Then he passed on to his explanation with Madame Gerdy, and he gave the
magistrate even fuller details than he had given his old neighbour.
She had, he said, at first utterly denied the substitution, but he
insinuated that, plied with questions, and overcome by the evidence, she
had, in a moment of despair, confessed all, declaring, soon after,
that she would retract and deny this confession, being resolved at all
hazards that her son should preserve his position.
From this scene, in the advocate’s judgment, might be dated the first
attacks of the illness, to which she was now succumbing.
Noel then described his interview with the Viscount de Commarin. A few
inaccuracies occurred in his narrative, but so slight that it would have
been difficult to charge him with them. Besides, there was nothing in
them at all unfavourable to Albert.
He insisted, on the contrary, upon the excellent impression which that
young man had made on him. Albert had received the revelation with a
certain distrust, it is true, but with a noble firmness at the same
time, and, like a brave heart, was ready to bow before the justification
of right.
In fact, he drew an almost enthusiastic portrait of this rival, who
had not been spoiled by prosperity, who had left him without a look of
hatred, towards whom he felt himself drawn, and who after all was his
brother.
M. Daburon listened to Noel with the most unremitting attention, without
allowing a word, a movement, or a frown, to betray his feelings.
“How, sir,” observed the magistrate when the young man ceased speaking,
“could you have told me that, in your opinion, no one was interested in
Widow Lerouge’s death?”
The advocate made no reply.
“It seems to me,” continued M. Daburon, “that the Viscount de Commarin’s
position has thereby become almost impregnable. Madame Gerdy is insane;
the count will deny all; your letters prove nothing. It is evident that
the crime is of the greatest service to this young man, and that it was
committed at a singularly favourable moment.”
“Oh sir!” cried Noel, protesting with all his energy, “this insinuation
is dreadful.”
The magistrate watched the advocate’s face narrowly. Was he speaking
frankly, or was he but playing at being generous? Could it really be
that he had never had any suspicion of this?
Noel did not flinch under the gaze, but almost immediately
continued,--“What reason could this young man have for trembling, or
fearing for his position? I did not utter one threatening word, even
indirectly. I did not present myself like a man who, furious at being
robbed, demands that everything which had been taken from him should be
restored on the spot. I merely presented the facts to Albert, saying,
‘Here is the truth? what do you think we ought to do? Be the judge.’”
“And he asked you for time?”
“Yes. I had suggested his accompanying me to see Widow Lerouge, whose
testimony might dispel all doubts; he did not seem to understand me. But
he was well acquainted with her, having visited her with the count, who
supplied her, I have since learned, liberally with money.”
“Did not this generosity appear to you very singular?”
“No.”
“Can you explain why the viscount did not appear disposed to accompany
you?”
“Certainly. He had just said that he wished, before all, to have an
explanation with his father, who was then absent, but who would return
in a few days.”
The truth, as all the world knows, and delights in proclaiming, has an
accent which no one can mistake. M. Daburon had not the slightest doubt
of his witness’s good faith. Noel continued with the ingenuous candour
of an honest heart which suspicion has never touched with its
bat’s wing: “The idea of treating at once with my father pleased me
exceedingly. I thought it so much better to wash all one’s dirty linen
at home, I had never desired anything but an amicable arrangement. With
my hands full of proofs, I should still recoil from a public trial.”
“Would you not have brought an action?”
“Never, sir, not at any price. Could I,” he added proudly, “to regain my
rightful name, begin by dishonouring it?”
This time M. Daburon could not conceal his sincere admiration.
“A most praiseworthy feeling, sir,” he said.
“I think,” replied Noel, “that it is but natural. If things came to the
worst, I had determined to leave my title with Albert. No doubt the name
of Commarin is an illustrious one; but I hope that, in ten years
time, mine will be more known. I would, however, have demanded a
large pecuniary compensation. I possess nothing: and I have often been
hampered in my career by the want of money. That which Madame Gerdy owed
to the generosity of my father was almost entirely spent. My education
had absorbed a great part of it; and it was long before my profession
covered my expenses. Madame Gerdy and I live very quietly; but,
unfortunately, though simple in her tastes, she lacks economy and
system; and no one can imagine how great our expenses have been. But
I have nothing to reproach myself with, whatever happens. At the
commencement, I could not keep my anger well under control; but now I
bear no ill-will. On learning of the death of my nurse, though, I cast
all my hopes into the sea.”
“You were wrong, my dear sir,” said the magistrate. “I advise you to
still hope. Perhaps, before the end of the day, you will enter into
possession of your rights. Justice, I will not conceal from you, thinks
she has found Widow Lerouge’s assassin. At this moment, Viscount Albert
is doubtless under arrest.”
“What!” exclaimed Noel, with a sort of stupor: “I was not, then,
mistaken, sir, in the meaning of your words. I dreaded to understand
them.”
“You have not mistaken me, sir,” said M. Daburon. “I thank you for
your sincere straightforward explanations; they have eased my task
materially. To-morrow,--for today my time is all taken up,--we will
write down your deposition together if you like. I have nothing more to
say, I believe, except to ask you for the letters in your possession,
and which are indispensable to me.”
“Within an hour, sir, you shall have them,” replied Noel. And
he retired, after having warmly expressed his gratitude to the
investigating magistrate.
Had he been less preoccupied, the advocate might have perceived at the
end of the gallery old Tabaret, who had just arrived, eager and happy,
like a bearer of great news as he was.
His cab had scarcely stopped at the gate of the Palais de Justice
before he was in the courtyard and rushing towards the porch. To see him
jumping more nimbly than a fifth-rate lawyer’s clerk up the steep flight
of stairs leading to the magistrate’s office, one would never have
believed that he was many years on the shady side of fifty. Even he
himself had forgotten it. He did not remember how he had passed the
night; he had never before felt so fresh, so agile, in such spirits; he
seemed to have springs of steel in his limbs.
He burst like a cannon-shot into the magistrate’s office, knocking up
against the methodical clerk in the rudest of ways, without even asking
his pardon.
“Caught!” he cried, while yet on the threshold, “caught, nipped,
squeezed, strung, trapped, locked! We have got the man.”
Old Tabaret, more Tirauclair than ever, gesticulated with such comical
vehemence and such remarkable contortions that even the tall clerk
smiled, for which, however, he took himself severely to task on going to
bed that night.
But M. Daburon, still under the influence of Noel’s deposition, was
shocked at this apparently unseasonable joy; although he felt the safer
for it. He looked severely at old Tabaret, saying,--“Hush, sir; be
decent, compose yourself.”
At any other time, the old fellow would have felt ashamed at having
deserved such a reprimand. Now, it made no impression on him.
“I can’t be quiet,” he replied. “Never has anything like this been known
before. All that I mentioned has been found. Broken foil, lavender kid
gloves slightly frayed, cigar-holder; nothing is wanting. You shall have
them, sir, and many other things besides. I have a little system of my
own, which appears by no means a bad one. Just see the triumph of my
method of induction, which Gevrol ridiculed so much. I’d give a hundred
francs if he were only here now. But no; my Gevrol wants to nab the
man with the earrings; he is just capable of doing that. He is a fine
fellow, this Gevrol, a famous fellow! How much do you give him a year
for his skill?”
“Come, my dear M. Tabaret,” said the magistrate, as soon as he could get
in a word, “be serious, if you can, and let us proceed in order.”
“Pooh!” replied the old fellow, “what good will that do? It is a clear
case now. When they bring the fellow before you, merely show him the
particles of kid taken from behind the nails of the victim, side by side
with his torn gloves, and you will overwhelm him. I wager that he will
confess all, hic et nunc,--yes, I wager my head against his; although
that’s pretty risky; for he may get off yet! Those milk-sops on the jury
are just capable of according him extenuating circumstances. Ah! all
those delays are fatal to justice! Why if all the world were of my mind,
the punishment of rascals wouldn’t take such a time. They should be
hanged as soon as caught. That’s my opinion.”
M. Daburon resigned himself to this shower of words. As soon as the old
fellow’s excitement had cooled down a little, he began questioning him.
He even then had great trouble in obtaining the exact details of the
arrest; details which later on were confirmed by the commissary’s
official report.
The magistrate appeared very surprised when he heard that Albert had
exclaimed, “I am lost!” at sight of the warrant. “That,” muttered he,
“is a terrible proof against him.”
“I should think so,” replied old Tabaret. “In his ordinary state, he
would never have allowed himself to utter such words; for they in fact
destroy him. We arrested him when he was scarcely awake. He hadn’t been
in bed, but was lying in a troubled sleep, upon a sofa, when we arrived.
I took good care to let a frightened servant run in in advance, and to
follow closely upon him myself, to see the effect. All my arrangements
were made. But, never fear, he will find a plausible excuse for this
fatal exclamation. By the way, I should add that we found on the floor,
near by, a crumpled copy of last evening’s ‘Gazette de France,’ which
contained an account of the assassination. This is the first time that a
piece of news in the papers ever helped to nab a criminal.”
“Yes,” murmured the magistrate, deep in thought, “yes, you are a
valuable man, M. Tabaret.” Then, louder, he added, “I am thoroughly
convinced; for M. Gerdy has just this moment left me.”
“You have seen Noel!” cried the old fellow. On the instant all his proud
self-satisfaction disappeared. A cloud of anxiety spread itself like
a veil over his beaming countenance. “Noel here,” he repeated. Then he
timidly added: “And does he know?”
“Nothing,” replied M. Daburon. “I had no need of mentioning your name.
Besides, had I not promised absolute secrecy?”
“Ah, that’s all right,” cried old Tabaret. “And what do you think sir,
of Noel?”
“His is, I am sure, a noble, worthy heart,” said the magistrate; “a
nature both strong and tender. The sentiments which I heard him express
here, and the genuineness of which it is impossible to doubt, manifested
an elevation of soul, unhappily, very rare. Seldom in my life have I met
with a man who so won my sympathy from the first. I can well understand
one’s pride in being among his friends.”
“Just what I said; he has precisely the same effect upon every one. I
love him as though he were my own child; and, whatever happens, he
will inherit almost the whole of my fortune: yes, I intend leaving him
everything. My will is made, and is in the hands of M. Baron, my notary.
There is a small legacy, too, for Madame Gerdy; but I am going to have
the paragraph that relates to that taken out at once.”
“Madame Gerdy, M. Tabaret, will soon be beyond all need of worldly
goods.”
“How, what do you mean? Has the count--”
“She is dying, and is not likely to live through the day; M. Gerdy told
me so himself.”
“Ah! heavens!” cried the old fellow, “what is that you say? Dying? Noel
will be distracted; but no: since she is not his mother, how can it
affect him? Dying! I thought so much of her before this discovery. Poor
humanity! It seems as though all the accomplices are passing away at
the same time; for I forgot to tell you, that, just as I was leaving
the Commarin mansion, I heard a servant tell another that the count had
fallen down in a fit on learning the news of his son’s arrest.”
“That will be a great misfortune for M. Gerdy.”
“For Noel?”
“I had counted upon M. de Commarin’s testimony to recover for him all
that he so well deserves. The count dead, Widow Lerouge dead, Madame
Gerdy dying, or in any event insane, who then can tell us whether the
substitution alluded to in the letters was ever carried into execution?”
“True,” murmured old Tabaret; “it is true! And I did not think of it.
What fatality! For I am not deceived; I am certain that--”
He did not finish. The door of M. Daburon’s office opened, and the Count
de Commarin himself appeared on the threshold, as rigid as one of those
old portraits which look as though they were frozen in their gilded
frames. The nobleman motioned with his hand, and the two servants who
had helped him up as far as the door, retired.
CHAPTER XI.
It was indeed the Count de Commarin, though more like his shadow. His
head, usually carried so high, leant upon his chest; his figure was
bent; his eyes had no longer their accustomed fire; his hands trembled.
The extreme disorder of his dress rendered more striking still the
change which had come over him. In one night, he had grown twenty years
older. This man, yesterday so proud of never having bent to a storm,
was now completely shattered. The pride of his name had constituted his
entire strength; that humbled, he seemed utterly overwhelmed. Everything
in him gave way at once; all his supports failed him at the same time.
His cold, lifeless gaze revealed the dull stupor of his thoughts.
He presented such a picture of utter despair that the investigating
magistrate slightly shuddered at the sight. M. Tabaret looked
frightened, and even the clerk seemed moved.
“Constant,” said M. Daburon quickly, “go with M. Tabaret, and see if
there’s any news at the Prefecture.”
The clerk left the room, followed by the detective, who went away
regretfully. The count had not noticed their presence; he paid no
attention to their departure.
M. Daburon offered him a seat, which he accepted with a sad smile. “I
feel so weak,” said he, “you must excuse my sitting.”
Apologies to an investigating magistrate! What an advance in
civilisation, when the nobles consider themselves subject to the law,
and bow to its decrees! Every one respects justice now-a-days, and fears
it a little, even when only represented by a simple and conscientious
investigating magistrate.
“You are, perhaps, too unwell, count,” said the magistrate, “to give me
the explanations I had hoped for.”
“I am better, thank you,” replied M. de Commarin, “I am as well as could
be expected after the shock I have received. When I heard of the crime
of which my son is accused, and of his arrest, I was thunderstruck.
I believed myself a strong man; but I rolled in the dust. My servants
thought me dead. Why was it not so? The strength of my constitution,
my physician tells me, was all that saved me; but I believe that heaven
wishes me to live, that I may drink to the bitter dregs my cup of
humiliation.”
He stopped suddenly, nearly choked by a flow of blood that rose to his
mouth.
The investigating magistrate remained standing near the table, almost
afraid to move.
After a few moments’ rest, the count found relief, and
continued,--“Unhappy man that I am! ought I not to have expected it?
Everything comes to light sooner or later. I am punished for my great
sin,--pride. I thought myself out of reach of the thunderbolt; and I
have been the means of drawing down the storm upon my house. Albert an
assassin! A Viscount de Commarin arraigned before a court of assize! Ah,
sir, punish me, also; for I alone and long ago, laid the foundation of
this crime. Fifteen centuries of spotless fame end with me in infamy.”
M. Daburon considered Count de Commarin’s conduct unpardonable, and had
determined not to spare him.
He had expected to meet a proud, haughty noble, almost unmanageable; and
he had resolved to humble his arrogance.
Perhaps the harsh treatment he had received of old from the Marchioness
d’Arlange had given him, unconsciously, a slight grudge against the
aristocracy.
He had vaguely thought of certain rather severe remarks, which were to
overcome the old nobleman, and bring him to a sense of his position.
But when he found himself in the presence of such a sincere repentance,
his indignation changed to profound pity; and he began to wonder how he
could assuage the count’s grief.
“Write, sir,” continued M. de Commarin with an exaltation of which he
did not seem capable ten minutes before,--“write my avowal and suppress
nothing. I have no longer need of mercy nor of tenderness. What have
I to fear now? Is not my disgrace public? Must not I, Count Rheteau
de Commarin appear before the tribunal, to proclaim the infamy of our
house? Ah! all is lost now, even honour itself. Write, sir; for I wish
that all the world shall know that I am the most deserving of blame. But
they shall also know that the punishment has been already terrible, and
that there was no need for this last and awful trial.”
The count stopped for a moment, to concentrate and arrange his memory.
He soon continued, in a firmer voice, and adapting his tone to what he
had to say, “When I was of Albert’s age, sir, my parents made me marry,
in spite of my protestations, the noblest and purest of young girls. I
made her the most unhappy of women. I could not love her. I cherished a
most passionate love for a mistress, who had trusted herself to me, and
whom I had loved for a long time. I found her rich in beauty, purity and
mind. Her name was Valerie. My heart is, so to say, dead and cold in me,
sir, but, ah! when I pronounce that name, it still has a great effect
upon me. In spite of my marriage, I could not induce myself to part from
her, though she wished me to. The idea of sharing my love with another
was revolting to her. No doubt she loved me then. Our relations
continued. My wife and my mistress became mothers at nearly the same
time. This coincidence suggested to me the fatal idea of sacrificing
my legitimate son to his less fortunate brother. I communicated this
project to Valerie. To my great surprise, she refused it with horror.
Already the maternal instinct was aroused within her; she would not be
separated from her child. I have preserved, as a monument of my folly,
the letters which she wrote to me at that time. I re-read them only last
night. Ah! why did I not listen to both her arguments and her prayers?
It was because I was mad. She had a sort of presentiment of the evil
which overwhelms me to-day. But I came to Paris;--I had absolute
control over her. I threatened to leave her, never to see her again. She
yielded; and my valet and Claudine Lerouge were charged with this wicked
substitution. It is, therefore, the son of my mistress who bears the
title of Viscount de Commarin, and who was arrested but a short time
ago.”
M. Daburon had not hoped for a declaration so clear, and above all
so prompt. He secretly rejoiced for the young advocate whose noble
sentiments had quite captivated him.
“So, count,” said he, “you acknowledge that M. Noel Gerdy is the issue
of your legitimate marriage, and that he alone is entitled to bear your
name?”
“Yes, sir. Alas! I was then more delighted at the success of my project
than I should have been over the most brilliant victory. I was so
intoxicated with the joy of having my Valerie’s child there, near me,
that I forgot everything else. I had transferred to him a part of my
love for his mother; or, rather, I loved him still more, if that be
possible. The thought that he would bear my name, that he would inherit
all my wealth, to the detriment of the other, transported me with
delight. The other, I hated; I could not even look upon him. I do not
recollect having kissed him twice. On this point Valerie, who was
very good, reproached me severely. One thing alone interfered with my
happiness. The Countess de Commarin adored him whom she believed to be
her son, and always wished to have him on her knees. I cannot express
what I suffered at seeing my wife cover with kisses and caresses the
child of my mistress. But I kept him from her as much as I could; and
she, poor woman! not understanding what was passing within me, imagined
that I was doing everything to prevent her son loving her. She died,
sir, with this idea, which poisoned her last days. She died of sorrow;
but saint-like, without a complaint, without a murmur, pardon upon her
lips and in her heart.”
Though greatly pressed for time, M. Daburon did not venture to interrupt
the count, to ask him briefly for the immediate facts of the case. He
knew that fever alone gave him this unnatural energy, to which at any
moment might succeed the most complete prostration. He feared, if he
stopped him for an instant, that he would not have strength enough to
resume.
“I did not shed a single tear,” continued the count. “What had she been
in my life? A cause of sorrow and remorse. But God’s justice, in advance
of man’s was about to take a terrible revenge. One day, I was warned
that Valerie was deceiving me, and had done so for a long time. I could
not believe it at first; it seemed to me impossible, absurd. I would
have sooner doubted myself than her. I had taken her from a garret,
where she was working sixteen hours a day to earn a few pence; she owed
all to me. I had made her so much a part of myself that I could not
credit her being false. I could not induce myself to feel jealous.
However, I inquired into the matter; I had her watched; I even acted the
spy upon her myself. I had been told the truth. This unhappy woman had
another lover, and had had him for more than ten years. He was a cavalry
officer. In coming to her house he took every precaution. He usually
left about midnight; but sometimes he came to pass the night, and in
that case went away in the early morning. Being stationed near Paris, he
frequently obtained leave of absence and came to visit her; and he would
remain shut up in her apartments until his time expired. One evening,
my spies brought me word that he was there. I hastened to the house. My
presence did not embarrass her. She received me as usual, throwing her
arms about my neck. I thought that my spies had deceived me; and I was
going to tell her all, when I saw upon the piano a buckskin glove, such
as are worn by soldiers. Not wishing a scene, and not knowing to what
excess my anger might carry me, I rushed out of the place without saying
a word. I have never seen her since. She wrote to me. I did not open her
letters. She attempted to force her way into my presence, but in vain;
my servants had orders that they dared not ignore.”
Could this be the Count de Commarin, celebrated for his haughty
coldness, for his reserve so full of disdain, who spoke thus, who opened
his whole life without restrictions, without reserve? And to whom? To a
stranger.
But he was in one of those desperate states, allied to madness, when all
reflection leaves us, when we must find some outlet for a too powerful
emotion. What mattered to him this secret, so courageously borne for
so many years? He disburdened himself of it, like the poor man, who,
weighed down by a too heavy burden, casts it to the earth without
caring where it falls, nor how much it may tempt the cupidity of the
passers-by.
“Nothing,” continued he, “no, nothing, can approach to what I then
endured. My very heartstrings were bound up in that woman. She was like
a part of myself. In separating from her, it seemed to me that I was
tearing away a part of my own flesh. I cannot describe the furious
passions her memory stirred within me. I scorned her and longed for her
with equal vehemence. I hated her, and I loved her. And, to this day,
her detestable image has been ever present to my imagination. Nothing
can make me forget her. I have never consoled myself for her loss. And
that is not all, terrible doubts about Albert occurred to me. Was I
really his father? Can you understand what my punishment was, when I
thought to myself, ‘I have perhaps sacrificed my own son to the child
of an utter stranger.’ This thought made me hate the bastard who
called himself Commarin. To my great affection for him succeeded an
unconquerable aversion. How often, in those days I struggled against
an insane desire to kill him! Since then, I have learned to subdue my
aversion; but I have never completely mastered it. Albert, sir, has been
the best of sons. Nevertheless, there has always been an icy barrier
between us, which he was unable to explain. I have often been on the
point of appealing to the tribunals, of avowing all, of reclaiming my
legitimate heir; but regard for my rank has prevented me. I recoiled
before the scandal. I feared the ridicule or disgrace that would attach
to my name; and yet I have not been able to save it from infamy.”
The old nobleman remained silent, after pronouncing these words. In a
fit of despair, he buried his face in his hands, and two great tears
rolled silently down his wrinkled cheeks.
In the meantime, the door of the room opened slightly, and the tall
clerk’s head appeared.
M. Daburon signed to him to enter, and then addressing M. de Commarin,
he said in a voice rendered more gentle by compassion: “Sir, in the eyes
of heaven, as in the eyes of society, you have committed a great sin;
and the results, as you see, are most disastrous. It is your duty to
repair the evil consequences of your sin as much as lies in your power.”
“Such is my intention, sir, and, may I say so? my dearest wish.”
“You doubtless understand me,” continued M. Daburon.
“Yes, sir,” replied the old man, “yes, I understand you.”
“It will be a consolation to you,” added the magistrate, “to learn that
M. Noel Gerdy is worthy in all respects of the high position that you
are about to restore to him. He is a man of great talent, better
and worthier than any one I know. You will have a son worthy of his
ancestors. And finally, no one of your family has disgraced it, sir, for
Viscount Albert is not a Commarin.”
“No,” rejoined the count quickly, “a Commarin would be dead at this
hour; and blood washes all away.”
The old nobleman’s remark set the investigating magistrate thinking
profoundly.
“Are you then sure,” said he, “of the viscount’s guilt?”
M. de Commarin gave the magistrate a look of intense surprise.
“I only arrived in Paris yesterday evening,” he replied; “and I am
entirely ignorant of all that has occurred. I only know that justice
would not proceed without good cause against a man of Albert’s rank. If
you have arrested him, it is quite evident that you have something more
than suspicion against him,--that you possess positive proofs.”
M. Daburon bit his lips, and, for a moment, could not conceal a feeling
of displeasure. He had neglected his usual prudence, had moved too
quickly. He had believed the count’s mind entirely upset; and now he had
aroused his distrust. All the skill in the world could not repair such
an unfortunate mistake. A witness on his guard is no longer a witness to
be depended upon; he trembles for fear of compromising himself, measures
the weight of the questions, and hesitates as to his answers.
On the other hand, justice, in the form of a magistrate, is disposed to
doubt everything, to imagine everything, and to suspect everybody.
How far was the count a stranger to the crime at La Jonchere? Although
doubting Albert’s paternity, he would certainly have made great efforts
to save him. His story showed that he thought his honour in peril just
as much as his son. Was he not the man to suppress, by every means, an
inconvenient witness? Thus reasoned M. Daburon. And yet he could not
clearly see how the Count de Commarin’s interests were concerned in the
matter. This uncertainty made him very uneasy.
“Sir,” he asked, more sternly, “when were you informed of the discovery
of your secret?”
“Last evening, by Albert himself. He spoke to me of this sad story, in a
way which I now seek in vain to explain, unless--”
The count stopped short, as if his reason had been struck by the
improbability of the supposition which he had formed.
“Unless!--” inquired the magistrate eagerly.
“Sir,” said the count, without replying directly, “Albert is a hero, if
he is not guilty.”
“Ah!” said the magistrate quickly, “have you, then, reason to think him
innocent?”
M. Daburon’s spite was so plainly visible in the tone of his words that
M. de Commarin could and ought to have seen the semblance of an insult.
He started, evidently offended, and rising, said: “I am now no more a
witness for, than I was a moment ago a witness against. I desire only to
render what assistance I can to justice, in accordance with my duty.”
“Confound it,” said M. Daburon to himself, “here I have offended him
now! Is this the way to do things, making mistake after mistake?”
“The facts are these,” resumed the count. “Yesterday, after having
spoken to me of these cursed letters, Albert began to set a trap to
discover the truth,--for he still had doubts, Noel Gerdy not having
obtained the complete correspondence. An animated discussion arose
between us. He declared his resolution to give way to Noel. I, on the
other hand, was resolved to compromise the matter, cost what it might.
Albert dared to oppose me. All my efforts to convert him to my views
were useless. Vainly I tried to touch those chords in his breast which I
supposed the most sensitive. He firmly repeated his intention to retire
in spite of me, declaring himself satisfied, if I would consent to allow
him a modest competence. I again attempted to shake him, by showing him
that his marriage, so ardently looked forward to for two years, would be
broken off by this blow. He replied that he felt sure of the constancy
of his betrothed, Mademoiselle d’Arlange.”
This name fell like a thunderbolt upon the ears of the investigating
magistrate. He jumped in his chair. Feeling that his face was turning
crimson, he took up a large bundle of papers from his table, and,
to hide his emotion, he raised them to his face, as though trying to
decipher an illegible word. He began to understand the difficult duty
with which he was charged. He knew that he was troubled like a child,
having neither his usual calmness nor foresight. He felt that he
might commit the most serious blunders. Why had he undertaken this
investigation? Could he preserve himself quite free from bias? Did he
think his will would be perfectly impartial? Gladly would he put off
to another time the further examination of the count; but could he?
His conscience told him that this would be another blunder. He renewed,
then, the painful examination.
“Sir,” said he, “the sentiments expressed by the viscount are very fine,
without doubt; but did he not mention Widow Lerouge?”
“Yes,” replied the count, who appeared suddenly to brighten, as by the
remembrance of some unnoticed circumstances,--“yes, certainly.”
“He must have shown you that this woman’s testimony rendered a struggle
with M. Gerdy impossible.”
“Precisely; sir; and, aside from the question of duty, it was upon that
that he based his refusal to follow my wishes.”
“It will be necessary, count, for you to repeat to me very exactly all
that passed between the viscount and yourself. Appeal, then, I beseech
you, to your memory, and try to repeat his own words as nearly as
possible.”
M. de Commarin could do so without much difficulty. For some little
time, a salutary reaction had taken place within him. His blood, excited
by the persistence of the examination, moved in its accustomed course.
His brain cleared itself.
The scene of the previous evening was admirably presented to his memory,
even to the most insignificant details. The sound of Albert’s voice was
still in his ears; he saw again his expressive gestures. As his story
advanced, alive with clearness and precision, M. Daburon’s conviction
became more confirmed.
The magistrate turned against Albert precisely that which the day before
had won the count’s admiration.
“What wonderful acting!” thought he. “Tabaret is decidedly possessed
of second sight. To his inconceivable boldness, this young man joins an
infernal cleverness. The genius of crime itself inspires him. It is a
miracle that we are able to unmask him. How well everything was foreseen
and arranged? How marvellously this scene with his father was brought
about, in order to procure doubt in case of discovery? There is not
a sentence which lacks a purpose, which does not tend to ward off
suspicion. What refinement of execution! What excessive care for
details! Nothing is wanting, not even the great devotion of his
betrothed. Has he really informed Claire? Probably I might find out;
but I should have to see her again, to speak to her. Poor child! to love
such a man! But his plan is now fully exposed. His discussion with the
count was his plank of safety. It committed him to nothing, and gained
time. He would of course raise objections, since they would only end by
binding him the more firmly in his father’s heart. He could thus make a
merit of his compliance, and would ask a reward for his weakness. And,
when Noel returned to the charge, he would find himself in presence of
the count, who would boldly deny everything, politely refuse to have
anything to do with him and would possibly have him driven out of the
house, as an impostor and forger.”
It was a strange coincidence, but yet easily explained, that M. de
Commarin, while telling his story, arrived at the same ideas as the
magistrate, and at conclusions almost identical. In fact, why that
persistence with respect to Claudine? He remembered plainly, that, in
his anger, he had said to his son, “Mankind is not in the habit of
doing such fine actions for its own satisfaction.” That great
disinterestedness was now explained.
When the count had ceased speaking, M. Daburon said: “I thank you, sir.
I can say nothing positive; but justice has weighty reasons to believe
that, in the scene which you have just related to me, Viscount Albert
played a part previously arranged.”
“And well arranged,” murmured the count; “for he deceived me!”
He was interrupted by the entrance of Noel, who carried under his arm a
black shagreen portfolio, ornamented with his monogram.
The advocate bowed to the old gentleman, who in his turn rose and
retired politely to the end of the room.
“Sir,” said Noel, in an undertone to the magistrate, “you will find all
the letters in this portfolio. I must ask permission to leave you at
once, as Madame Gerdy’s condition grows hourly more alarming.”
Noel had raised his voice a little, in pronouncing these last words; and
the count heard them. He started, and made a great effort to restrain
the question which leaped from his heart to his lips.
“You must however give me a moment, my dear sir,” replied the
magistrate.
M. Daburon then quitted his chair, and, taking the advocate by the hand,
led him to the count.
“M. de Commarin,” said he, “I have the honour of presenting to you M.
Noel Gerdy.”
M. de Commarin was probably expecting some scene of this kind: for not a
muscle of his face moved: he remained perfectly calm. Noel, on his side,
was like a man who had received a blow on the head; he staggered, and
was obliged to seek support from the back of a chair.
Then these two, father and son, stood face to face, apparently deep in
thought, but in reality examining one another with mutual distrust, each
striving to gather something of the other’s thoughts.
M. Daburon had augured better results from this meeting, which he had
been awaiting ever since the count’s arrival. He had expected that this
abrupt presentation would bring about an intensely pathetic scene, which
would not give his two witnesses time for reflection. The count
would open his arms: Noel would throw himself into them; and this
reconciliation would only await the sanction of the tribunals, to be
complete.
The coldness of the one, the embarrassment of the other, disconcerted
his plans. He therefore thought it necessary to intervene.
“Count,” said he reproachfully, “remember that it was only a few minutes
ago that you admitted that M. Gerdy was your legitimate son.”
M. de Commarin made no reply; to judge from his lack of emotion, he
could not have heard.
So Noel, summoning all his courage, ventured to speak first,--“Sir,” he
stammered, “I entertain no--”
“You may call me father,” interrupted the haughty old man, in a tone
which was by no means affectionate. Then addressing the magistrate he
said: “Can I be of any further use to you, sir?”
“Only to hear your evidence read over,” replied M. Daburon, “and to sign
it if you find everything correct. You can proceed, Constant,” he added.
The tall clerk turned half round on his chair and commenced. He had
a peculiar way of jabbering over what he had scrawled. He read very
quickly, all at a stretch, without paying the least attention to either
full stops or commas, questions or replies; but went on reading as long
as his breath lasted. When he could go on no longer, he took a breath,
and then continued as before. Unconsciously, he reminded one of a diver,
who every now and then raises his head above water, obtains a supply of
air, and disappears again. Noel was the only one to listen attentively
to the reading, which to unpractised ears was unintelligible. It
apprised him of many things which it was important for him to know. At
last Constant pronounced the words, “In testimony whereof,” etc., which
end all official reports in France.
He handed the pen to the count, who signed without hesitation. The old
nobleman then turned towards Noel.
“I am not very strong,” he said; “you must therefore, my son,”
emphasizing the word, “help your father to his carriage.”
The young advocate advanced eagerly. His face brightened, as he passed
the count’s arm through his own. When they were gone, M. Daburon could
not resist a impulse of curiosity. He hastened to the door, which he
opened slightly; and, keeping his body in the background that he might
not himself be seen, he looked out into the passage. The count and Noel
had not yet reached the end. They were going slowly. The count seemed to
drag heavily and painfully along; the advocate took short steps, bending
slightly towards his father; and all his movements were marked with the
greatest solicitude. The magistrate remained watching them until they
passed out of sight at the end of the gallery. Then he returned to his
seat, heaving a deep sigh.
“At least,” thought he, “I have helped to make one person happy. The day
will not be entirely a bad one.”
But he had no time to give way to his thoughts, the hours flew by so
quickly. He wished to interrogate Albert as soon as possible; and he had
still to receive the evidence of several of the count’s servants, and
the report of the commissary of police charged with the arrest. The
servants who had been waiting their turn a long while were now
brought in without delay, and examined separately. They had but little
information to give; but the testimony of each was so to say a fresh
accusation. It was easy to see that all believed their master guilty.
Albert’s conduct since the beginning of the fatal week, his least words,
his most insignificant movements, were reported, commented upon, and
explained.
The man who lives in the midst of thirty servants is like an insect in
a glass box under the magnifying glass of a naturalist. Not one of his
acts escapes their notice: he can scarcely have a secret of his own;
and, if they cannot divine what it is, they at least know that he has
one. From morn till night he is the point of observation for thirty
pairs of eyes, interested in studying the slightest changes in his
countenance.
The magistrate obtained, therefore, an abundance of those frivolous
details which seem nothing at first; but the slightest of which may, at
the trial, become a question of life or death.
By combining these depositions, reconciling them and putting them in
order, M. Daburon was able to follow his prisoner hour by hour from the
Sunday morning.
Directly Noel left, the viscount gave orders that all visitors should be
informed that he had gone into the country. From that moment, the whole
household perceived that something had gone wrong with him, that he was
very much annoyed, or very unwell.
He did not leave his study on that day, but had his dinner brought up to
him. He ate very little,--only some soup, and a very thin fillet of
sole with white wine. While eating, he said to M. Contois, the butler:
“Remind the cook to spice the sauce a little more, in future,” and then
added in a low tone, “Ah! to what purpose?” In the evening he dismissed
his servants from all duties, saying, “Go, and amuse yourselves.” He
expressly warned them not to disturb him unless he rang.
On the Monday, he did not get up until noon, although usually an early
riser. He complained of a violent headache, and of feeling sick.
He took, however a cup of tea. He ordered his brougham, but almost
immediately countermanded the order. Lubin, his valet, heard him say:
“I am hesitating too much;” and a few moments later, “I must make up my
mind.” Shortly afterwards he began writing.
He then gave Lubin a letter to carry to Mademoiselle Claire d’Arlange,
with orders to deliver it only to herself or to Mademoiselle Schmidt,
the governess. A second letter, containing two thousand franc notes,
was intrusted to Joseph, to be taken to the viscount’s club. Joseph
no longer remembered the name of the person to whom the letter was
addressed; but it was not a person of title. That evening, Albert only
took a little soup, and remained shut up in his room.
He rose early on the Tuesday. He wandered about the house, as though he
were in great trouble, or impatiently awaiting something which did not
arrive. On his going into the garden, the gardener asked his advice
concerning a lawn. He replied, “You had better consult the count upon
his return.”
He did not breakfast any more than the day before. About one o’clock, he
went down to stables, and caressed, with an air of sadness, his favorite
mare, Norma. Stroking her neck, he said, “Poor creature! poor old girl!”
At three o’clock, a messenger arrived with a letter. The viscount took
it, and opened it hastily. He was then near the flower-garden. Two
footmen distinctly heard him say, “She cannot resist.” He returned to
the house, and burnt the letter in the large stove in the hall.
As he was sitting down to dinner, at six o’clock, two of his friends,
M. de Courtivois and the Marquis de Chouze, insisted upon seeing him,
in spite of all orders. They would not be refused. These gentlemen were
anxious for him to join them in some pleasure party, but he declined,
saying that he had a very important appointment.
At dinner he ate a little more than on the previous days. He even asked
the butler for a bottle of Chateau-Lafitte, the whole of which he drank
himself. While taking his coffee, he smoked a cigar in the dining room,
contrary to the rules of the house. At half-past seven, according to
Joseph and two footmen, or at eight according to the Swiss porter and
Lubin, the viscount went out on foot, taking an umbrella with him. He
returned home at two o’clock in the morning, and at once dismissed his
valet, who had waited up for him.
On entering the viscount’s room on the Wednesday, the valet was struck
with the condition in which he found his master’s clothes. They were
wet, and stained with mud; the trousers were torn. He ventured to make
a remark about them. Albert replied, in a furious manner, “Throw the old
things in a corner, ready to be given away.”
He appeared to be much better all that day. He breakfasted with a good
appetite; and the butler noticed that he was in excellent spirits. He
passed the afternoon in the library, and burnt a pile of papers.
On the Thursday, he again seemed very unwell. He was scarcely able to go
and meet the count. That evening, after his interview with his father,
he went to his room looking extremely ill. Lubin wanted to run for the
doctor: he forbade him to do so, or to mention to any one that he was
not well.
Such was the substance of twenty large pages, which the tall clerk
had covered with writing, without once turning his head to look at the
witnesses who passed by in their fine livery.
M. Daburon managed to obtain this evidence in less than two hours.
Though well aware of the importance of their testimony, all these
servants were very voluble. The difficulty was, to stop them when they
had once started. From all they said, it appeared that Albert was a very
good master,--easily served, kind and polite to his servants. Wonderful
to relate! there were found only three among them who did not appear
perfectly delighted at the misfortune which had befallen the family.
Two were greatly distressed. M. Lubin, although he had been an object of
especial kindness, was not one of these.
The turn of the commissary of police had now come. In a few words, he
gave an account of the arrest, already described by old Tabaret. He did
not forget to mention the one word “Lost,” which had escaped Albert; to
his mind, it was a confession. He then delivered all the articles seized
in the Viscount de Commarin’s apartments.
The magistrate carefully examined these things, and compared them
closely with the scraps of evidence gathered at La Jonchere. He soon
appeared, more than ever, satisfied with the course he had taken.
He then placed all these material proofs upon his table, and covered
them over with three or four large sheets of paper.
The day was far advanced; and M. Daburon had no more than sufficient
time to examine the prisoner before night. He now remembered that he had
tasted nothing since morning; and he sent hastily for a bottle of wine
and some biscuits. It was not strength, however, that the magistrate
needed; it was courage. All the while that he was eating and drinking,
his thoughts kept repeating this strange sentence, “I am about to appear
before the Viscount de Commarin.” At any other time, he would have
laughed at the absurdity of the idea, but, at this moment, it seemed to
him like the will of Providence.
“So be it,” said he to himself; “this is my punishment.”
And immediately he gave the necessary orders for Viscount Albert to be
brought before him.
CHAPTER XII.
Albert scarcely noticed his removal from home to the seclusion of the
prison. Snatched away from his painful thoughts by the harsh voice of
the commissary, saying. “In the name of the law I arrest you,” his
mind, completely upset, was a long time in recovering its equilibrium,
Everything that followed appeared to him to float indistinctly in a
thick mist, like those dream-scenes represented on the stage behind a
quadruple curtain of gauze.
To the questions put to him he replied, without knowing what he said.
Two police agents took hold of his arms, and helped him down the stairs.
He could not have walked down alone. His limbs, which bent beneath him,
refused their support. The only thing he understood of all that was said
around him was that the count had been struck with apoplexy; but even
that he soon forgot.
They lifted him into the cab, which was waiting in the court-yard at
the foot of the steps, rather ashamed at finding itself in such a
place; and they placed him on the back seat. Two police agents
installed themselves in front of him while a third mounted the box by
the side of the driver. During the drive, he did not at all realize his
situation. He lay perfectly motionless in the dirty, greasy vehicle.
His body, which followed every jolt, scarcely allayed by the worn-out
springs, rolled from one side to the other and his head oscillated on
his shoulders, as if the muscles of his neck were broken. He thought of
Widow Lerouge. He recalled her as she was when he went with his father
to La Jonchere. It was in the spring-time; and the hawthorn blossoms
scented the air. The old woman, in a white cap, stood at her garden
gate: she spoke beseechingly. The count looked sternly at her as he
listened, then, taking some gold from his purse, he gave it to her.
On arriving at their destination they lifted him out of the cab, the
same way as they had lifted him in at starting.
During the formality of entering his name in the jail-book in the
dingy, stinking record office, and whilst replying mechanically to
everything, he gave himself up with delight to recollections of Claire.
He went back to the time of the early days of their love, when he
doubted whether he would ever have the happiness of being loved by her
in return; when they used to meet at Mademoiselle Goello’s.
This old maid had a house on the left bank of the Seine furnished in
the most eccentric manner. On all the dining-room furniture, and on the
mantel-piece, were placed a dozen or fifteen stuffed dogs, of various
breeds, which together or successively had helped to cheer the maiden’s
lonely hours. She loved to relate stories of these pets whose affection
had never failed her. Some were grotesque, others horrible. One
especially, outrageously stuffed seemed ready to burst. How many times
he and Claire had laughed at it until the tears came!
The officials next began to search him. This crowning humiliation, these
rough hands passing all over his body brought him somewhat to himself,
and roused his anger. But it was already over; and they at once dragged
him along the dark corridors, over the filthy, slippery floor. They
opened a door, and pushed him into a small cell. He then heard them lock
and bolt the door.
He was a prisoner, and, in accordance with special orders, in solitary
confinement. He immediately felt a marked sensation of comfort. He was
alone.
No more stifled whispers, harsh voices, implacable questions, sounded
in his ears. A profound silence reigned around. It seemed to him that he
had forever escaped from society; and he rejoiced at it. He would have
felt relieved, had this even been the silence of the grave. His body,
as well as his mind, was weighed down with weariness. He wanted to
sit down, when he perceived a small bed, to the right, in front of the
grated window, which let in the little light there was. This bed was as
welcome to him as a plank would be to a drowning man. He threw himself
upon it, and lay down with delight; but he felt cold, so he unfolded
the coarse woollen coverlid, and wrapping it about him, was soon sound
asleep.
In the corridor, two detectives, one still young, the other rather old,
applied alternately their eyes and ears to the peep-hole in the door,
watching every movement of the prisoner; “What a fellow he is!” murmured
the younger officer. “If a man has no more nerve than that, he ought
to remain honest. He won’t care much about his looks the morning of his
execution, eh, M. Balan?”
“That depends,” replied the other. “We must wait and see. Lecoq told me
that he was a terrible rascal.”
“Ah! look he arranges his bed, and lies down. Can he be going to sleep?
That’s good! It’s the first time I ever saw such a thing.”
“It is because, comrade, you have only had dealings with the smaller
rogues. All rascals of position--and I have had to do with more than
one--are this sort. At the moment of arrest, they are incapable of
anything; their heart fails them; but they recover themselves next day.”
“Upon my word, one would say he has gone to sleep! What a joke!”
“I tell you, my friend,” added the old man, pointedly, “that nothing
is more natural. I am sure that, since the blow was struck, this young
fellow has hardly lived: his body has been all on fire. Now he knows
that his secret is out; and that quiets him.”
“Ha, ha! M. Balan, you are joking: you say that that quiets him?”
“Certainly. There is no greater punishment, remember, than anxiety;
everything is preferable. If you only possessed an income of ten
thousand francs, I would show you a way to prove this. I would tell you
to go to Hamburg and risk your entire fortune on one chance at rouge et
noir. You could relate to me, afterwards, what your feelings were while
the ball was rolling. It is, my boy, as though your brain was being torn
with pincers, as though molten lead was being poured into your bones, in
place of marrow. This anxiety is so strong, that one feels relieved, one
breathes again, even when one has lost. It is ruin; but then the anxiety
is over.”
“Really, M. Balan, one would think that you yourself had had just such
an experience.”
“Alas!” sighed the old detective, “it is to my love for the queen of
spades, my unhappy love, that you owe the honour of looking through
this peephole in my company. But this fellow will sleep for a couple of
hours, do not lose sight of him; I am going to smoke a cigarette in the
courtyard.”
Albert slept four hours. On awaking his head seemed clearer than it had
been ever since his interview with Noel. It was a terrible moment for
him, when, for the first time he became fully aware of his situation.
“Now, indeed,” said he, “I require all my courage.”
He longed to see some one, to speak, to be questioned, to explain. He
felt a desire to call out.
“But what good would that be?” he asked himself. “Some one will be
coming soon.” He looked for his watch, to see what time it was, and
found that they had taken it away. He felt this deeply; they were
treating him like the most abandoned of villains. He felt in his
pockets: they had all been carefully emptied. He thought now of his
personal appearance; and, getting up, he repaired as much as possible
the disorder of his toilet. He put his clothes in order, and dusted
them; he straightened his collar, and re-tied his cravat. Then pouring
a little water on his handkerchief, he passed it over his face, bathing
his eyes which were greatly inflamed. Then he endeavoured to smooth his
beard and hair. He had no idea that four lynx eyes were fixed upon him
all the while.
“Good!” murmured the young detective: “see how our cock sticks up his
comb, and smooths his feathers!
“I told you,” put in Balan, “that he was only staggered. Hush! he is
speaking, I believe.”
But they neither surprised one of those disordered gestures nor one of
those incoherent speeches, which almost always escape from the feeble
when excited by fear, or from the imprudent ones who believe in the
discretion of their cells. One word alone, “honour,” reached the ears of
the two spies.
“These rascals of rank,” grumbled Balan, “always have this word in their
mouths. That which they most fear is the opinion of some dozen friends,
and several thousand strangers, who read the ‘Gazette des Tribunaux.’
They only think of their own heads later on.”
When the gendarmes came to conduct Albert before the investigating
magistrate, they found him seated on the side of his bed, his feet
pressed upon the iron rail, his elbows on his knees, and his head buried
in his hands. He rose, as they entered, and took a few steps towards
them; but his throat was so dry that he was scarcely able to speak. He
asked for a moment, and, turning towards the little table, he filled and
drank two large glassfuls of water in succession.
“I am ready!” he then said. And, with a firm step, he followed the
gendarmes along the passage which led to the Palais de Justice.
M. Daburon was just then in great anguish. He walked furiously up and
down his office, awaiting the prisoner. Again, and for the twentieth
time since morning, he regretted having engaged in the business.
“Curse this absurd point of honour, which I have obeyed,” he inwardly
exclaimed. “I have in vain attempted to reassure myself by the aid
of sophisms. I was wrong in not withdrawing. Nothing in the world can
change my feelings towards this young man. I hate him. I am his judge;
and it is no less true, that at one time I longed to assassinate him. I
faced him with a revolver in my hand: why did I not present it and fire?
Do I know why? What power held my finger, when an almost insensible
pressure would have sufficed to kill him? I cannot say. Why is not he
the judge, I the assassin? If the intention was as punishable as the
deed, I ought to be guillotined. And it is under such conditions that I
dare examine him!”
Passing before the door he heard the heavy footsteps of the gendarmes in
the passage.
“It is he,” he said aloud and then hastily seated himself at his table,
bending over his portfolios, as though striving to hide himself. If
the tall clerk had used his eyes, he would have noticed the singular
spectacle of an investigating magistrate more agitated than the prisoner
he was about to examine. But he was blind to all around him; and, at
this moment, he was only aware of an error of fifteen centimes, which
had slipped into his accounts, and which he was unable to rectify.
Albert entered the magistrate’s office with his head erect. His features
bore traces of great fatigue and of sleepless nights. He was very pale;
but his eyes were clear and sparkling.
The usual questions which open such examinations gave M. Daburon an
opportunity to recover himself. Fortunately, he had found time in the
morning to prepare a plan, which he had now simply to follow.
“You are aware, sir,” he commenced in a tone of perfect politeness,
“that you have no right to the name you bear?”
“I know, sir,” replied Albert, “that I am the natural son of M. de
Commarin. I know further that my father would be unable to recognise me,
even if he wished to, since I was born during his married life.”
“What were your feelings upon learning this?”
“I should speak falsely, sir, if I said I did not feel very bitterly.
When one is in the high position I occupied, the fall is terrible.
However, I never for a moment entertained the thought of contesting M.
Noel Gerdy’s rights. I always purposed, and still purpose, to yield. I
have so informed M. de Commarin.”
M. Daburon expected just such a reply; and it only strengthened his
suspicions. Did it not enter into the line of defence which he had
foreseen? It was now his duty to seek some way of demolishing this
defence, in which the prisoner evidently meant to shut himself up like a
tortoise in its shell.
“You could not oppose M. Gerdy,” continued the magistrate, “with any
chance of success. You had, indeed on your side, the count, and your
mother; but M. Gerdy was in possession of evidence that was certain to
win his cause, that of Widow Lerouge.”
“I have never doubted that, sir.”
“Now,” continued the magistrate, seeking to hide the look which he
fastened upon Albert, “justice supposes that, to do away with the only
existing proof, you have assassinated Widow Lerouge.”
This terrible accusation, terribly emphasised, caused no change in
Albert’s features. He preserved the same firm bearing, without bravado.
“Before God,” he answered, “and by all that is most sacred on earth,
I swear to you, sir, that I am innocent! I am at this moment a
close prisoner, without communication with the outer world, reduced
consequently to the most absolute helplessness. It is through your
probity that I hope to demonstrate my innocence.”
“What an actor!” thought the magistrate. “Can crime be so strong as
this?”
He glanced over his papers, reading certain passages of the preceding
depositions, turning down the corners of certain pages which contained
important information. Then suddenly he resumed, “When you were
arrested, you cried out, ‘I am lost,’ what did you mean by that?”
“Sir,” replied Albert, “I remember having uttered those words. When I
knew of what crime I was accused, I was overwhelmed with consternation.
My mind was, as it were, enlightened by a glimpse of the future. In a
moment, I perceived all the horror of my situation. I understood the
weight of the accusation, its probability, and the difficulties I
should have in defending myself. A voice cried out to me, ‘Who was most
interested in Claudine’s death?’ And the knowledge of my imminent peril
forced from me the exclamation you speak of.”
His explanation was more than plausible, was possible, and even likely.
It had the advantage, too, of anticipating the axiom, “Search out the
one whom the crime will benefit!” Tabaret had spoken truly, when he said
that they would not easily make the prisoner confess.
M. Daburon admired Albert’s presence of mind, and the resources of his
perverse imagination.
“You do indeed,” continued the magistrate, “appear to have had the
greatest interest in this death. Moreover, I will inform you that
robbery was not the object of the crime. The things thrown into the
Seine have been recovered. We know, also, that all the widow’s papers
were burnt. Could they compromise any one but yourself? If you know of
any one, speak.”
“What can I answer, sir? Nothing.”
“Have you often gone to see this woman?”
“Three or four times with my father.”
“One of your coachmen pretends to have driven you there at least ten
times.”
“The man is mistaken. But what matters the number of visits?”
“Do you recollect the arrangements of the rooms? Can you describe them?”
“Perfectly, sir: there were two. Claudine slept in the back room.”
“You were in no way a stranger to Widow Lerouge. If you had knocked one
evening at her window-shutter, do you think she would have let you in?”
“Certainly, sir, and eagerly.”
“You have been unwell these last few days?”
“Very unwell, to say the least, sir. My body bent under the weight of
a burden too great for my strength. It was not, however, for want of
courage.”
“Why did you forbid your valet, Lubin, to call in the doctor?”
“Ah, sir, how could the doctor cure my disease? All his science could
not make me the legitimate son of the Count de Commarin.”
“Some very singular remarks made by you were overheard. You seemed to be
no longer interested in anything concerning your home. You destroyed a
large number of papers and letters.”
“I had decided to leave the count, sir. My resolution explains my
conduct.”
Albert replied promptly to the magistrate’s questions, without the
least embarrassment, and in a confident tone. His voice, which was
very pleasant to the ear, did not tremble. It concealed no emotion; it
retained its pure and vibrating sound.
M. Daburon deemed it wise to suspend the examination for a short time.
With so cunning an adversary, he was evidently pursuing a false course.
To proceed in detail was folly, he neither intimidated the prisoner,
nor made him break through his reserve. It was necessary to take him
unawares.
“Sir,” resumed the magistrate, abruptly, “tell me exactly how you passed
your time last Tuesday evening, from six o’clock until midnight?”
For the first time, Albert seemed disconcerted. His glance, which had,
till then, been fixed upon the magistrate, wavered.
“During Tuesday evening,” he stammered, repeating the phrase to gain
time.
“I have him,” thought the magistrate, starting with joy, and then added
aloud, “yes, from six o’clock until midnight.”
“I am afraid, sir,” answered Albert, “it will be difficult for me to
satisfy you. I haven’t a very good memory.”
“Oh, don’t tell me that!” interrupted the magistrate. “If I had asked
what you were doing three months ago, on a certain evening, and at a
certain hour, I could understand your hesitation; but this is about
Tuesday, and it is now Friday. Moreover, this day, so close, was the
last of the carnival; it was Shrove Tuesday. That circumstance ought to
help your memory.”
“That evening, I went out walking,” murmured Albert.
“Now,” continued the magistrate, “where did you dine?”
“At home, as usual.”
“No, not as usual. At the end of your meal, you asked for a bottle of
Bordeaux, of which you drank the whole. You doubtless had need of some
extra excitement for your subsequent plans.”
“I had no plans,” replied the prisoner with very evident uneasiness.
“You make a mistake. Two friends came to seek you. You replied to them,
before sitting down to dinner, that you had a very important engagement
to keep.”
“That was only a polite way of getting rid of them.”
“Why?”
“Can you not understand, sir? I was resigned, but not comforted. I was
learning to get accustomed to the terrible blow. Would not one seek
solitude in the great crisis of one’s life?”
“The prosecution pretends that you wished to be left alone, that you
might go to La Jonchere. During the day, you said, ‘She can not resist
me.’ Of whom were you speaking?”
“Of some one to whom I had written the evening before, and who had
replied to me. I spoke the words, with her letter still in my hands.”
“This letter was, then, from a woman?”
“Yes.”
“What have you done with it?”
“I have burnt it.”
“This precaution leads one to suppose that you considered the letter
compromising.”
“Not at all, sir; it treated entirely of private matters.”
M. Daburon was sure that this letter came from Mademoiselle d’Arlange.
Should he nevertheless ask the question, and again hear pronounced the
name of Claire, which always aroused such painful emotions within him?
He ventured to do so, leaning over his papers, so that the prisoner
could not detect his emotion.
“From whom did this letter come?” he asked.
“From one whom I can not name.”
“Sir,” said the magistrate severely, “I will not conceal from you
that your position is greatly compromised. Do not aggravate it by this
culpable reticence. You are here to tell everything, sir.”
“My own affairs, yes, not those of others.”
Albert gave this last answer in a dry tone. He was giddy, flurried,
exasperated, by the prying and irritating mode of the examination, which
scarcely gave him time to breathe. The magistrate’s questions fell upon
him more thickly than the blows of the blacksmith’s hammer upon the
red-hot iron which he is anxious to beat into shape before it cools.
The apparent rebellion of his prisoner troubled M. Daburon a great deal.
He was further extremely surprised to find the discernment of the old
detective at fault; just as though Tabaret were infallible. Tabaret
had predicted an unexceptionable _alibi_; and this _alibi_ was not
forthcoming. Why? Had this subtle villain something better than that?
What artful defence had he to fall back upon? Doubtless he kept in
reserve some unforeseen stroke, perhaps irresistible.
“Gently,” thought the magistrate. “I have not got him yet.” Then he
quickly added aloud: “Continue. After dinner what did you do?”
“I went out for a walk.”
“Not immediately. The bottle emptied, you smoked a cigar in the
dining-room, which was so unusual as to be noticed. What kind of cigars
do you usually smoke?”
“Trabucos.”
“Do you not use a cigar-holder, to keep your lips from contact with the
tobacco?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Albert, much surprised at this series of questions.
“At what time did you go out?”
“About eight o’clock.”
“Did you carry an umbrella?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you go?”
“I walked about.”
“Alone, without any object, all the evening?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now trace out your wanderings for me very carefully.”
“Ah, sir, that is very difficult to do! I went out simply to walk about,
for the sake of exercise, to drive away the torpor which had depressed
me for three days. I don’t know whether you can picture to yourself my
exact condition. I was half out of my mind. I walked about at hazard
along the quays. I wandered through the streets,--”
“All that is very improbable,” interrupted the magistrate. M. Daburon,
however, knew that it was at least possible. Had not he himself, one
night, in a similar condition, traversed all Paris? What reply could he
have made, had some one asked him next morning where he had been, except
that he had not paid attention, and did not know? But he had forgotten
this; and his previous hesitations, too, had all vanished.
As the inquiry advanced, the fever of investigation took possession
of him. He enjoyed the emotions of the struggle, his passion for his
calling became stronger than ever.
He was again an investigating magistrate, like the fencing master, who,
once practising with his dearest friend, became excited by the clash of
the weapons, and, forgetting himself, killed him.
“So,” resumed M. Daburon, “you met absolutely no one who can affirm that
he saw you? You did not speak to a living soul? You entered no place,
not even a cafe or a theatre, or a tobacconist’s to light one of your
favourite trabucos?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, it is a great misfortune for you, yes, a very great misfortune;
for I must inform you, that it was precisely during this Tuesday
evening, between eight o’clock and midnight, that Widow Lerouge was
assassinated. Justice can point out the exact hour. Again, sir, in your
own interest, I recommend you to reflect,--to make a strong appeal to
your memory.”
This pointing out of the exact day and hour of the murder seemed to
astound Albert. He raised his hand to his forehead with a despairing
gesture. However he replied in a calm voice,--“I am very unfortunate,
sir: but I can recollect nothing.”
M. Daburon’s surprise was immense. What, not an _alibi_? Nothing? This
could be no snare nor system of defence. Was, then, this man as cunning
as he had imagined? Doubtless. Only he had been taken unawares. He had
never imagined it possible for the accusation to fall upon him; and it
was almost by a miracle it had done so.
The magistrate slowly raised, one by one, the large pieces of paper that
covered the articles seized in Albert’s rooms.
“We will pass,” he continued, “to the examination of the charges which
weigh against you. Will you please come nearer? Do you recognize these
articles as belonging to yourself?”
“Yes, sir, they are all mine.”
“Well, take this foil. Who broke it?”
“I, sir, in fencing with M. de Courtivois, who can bear witness to it.”
“He will be heard. Where is the broken end?”
“I do not know. You must ask Lubin, my valet.”
“Exactly. He declares that he has hunted for it, and cannot find it. I
must tell you that the victim received the fatal blow from the sharpened
end of a broken foil. This piece of stuff, on which the assassin wiped
his weapon, is a proof of what I state.”
“I beseech you, sir, to order a most minute search to be made. It is
impossible that the other half of the foil is not to be found.”
“Orders shall be given to that effect. Look, here is the exact imprint
of the murderer’s foot traced on this sheet of paper. I will place one
of your boots upon it and the sole, as you perceive, fits the tracing
with the utmost precision. This plaster was poured into the hollow left
by the heel: you observe that it is, in all respects, similar in shape
to the heels of your own boots. I perceive, too, the mark of a peg,
which appears in both.”
Albert followed with marked anxiety every movement of the magistrate.
It was plain that he was struggling against a growing terror. Was
he attacked by that fright which overpowers the guilty when they see
themselves on the point of being confounded. To all the magistrate’s
remarks, he answered in a low voice,--“It is true--perfectly true.”
“That is so,” continued M. Daburon; “yet listen further, before
attempting to defend yourself. The criminal had an umbrella. The end of
this umbrella sank in the clayey soil; the round of wood which is placed
at the end of the silk, was found moulded in the clay. Look at this clod
of clay, raised with the utmost care; and now look at your umbrella.
Compare the rounds. Are they alike, or not?”
“These things, sir,” attempted Albert, “are manufactured in large
quantities.”
“Well, we will pass over that proof. Look at this cigar end, found on
the scene of the crime, and tell me of what brand it is, and how it was
smoked.”
“It is a trabucos, and was smoked in a cigar-holder.”
“Like these?” persisted the magistrate, pointing to the cigars and the
amber and meerschaum-holders found in the viscount’s library.
“Yes!” murmured Albert, “it is a fatality--a strange coincidence.”
“Patience, that is nothing, as yet. The assassin wore gloves. The
victim, in the death struggle, seized his hands; and some pieces of kid
remained in her nails. These have been preserved, and are here. They are
of a lavender colour, are they not? Now, here are the gloves which you
wore on Tuesday. They, too, are lavender, and they are frayed. Compare
these pieces of kid with your own gloves. Do they not correspond? Are
they not of the same colour, the same skin?”
It was useless to deny it, equivocate, or seek subterfuges. The evidence
was there, and it was irrefutable. While appearing to occupy himself
solely with the objects lying upon his table, M. Daburon did not lose
sight of the prisoner. Albert was terrified. A cold perspiration bathed
his temples, and glided drop by drop down his cheeks. His hands trembled
so much that they were of no use to him. In a chilling voice he kept
repeating: “It is horrible, horrible!”
“Finally,” pursued the inexorable magistrate, “here are the trousers you
wore on the evening of the murder. It is plain that not long ago they
were very wet; and, besides the mud on them, there are traces of earth.
Besides that they are torn at the knees. We will admit, for the moment
that you might not remember where you went on that evening; but who
would believe that you do not know when you tore your trousers and how
you frayed your gloves?”
What courage could resist such assaults? Albert’s firmness and energy
were at an end. His brain whirled. He fell heavily into a chair,
exclaiming,--“It is enough to drive me mad!”
“Do you admit,” insisted the magistrate, whose gaze had become firmly
fixed upon the prisoner, “do you admit that Widow Lerouge could only
have been stabbed by you?”
“I admit,” protested Albert, “that I am the victim of one of those
terrible fatalities which make men doubt the evidence of their reason. I
am innocent.”
“Then tell me where you passed Tuesday evening.”
“Ah, sir!” cried the prisoner, “I should have to--” But, restraining
himself, he added in a faint voice, “I have made the only answer that I
can make.”
M. Daburon rose, having now reached his grand stroke.
“It is, then, my duty,” said he, with a shade of irony, “to supply your
failure of memory. I am going to remind you of where you went and what
you did. On Tuesday evening at eight o’clock, after having obtained from
the wine you drank, the dreadful energy you needed, you left your home.
At thirty-five minutes past eight, you took the train at the St. Lazare
station. At nine o’clock, you alighted at the station at Rueil.”
And, not disdaining to employ Tabaret’s ideas, the investigating
magistrate repeated nearly word for word the tirade improvised the night
before by the amateur detective.
He had every reason, while speaking, to admire the old fellow’s
penetration. In all his life, his eloquence had never produced so
striking an effect. Every sentence, every word, told. The prisoner’s
assurance, already shaken, fell little by little, just like the outer
coating of a wall when riddled with bullets.
Albert was, as the magistrate perceived, like a man, who, rolling to
the bottom of a precipice, sees every branch and every projecture which
might retard his fall fail him, and who feels a new and more painful
bruise each time his body comes in contact with them.
“And now,” concluded the investigating magistrate, “listen to good
advice: do not persist in a system of denying, impossible to sustain.
Give in. Justice, rest assured, is ignorant of nothing which it is
important to know. Believe me; seek to deserve the indulgence of your
judges, confess your guilt.”
M. Daburon did not believe that his prisoner would still persist
in asserting his innocence. He imagined he would be overwhelmed and
confounded, that he would throw himself at his feet, begging for mercy.
But he was mistaken.
Albert, in spite of his great prostration, found, in one last effort
of his will, sufficient strength to recover himself and again
protest,--“You are right, sir,” he said in a sad, but firm voice;
“everything seems to prove me guilty. In your place, I should have
spoken as you have done; yet all the same, I swear to you that I am
innocent.”
“Come now, do you really--” began the magistrate.
“I am innocent,” interrupted Albert; “and I repeat it, without the least
hope of changing in any way your conviction. Yes, everything speaks
against me, everything, even my own bearing before you. It is true, my
courage has been shaken by these incredible, miraculous, overwhelming
coincidences. I am overcome, because I feel the impossibility of proving
my innocence. But I do not despair. My honour and my life are in the
hands of God. At this very hour when to you I appear lost,--for I in no
way deceive myself, sir,--I do not despair of a complete justification.
I await confidently.”
“What do you mean?” asked the magistrate.
“Nothing but what I say, sir.”
“So you persist in denying your guilt?”
“I am innocent.”
“But this is folly--”
“I am innocent.”
“Very well,” said M. Daburon; “that is enough for to-day. You will hear
the official report of your examination read, and will then be taken
back to solitary confinement. I exhort you to reflect. Night will
perhaps bring on a better feeling; if you wish at any time to speak
to me, send word, and I will come to you. I will give orders to that
effect. You may read now, Constant.”
When Albert had departed under the escort of the gendarmes, the
magistrate muttered in a low tone, “There’s an obstinate fellow for
you.” He certainly no longer entertained the shadow of a doubt. To him,
Albert was as surely the murderer as if he had admitted his guilt
Even if he should persist in his system of denial to the end of the
investigation, it was impossible, that, with the proofs already in the
possession of the police, a true bill should not be found against him.
He was therefore certain of being committed for trial at the assizes. It
was a hundred to one, that the jury would bring in a verdict of guilty.
Left to himself, however, M. Daburon did not experience that intense
satisfaction, mixed with vanity, which he ordinarily felt after he had
successfully conducted an examination, and had succeeded in getting
his prisoner into the same position as Albert. Something disturbed and
shocked him. At the bottom of his heart, he felt ill at ease. He had
triumphed; but his victory gave him only uneasiness, pain, and vexation.
A reflection so simple that he could hardly understand why it had not
occurred to him at first, increased his discontent, and made him angry
with himself.
“Something told me,” he muttered, “that I was wrong to undertake this
business. I am punished for not having obeyed that inner voice. I ought
to have declined to proceed with the investigation. The Viscount
de Commarin, was, all the same, certain to be arrested, imprisoned,
examined, confounded, tried, and probably condemned. Then, being in no
way connected with the trial, I could have reappeared before Claire. Her
grief will be great. As her friend, I could have soothed her, mingled
my tears with hers, calmed her regrets. With time, she might have been
consoled, and perhaps have forgotten him. She could not have helped
feeling grateful to me, and then who knows--? While now, whatever may
happen, I shall be an object of loathing to her: she will never be able
to endure the sight of me. In her eyes I shall always be her lover’s
assassin. I have with my own hands opened an abyss! I have lost her a
second time, and by my own fault.”
The unhappy man heaped the bitterest reproaches upon himself. He was in
despair. He had never so hated Albert,--that wretch, who, stained with
a crime, stood in the way of his happiness. Then too he cursed old
Tabaret! Alone, he would not have decided so quickly. He would have
waited, thought over the matter, matured his decision, and certainly
have perceived the inconveniences, which now occurred to him. The old
fellow, always carried away like a badly trained bloodhound, and full
of stupid enthusiasm, had confused him, and led him to do what he now so
much regretted.
It was precisely this unfavorable moment that M. Tabaret chose for
reappearing before the magistrate. He had just been informed of the
termination of the inquiry; and he arrived, impatient to know what had
passed, swelling with curiosity, and full of the sweet hope of hearing
of the fulfilment of his predictions.
“What answers did he make?” he asked even before he had closed the door.
“He is evidently guilty,” replied the magistrate, with a harshness very
different to his usual manner.
Old Tabaret, who expected to receive praises by the basketful, was
astounded at this tone! It was therefore, with great hesitancy that he
offered his further services.
“I have come,” he said modestly, “to know if any investigations are
necessary to demolish the _alibi_ pleaded by the prisoner.”
“He pleaded no _alibi_,” replied the magistrate, dryly.
“How,” cried the detective, “no _alibi_? Pshaw! I ask pardon: he has of
course then confessed everything.”
“No,” said the magistrate impatiently, “he has confessed nothing. He
acknowledges that the proofs are decisive: he cannot give an account of
how he spent his time; but he protests his innocence.”
In the centre of the room, M. Tabaret stood with his mouth wide open,
and his eyes staring wildly, and altogether in the most grotesque
attitude his astonishment could effect. He was literally thunderstruck.
In spite of his anger, M. Daburon could not help smiling; and even
Constant gave a grin, which on his lips was equivalent to a paroxysm of
laughter.
“Not an _alibi_, nothing?” murmured the old fellow. “No explanations?
The idea! It is inconceivable! Not an _alibi_? We must then be mistaken:
he cannot be the criminal. That is certain!”
The investigating magistrate felt that the old amateur must have been
waiting the result of the examination at the wine shop round the corner,
or else that he had gone mad.
“Unfortunately,” said he, “we are not mistaken. It is but too clearly
shown that M. de Commarin is the murderer. However, if you like, you can
ask Constant for his report of the examination, and read it over while I
put these papers in order.”
“Very well,” said the old fellow with feverish anxiety.
He sat down in Constant’s chair, and, leaning his elbows on the table,
thrusting his hands in his hair, he in less than no time read the
report through. When he had finished, he arose with pale and distorted
features.
“Sir,” said he to the magistrate in a strange voice, “I have been the
involuntary cause of a terrible mistake. This man is innocent.”
“Come, come,” said M. Daburon, without stopping his preparations for
departure, “you are going out of your mind, my dear M. Tabaret. How,
after all that you have read there, can--”
“Yes, sir, yes: it is because I have read this that I entreat you to
pause, or we shall add one more mistake to the sad list of judicial
errors. Read this examination over carefully; there is not a reply
but which declares this unfortunate man innocent, not a word but which
throws out a ray of light. And he is still in prison, still in solitary
confinement?”
“He is; and there he will remain, if you please,” interrupted the
magistrate. “It becomes you well to talk in this manner, after the way
you spoke last night, when I hesitated so much.”
“But, sir,” cried the old detective, “I still say precisely the same.
Ah, wretched Tabaret! all is lost; no one understands you. Pardon me,
sir, if I lack the respect due to you; but you have not grasped my
method. It is, however, very simple. Given a crime, with all the
circumstances and details, I construct, bit by bit, a plan of
accusation, which I do not guarantee until it is entire and perfect. If
a man is found to whom this plan applies exactly in every particular
the author of the crime is found: otherwise, one has laid hands upon
an innocent person. It is not sufficient that such and such particulars
seem to point to him; it must be all or nothing. This is infallible.
Now, in this case, how have I reached the culprit? Through proceeding by
inference from the known to the unknown. I have examined his work; and I
have formed an idea of the worker. Reason and logic lead us to what? To
a villain, determined, audacious, and prudent, versed in the business.
And do you think that such a man would neglect a precaution that would
not be omitted by the stupidest tyro? It is inconceivable. What! this
man is so skillful as to leave such feeble traces that they escape
Gevrol’s practised eye, and you think he would risk his safety by
leaving an entire night unaccounted for? It’s impossible! I am as sure
of my system as of a sum that has been proved. The assassin has an
_alibi_. Albert has pleaded none; then he is innocent.”
M. Daburon surveyed the detective pityingly, much as he would
have looked at a remarkable monomaniac. When the old fellow had
finished,--“My worthy M. Tabaret,” the magistrate said to him: “you have
but one fault. You err through an excess of subtlety, you accord too
freely to others the wonderful sagacity with which you yourself are
endowed. Our man has failed in prudence, simply because he believed his
rank would place him above suspicion.”
“No, sir, no, a thousand times no. My culprit,--the true one,--he whom
we have missed catching, feared everything. Besides, does Albert defend
himself? No. He is overwhelmed because he perceives coincidences so
fatal that they appear to condemn him, without a chance of escape. Does
he try to excuse himself? No. He simply replies, ‘It is terrible.’ And
yet all through his examination I feel reticence that I cannot explain.”
“I can explain it very easily; and I am as confident as though he had
confessed everything. I have more than sufficient proofs for that.”
“Ah, sir, proofs! There are always enough of those against an arrested
man. They existed against every innocent man who was ever condemned.
Proofs! Why, I had them in quantities against Kaiser, the poor little
tailor, who--”
“Well,” interrupted the magistrate, hastily, “if it is not he, the most
interested one, who committed the crime, who then is it? His father, the
Count de Commarin?”
“No: the true assassin is a young man.”
M. Daburon had arranged his papers, and finished his preparations. He
took up his hat, and, as he prepared to leave, replied: “You must then
see that I am right. Come and see me by-and-by, M. Tabaret, and make
haste and get rid of all your foolish ideas. To-morrow we will talk the
whole matter over again. I am rather tired to-night.” Then he added,
addressing his clerk, “Constant, look in at the record office, in case
the prisoner Commarin should wish to speak to me.”
He moved towards the door; but M. Tabaret barred his exit.
“Sir,” said the old man, “in the name of heaven listen to me! He is
innocent, I swear to you. Help me, then, to find the real culprit. Sir,
think of your remorse should you cause an--”
But the magistrate would not hear more. He pushed old Tabaret quickly
aside, and hurried out.
The old man now turned to Constant. He wished to convince him. Lost
trouble: the tall clerk hastened to put his things away, thinking of his
soup, which was getting cold.
So that M. Tabaret soon found himself locked out of the room and alone
in the dark passage. All the usual sounds of the Palais had ceased: the
place was silent as the tomb. The old detective desperately tore his
hair with both hands.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “Albert is innocent; and it is I who have cast
suspicion upon him. It is I, fool that I am, who have infused into the
obstinate spirit of this magistrate a conviction that I can no longer
destroy. He is innocent and is yet enduring the most horrible anguish.
Suppose he should commit suicide! There have been instances of wretched
men, who in despair at being falsely accused have killed themselves in
their cells. Poor boy! But I will not abandon him. I have ruined him: I
will save him! I must, I will find the culprit; and he shall pay dearly
for my mistake, the scoundrel!”
CHAPTER XIII.
After seeing the Count de Commarin safely in his carriage at the
entrance of the Palais de Justice, Noel Gerdy seemed inclined to leave
him. Resting one hand against the half-opened carriage door, he bowed
respectfully, and said: “When, sir, shall I have the honour of paying my
respects to you?”
“Come with me now,” said the old nobleman.
The advocate, still leaning forward, muttered some excuses. He had, he
said, important business: he must positively return home at once.
“Come,” repeated the count, in a tone which admitted no reply.
Noel obeyed.
“You have found your father,” said M. de Commarin in a low tone; “but I
must warn you, that at the same time you lose your independence.”
The carriage started; and only then did the count notice that Noel
had very modestly seated himself opposite him. This humility seemed to
displease him greatly.
“Sit here by my side, sir,” he exclaimed; “are you not my son?”
The advocate, without replying, took his seat by the side of the
terrible old man, but occupied as little room as possible.
He had been very much upset by his interview with M. Daburon; for he
retained none of his usual assurance, none of that exterior coolness by
which he was accustomed to conceal his feelings. Fortunately, the ride
gave him time to breathe, and to recover himself a little.
On the way from the Palais de Justice to the De Commarin mansion, not a
word passed between the father and son. When the carriage stopped before
the steps leading to the principal entrance, and the count got out with
Noel’s assistance, there was great commotion among the servants.
There were, it is true, few of them present, nearly all having been
summoned to the Palais; but the count and the advocate had scarcely
disappeared, when, as if by enchantment, they were all assembled in
the hall. They came from the garden, the stables, the cellar, and the
kitchen. Nearly all bore marks of their calling. A young groom appeared
with his wooden shoes filled with straw, shuffling about on the marble
floor like a mangy dog on a Gobelin tapestry. One of them recognised
Noel as the visitor of the previous Sunday; and that was enough to set
fire to all these gossip-mongers, thirsting for scandal.
Since morning, moreover, the unusual events at the De Commarin mansion
had caused a great stir in society. A thousand stories were
circulated, talked over, corrected, and added to by the ill-natured
and malicious,--some abominably absurd, others simply idiotic. Twenty
people, very noble and still more proud, had not been above sending
their most intelligent servants to pay a little visit among the count’s
retainers, for the sole purpose of learning something positive. As
it was, nobody knew anything; and yet everybody pretended to be fully
informed.
Let any one explain who can this very common phenomenon: A crime is
committed; justice arrives, wrapped in mystery; the police are still
ignorant of almost everything; and yet details of the most minute
character are already circulated about the streets.
“So,” said a cook, “that tall dark fellow with the whiskers is the
count’s true son!”
“You are right,” said one of the footmen who had accompanied M. de
Commarin; “as for the other, he is no more his son than Jean here; who,
by the way, will be kicked out of doors, if he is caught in this part of
the house with his dirty working-shoes on.”
“What a romance,” exclaimed Jean, supremely indifferent to the danger
which threatened him.
“Such things constantly occur in great families,” said the cook.
“How ever did it happen?”
“Well, you see, one day, long ago, when the countess who is now dead was
out walking with her little son, who was about six months old, the child
was stolen by gypsies. The poor lady was full of grief; but above all,
was greatly afraid of her husband, who was not over kind. What did she
do? She purchased a brat from a woman, who happened to be passing;
and, never having noticed his child, the count has never known the
difference.”
“But the assassination!”
“That’s very simple. When the woman saw her brat in such a nice berth,
she bled him finely, and has kept up a system of blackmailing all along.
The viscount had nothing left for himself. So he resolved at last to put
an end to it, and come to a final settling with her.”
“And the other, who is up there, the dark fellow?”
The orator would have gone on, without doubt, giving the most
satisfactory explanations of everything, if he had not been interrupted
by the entrance of M. Lubin, who came from the Palais in company of
young Joseph. His success, so brilliant up to this time, was cut short,
just like that of a second-rate singer when the star of the evening
comes on the stage. The entire assembly turned towards Albert’s valet,
all eyes questioning him. He of course knew all, he was the man they
wanted. He did not take advantage of his position, and keep them
waiting.
“What a rascal!” he exclaimed at first. “What a villainous fellow is
this Albert!”
He entirely did away with the “Mr.” and the “Viscount,” and met with
general approval for doing so.
“However,” he added, “I always had my doubts. The fellow didn’t
please me by half. You see now to what we are exposed every day in our
profession, and it is dreadfully disagreeable. The magistrate did not
conceal it from me. ‘M. Lubin,’ said he, ‘it is very sad for a man
like you to have waited on such a scoundrel.’ For you must know, that,
besides an old woman over eighty years old, he also assassinated a young
girl of twelve. The little child, the magistrate told me, was chopped
into bits.”
“Ah!” put in Joseph; “he must have been a great fool. Do people do those
sort of things themselves when they are rich, and when there are so many
poor devils who only ask to gain their living?”
“Pshaw!” said M. Lubin in a knowing tone; “you will see him come out of
it as white as snow. These rich men can do anything.”
“Anyhow,” said the cook, “I’d willingly give a month’s wages to be a
mouse, and to listen to what the count and the tall dark fellow are
talking about. Suppose some one went up and tried to find out what is
going on.”
This proposition did not meet with the least favour. The servants
knew by experience that, on important occasions, spying was worse than
useless.
M. de Commarin knew all about servants from infancy. His study was,
therefore, a shelter from all indiscretion. The sharpest ear placed at
the keyhole could hear nothing of what was going on within, even when
the master was in a passion, and his voice loudest. One alone, Denis,
the count’s valet, had the opportunity of gathering information; but he
was well paid to be discreet, and he was so.
At this moment, M. de Commarin was sitting in the same arm-chair on
which the evening before he had bestowed such furious blows while
listening to Albert.
As soon as he left his carriage, the old nobleman recovered his
haughtiness. He became even more arrogant in his manner, than he had
been humble when before the magistrate, as though he were ashamed of
what he now considered an unpardonable weakness.
He wondered how he could have yielded to a momentary impulse, how his
grief could have so basely betrayed him.
At the remembrance of the avowals wrested from him by a sort of
delirium, he blushed, and reproached himself bitterly. The same as
Albert, the night before, Noel, having fully recovered himself, stood
erect, cold as marble, respectful, but no longer humble.
The father and son exchanged glances which had nothing of sympathy nor
friendliness.
They examined one another, they almost measured each other, much as
two adversaries feel their way with their eyes before encountering with
their weapons.
“Sir,” said the count at length in a harsh voice, “henceforth this house
is yours. From this moment you are the Viscount de Commarin; you regain
possession of all the rights of which you were deprived. Listen, before
you thank me. I wish, at once, to relieve you of all misunderstanding.
Remember this well, sir; had I been master of the situation, I would
never have recognised you: Albert should have remained in the position
in which I placed him.”
“I understand you, sir,” replied Noel. “I don’t think that I could
ever bring myself to do an act like that by which you deprived me of
my birthright; but I declare that, if I had the misfortune to do so, I
should afterwards have acted as you have. Your rank was too conspicuous
to permit a voluntary acknowledgment. It was a thousand times better to
suffer an injustice to continue in secret, than to expose the name to
the comments of the malicious.”
This answer surprised the count, and very agreeably too. But he wouldn’t
let his satisfaction be seen, and it was in a still harsher voice that
he resumed.
“I have no claim, sir, upon your affection; I do not ask for it, but I
insist at all times upon the utmost deference. It is traditional in our
house, that a son shall never interrupt his father when he is speaking;
that, you have just been guilty of. Neither do children judge their
parents; that also you have just done. When I was forty years of age my
father was in his second childhood; but I do not remember ever having
raised my voice above his. This said, I continue. I provided the
necessary funds for the expenses of Albert’s household completely,
distinct from my own, for he had his own servants, horses, and
carriages; and besides that I allowed the unhappy boy four thousand
francs a month. I have decided in order to put a stop to all foolish
gossip, and to make your position the easier, that you should live on
a grander scale; this matter concerns myself. Further, I will increase
your monthly allowance to six thousand francs; which I trust you
will spend as nobly as possible, giving the least possible cause for
ridicule. I cannot too strongly exhort you to the utmost caution. Keep
close watch over yourself. Weigh your words well. Study your slightest
actions. You will be the point of observation of the thousands of
impertinent idlers who compose our world; your blunders will be their
delight. Do you fence?”
“Moderately well.”
“That will do! Do you ride?”
“No; but in six months I will be a good horseman, or break my neck.”
“You must become a horseman, and not break anything. Let us proceed.
You will, of course, not occupy Albert’s apartments. They will be walled
off, as soon as I am free of the police. Thank heaven! the house is
large. You will occupy the other wing; and there will be a separate
entrance to your apartments, by another staircase. Servants, horses,
carriages, furniture, such as become a viscount, will be at your
service, cost what it may, within forty-eight hours. On the day of your
taking possession, you must look as though you had been installed there
for years. There will be a great scandal; but that cannot be avoided. A
prudent father might send you away for a few months to the Austrian or
Russian courts; but, in this instance, such prudence would be absurd.
Much better a dreadful outcry, which ends quickly, than low murmurs
which last forever. Dare public opinion; and, in eight days, it will
have exhausted its comments, and the story will have become old. So,
to work! This very evening the workmen shall be here; and, in the first
place, I must present you to my servants.”
To put his purpose into execution, the count moved to touch the
bell-rope. Noel stopped him.
Since the commencement of this interview, the advocate had wandered in
the regions of the thousand and one nights, the wonderful lamp in his
hand. The fairy reality cast into the shade his wildest dreams. He was
dazzled by the count’s words, and had need of all his reason to struggle
against the giddiness which came over him, on realising his great good
fortune. Touched by a magic wand, he seemed to awake to a thousand novel
and unknown sensations. He rolled in purple, and bathed in gold.
But he knew how to appear unmoved. His face had contracted the habit of
guarding the secret of the most violent internal excitement. While all
his passions vibrated within him, he appeared to listen with a sad and
almost indifferent coldness.
“Permit me, sir,” he said to the count “without overstepping the bounds
of the utmost respect, to say a few words. I am touched more than I
can express by your goodness; and yet I beseech you, to delay its
manifestation. The proposition I am about to suggest may perhaps appear
to you worthy of consideration. It seems to me that the situation
demands the greatest delicacy on my part. It is well to despise public
opinion, but not to defy it. I am certain to be judged with the utmost
severity. If I install myself so suddenly in your house, what will be
said? I shall have the appearance of a conqueror, who thinks little,
so long as he succeeds, of passing over the body of the conquered. They
will reproach me with occupying the bed still warm from Albert’s body.
They will jest bitterly at my haste in taking possession. They will
certainly compare me to Albert, and the comparison will be to my
disadvantage, since I should appear to triumph at a time when a great
disaster has fallen upon our house.”
The count listened without showing any signs of disapprobation,
struck perhaps by the justice of these reasons. Noel imagined that his
harshness was much more feigned than real; and this idea encouraged him.
“I beseech you then, sir,” he continued, “to permit me for the present
in no way to change my mode of living. By not showing myself, I leave
all malicious remarks to waste themselves in air,--I let public opinion
the better familiarise itself with the idea of a coming change. There
is a great deal in not taking the world by surprise. Being expected, I
shall not have the air of an intruder on presenting myself. Absent,
I shall have the advantages which the unknown always possess; I shall
obtain the good opinion of all those who have envied Albert; and I
shall secure as champions all those who would to-morrow assail me, if
my elevation came suddenly upon them. Besides, by this delay, I shall
accustom myself to my abrupt change of fortune. I ought not to bring
into your world, which is now mine, the manners of a parvenu. My name
ought not to inconvenience me, like a badly fitting coat.”
“Perhaps it would be wisest,” murmured the count.
This assent, so easily obtained, surprised Noel. He got the idea that
the count had only wished to prove him, to tempt him. In any case,
whether he had triumphed by his eloquence, or whether he had simply
shunned a trap, he had succeeded. His confidence increased; he recovered
all his former assurance.
“I must add, sir,” he continued, “that there are a few matters
concerning myself which demand my attention. Before entering upon my new
life, I must think of those I am leaving behind me. I have friends and
clients. This event has surprised me, just as I am beginning to reap the
reward of ten years of hard work and perseverance. I have as yet only
sown; I am on the point of reaping. My name is already known; I have
obtained some little influence. I confess, without shame, that I have
heretofore professed ideas and opinions that would not be suited to this
house; and it is impossible in the space of a day--”
“Ah!” interrupted the count in a bantering tone, “you are a liberal. It
is a fashionable disease. Albert also was a great liberal.”
“My ideas, sir,” said Noel quickly, “were those of every intelligent man
who wishes to succeed. Besides, have not all parties one and the same
aim--power? They merely take different means of reaching it. I will not
enlarge upon this subject. Be assured, sir, that I shall know how to
bear my name, and think and act as a man of my rank should.”
“I trust so,” said M. de Commarin; “and I hope that you will never make
me regret Albert.”
“At least, sir, it will not be my fault. But, since you have mentioned
the name of that unfortunate young man, let us occupy ourselves about
him.”
The count cast a look of distrust upon Noel.
“What can now be done for Albert?” he asked.
“What, sir!” cried Noel with ardour, “would you abandon him, when he
has not a friend left in the world? He is still your son, sir, he is
my brother; for thirty years he has borne the name of Commarin. All the
members of a family are jointly liable. Innocent, or guilty, he has a
right to count upon us; and we owe him our assistance.”
“What do you then hope for, sir?” asked the count.
“To save him, if he is innocent; and I love to believe that he is. I am
an advocate, sir, and I wish to defend him. I have been told that I
have some talent; in such a cause I must have. Yes, however strong the
charges against him may be, I will overthrow them. I will dispel all
doubts. The truth shall burst forth at the sound of my voice. I will
find new accents to imbue the judges with my own conviction. I will save
him, and this shall be my last cause.”
“And if he should confess,” said the count, “if he has already
confessed?”
“Then, sir,” replied Noel with a dark look, “I will render him the last
service, which in such a misfortune I should ask of a brother, I will
procure him the means of avoiding judgment.”
“That is well spoken, sir,” said the count, “very well, my son!”
And he held out his hand to Noel, who pressed it, bowing a respectful
acknowledgment. The advocate took a long breath. At last he had found
the way to this haughty noble’s heart; he had conquered, he had pleased
him.
“Let us return to yourself, sir,” continued the count. “I yield to the
reasons which you have suggested. All shall be done as you desire. But
do not consider this a precedent. I never change my plans, even though
they are proved to be bad, and contrary to my interests. But at least
nothing prevents your remaining here from to-day, and taking your meals
with me. We will, first of all, see where you can be lodged, until you
formally take possession of the apartments which are to be prepared for
you.”
Noel had the hardihood to again interrupt the old nobleman.
“Sir,” said he, “when you bade me follow you here, I obeyed you, as was
my duty. Now another and a sacred duty calls me away. Madame Gerdy is
at this moment dying. Ought I to leave the deathbed of her who filled my
mother’s place?”
“Valerie!” murmured the count. He leaned upon the arm of his chair, his
face buried in his hands; in one moment the whole past rose up before
him.
“She has done me great harm,” he murmured, as if answering his thoughts.
“She has ruined my whole life; but ought I to be implacable? She is
dying from the accusation which is hanging over Albert our son. It was
I who was the cause of it all. Doubtless, in this last hour, a word from
me would be a great consolation to her. I will accompany you, sir.”
Noel started at this unexpected proposal.
“O sir!” said he hastily, “spare yourself, pray, a heart-rending sight.
Your going would be useless. Madame Gerdy exists probably still; but
her mind is dead. Her brain was unable to resist so violent a shock. The
unfortunate woman would neither recognise nor understand you.”
“Go then alone,” sighed the count, “go, my son!”
The words “my son,” pronounced with a marked emphasis, sounded like a
note of victory in Noel’s ears.
He bowed to take his leave. The count motioned him to wait.
“In any case,” he said, “a place at table will be set for you here. I
dine at half-past six precisely. I shall be glad to see you.”
He rang. His valet appeared.
“Denis,” said he, “none of the orders I may give will affect this
gentleman. You will tell this to all the servants. This gentleman is at
home here.”
The advocate took his leave; and the count felt great comfort in being
once more alone. Since morning, events had followed one another with
such bewildering rapidity that his thoughts could scarcely keep pace
with them. At last, he was able to reflect.
“That, then,” said he to himself, “is my legitimate son. I am sure of
his birth, at any rate. Besides I should be foolish to disown him, for I
find him the exact picture of myself at thirty. He is a handsome fellow,
Noel, very handsome. His features are decidedly in his favour. He
is intelligent and acute. He knows how to be humble without lowering
himself, and firm without arrogance. His unexpected good fortune does
not turn his head. I augur well of a man who knows how to bear himself
in prosperity. He thinks well; he will carry his title proudly. And yet
I feel no sympathy with him; it seems to me that I shall always regret
my poor Albert. I never knew how to appreciate him. Unhappy boy! To
commit such a vile crime! He must have lost his reason. I do not like
the look of this one’s eye. They say that he is perfect. He expresses,
at least, the noblest and most appropriate sentiments. He is gentle
and strong, magnanimous, generous, heroic. He is without malice, and is
ready to sacrifice himself to repay me for what I have done for him.
He forgives Madame Gerdy; he loves Albert. It is enough to make one
distrust him. But all young men now-a-days are so. Ah! we live in a
happy age. Our children are born free from all human shortcomings. They
have neither the vices, the passions, nor the tempers of their fathers;
and these precocious philosophers, models of sagacity and virtue, are
incapable of committing the least folly. Alas! Albert, too, was perfect;
and he has assassinated Claudine! What will this one do?--All the same,”
he added, half-aloud, “I ought to have accompanied him to see Valerie!”
And, although the advocate had been gone at least a good ten minutes,
M. de Commarin, not realising how the time had passed, hastened to the
window, in the hope of seeing Noel in the court-yard, and calling him
back.
But Noel was already far away. On leaving the house, he took a cab and
was quickly driven to the Rue St. Lazare.
On reaching his own door, he threw rather than gave five francs to the
driver, and ran rapidly up the four flights of stairs.
“Who has called to see me?” he asked of the servant.
“No one, sir.”
He seemed relieved from a great anxiety, and continued in a calmer tone,
“And the doctor?”
“He came this morning, sir,” replied the girl, “while you were out; and
he did not seem at all hopeful. He came again just now, and is still
here.”
“Very well. I will go and speak to him. If any one calls, show them into
my study, and let me know.”
On entering Madame Gerdy’s chamber, Noel saw at a glance that no change
for the better had taken place during his absence. With fixed eyes
and convulsed features, the sick woman lay extended upon her back. She
seemed dead, save for the sudden starts, which shook her at intervals,
and disarranged the bedclothes.
Above her head was placed a little vessel, filled with ice water, which
fell drop by drop upon her forehead, covered with large bluish spots.
The table and mantel-piece were covered with little pots, medicine
bottles, and half-emptied glasses. At the foot of the bed, a piece of
rag stained with blood showed that the doctor had just had recourse to
leeches.
Near the fireplace, where was blazing a large fire, a nun of the order
of St. Vincent de Paul was kneeling, watching a saucepan. She was a
young woman, with a face whiter than her cap. Her immovably placid
features, her mournful look, betokened the renunciation of the flesh,
and the abdication of all independence of thought.
Her heavy grey costume hung about her in large ungraceful folds. Every
time she moved, her long chaplet of beads of coloured box-wood, loaded
with crosses and copper medals, shook and trailed along the floor with a
noise like a jingling of chains.
Dr. Herve was seated on a chair opposite the bed, watching, apparently
with close attention, the nun’s preparations. He jumped up as Noel
entered.
“At last you are here,” he said, giving his friend a strong grasp of the
hand.
“I was detained at the Palais,” said the advocate, as if he felt the
necessity of explaining his absence; “and I have been, as you may well
imagine, dreadfully anxious.”
He leant towards the doctor’s ear, and in a trembling voice asked:
“Well, is she at all better?”
The doctor shook his head with an air of deep discouragement.
“She is much worse,” he replied: “since morning bad symptoms have
succeeded each other with frightful rapidity.”
He checked himself. The advocate had seized his arm and was pressing it
with all his might. Madame Gerdy stirred a little, and a feeble groan
escaped her.
“She heard you,” murmured Noel.
“I wish it were so,” said the doctor; “It would be most encouraging.
But I fear you are mistaken. However, we will see.” He went up to Madame
Gerdy, and, whilst feeling her pulse, examined her carefully; then, with
the tip of his finger, he lightly raised her eyelid.
The eye appeared dull, glassy, lifeless.
“Come, judge for yourself; take her hand, speak to her.”
Noel, trembling all over, did as his friend wished. He drew near, and,
leaning over the bed, so that his mouth almost touched the sick woman’s
ear, he murmured: “Mother, it is I, Noel, your own Noel. Speak to me,
make some sign, do you hear me, mother?”
It was in vain; she retained her frightful immobility. Not a sign of
intelligence crossed her features.
“You see,” said the doctor, “I told you the truth.”
“Poor woman!” sighed Noel, “does she suffer?”
“Not at present.”
The nun now rose; and she too came beside the bed.
“Doctor,” said she: “all is ready.”
“Then call the servant, sister, to help us. We are going to apply a
mustard poultice.”
The servant hastened in. In the arms of the two women, Madame Gerdy was
like a corpse, whom they were dressing for the last time. She was as
rigid as though she were dead. She must have suffered much and long,
poor woman, for it was pitiable to see how thin she was. The nun
herself was affected, although she had become habituated to the sight of
suffering. How many invalids had breathed their last in her arms during
the fifteen years that she had gone from pillow to pillow!
Noel, during this time, had retired into the window recess, and pressed
his burning brow against the panes.
Of what was he thinking, while she who had given him so many proofs of
maternal tenderness and devotion was dying a few paces from him? Did
he regret her? was he not thinking rather of the grand and magnificent
existence which awaited him on the other side of the river, at the
Faubourg St. Germain? He turned abruptly round on hearing his friend’s
voice.
“It is done,” said the doctor; “we have only now to wait the effect
of the mustard. If she feels it, it will be a good sign; if it has no
effect, we will try cupping.”
“And if that does not succeed?”
The doctor answered only with a shrug of the shoulders, which showed his
inability to do more.
“I understand your silence, Herve,” murmured Noel. “Alas! you told me
last night she was lost.”
“Scientifically, yes; but I do not yet despair. It is hardly a year ago
that the father-in-law of one of our comrades recovered from an almost
identical attack; and I saw him when he was much worse than this;
suppuration had set in.”
“It breaks my heart to see her in this state,” resumed Noel. “Must she
die without recovering her reason even for one moment? Will she not
recognise me, speak one word to me?”
“Who knows? This disease, my poor friend, baffles all foresight. Each
moment, the aspect may change, according as the inflammation affects
such or such a part of the brain. She is now in a state of utter
insensibility, of complete prostration of all her intellectual
faculties, of coma, of paralysis so to say; to-morrow, she may be seized
with convulsions, accompanied with a fierce delirium.”
“And will she speak then?”
“Certainly; but that will neither modify the nature nor the gravity of
the disease.”
“And will she recover her reason?”
“Perhaps,” answered the doctor, looking fixedly at his friend; “but why
do you ask that?”
“Ah, my dear Herve, one word from Madame Gerdy, only one, would be of
such use to me!”
“For your affair, eh! Well, I can tell you nothing, can promise you
nothing. You have as many chances in your favour as against you;
only, do not leave her. If her intelligence returns, it will be only
momentary, try and profit by it. But I must go,” added the doctor; “I
have still three calls to make.”
Noel followed his friend. When they reached the landing, he asked: “You
will return?”
“This evening, at nine. There will be no need of me till then. All
depends upon the watcher. But I have chosen a pearl. I know her well.”
“It was you, then, who brought this nun?”
“Yes, and without your permission. Are you displeased?”
“Not the least in the world. Only I confess--”
“What! you make a grimace. Do your political opinions forbid your having
your mother, I should say Madame Gerdy, nursed by a nun of St. Vincent?”
“My dear Herve, you--”
“Ah! I know what you are going to say. They are adroit, insinuating,
dangerous, all that is quite true. If I had a rich old uncle whose heir
I expected to be, I shouldn’t introduce one of them into his house.
These good creatures are sometimes charged with strange commissions.
But, what have you to fear from this one? Never mind what fools say.
Money aside, these worthy sisters are the best nurses in the world.
I hope you will have one when your end comes. But good-bye; I am in a
hurry.”
And, regardless of his professional dignity, the doctor hurried down
the stairs; while Noel, full of thought, his countenance displaying the
greatest anxiety, returned to Madame Gerdy.
At the door of the sick-room, the nun awaited the advocate’s return.
“Sir,” said she, “sir.”
“You want something of me, sister?”
“Sir, the servant bade me come to you for money; she has no more, and
had to get credit at the chemist’s.”
“Excuse me, sister,” interrupted Noel, seemingly very much vexed;
“excuse me for not having anticipated your request; but you see I am
rather confused.”
And, taking a hundred-franc note out of his pocket-book, he laid it on
the mantel piece.
“Thanks, sir,” said the nun; “I will keep an account of what I spend. We
always do that,” she added; “it is more convenient for the family. One
is so troubled at seeing those one loves laid low by illness. You have
perhaps not thought of giving this poor lady the sweet aid of our
holy religion! In your place, sir, I should send without delay for a
priest,--”
“What, now, sister? Do you not see the condition she is in? She is the
same as dead; you saw that she did not hear my voice.”
“That is of little consequence, sir,” replied the nun; “you will always
have done your duty. She did not answer you; but are you sure that she
will not answer the priest? Ah, you do not know all the power of the
last sacraments! I have seen the dying recover their intelligence and
sufficient strength to confess, and to receive the sacred body of our
Lord Jesus Christ. I have often heard families say that they do not wish
to alarm the invalid, that the sight of the minister of our Lord might
inspire a terror that would hasten the final end. It is a fatal error.
The priest does not terrify; he reassures the soul, at the beginning of
its long journey. He speaks in the name of the God of mercy, who comes
to save, not to destroy. I could cite to you many cases of dying people
who have been cured simply by contact with the sacred balm.”
The nun spoke in a tone as mournful as her look. Her heart was evidently
not in the words which she uttered. Without doubt, she had learned them
when she first entered the convent. Then they expressed something
she really felt, she spoke her own thoughts; but, since then, she had
repeated the words over and over again to the friends of every sick
person that she attended, until they lost all meaning so far as she was
concerned. To utter them became simply a part of her duties as nurse,
the same as the preparation of draughts, and the making of poultices.
Noel was not listening to her; his thoughts were far away.
“Your dear mother,” continued the nun, “this good lady that you love
so much, no doubt trusted in her religion. Do you wish to endanger her
salvation? If she could speak in the midst of her cruel sufferings--”
The advocate was on the point of replying, when the servant announced
that a gentleman, who would not give his name, wished to speak with him
on business.
“I will come,” he said quickly.
“What do you decide, sir?” persisted the nun.
“I leave you free, sister, to do as you may judge best.”
The worthy woman began to recite her lesson of thanks, but to no
purpose. Noel had disappeared with a displeased look; and almost
immediately she heard his voice in the next room, saying: “At last you
have come, M. Clergeot, I had almost given you up!”
The visitor, whom the advocate had been expecting, is a person well
known in the Rue St. Lazare, round about the Rue de Provence, the
neighbourhood of Notre Dame de Lorette, and all along the exterior
Boulevards, from the Chaussee des Martyrs to the Rond-Point of the old
Barriere de Clichy.
M. Clergeot is no more a usurer than M. Jourdin’s father was a
shopkeeper. Only, as he has lots of money, and is very obliging, he
lends it to his friends; and, in return for this kindness, he consents
to receive interest, which varies from fifteen to five hundred per cent.
The excellent man positively loves his clients, and his honesty is
generally appreciated. He has never been known to seize a debtor’s
goods; he prefers to follow him up without respite for ten years, and
tear from him bit by bit what is his due.
He lives near the top of the Rue de la Victoire. He has no shop, and yet
he sells everything saleable, and some other things, too, that the law
scarcely considers merchandise. Anything to be useful or neighbourly.
He often asserts that he is not very rich. It is possibly true. He is
whimsical more than covetous, and fearfully bold. Free with his money
when one pleases him, he would not lend five francs, even with a
mortgage on the Chateau of Ferrieres as guarantee, to whosoever does
not meet with his approval. However, he often risks his all on the most
unlucky cards.
His preferred customers consist of women of doubtful morality,
actresses, artists, and those venturesome fellows who enter upon
professions which depend solely upon those who practice them, such as
lawyers and doctors.
He lends to women upon their present beauty, to men upon their future
talent. Slight pledges! His discernment, it should be said, however,
enjoys a great reputation. It is rarely at fault. A pretty girl
furnished by Clergeot is sure to go far. For an artist to be in
Clergeot’s debt was a recommendation preferable to the warmest
criticism.
Madame Juliette had procured this useful and honourable acquaintance for
her lover.
Noel, who well knew how sensitive this worthy man was to kind
attentions, and how pleased by politeness, began by offering him a seat,
and asking after his health. Clergeot went into details. His teeth were
still good; but his sight was beginning to fail. His legs were no
longer so steady, and his hearing was not all that could be desired. The
chapter of complaints ended--“You know,” said he, “why I have called.
Your bills fall due to-day; and I am devilishly in need of money. I have
one of ten, one of seven, and a third of five thousand francs, total,
twenty-two thousand francs.”
“Come, M. Clergeot,” replied Noel, “do not let us have any joking.”
“Excuse me,” said the usurer; “I am not joking at all.”
“I rather think you are though. Why, it’s just eight days ago to-day
that I wrote to tell you that I was not prepared to meet the bills, and
asked for a renewal!”
“I recollect very well receiving your letter.”
“What do you say to it, then?”
“By my not answering the note, I supposed that you would understand
that I could not comply with your request; I hoped that you would exert
yourself to find the amount for me.”
Noel allowed a gesture of impatience to escape him.
“I have not done so,” he said; “so take your own course. I haven’t a
sou.”
“The devil. Do you know that I have renewed these bills four times
already?”
“I know that the interest has been fully and promptly paid, and at a
rate which cannot make you regret the investment.”
Clergeot never likes talking about the interest he received. He pretends
that it is humiliating.
“I do not complain; I only say that you take things too easily with me.
If I had put your signature in circulation all would have been paid by
now.”
“Not at all.”
“Yes, you would have found means to escape being sued. But you say to
yourself: ‘Old Clergeot is a good fellow.’ And that is true. But I am
so only when it can do me no harm. Now, to-day, I am absolutely in
great need of my money. Ab--so--lute--ly,” he added, emphasising each
syllable.
The old fellow’s decided tone seemed to disturb the advocate.
“Must I repeat it?” he said; “I am completely drained, com--plete--ly!”
“Indeed?” said the usurer; “well, I am sorry for you; but I shall have
to sue you.”
“And what good will that do? Let us play above board, M. Clergeot. Do
you care to increase the lawyers’ fees? You don’t do you? Even though,
you may put me to great expense, will that procure you even a centime?
You will obtain judgment against me. Well, what then? Do you think of
putting in an execution? This is not my home; the lease is in Madame
Gerdy’s name.”
“I know all that. Besides, the sale of everything here would not cover
the amount.”
“Then you intend to put me in prison, at Clichy! Bad speculation, I warn
you, my practice will be lost, and, you know, no practice, no money.”
“Good!” cried the worthy money-lender. “Now you are talking nonsense!
You call that being frank. Pshaw! If you supposed me capable of half
the cruel things you have said, my money would be there in your drawer,
ready for me.”
“A mistake! I should not know where to get it, unless by asking Madame
Gerdy, a thing I would never do.”
A sarcastic and most irritating little laugh, peculiar to old Clergeot,
interrupted Noel.
“It would be no good doing that,” said the usurer; “mamma’s purse has
long been empty; and if the dear creature should die now,--they tell
me she is very ill,--I would not give two hundred napoleons for the
inheritance.”
The advocate turned red with passion, his eyes glittered; but he
dissembled, and protested with some spirit.
“We know what we know,” continued Clergeot quietly. “Before a man risks
his money, he takes care to make some inquiries. Mamma’s remaining bonds
were sold last October. Ah! the Rue de Provence is an expensive place!
I have made an estimate, which is at home. Juliette is a charming woman,
to be sure; she has not her equal, I am convinced; but she is expensive,
devilish expensive.”
Noel was enraged at hearing his Juliette thus spoke of by this
honourable personage. But what reply could he make? Besides, none of
us are perfect; and M. Clergeot possessed the fault of not properly
appreciating women, which doubtless arises from the business
transactions he has had with them. He is charming in his business
with the fair sex, complimenting and flattering them; but the coarsest
insults would be less revolting than his disgusting familiarity.
“You have gone too fast,” he continued, without deigning to notice his
client’s ill looks; “and I have told you so before. But, you would not
listen; you are mad about the girl. You can never refuse her anything.
Fool! When a pretty girl wants anything, you should let her long for it
for a while; she has then something to occupy her mind and keep her from
thinking of a quantity of other follies. Four good strong wishes, well
managed, ought to last a year. You don’t know how to look after your own
interests. I know that her glance would turn the head of a stone saint;
but you should reason with yourself, hang it! Why, there are not ten
girls in Paris who live in such style! And do you think she loves you
any the more for it? Not a bit. When she has ruined you, she’ll leave
you in the lurch.”
Noel accepted the eloquence of his prudent banker like a man without an
umbrella accepts a shower.
“What is the meaning of all this!” he asked.
“Simply that I will not renew your bills. You understand? Just now, if
you try very hard, you will be able to hand me the twenty-two thousand
francs in question. You need not frown: you will find means to do so to
prevent my seizing your goods,--not here, for that would be absurd, but
at your little woman’s apartments. She would not be at all pleased, and
would not hesitate to tell you so.”
“But everything there belongs to her; and you have no right--”
“What of that? She will oppose the seizure, no doubt, and I expect her
to do so; but she will make you find the requisite sum. Believe me, you
had best parry the blow. I insist on being paid now. I won’t give you
any further delay; because, in three months’ time, you will have used
your last resources. It is no use saying ‘No,’ like that. You are in one
of those conditions that must be continued at any price. You would burn
the wood from your dying mother’s bed to warm this creature’s feet.
Where did you obtain the ten thousand francs that you left with her the
other evening? Who knows what you will next attempt to procure money?
The idea of keeping her fifteen days, three days, a single day more, may
lead you far. Open your eyes. I know the game well. If you do not leave
Juliette, you are lost. Listen to a little good advice, gratis. You must
give her up, sooner or later, mustn’t you? Do it to-day, then.”
As you see, our worthy Clergeot never minces the truth to his customers,
when they do not keep their engagements. If they are displeased, so much
the worse for them! His conscience is at rest. He would never join in
any foolish business.
Noel could bear it no longer: and his anger burst forth.
“Enough,” he cried decidedly. “Do as you please, M. Clergeot, but have
done with your advice. I prefer the lawyer’s plain prose. If I have
committed follies, I can repair them, and in a way that would surprise
you. Yes, M. Clergeot, I can procure twenty-two thousand francs; I could
have a hundred thousand to-morrow morning, if I saw fit. They would
only cost me the trouble of asking for them. But that I will not do.
My extravagance, with all due deference to you, will remain a secret as
heretofore. I do not choose that my present embarrassed circumstances
should be even suspected. I will not relinquish, for your sake, that at
which I have been aiming, the very day it is within my grasp.”
“He resists,” thought the usurer; “he is less deeply involved than I
imagined.”
“So,” continued the advocate, “put your bills in the hands of your
lawyer. Let him sue me. In eight days, I shall be summoned to appear
before the Tribunal de Commerce, and I shall ask for the twenty-five
days’ delay, which the judges always grant to an embarrassed debtor.
Twenty-five and eight, all the world over, make just thirty-three days.
That is precisely the respite I need. You have two alternatives: either
accept from me at once a new bill for twenty-four thousand francs
payable in six weeks, or else, as I have an appointment, go off to your
lawyer.”
“And in six weeks,” replied the usurer, “you will be in precisely the
same condition you are to-day. And forty-five days more of Juliette will
cost--”
“M. Clergeot,” interrupted Noel, “long before that time, my position
will be completely changed. But I have finished,” he added rising; “and
my time is valuable.”
“One moment, you impatient fellow!” exclaimed the good-natured banker,
“you said twenty-four thousand francs at forty-five days?”
“Yes. That is about seventy-five per cent,--pretty fair interest.”
“I never cavil about interest,” said M. Clergeot; “only--” He looked
slyly at Noel scratching his chin violently, a movement which in him
indicated how insensibly his brain was at work. “Only,” he continued, “I
should very much like to know what you are counting upon.”
“That I will not tell you. You will know it ere long, in common with all
the world.”
“I have it!” cried M. Clergeot, “I have it! You are going to marry! You
have found an heiress, of course, your little Juliette told me something
of the sort this morning. Ah! you are going to marry! Is she pretty? But
no matter. She has a full purse, eh? You wouldn’t take her without that.
So you are going to start a home of your own?”
“I did not say so.”
“That’s right. Be discreet. But I can take a hint. One word more. Beware
of the storm; your little woman has a suspicion of the truth. You are
right; it wouldn’t do to be seeking money now. The slightest inquiry
would be sufficient to enlighten your father-in-law as to your financial
position, and you would lose the damsel. Marry and settle down. But get
rid of Juliette, or I won’t give five francs for the fortune. So it is
settled: prepare a new bill for twenty-four thousand francs, and I will
call for it when I bring you the old ones on Monday.”
“You haven’t them with you, then?”
“No. And to be frank, I confess that, knowing well I should get nothing
from you, I left them with others at my lawyer’s. However, you may rest
easy: you have my word.”
M. Clergeot made a pretence of retiring; but just as he was going out,
he returned quickly.
“I had almost forgotten,” said he; “while you are about it, you can make
the bill for twenty-six thousand francs. Your little woman ordered some
dresses, which I shall deliver to-morrow; in this way they will be paid
for.”
The advocate began to remonstrate. He certainly did not refuse to pay,
only he thought he ought to be consulted when any purchases were made.
He didn’t like this way of disposing of his money.
“What a fellow!” said the usurer, shrugging his shoulders; “do you want
to make the girl unhappy for nothing at all? She won’t let you off yet,
my friend. You may be quite sure she will eat up your new fortune also.
And you know, if you need any money for the wedding, you have but to
give me some guarantee. Procure me an introduction to the notary, and
everything shall be arranged. But I must go. On Monday then.”
Noel listened, to make sure that the usurer had actually gone. When he
heard him descending the staircase, “Scoundrel!” he cried, “miserable
thieving old skinflint! Didn’t he need a lot of persuading? He had quite
made up his mind to sue me. It would have been a pleasant thing had
the count come to hear of it. Vile usurer! I was afraid, one moment, of
being obliged to tell him all.”
While inveighing thus against the money-lender, the advocate looked at
his watch.
“Half-past five already,” he said.
His indecision was great. Ought he to go and dine with his father? Could
he leave Madame Gerdy? He longed to dine at the de Commarin mansion;
yet, on the other hand, to leave a dying woman!
“Decidedly,” he murmured, “I can’t go.”
He sat down at his desk, and with all haste wrote a letter of apology
to his father. Madame Gerdy, he said, might die at any moment; he must
remain with her. As he bade the servant give the note to a messenger, to
carry it to the count, a sudden thought seemed to strike him.
“Does madame’s brother,” he asked, “know that she is dangerously ill?”
“I do not know, sir,” replied the servant, “at any rate, I have not
informed him.”
“What, did you not think to send him word? Run to his house quickly.
Have him sought for, if he is not at home; he must come.”
Considerably more at ease, Noel went and sat in the sick-room. The lamp
was lighted; and the nun was moving about the room as though quite at
home, dusting and arranging everything, and putting it in its place. She
wore an air of satisfaction, that Noel did not fail to notice.
“Have we any gleam of hope, sister?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” replied the nun. “The priest has been here, sir; your dear
mother did not notice his presence; but he is coming back. That is not
all. Since the priest was here, the poultice has taken admirably. The
skin is quite reddened. I am sure she feels it.”
“God grant that she does, sister!”
“Oh, I have already been praying! But it is important not to leave her
alone a minute. I have arranged all with the servant. After the doctor
has been, I shall lie down, and she will watch until one in the morning.
I will then take her place and--”
“You shall both go to bed, sister,” interrupted Noel, sadly. “It is I,
who could not sleep a wink, who will watch through this night.”
CHAPTER XIV.
Old Tabaret did not consider himself defeated, because he had been
repulsed by the investigating magistrate, already irritated by a long
day’s examination. You may call it a fault, or an accomplishment; but
the old man was more obstinate than a mule. To the excess of despair to
which he succumbed in the passage outside the magistrate’s office, there
soon succeeded that firm resolution which is the enthusiasm called forth
by danger. The feeling of duty got the upper hand. Was it a time to
yield to unworthy despair, when the life of a fellow-man depended on
each minute? Inaction would be unpardonable. He had plunged an innocent
man into the abyss; and he must draw him out, he alone, if no one would
help him. Old Tabaret, as well as the magistrate, was greatly fatigued.
On reaching the open air, he perceived that he, too, was in want of
food. The emotions of the day had prevented him from feeling hungry;
and, since the previous evening, he had not even taken a glass of water.
He entered a restaurant on the Boulevard, and ordered dinner.
While eating, not only his courage, but also his confidence came
insensibly back to him. It was with him, as with the rest of mankind;
who knows how much one’s ideas may change, from the beginning to the
end of a repast, be it ever so modest! A philosopher has plainly
demonstrated that heroism is but an affair of the stomach.
The old fellow looked at the situation in a much less sombre light. He
had plenty of time before him! A clever man could accomplish a great
deal in a month! Would his usual penetration fail him now? Certainly
not. His great regret was, his inability to let Albert know that some
one was working for him.
He was entirely another man, as he rose from the table; and it was with
a sprightly step that he walked towards the Rue St. Lazare. Nine o’clock
struck as the concierge opened the door for him. He went at once up to
the fourth floor to inquire after the health of his former friend, her
whom he used to call the excellent, the worthy Madame Gerdy.
It was Noel who let him in, Noel, who had doubtless been thinking of
the past, for he looked as sad as though the dying woman was really his
mother.
In consequence of this unexpected circumstance, old Tabaret could not
avoid going in for a few minutes, though he would much have preferred
not doing so. He knew very well, that, being with the advocate, he would
be unavoidably led to speak of the Lerouge case; and how could he do
this, knowing, as he did, the particulars much better than his young
friend himself, without betraying his secret? A single imprudent word
might reveal the part he was playing in this sad drama. It was, above
all others, from his dear Noel, now Viscount de Commarin, that he wished
entirely to conceal his connection with the police.
But, on the other hand, he thirsted to know what had passed between the
advocate and the count. His ignorance on this single point aroused his
curiosity. However, as he could not withdraw he resolved to keep close
watch upon his language and remain constantly on his guard.
The advocate ushered the old man into Madame Gerdy’s room. Her
condition, since the afternoon, had changed a little; though it was
impossible to say whether for the better or the worse. One thing was
evident, her prostration was not so great. Her eyes still remained
closed; but a slight quivering of the lids was evident. She constantly
moved on her pillow, and moaned feebly.
“What does the doctor say?” asked old Tabaret, in that low voice one
unconsciously employs in a sick room.
“He has just gone,” replied Noel; “before long all will be over.”
The old man advanced on tip-toe, and looked at the dying woman with
evident emotion.
“Poor creature!” he murmured; “God is merciful in taking her. She
perhaps suffers much; but what is this pain compared to what she would
feel if she knew that her son, her true son, was in prison, accused of
murder?”
“That is what I keep thinking,” said Noel, “to console myself for this
sight. For I still love her, my old friend; I shall always regard her
as a mother. You have heard me curse her, have you not? I have twice
treated her very harshly. I thought I hated her; but now, at the moment
of losing her, I forget every wrong she has done me, only to remember
her tenderness. Yes, for her, death is far preferable! And yet I do not
think, no, I cannot think her son guilty.”
“No! what, you too?”
Old Tabaret put so much warmth and vivacity into this exclamation, that
Noel looked at him with astonishment. He felt his face grow red, and he
hastened to explain himself. “I said, ‘you too,’” he continued, “because
I, thanks perhaps to my inexperience, am persuaded also of this young
man’s innocence. I cannot in the least imagine a man of his rank
meditating and accomplishing so cowardly a crime. I have spoken with
many persons on this matter which has made so much noise; and everybody
is of my opinion. He has public opinion in his favor; that is already
something.”
Seated near the bed, sufficiently far from the lamp to be in the shade,
the nun hastily knitted stockings destined for the poor. It was a purely
mechanical work, during which she usually prayed. But, since old Tabaret
entered the room, she forgot her everlasting prayers whilst listening
to the conversation. What did it all mean? Who could this woman be? And
this young man who was not her son, and who yet called her mother,
and at the same time spoke of a true son accused of being an assassin?
Before this she had overheard mysterious remarks pass between Noel and
the doctor. Into what strange house had she entered? She was a little
afraid; and her conscience was sorely troubled. Was she not sinning? She
resolved to tell all to the priest, when he returned.
“No,” said Noel, “no, M. Tabaret; Albert has not public opinion for him.
We are sharper than that in France, as you know. When a poor devil is
arrested, entirely innocent, perhaps, of the crime charged against him,
we are always ready to throw stones at him. We keep all our pity for
him, who, without doubt guilty, appears before the court of assize. As
long as the justice hesitates, we side with the prosecution against the
prisoner. The moment it is proved that the man is a villain, all our
sympathies are in his favour. That is public opinion. You understand,
however, that it affects me but little. I despise it to such an extent,
that if, as I dare still hope, Albert is not released, I will defend
him. Yes, I have told the Count de Commarin, my father, as much. I will
be his counsel, and I will save him.”
Gladly would the old man have thrown himself on Noel’s neck. He longed
to say to him: “We will save him together.” But he restrained himself.
Would not the advocate despise him, if he told him his secret! He
resolved, however, to reveal all should it become necessary, or should
Albert’s position become worse. For the time being, he contented himself
with strongly approving his young friend.
“Bravo! my boy,” said he; “you have a noble heart. I feared to see you
spoiled by wealth and rank; pardon me. You will remain, I see, what you
have always been in your more humble position. But, tell me, you have,
then, seen your father, the count?”
Now, for the first time, Noel seemed to notice the nun’s eyes, which,
lighted by eager curiosity, glittered in the shadow like carbuncles.
With a look, he drew the old man’s attention to her, and said: “I have
seen him; and everything is arranged to my satisfaction. I will tell you
all, in detail, by-and-by, when we are more at ease. By this bedside, I
am almost ashamed of my happiness.”
M. Tabaret was obliged to content himself with this reply and this
promise. Seeing that he would learn nothing that evening, he spoke
of going to bed, declaring himself tired out by what he had had to do
during the day. Noel did not ask him to stop. He was expecting, he said,
Madame Gerdy’s brother, who had been sent for several times, but who
was not at home. He hardly knew how he could again meet this brother,
he added: he did not yet know what conduct he ought to pursue. Should
he tell him all? It would only increase his grief. On the other hand,
silence would oblige him to play a difficult part. The old man advised
him to say nothing; he could explain all later on.
“What a fine fellow Noel is!” murmured old Tabaret, as he regained
his apartments as quietly as possible. He had been absent from home
twenty-four hours; and he fully expected a formidable scene with his
housekeeper. Mannette was decidedly out of temper, and declared once
for all, that she would certainly seek a new place if her master did not
change his conduct.
She had remained up all night, in a terrible fright, listening to the
least sound on the stairs, expecting every moment to see her master
brought home on a litter, assassinated. There had been great commotion
in the house. M. Gerdy had gone down a short time after her master, and
she had seen him return two hours later. After that, they had sent for
the doctor. Such goings on would be the death of her, without counting
that her constitution was too weak to allow her to sit up so late. But
Mannette forgot that she did not sit up on her master’s account nor on
Noel’s but was expecting one of her old friends, one of those handsome
Gardes de Paris who had promised to marry her, and for whom she had
waited in vain, the rascal!
She burst forth in reproaches, while she prepared her master’s bed,
too sincere, she declared, to keep anything on her mind, or to keep her
mouth closed, when it was a question of his health and reputation. M.
Tabaret made no reply, not being in the mood for argument. He bent his
head to the storm, and turned his back to the hail. But, as soon as
Mannette had finished what she was about, he put her out of the room,
and double locked the door.
He busied himself in forming a new line of battle, and in deciding upon
prompt and active measures. He rapidly examined the situation. Had
he been deceived in his investigations? No. Were his calculations of
probabilities erroneous? No. He had started with a positive fact, the
murder. He had discovered the particulars; his inferences were correct,
and the criminal was evidently such as he had described him. The man M.
Daburon had had arrested could not be the criminal. His confidence in a
judicial axiom had led him astray, when he pointed to Albert.
“That,” thought he, “is the result of following accepted opinions and
those absurd phrases, all ready to hand, which are like mile-stones
along a fool’s road! Left free to my own inspirations, I should have
examined this case more thoroughly, I would have left nothing to chance.
The formula, ‘Seek out the one whom the crime benefits’ may often be
as absurd as true. The heirs of a man assassinated are in reality all
benefited by the murder; while the assassin obtains at most the victim’s
watch and purse. Three persons were interested in Widow Lerouge’s
death:--Albert, Madame Gerdy, and the Count de Commarin. It is plain to
me that Albert is not the criminal. It is not Madame Gerdy, who is dying
from the shock caused by the unexpected announcement of the crime. There
remains, then, the Count. Can it be he? If so, he certainly did not do
it himself. He must have hired some wretch, a wretch of good position,
if you please, wearing patent leather boots of a good make, and smoking
trabucos cigars with an amber mouth-piece. These well-dressed
villains ordinarily lack nerve. They cheat, they forge; but they don’t
assassinate. Supposing, though, that the count did get hold of some
dare-devil fellow. He would simply have replaced one accomplice by
another still more dangerous. That would be idiotic, and the count is a
sensible man. He, therefore, had nothing whatever to do with the matter.
To be quite sure though, I will make some inquiries about him. Another
thing, Widow Lerouge, who so readily exchanged the children while
nursing them, would be very likely to undertake a number of other
dangerous commissions. Who can say that she has not obliged other
persons who had an equal interest in getting rid of her? There is a
secret, I am getting at it, but I do not hold it yet. One thing is
certain though, she was not assassinated to prevent Noel recovering his
rights. She must have been suppressed for some analogous reason, by a
bold and experienced scoundrel, prompted by similar motives to those
of which I suspected Albert. It is, then, in that direction that I must
follow up the case now. And, above all, I must obtain the past history
of this obliging widow, and I will have it too, for in all probability
the particulars which have been written for from her birthplace will
arrive tomorrow.”
Returning to Albert, old Tabaret weighed the charges which were brought
against the young man, and reckoned the chances which he still had in
favour of his release.
“From the look of things,” he murmured, “I see only luck and myself,
that is to say absolutely nothing, in his favor at present. As to the
charges, they are countless. However, it is no use going over them.
It is I who amassed them; and I know what they are worth! At once
everything and nothing. What do signs prove, however striking they may
be, in cases where one ought to disbelieve even the evidence of one’s
own senses? Albert is a victim of the most remarkable coincidences; but
one word might explain them. There have been many such cases. It was
even worse in the matter of the little tailor. At five o’clock, he
bought a knife, which he showed to ten of his friends, saying, ‘This is
for my wife, who is an idle jade, and plays me false with my workmen.’
In the evening, the neighbours heard a terrible quarrel between the
couple, cries, threats, stampings, blows; then suddenly all was quiet.
The next day, the tailor had disappeared from his home, and the wife was
discovered dead, with the very same knife buried to the hilt between her
shoulders. Ah, well! it turned out it was not the husband who had stuck
it there; it was a jealous lover. After that, what is to be believed?
Albert, it is true, will not give an account of how he passed Tuesday
evening. That does not affect me. The question for me is not to prove
where he was, but that he was not at La Jonchere. Perhaps, after all,
Gevrol is on the right track. I hope so, from the bottom of my
heart. Yes; God grant that he may be successful. My vanity and my mad
presumption will deserve the slight punishment of his triumph over me.
What would I not give to establish this man’s innocence? Half of my
fortune would be but a small sacrifice. If I should not succeed! If,
after having caused the evil, I should find myself powerless to undo
it!”
Old Tabaret went to bed, shuddering at this last thought. He fell
asleep, and had a terrible nightmare. Lost in that vulgar crowd, which,
on the days when society revenges itself, presses about the Place de la
Rouquette and watches the last convulsions of one condemned to death,
he attended Albert’s execution. He saw the unhappy man, his hands bound
behind his back, his collar turned down, ascend, supported by a priest,
the steep flight of steps leading on to the scaffold. He saw him
standing upon the fatal platform, turning his proud gaze upon the
terrified assembly beneath him. Soon the eyes of the condemned man met
his own; and, bursting his cords, he pointed him, Tabaret, out to the
crowd, crying, in a loud voice: “That man is my assassin.” Then a great
clamour arose to curse the detective. He wished to escape; but his feet
seemed fixed to the ground. He tried at least to close his eyes; he
could not. A power unknown and irresistible compelled him to look.
Then Albert again cried out: “I am innocent; the guilty one is----” He
pronounced a name; the crowd repeated this name, and he alone did not
catch what it was. At last the head of the condemned man fell.
M. Tabaret uttered a loud cry, and awoke in a cold perspiration. It took
him some time to convince himself that nothing was real of what he had
just heard and seen, and that he was actually in his own house, in
his own bed. It was only a dream! But dreams sometimes are, they say,
warnings from heaven. His imagination was so struck with what had just
happened that he made unheard of efforts to recall the name pronounced
by Albert. Not succeeding, he got up and lighted his candle. The
darkness made him afraid, the night was full of phantoms. It was no
longer with him a question of sleep. Beset with these anxieties, he
accused himself most severely, and harshly reproached himself for the
occupation he had until then so delighted in. Poor humanity!
He was evidently stark mad the day when he first had the idea of seeking
employment in the Rue de Jerusalem. A noble hobby, truly, for a man of
his age, a good quiet citizen of Paris, rich, and esteemed by all! And
to think that he had been proud of his exploits, that he had boasted of
his cunning, that he had plumed himself on his keenness of scent, that
he had been flattered by that ridiculous sobriquet, “Tirauclair.” Old
fool! What could he hope to gain from that bloodhound calling? All sorts
of annoyance, the contempt of the world, without counting the danger of
contributing to the conviction of an innocent man. Why had he not taken
warning by the little tailor’s case.
Recalling his few satisfactions of the past, and comparing them with his
present anguish, he resolved that he would have no more to do with it.
Albert once saved, he would seek some less dangerous amusement, and one
more generally appreciated. He would break the connection of which he
was ashamed, and the police and justice might get on the best they could
without him.
At last the day, which he had awaited with feverish impatience, dawned.
To pass the time, he dressed himself slowly, with much care, trying to
occupy his mind with needless details, and to deceive himself as to the
time by looking constantly at the clock, to see if it had not stopped.
In spite of all this delay, it was not eight o’clock when he presented
himself at the magistrate’s house, begging him to excuse, on account of
the importance of his business, a visit too early not to be indiscreet.
Excuses were superfluous. M. Daburon was never disturbed by a call at
eight o’clock in the morning. He was already at work. He received the
old amateur detective with his usual kindness, and even joked with him
a little about his excitement of the previous evening. Who would have
thought his nerves were so sensitive? Doubtless the night had brought
deliberation. Had he recovered his reason? or had he put his hand on the
true criminal?
This trifling tone in a magistrate, who was accused of being grave
even to a fault, troubled the old man. Did not this quizzing hide a
determination not to be influenced by anything that he could say?
He believed it did; and it was without the least deception that he
commenced his pleading.
He put the case more calmly this time, but with all the energy of a
well-digested conviction. He had appealed to the heart, he now appealed
to reason; but, although doubt is essentially contagious, he neither
succeeded in convincing the magistrate, nor in shaking his opinion. His
strongest arguments were of no more avail against M. Daburon’s absolute
conviction than bullets made of bread crumbs would be against a
breastplate. And there was nothing very surprising in that.
Old Tabaret had on his side only a subtle theory, mere words; M. Daburon
possessed palpable testimony, facts. And such was the peculiarity of
the case, that all the reasons brought forward by the old man to justify
Albert simply reacted against him, and confirmed his guilt.
A repulse at the magistrate’s hands had entered too much into M.
Tabaret’s anticipations for him to appear troubled or discouraged. He
declared that, for the present, he would insist no more; he had full
confidence in the magistrate’s wisdom and impartiality. All he wished
was to put him on his guard against the presumptions which he himself
unfortunately had taken such pains to inspire.
He was going, he added, to busy himself with obtaining more information.
They were only at the beginning of the investigation; and they were
still ignorant of very many things, even of Widow Lerouge’s past life.
More facts might come to light. Who knew what testimony the man with the
earrings, who was being pursued by Gevrol, might give? Though in a great
rage internally, and longing to insult and chastise he whom he inwardly
styled a “fool of a magistrate,” old Tabaret forced himself to be humble
and polite. He wished, he said, to keep well posted up in the different
phases of the investigation, and to be informed of the result of future
interrogations. He ended by asking permission to communicate with
Albert. He thought his services deserved this slight favour. He desired
an interview of only ten minutes without witnesses.
M. Daburon refused this request. He declared, that, for the present, the
prisoner must continue to remain strictly in solitary confinement.
By way of consolation, he added that, in three or four days, he might
perhaps be able to reconsider this decision, as the motives which
prompted it would then no longer exist.
“Your refusal is cruel, sir,” said M. Tabaret; “but I understand it, and
submit.”
That was his only complaint: and he withdrew almost immediately, fearing
that he could no longer master his indignation. He felt that, besides
the great happiness of saving an innocent man, compromised by his
imprudence, he would experience unspeakable delight in avenging himself
for the magistrate’s obstinacy.
“Three or four days,” he muttered, “that is the same as three or four
years to the unfortunate prisoner. He takes things quite at his ease,
this charming magistrate. But I must find out the real truth of the case
between now and then.”
Yes, M. Daburon only required three or four days to wring a confession
from Albert, or at least to make him abandon his system of defence.
The difficulty of the prosecution was not being able to produce any
witness who had seen the prisoner during the evening of Shrove Tuesday.
One deposition alone to that effect would have such great weight, that
M. Daburon, as soon as Tabaret had left him, turned all his attention
in that direction. He could still hope for a great deal. It was only
Saturday, the day of the murder was remarkable enough to fix people’s
memories, and up till then there had not been time to start a proper
investigation.
He arranged for five of the most experienced detectives in the secret
service to be sent to Bougival, supplied with photographs of the
prisoner. They were to scour the entire country between Rueil and
La Jonchere, to inquire everywhere, and make the most minute
investigations. The photographs would greatly aid their efforts. They
had orders to show them everywhere and to everybody and even to leave a
dozen about the neighbourhood, as they were furnished with a sufficient
number to do so. It was impossible, that, on an evening when so many
people were about, no one had noticed the original of the portrait
either at the railway station at Rueil or upon one of the roads which
lead to La Jonchere, the high road, and the path by the river.
These arrangements made, the investigating magistrate proceeded to the
Palais de Justice, and sent for Albert. He had already in the morning
received a report, informing him hour by hour of the acts, gestures, and
utterances of the prisoner, who had been carefully watched. Nothing in
him, the report said, betrayed the criminal. He seemed very sad, but not
despairing. He had not cried out, nor threatened, nor cursed justice,
nor even spoken of a fatal error. After eating lightly, he had gone to
the window of his cell, and had there remained standing for more than an
hour. Then he laid down, and had quietly gone to sleep.
“What an iron constitution!” thought M. Daburon, when the prisoner
entered his office.
Albert was no longer the despairing man who, the night before,
bewildered with the multiplicity of charges, surprised by the rapidity
with which they were brought against him, had writhed beneath the
magistrate’s gaze, and appeared ready to succumb. Innocent or guilty,
he had made up his mind how to act; his face left no doubt of that. His
eyes expressed that cold resolution of a sacrifice freely made, and
a certain haughtiness which might be taken for disdain, but which
expressed the noble resentment of an injured man. In him could be
seen the self-reliant man, who might be shaken but never overcome by
misfortune.
On beholding him, the magistrate understood that he would have to
change his mode of attack. He recognized one of those natures which are
provoked to resistance when assailed, and strengthened when menaced.
He therefore gave up his former tactics, and attempted to move him by
kindness. It was a hackneyed trick, but almost always successful, like
certain pathetic scenes at theatres. The criminal who has girt up his
energy to sustain the shock of intimidation, finds himself without
defence against the wheedling of kindness, the greater in proportion to
its lack of sincerity. Now M. Daburon excelled in producing affecting
scenes. What confessions he had obtained with a few tears! No one knew
so well as he how to touch those old chords which vibrate still even in
the most corrupt hearts: honour, love, and family ties.
With Albert, he became kind and friendly, and full of the liveliest
compassion. Unfortunate man! how greatly he must suffer, he whose whole
life had been like one long enchantment. How at a single blow everything
about him had fallen in ruins. Who could have foreseen all this at
the time when he was the one hope of a wealthy and illustrious house!
Recalling the past, the magistrate pictured to him the most touching
reminiscences of his early youth, and stirred up the ashes of all
his extinct affections. Taking advantage of all that he knew of the
prisoner’s life, he tortured him by the most mournful allusions to
Claire. Why did he persist in bearing alone his great misfortune? Had he
no one in the world who would deem it happiness to share his sufferings?
Why this morose silence? Should he not rather hasten to reassure her
whose very life depended upon his? What was necessary for that? A single
word. Then he would be, if not free, at least returned to the world. His
prison would become a habitable abode, no more solitary confinement; his
friends would visit him, he might receive whomsoever he wished to see.
It was no longer the magistrate who spoke; it was a father, who, no
matter what happens, always keeps in the recesses of his heart, the
greatest indulgence for his child.
M. Daburon did even more. For a moment he imagined himself in Albert’s
position. What would he have done after the terrible revelation? He
scarcely dared ask himself. He understood the motive which prompted the
murder of Widow Lerouge; he could explain it to himself; he could almost
excuse it. (Another trap.) It was certainly a great crime, but in no way
revolting to conscience or to reason. It was one of those crimes which
society might, if not forget, at least forgive up to a certain point,
because the motive was not a shameful one. What tribunal would fail
to find extenuating circumstances for a moment of frenzy so excusable.
Besides was not the Count de Commarin the more guilty of the two? Was it
not his folly that prepared the way for this terrible event? His son was
the victim of fatality, and was in the highest degree to be pitied.
M. Daburon spoke for a long time upon this text, seeking those things
most suitable in his opinion to soften the hardened heart of an
assassin. And he arrived always at the same conclusion,--the wisdom
of confessing. But he wasted his eloquence precisely as M. Tabaret had
wasted his. Albert appeared in no way affected. His answers were of the
shortest. He began and ended as on the first occasion, by protesting his
innocence.
One test, which has often given the desired result, still remained to be
tried.
On this same day, Saturday, Albert was confronted with the corpse of
Widow Lerouge. He appeared impressed by the sad sight, but no more than
anyone would be, if forced to look at the victim of an assassination
four days after the crime. One of the bystanders having exclaimed: “Ah,
if she could but speak!” he replied: “That would be very fortunate for
me.”
Since morning, M. Daburon had not gained the least advantage. He had had
to acknowledge the failure of his manoeuvres; and now this last attempt
had not succeeded either. The prisoner’s continued calmness filled to
overflowing the exasperation of this man so sure of his guilt. His spite
was evident to all, when, suddenly ceasing his wheedling, he harshly
gave the order to re-conduct the prisoner to his cell.
“I will compel him to confess!” he muttered between his teeth.
Perhaps he regretted those gentle instruments of investigation of the
middle ages, which compelled the prisoner to say whatever one wished to
hear. Never, thought he, did any one ever meet a culprit like this. What
could he reasonably hope for from his system of persistent denial? This
obstinacy, absurd in the presence of such absolute proofs, drove the
magistrate into a rage. Had Albert confessed his guilt, he would have
found M. Daburon disposed to pity him; but as he denied it, he opposed
himself to an implacable enemy.
It was the very falseness of the situation which misled and blinded this
magistrate, naturally so kind and generous. Having previously wished
Albert innocent, he now absolutely longed to prove him guilty, and that
for a hundred reasons which he was unable to analyze. He remembered,
too well, his having had the Viscount de Commarin for a rival, and his
having nearly assassinated him. Had he not repented even to remorse his
having signed the warrant of arrest, and his having accepted the duty of
investigating the case. Old Tabaret’s incomprehensible change of opinion
troubled him, too.
All these feelings combined, inspired M. Daburon with a feverish hatred,
and urged him on in the path which he had chosen. It was now less the
proofs of Albert’s guilt which he sought for than the justification of
his own conduct as magistrate. The investigation became embittered like
a personal matter.
In fact, were the prisoner innocent, he would become inexcusable in his
own eyes; and, in proportion as he reproached himself the more severely,
and as the knowledge of his own failings grew, he felt the more disposed
to try everything to conquer his former rival, even to abusing his own
power. The logic of events urged him on. It seemed as though his honour
itself was at stake; and he displayed a passionate activity, such as he
had never before been known to show in any investigation.
M. Daburon passed all Sunday in listening to the reports of the
detectives he had sent to Bougival.
They had spared no trouble, they stated, but they could report nothing
new.
They had heard many people speak of a woman, who pretended, they said,
to have seen the assassin leave Widow Lerouge’s cottage; but no one
had been able to point this woman out to them, or even to give them her
name.
They all thought it their duty, however, to inform the magistrate that
another inquiry was going on at the same time as theirs. It was directed
by M. Tabaret, who personally scoured the country round about in a
cabriolet drawn by a very swift horse. He must have acted with great
promptness; for, no matter where they went, he had been there before
them. He appeared to have under his orders a dozen men, four of whom at
least certainly belonged to the Rue de Jerusalem. All the detectives had
met him; and he had spoken to them. To one, he had said: “What the deuce
are you showing this photograph for? In less than no time you will have
a crowd of witnesses, who, to earn three francs, will describe some one
more like the portrait than the portrait itself.”
He had met another on the high-road, and had laughed at him.
“You are a simple fellow,” he cried out, “to hunt for a hiding man on
the high-way; look a little aside, and you may find him.”
Again he had accosted two who were together in a cafe at Bougival, and
had taken them aside.
“I have him,” he said to them. “He is a smart fellow; he came by
Chatois. Three people have seen him--two railway porters and a third
person whose testimony will be decisive, for she spoke to him. He was
smoking.”
M. Daburon became so angry with old Tabaret, that he immediately started
for Bougival, firmly resolved to bring the too zealous man back to
Paris, and to report his conduct in the proper quarter. The journey,
however, was useless. M. Tabaret, the cabriolet, the swift horse, and
the twelve men had all disappeared, or at least were not to be found.
On returning home, greatly fatigued, and very much out of temper, the
investigating magistrate found the following telegram from the chief of
the detective force awaiting him; it was brief, but to the point:
“ROUEN, Sunday.
“The man is found. This evening we start for Paris. The most valuable
testimony. GEVROL.”
CHAPTER XV.
On the Monday morning, at nine o’clock, M. Daburon was preparing to
start for the Palais de Justice, where he expected to find Gevrol and
his man, and perhaps old Tabaret. His preparations were nearly made,
when his servant announced that a young lady, accompanied by another
considerably older, asked to speak with him. She declined giving
her name, saying, however, that she would not refuse it, if it was
absolutely necessary in order to be received.
“Show them in,” said the magistrate.
He thought it must be a relation of one or other of the prisoners, whose
case he had had in hand when this fresh crime occurred. He determined to
send her away quickly. He was standing before the fireplace, seeking
for an address in a small china plate filled with visiting cards. At
the sound of the opening of the door, at the rustling of a silk dress
gliding by the window, he did not take the trouble to move, nor deign
even to turn his head. He contented himself with merely casting a
careless glance into the mirror.
But he immediately started with a movement of dismay, as if he had seen
a ghost. In his confusion, he dropped the card-plate, which fell noisily
on to the hearth, and broke into a thousand pieces.
“Claire!” he stammered, “Claire!”
And as if he feared equally either being deceived by an illusion or
actually seeing her whose name he had uttered, he turned slowly round.
It was truly Mademoiselle d’Arlange. This young girl, usually so proud
and reserved, had had the courage to come to his house alone, or almost
so, for her governess, whom she had left in the ante-room, could hardly
count. She was evidently obeying some powerful emotion, since it made
her forget her habitual timidity.
Never, even in the time when a sight of her was his greatest happiness,
had she appeared to him more fascinating. Her beauty, ordinarily
veiled by a sweet sadness, was bright and shining. Her features had an
animation which he had never seen in them before. In her eyes, rendered
more brilliant by recent tears but partly wiped away, shone the noblest
resolution. One could see that she was conscious of performing a great
duty, and that she performed it, if not with pleasure, at least with
that simplicity which in itself is heroism.
She advanced calm and dignified, and held out her hand to the magistrate
in that English style that some ladies can render so gracefully.
“We are always friends, are we not?” asked she, with a sad smile.
The magistrate did not dare take the ungloved hand she held out to him.
He scarcely touched it with the tips of his fingers, as though he feared
too great an emotion.
“Yes,” he replied indistinctly, “I am always devoted to you.”
Mademoiselle d’Arlange sat down in the large armchair, where, two nights
previously, old Tabaret had planned Albert’s arrest. M. Daburon remained
standing leaning against his writing-table.
“You know why I have come?” asked the young girl.
With a nod, he replied in the affirmative.
He divined her object only too easily; and he was asking himself whether
he would be able to resist prayers from such a mouth. What was she about
to ask of him? What could he refuse her? Ah, if he had but foreseen
this? He had not yet got over his surprise.
“I only knew of this dreadful event yesterday,” pursued Claire; “my
grandmother considered it best to hide it from me, and, but for my
devoted Schmidt, I should still be ignorant of it all. What a night I
have passed! At first I was terrified; but, when they told me that all
depended upon you, my fears were dispelled. It is for my sake, is it
not, that you have undertaken this investigation? Oh, you are good, I
know it! How can I ever express my gratitude?”
What humiliation for the worthy magistrate were these heartfelt thanks!
Yes, he had at first thought of Mademoiselle d’Arlange, but since--He
bowed his head to avoid Claire’s glance, so pure and so daring.
“Do not thank me, mademoiselle,” he stammered, “I have not the claim
that you think upon your gratitude.”
Claire had been too troubled herself, at first, to notice the
magistrate’s agitation. The trembling of his voice attracted her
attention; but she did not suspect the cause. She thought that her
presence recalled sad memories, that he doubtless still loved her,
and that he suffered. This idea saddened her, and filled her with
self-reproach.
“And yet, sir,” she continued, “I thank you all the same. I might never
have dared go to another magistrate, to speak to a stranger! Besides,
what value would another attach to my words, not knowing me? While you,
so generous, will re-assure me, will tell me by what awful mistake he
has been arrested like a villain and thrown into prison.”
“Alas!” sighed the magistrate, so low that Claire scarcely heard him,
and did not understand the terrible meaning of the exclamation.
“With you,” she continued, “I am not afraid. You are my friend, you told
me so; you will not refuse my prayers. Give him his liberty quickly. I
do not know exactly of what he is accused, but I swear to you that he is
innocent.”
Claire spoke in the positive manner of one who saw no obstacle in the
way of the very simple and natural desire which she had expressed. A
formal assurance given by her ought to be amply sufficient; with a
word, M. Daburon would repair everything. The magistrate was silent. He
admired that saint-like ignorance of everything, that artless and frank
confidence which doubted nothing. She had commenced by wounding him,
unconsciously, it is true, but he had quite forgotten that.
He was really an upright man, as good as the best, as is proved from
the fact that he trembled at the moment of unveiling the fatal truth. He
hesitated to pronounce the words which, like a whirlwind, would overturn
the fragile edifice of this young girl’s happiness. He who had been so
humiliated, so despised, he was going to have his revenge; and yet
he did not experience the least feeling of a shameful, though easily
understood, satisfaction.
“And if I should tell you, mademoiselle,” he commenced, “that M. Albert
is not innocent?”
She half-raised herself with a protesting gesture.
He continued, “If I should tell you that he is guilty?”
“Oh, sir!” interrupted Claire, “you cannot think so!”
“I do think so, mademoiselle,” exclaimed the magistrate in a sad voice,
“and I must add that I am morally certain of it.”
Claire looked at the investigating magistrate with profound amazement.
Could it be really he who was speaking thus. Had she heard him aright?
Did she understand? She was far from sure. Had he answered seriously?
Was he not deluding her by a cruel unworthy jest? She asked herself this
scarcely knowing what she did: for to her everything appeared possible,
probable, rather than that which he had said.
Not daring to raise his eyes, he continued in a tone, expressive of the
sincerest pity, “I suffer cruelly for you at this moment, mademoiselle;
but I have the sad courage to tell you the truth, and you must summon
yours to hear it. It is far better that you should know everything from
the mouth of a friend. Summon, then, all your fortitude; strengthen your
noble soul against a most dreadful misfortune. No, there is no mistake.
Justice has not been deceived. The Viscount de Commarin is accused of
an assassination; and everything, you understand me, proves that he
committed it.”
Like a doctor, who pours out drop by drop a dangerous medicine, M.
Daburon pronounced this last sentence slowly, word by word. He watched
carefully the result, ready to cease speaking, if the shock was too
great. He did not suppose that this young girl, timid to excess, with a
sensitiveness almost a disease, would be able to hear without flinching
such a terrible revelation. He expected a burst of despair, tears,
distressing cries. She might perhaps faint away; and he stood ready to
call in the worthy Schmidt.
He was mistaken. Claire drew herself up full of energy and courage. The
flame of indignation flushed her cheeks, and dried her tears.
“It is false,” she cried, “and those who say it are liars! He cannot
be--no, he cannot be an assassin. If he were here, sir, and should
himself say, ‘It is true,’ I would refuse to believe it; I would still
cry out, ‘It is false!’”
“He has not yet admitted it,” continued the magistrate, “but he will
confess. Even if he should not, there are more proofs than are needed to
convict him. The charges against him are as impossible to deny as is the
sun which shines upon us.”
“Ah! well,” interrupted Mademoiselle d’Arlange, in a voice filled
with emotion, “I assert, I repeat, that justice is deceived. Yes,” she
persisted, in answer to the magistrate’s gesture of denial, “yes, he is
innocent. I am sure of it; and I would proclaim it, even were the whole
world to join with you in accusing him. Do you not see that I know him
better even than he can know himself, that my faith in him is absolute,
as is my faith in God, that I would doubt myself before doubting him?”
The investigating magistrate attempted timidly to make an objection;
Claire quickly interrupted him.
“Must I then, sir,” said she, “in order to convince you, forget that I
am a young girl, and that I am not talking to my mother, but to a man!
For his sake I will do so. It is four years, sir, since we first loved
each other. Since that time, I have not kept a single one of my thoughts
from him, nor has he hid one of his from me. For four years, there has
never been a secret between us; he lived in me, as I lived in him.
I alone can say how worthy he is to be loved; I alone know all that
grandeur of soul, nobleness of thought, generosity of feelings, out of
which you have so easily made an assassin. And I have seen him, oh! so
unhappy, while all the world envied his lot. He is, like me, alone in
the world; his father never loved him. Sustained one by the other, we
have passed through many unhappy days; and it is at the very moment our
trials are ending that he has become a criminal? Why? tell me, why?”
“Neither the name nor the fortune of the Count de Commarin would descend
to him, mademoiselle; and the knowledge of it came upon him with a
sudden shock. One old woman alone was able to prove this. To maintain
his position, he killed her.”
“What infamy,” cried the young girl, “what a shameful, wicked, calumny!
I know, sir, that story of fallen greatness; he himself told me of it.
It is true, that for three days this misfortune unmanned him; but, if he
was dismayed, it was on my account more than his own. He was distressed
at thinking that perhaps I should be grieved, when he confessed to me
that he could no longer give me all that his love dreamed of. I grieved?
Ah! what to me are that great name, that immense wealth? I owe to them
the only unhappiness I have ever known. Was it, then, for such things
that I loved him? It was thus that I replied to him; and he, so sad,
immediately recovered his gaiety. He thanked me, saying, ‘You love me;
the rest is of no consequence.’ I chided him, then, for having doubted
me; and after that, you pretend that he cowardly assassinated an old
woman? You would not dare repeat it.”
Mademoiselle d’Arlange ceased speaking, a smile of victory on her lips.
That smile meant, “At last I have attained my end: you are conquered;
what can you reply to all that I have said?”
The investigating magistrate did not long leave this smiling illusion to
the unhappy child. He did not perceive how cruel and offensive was his
persistence. Always the same predominant idea! In persuading Claire, he
would justify his own conduct to himself.
“You do not know, mademoiselle,” he resumed, “how a sudden calamity may
effect a good man’s reason. It is only at the time a thing escapes us
that we feel the greatness of the loss. God preserve me from doubting
all that you have said; but picture to yourself the immensity of the
blow which struck M. de Commarin. Can you say that on leaving you he did
not give way to despair? Think of the extremities to which it may
have led him. He may have been for a time bewildered, and have acted
unconsciously. Perhaps this is the way the crime should be explained.”
Mademoiselle d’Arlange’s face grew deathly pale, and betrayed the utmost
terror. The magistrate thought that at last doubt had begun to effect
her pure and noble belief.
“He must, then, have been mad,” she murmured.
“Possibly,” replied the magistrate; “and yet the circumstances of the
crime denote a well-laid plan. Believe me, then, mademoiselle, and do
not be too confident. Pray, and wait patiently for the issue of this
terrible trial. Listen to my voice, it is that of a friend. You used to
have in me the confidence a daughter gives to her father, you told me
so; do not, then, refuse my advice. Remain silent and wait. Hide your
grief to all; you might hereafter regret having exposed it. Young,
inexperienced, without a guide, without a mother, alas! you sadly
misplaced your first affections.”
“No, sir, no,” stammered Claire. “Ah!” she added, “you talk like the
rest of the world, that prudent and egotistical world, which I despise
and hate.”
“Poor child,” continued M. Daburon, pitiless even in his compassion,
“unhappy young girl! This is your first deception! Nothing more terrible
could be imagined; few women would know how to bear it. But you are
young; you are brave; your life will not be ruined. Hereafter you will
feel horrified at this crime. There is no wound, I know by experience,
which time does not heal.”
Claire tried to grasp what the magistrate was saying, but his words
reached her only as confused sounds, their meaning entirely escaped her.
“I do not understand you, sir,” she said. “What advice, then, do you
give me?”
“The only advice that reason dictates, and that my affection for you can
suggest, mademoiselle. I speak to you as a kind and devoted brother.
I say to you: ‘Courage, Claire, resign yourself to the saddest, the
greatest sacrifice which honour can ask of a young girl. Weep, yes, weep
for your deceived love; but forget it. Pray heaven to help you do so. He
whom you have loved is no longer worthy of you.’”
The magistrate stopped slightly frightened. Mademoiselle d’Arlange had
become livid.
But though the body was weak, the soul still remained firm.
“You said, just now,” she murmured, “that he could only have committed
this crime in a moment of distraction, in a fit of madness?”
“Yes, it is possible.”
“Then, sir, not knowing what he did, he can not be guilty.”
The investigating magistrate forgot a certain troublesome question which
he put to himself one morning in bed after his illness.
“Neither justice nor society, mademoiselle,” he replied, “can take that
into account. God alone, who sees into the depths of our hearts, can
judge, can decide those questions which human justice must pass by. In
our eyes, M. de Commarin is a criminal. There may be certain extenuating
circumstances to soften the punishment; but the moral effect will be the
same. Even if he were acquitted, and I wish he may be, but without hope,
he will not be less unworthy. He will always carry the dishonour, the
stain of blood cowardly shed. Therefore, forget him.”
Mademoiselle d’Arlange stopped the magistrate with a look in which
flashed the strongest resentment.
“That is to say,” she exclaimed, “that you counsel me to abandon him in
his misfortune. All the world deserts him; and your prudence advises me
to act with the world. Men behave thus, I have heard, when one of their
friends is down; but women never do. Look about you; however humiliated,
however wretched, however low, a man may be, you will always find a
woman near to sustain and console him. When the last friend has boldly
taken to flight, when the last relation has abandoned him, woman
remains.”
The magistrate regretted having been carried away perhaps a little too
far. Claire’s excitement frightened him. He tried, but in vain, to stop
her.
“I may be timid,” she continued with increasing energy, “but I am no
coward. I chose Albert voluntarily from amongst all. Whatever happens,
I will never desert him. No, I will never say, ‘I do not know this man.’
He would have given me half of his prosperity, and of his glory. I
will share, whether he wishes it or not, half of his shame and of his
misfortune. Between two, the burden will be less heavy to bear. Strike!
I will cling so closely to him that no blow shall touch him without
reaching me, too. You counsel me to forget him. Teach me, then, how to.
I forget him? Could I, even if I wished? But I do not wish it. I love
him. It is no more in my power to cease loving him than it is to
arrest, by the sole effort of my will, the beating of my heart. He is a
prisoner, accused of murder. So be it. I love him. He is guilty! What
of that? I love him. You will condemn him, you will dishonour him.
Condemned and dishonoured, I shall love him still. You will send him
to a convict prison. I will follow him; and in the prison, under the
convict’s dress, I will yet love him. If he falls to the bottom of the
abyss, I will fall with him. My life is his, let him dispose of it. No,
nothing will separate me from him, nothing short of death! And, if he
must mount the scaffold, I shall die, I know it, from the blow which
kills him.”
M. Daburon had buried his face in his hands. He did not wish Claire to
perceive a trace of the emotion which affected him.
“How she loves him!” he thought, “how she loves him!”
His mind was sunk in the darkest thoughts. All the stings of jealousy
were rending him. What would not be his delight, if he were the object
of so irresistible a passion as that which burst forth before him! What
would he not give in return! He had, too, a young and ardent soul, a
burning thirst for love. But who had ever thought of that? He had been
esteemed, respected, perhaps feared, but not loved; and he never would
be. Was he, then, unworthy of it? Why do so many men pass through life
dispossessed of love, while others, the vilest beings sometimes, seem to
possess a mysterious power, which charms and seduces, and inspires those
blind and impetuous feelings which to assert themselves rush to the
sacrifice all the while longing for it? Have women, then, no reason, no
discernment?
Mademoiselle d’Arlange’s silence brought the magistrate back to the
reality. He raised his eyes to her. Overcome by the violence of her
emotion, she lay back in her chair, and breathed with such difficulty
that M. Daburon feared she was about to faint. He moved quickly towards
the bell, to summon aid; but Claire noticed the movement, and stopped
him.
“What would you do?” she asked.
“You seemed suffering so,” he stammered, “that I----”
“It is nothing, sir,” replied she. “I may seem weak; but I am not so. I
am strong, believe me, very strong. It is true that I suffer, as I never
believed that one could suffer. It is cruel for a young girl to have to
do violence to all her feelings. You ought to be satisfied, sir. I have
torn aside all veils; and you have read even the inmost recesses of
my heart. But I do not regret it; it was for his sake. That which I do
regret is my having lowered my self so far as to defend him; but he will
forgive me that one doubt. Your assurance took me unawares. A man
like him does not need defence; his innocence must be proved; and, God
helping me, I will prove it.”
As Claire was half-rising to depart, M. Daburon detained her by a
gesture. In his blindness, he thought he would be doing wrong to leave
this poor young girl in the slightest way deceived. Having gone so far
as to begin, he persuaded himself that his duty bade him go on to the
end. He said to himself, in all good faith, that he would thus preserve
Claire from herself, and spare her in the future many bitter regrets.
The surgeon who has commenced a painful operation does not leave it
half-finished because the patient struggles, suffers, and cries out.
“It is painful, Mademoiselle,--” he began.
Claire did not let him finish.
“Enough, sir,” said she; “all that you can say will be of no avail. I
respect your unhappy conviction. I ask, in return, the same regard for
mine. If you were truly my friend, I would ask you to aid me in the task
of saving him, to which I am about to devote myself. But, doubtless, you
would not do so.”
“If you knew the proofs which I possess, mademoiselle,” he said in a
cold tone, which expressed his determination not to give way to anger,
“if I detailed them to you, you would no longer hope.”
“Speak, sir,” cried Claire imperiously.
“You wish it, mademoiselle? Very well; I will give you in detail all the
evidence we have collected. I am entirely yours, as you are aware. But
yet, why should I harass you with all these proofs? There is one which
alone is decisive. The murder was committed on the evening of Shrove
Tuesday; and the prisoner cannot give an account of what he did on that
evening. He went out, however, and only returned home about two o’clock
in the morning, his clothes soiled and torn, and his gloves frayed.”
“Oh! enough, sir, enough!” interrupted Claire, whose eyes beamed once
more with happiness. “You say it was on Shrove Tuesday evening?”
“Yes, mademoiselle.”
“Ah! I was sure,” she cried triumphantly. “I told you truly that he
could not be guilty.”
She clasped her hands, and, from the movement of her lips, it was
evident that she was praying. The expression of the most perfect faith
represented by some of the Italian painters illuminated her beautiful
face while she rendered thanks to God in the effusion of her gratitude.
The magistrate was so disconcerted, that he forgot to admire her. He
awaited an explanation.
“Well?” he asked impatiently.
“Sir,” replied Claire, “if that is your strongest proof, it exists no
longer. Albert passed the entire evening you speak of with me.”
“With you?” stammered the magistrate.
“Yes, with me, at my home.”
M. Daburon was astounded. Was he dreaming? He hardly knew.
“What!” he exclaimed, “the viscount was at your house? Your grandmother,
your companion, your servants, they all saw him and spoke to him?”
“No, sir; he came and left in secret. He wished no one to see him; he
desired to be alone with me.”
“Ah!” said the magistrate with a sigh of relief. The sigh signified:
“It’s all clear--only too evident. She is determined to save him, at the
risk even of compromising her reputation. Poor girl! But has this idea
only just occurred to her?”
The “Ah!” was interpreted very differently by Mademoiselle d’Arlange.
She thought that M. Daburon was astonished at her consenting to receive
Albert.
“Your surprise is an insult, sir,” said she.
“Mademoiselle!”
“A daughter of my family, sir, may receive her betrothed without danger
of anything occurring for which she would have to blush.”
She spoke thus, and at the same time was red with shame, grief, and
anger. She began to hate M. Daburon.
“I had no such insulting thought as you imagine, mademoiselle,” said the
magistrate. “I was only wondering why M. de Commarin went secretly to
your house, when his approaching marriage gave him the right to present
himself openly at all hours. I still wonder, how, on such a visit, he
could get his clothes in the condition in which we found them.”
“That is to say, sir,” replied Claire bitterly, “that you doubt my
word!”
“The circumstances are such, mademoiselle,--”
“You accuse me, then, of falsehood, sir. Know that, were we criminals,
we should not descend to justifying ourselves; we should never pray nor
ask for pardon.”
Mademoiselle d’Arlange’s haughty, contemptuous tone could only anger the
magistrate. How harshly she treated him! And simply because he would not
consent to be her dupe.
“Above all, mademoiselle,” he answered severely, “I am a magistrate; and
I have a duty to perform. A crime has been committed. Everything points
to M. Albert de Commarin as the guilty man. I arrest him; I examine him;
and I find overwhelming proofs against him. You come and tell me that
they are false; that is not enough. So long as you addressed me as a
friend, you found me kind and gentle. Now it is the magistrate to whom
you speak: and it is the magistrate who answers, ‘Prove it.’”
“My word, sir,--”
“Prove it!”
Mademoiselle d’Arlange rose slowly, casting upon the magistrate a look
full of astonishment and suspicion.
“Would you, then, be glad, sir,” she asked, “to find Albert guilty?
Would it give you such great pleasure to have him convicted? Do you then
hate this prisoner, whose fate is in your hands? One would almost think
so. Can you answer for your impartiality? Do not certain memories weigh
heavily in the scale? Are you sure that you are not, armed with the law,
revenging yourself upon a rival?”
“This is too much,” murmured the magistrate, “this is too much!”
“Do you know the unusual, the dangerous position we are in at this
moment? One day, I remember, you declared your love for me. It appeared
to me sincere and honest; it touched me. I was obliged to refuse you,
because I loved another; and I pitied you. Now that other is accused
of murder, and you are his judge; and I find myself between you two,
praying to you for him. In undertaking the investigation you acquired an
opportunity to help him; and yet you seem to be against him.”
Every word Claire uttered fell upon M. Daburon’s heart like a slap on
his face. Was it really she who was speaking? Whence came this sudden
boldness, which made her choose all those words which found an echo in
his heart?
“Mademoiselle,” said he, “your grief has been too much for you. From you
alone could I pardon what you have just said. Your ignorance of things
makes you unjust. If you think that Albert’s fate depends upon my
pleasure, you are mistaken. To convince me is nothing; it is necessary
to convince others. That I should believe you is all very natural, I
know you. But what weight will others attach to your testimony, when
you go to them with a true story--most true, I believe, but yet highly
improbable?”
Tears came into Claire’s eyes.
“If I have unjustly offended you, sir,” said she, “pardon me; my
unhappiness makes me forget myself.”
“You cannot offend me, mademoiselle,” replied the magistrate. “I have
already told you that I am devoted to your service.”
“Then sir, help me to prove the truth of what I have said. I will tell
you everything.”
M. Daburon was fully convinced that Claire was seeking to deceive him;
but her confidence astonished him. He wondered what fable she was about
to concoct.
“Sir,” began Claire, “you know what obstacles have stood in the way of
my marriage with Albert. The Count de Commarin would not accept me for
a daughter-in-law, because I am poor, I possess nothing. It took Albert
five years to triumph over his father’s objections. Twice the count
yielded; twice he recalled his consent, which he said had been extorted
from him. At last, about a month ago, he gave his consent of his own
accord. But these hesitations, delays, refusals, had deeply hurt my
grandmother. You know her sensitive nature; and, in this case, I must
confess she was right. Though the wedding day had been fixed, the
marchioness declared that we should not be compromised nor laughed at
again for any apparent haste to contract a marriage so advantageous,
that we had often before been accused of ambition. She decided,
therefore, that, until the publication of the banns, Albert should
only be admitted into the house every other day, for two hours in the
afternoon, and in her presence. We could not get her to alter this
determination. Such was the state of affairs, when, on Sunday morning,
a note came to me from Albert. He told me that pressing business would
prevent his coming, although it was his regular day. What could have
happened to keep him away? I feared some evil. The next day I awaited
him impatiently and distracted, when his valet brought Schmidt a
note for me. In that letter, sir, Albert entreated me to grant him
an interview. It was necessary, he wrote, that he should have a long
conversation with me, alone, and without delay. Our whole future, he
added, depended upon this interview. He left me to fix the day and hour,
urging me to confide in no one. I did not hesitate. I sent him word to
meet me on the Tuesday evening, at the little garden gate, which opens
into an unfrequented street. To inform me of his presence, he was to
knock just as nine o’clock chimed at the Invalides. I knew that my
grandmother had invited a number of her friends for that evening; and I
thought that, by pretending a headache, I might retire early, and so be
free. I expected, also, that Madame d’Arlange would keep Schmidt with
her.”
“Excuse me, mademoiselle,” interrupted M. Daburon, “what day did you
write to M. Albert?”
“On Tuesday.”
“Can you fix the hour?”
“I must have sent the letter between two and three o’clock.”
“Thanks, mademoiselle. Continue, I pray.”
“All my anticipations,” continued Claire, “were realised. I retired
during the evening, and I went into the garden a little before the
appointed time. I had procured the key of the little door; and I at
once tried it. Unfortunately, I could not make it turn, the lock was so
rusty. I exerted all my strength in vain. I was in despair, when nine
o’clock struck. At the third stroke, Albert knocked. I told him of the
accident; and I threw him the key, that he might try and unlock the
door. He tried, but without success. I then begged him to postpone our
interview. He replied that it was impossible, that what he had to say
admitted of no delay; that, during three days he had hesitated about
confiding in me, and had suffered martyrdom, and that he could endure it
no longer. We were speaking, you must understand, through the door. At
last, he declared that he would climb over the wall. I begged him not to
do so, fearing an accident. The wall is very high, as you know; the top
is covered with pieces of broken glass, and the acacia branches stretch
out above like a hedge. But he laughed at my fears, and said that,
unless I absolutely forbade him to do so, he was going to attempt
to scale the wall. I dared not say no; and he risked it. I was very
frightened, and trembled like a leaf. Fortunately, he is very active,
and got over without hurting himself. He had come, sir, to tell me of
the misfortune which had befallen him. We first of all sat down upon the
little seat you know of, in front of the grove; then, as the rain was
falling, we took shelter in the summer house. It was past midnight when
Albert left me, quieted and almost gay. He went back in the same manner,
only with less danger, because I made him use the gardener’s ladder,
which I laid down alongside the wall when he had reached the other
side.”
This account, given in the simplest and most natural manner, puzzled M.
Daburon. What was he to think?
“Mademoiselle,” he asked, “had the rain commenced to fall when M. Albert
climbed over the wall?”
“No, sir, the first drops fell when we were on the seat. I recollect
it very well, because he opened his umbrella, and I thought of Paul and
Virginia.”
“Excuse me a minute, mademoiselle,” said the magistrate.
He sat down at his desk, and rapidly wrote two letters. In the first, he
gave orders for Albert to be brought at once to his office in the Palais
de Justice. In the second, he directed a detective to go immediately to
the Faubourg St. Germain to the d’Arlange house, and examine the wall
at the bottom of the garden, and make a note of any marks of its having
been scaled, if any such existed. He explained that the wall had been
climbed twice, both before and during the rain; consequently the marks
of the going and returning would be different from each other.
He enjoined upon the detective to proceed with the utmost caution, and
to invent a plausible pretext which would explain his investigations.
Having finished writing, the magistrate rang for his servant, who soon
appeared.
“Here,” said he, “are two letters, which you must take to my clerk,
Constant. Tell him to read them, and to have the orders they contain
executed at once,--at once, you understand. Run, take a cab, and be
quick! Ah! one word. If Constant is not in my office, have him sought
for; he will not be far off, as he is waiting for me. Go quickly!”
M. Daburon then turned and said to Claire: “Have you kept the letter,
mademoiselle, in which M. Albert asked for this interview?”
“Yes, sir, I even think I have it with me.”
She arose, felt in her pocket, and drew out a much crumpled piece of
paper.
“Here it is!”
The investigating magistrate took it. A suspicion crossed his mind. This
compromising letter happened to be very conveniently in Claire’s pocket;
and yet young girls do not usually carry about with them requests for
secret interviews. At a glance, he read the ten lines of the note.
“No date,” he murmured, “no stamp, nothing at all.”
Claire did not hear him; she was racking her brain to find other proofs
of the interview.
“Sir,” said she suddenly, “it often happens, that when we wish to be,
and believe ourselves alone, we are nevertheless observed. Summon, I
beseech you, all of my grandmother’s servants, and inquire if any of
them saw Albert that night.”
“Inquire of your servants! Can you dream of such a thing, mademoiselle?”
“What, sir? You fear that I shall be compromised. What of that, if he is
only freed?”
M. Daburon could not help admiring her. What sublime devotion in this
young girl, whether she spoke the truth or not! He could understand the
violence she had been doing to her feelings during the past hour, he who
knew her character so well.
“That is not all,” she added; “the key which I threw to Albert, he did
not return it to me; he must have forgotten to do so. If it is found in
his possession, it will well prove that he was in the garden.”
“I will give orders respecting it, mademoiselle.”
“There is still another thing,” continued Claire; “while I am here, send
some one to examine the wall.”
She seemed to think of everything.
“That is already done, mademoiselle,” replied M. Daburon. “I will not
hide from you that one of the letters which I have just sent off ordered
an examination of your grandmother’s wall, a secret examination, though,
be assured.”
Claire rose joyfully, and for the second time held out her hand to the
magistrate.
“Oh, thanks!” she said, “a thousand thanks! Now I can well see that you
are with me. But I have still another idea: Albert ought to have the
note I wrote on Tuesday.”
“No, mademoiselle, he burnt it.”
Claire drew back. She imagined she felt a touch of irony in the
magistrate’s reply. There was none, however. M. Daburon remembered the
letter thrown into the fire by Albert on the Tuesday afternoon. It could
only been the one Claire had sent him. It was to her, then, that the
words, “She cannot resist me,” applied. He understood, now, the action
and the remark.
“Can you understand, mademoiselle,” he next asked, “how M. de Commarin
could lead justice astray, and expose me to committing a most deplorable
error, when it would have been so easy to have told me all this?”
“It seems to me, sir, that an honourable man cannot confess that he has
obtained a secret interview from a lady, until he has full permission
from her to do so. He ought to risk his life sooner than the honour of
her who has trusted in him; but be assured Albert relied on me.”
There was nothing to reply to this; and the sentiments expressed by
Mademoiselle d’Arlange gave a meaning to one of Albert’s replies in the
examination.
“This is not all yet, mademoiselle,” continued the magistrate; “all that
you have told me here, you must repeat in my office, at the Palais de
Justice. My clerk will take down your testimony, and you must sign
it. This proceeding will be painful to you; but it is a necessary
formality.”
“Ah, sir, I will do so with pleasure. What can I refuse, when I know
that he is in prison? I was determined to do everything. If he had
been tried at the assizes, I would have gone there. Yes, I would have
presented myself, and there before all I would have told the truth.
Doubtless,” she added sadly, “I should have been greatly compromised. I
should have been looked upon as a heroine of romance; but what matters
public opinion, the blame or approval of the world, since I am sure of
his love?”
She rose from her seat, readjusting her cloak and the strings of her
bonnet.
“Is it necessary,” she asked, “that I should await the return of the
police agents who are examining the wall?”
“It is needless, mademoiselle.”
“Then,” she continued in a sweet voice, “I can only beseech you,” she
clasped her hands, “conjure you,” her eyes implored, “to let Albert out
of prison.”
“He shall be liberated as soon as possible; I give you my word.”
“Oh, to-day, dear M. Daburon, to-day, I beg of you, now, at once! Since
he is innocent, be kind, for you are our friend. Do you wish me to go
down on my knees?”
The magistrate had only just time to extend his arms, and prevent her.
He was choking with emotion, the unhappy man! Ah! how much he envied the
prisoner’s lot!
“That which you ask of me is impossible, mademoiselle,” said he in
an almost inaudible voice, “impracticable, upon my honour. Ah! if it
depended upon me alone, I could not, even were he guilty, see you weep,
and resist.”
Mademoiselle d’Arlange, hitherto so firm, could no longer restrain her
sobs.
“Miserable girl that I am!” she cried, “he is suffering, he is in
prison; I am free, and yet I can do nothing for him! Great heaven!
inspire me with accents to touch the hearts of men! At whose feet must I
cast myself to obtain his pardon?”
She suddenly stopped, surprised at having uttered such a word.
“Pardon!” she repeated fiercely; “he has no need of pardon. Why am I
only a woman? Can I not find one man who will help me? Yes,” she said
after a moment’s reflection, “there is one man who owes himself to
Albert; since he it was who put him in this position,--the Count de
Commarin. He is his father, and yet he has abandoned him. Ah, well! I
will remind him that he still has a son.”
The magistrate rose to see her to the door; but she had already
disappeared, taking the kind-hearted Schmidt with her.
M. Daburon, more dead than alive, sank back again in his chair. His eyes
filled with tears.
“And that is what she is!” he murmured. “Ah! I made no vulgar choice! I
had divined and understood all her good qualities.”
He had never loved her so much; and he felt that he would never be
consoled for not having won her love in return. But, in the midst of his
meditations, a sudden thought passed like a flash across his brain.
Had Claire spoken the truth? Had she not been playing a part previously
prepared? No, most decidedly no! But she might have been herself
deceived, might have been the dupe of some skillful trick.
In that case old Tabaret’s prediction was now realised.
Tabaret had said: “Look out for an indisputable _alibi_.”
How could he show the falsity of this one, planned in advance, affirmed
by Claire, who was herself deceived?
How could he expose a plan, so well laid that the prisoner had been
able without danger to await certain results, with his arms folded, and
without himself moving in the matter?
And yet, if Claire’s story were true, and Albert innocent!
The magistrate struggled in the midst of inextricable difficulties,
without a plan, without an idea.
He arose.
“Oh!” he said in a loud voice, as though encouraging himself, “at the
Palais, all will be unravelled.”
CHAPTER XVI.
M. Daburon had been surprised at Claire’s visit.
M. de Commarin was still more so, when his valet whispered to him that
Mademoiselle d’Arlange desired a moment’s conversation with him.
M. Daburon had broken a handsome card-plate; M. de Commarin, who was at
breakfast, dropped his knife on his plate.
Like the magistrate he exclaimed, “Claire!”
He hesitated to receive her, fearing a painful and disagreeable scene.
She could only have, as he knew, a very slight affection for him, who
had for so long repulsed her with such obstinacy. What could she want
with him? To inquire about Albert, of course. And what could he reply?
She would probably have some nervous attack or other; and he would
be thoroughly upset. However, he thought of how much she must have
suffered; and he pitied her.
He felt that it would be cruel, as well as unworthy of him, to keep away
from her who was to have been his daughter-in-law, the Viscountess de
Commarin.
He sent a message, asking her to wait a few minutes in one of the little
drawing-rooms on the ground floor.
He did not keep her waiting long, his appetite having been destroyed by
the mere announcement of her visit. He was fully prepared for anything
disagreeable.
As soon as he appeared, Claire saluted him with one of those graceful,
yet highly dignified bows, which distinguished the Marchioness
d’Arlange.
“Sir--,” she began.
“You come, do you not, my poor child, to obtain news of the unhappy
boy?” asked M. de Commarin.
He interrupted Claire, and went straight to the point, in order to get
the disagreeable business more quickly over.
“No sir,” replied the young girl, “I come, on the contrary, to bring you
news. Albert is innocent.”
The count looked at her most attentively, persuaded that grief had
affected her reason; but in that case her madness was very quiet.
“I never doubted it,” continued Claire; “but now I have the most
positive proof.”
“Are you quite sure of what you are saying?” inquired the count, whose
eyes betrayed his doubt.
Mademoiselle d’Arlange understood his thoughts; her interview with M.
Daburon had given her experience.
“I state nothing which is not of the utmost accuracy,” she replied,
“and easily proved. I have just come from M. Daburon, the investigating
magistrate, who is one of my grandmother’s friends; and, after what I
told him, he is convinced that Albert is innocent.”
“He told you that, Claire!” exclaimed the count. “My child, are you
sure, are you not mistaken?”
“No, sir. I told him something, of which every one was ignorant, and
of which Albert, who is a gentleman, could not speak. I told him that
Albert passed with me, in my grandmother’s garden, all that evening on
which the crime was committed. He had asked to see me--”
“But your word will not be sufficient.”
“There are proofs, and justice has them by this time.”
“Heavens! Is it really possible?” cried the count, who was beside
himself.
“Ah, sir!” said Mademoiselle d’Arlange bitterly, “you are like the
magistrate; you believed in the impossible. You are his father, and
you suspected him! You do not know him, then. You were abandoning him,
without trying to defend him. Ah, I did not hesitate one moment!”
One is easily induced to believe true that which one is anxiously
longing for. M. de Commarin was not difficult to convince. Without
thinking, without discussion, he put faith in Claire’s assertions. He
shared her convictions, without asking himself whether it were wise or
prudent to do so.
Yes, he had been overcome by the magistrate’s certitude, he had told
himself that what was most unlikely was true; and he had bowed his head.
One word from a young girl had upset this conviction. Albert innocent!
The thought descended upon his heart like heavenly dew.
Claire appeared to him like a bearer of happiness and hope.
During the last three days, he had discovered how great was his
affection for Albert. He had loved him tenderly, for he had never been
able to discard him, in spite of his frightful suspicions as to his
paternity.
For three days, the knowledge of the crime imputed to his unhappy son,
the thought of the punishment which awaited him, had nearly killed the
father. And after all he was innocent!
No more shame, no more scandalous trial, no more stains upon the
escutcheon; the name of Commarin would not be heard at the assizes.
“But, then, mademoiselle,” asked the count, “are they going to release
him?”
“Alas! sir, I demanded that they should at once set him at liberty. It
is just, is it not, since he is not guilty? But the magistrate replied
that it was not possible; that he was not the master; that Albert’s fate
depended on many others. It was then that I resolved to come to you for
aid.”
“Can I then do something?”
“I at least hope so. I am only a poor girl, very ignorant; and I know
no one in the world. I do not know what can be done to get him released
from prison. There ought, however, to be some means for obtaining
justice. Will you not try all that can be done, sir, you, who are his
father?”
“Yes,” replied M. de Commarin quickly, “yes, and without losing a
minute.”
Since Albert’s arrest, the count had been plunged in a dull stupor. In
his profound grief, seeing only ruin and disaster about him, he had done
nothing to shake off this mental paralysis. Ordinarily very active,
he now sat all day long without moving. He seemed to enjoy a condition
which prevented his feeling the immensity of his misfortune. Claire’s
voice sounded in his ear like the resurrection trumpet. The frightful
darkness was dispelled; he saw a glimmering in the horizon; he recovered
the energy of his youth.
“Let us go,” he said.
Suddenly the radiance in his face changed to sadness, mixed with anger.
“But where,” he asked. “At what door shall we knock with any hope of
success? In the olden times, I would have sought the king. But to-day!
Even the emperor himself cannot interfere with the law. He will tell me
to await the decision of the tribunals, that he can do nothing. Wait!
And Albert is counting the minutes in mortal agony! We shall certainly
have justice; but to obtain it promptly is an art taught in schools that
I have not frequented.”
“Let us try, at least, sir,” persisted Claire. “Let us seek out judges,
generals, ministers, any one. Only lead me to them. I will speak; and
you shall see if we do not succeed.”
The count took Claire’s little hands between his own, and held them a
moment pressing them with paternal tenderness.
“Brave girl!” he cried, “you are a noble, courageous woman, Claire! Good
blood never fails. I did not know you. Yes, you shall be my daughter;
and you shall be happy together, Albert and you. But we must not rush
about everywhere, like wild geese. We need some one to tell us whom we
should address,--some guide, lawyer, advocate. Ah!” he cried, “I have
it,--Noel!”
Claire raised her eyes to the count’s in surprise.
“He is my son,” replied M. de Commarin, evidently embarrassed, “my
other son, Albert’s brother. The best and worthiest of men,” he added,
repeating quite appropriately a phrase already uttered by M. Daburon.
“He is a advocate; he knows all about the Palais; he will tell us what
to do.”
Noel’s name, thus thrown into the midst of this conversation so full of
hope, oppressed Claire’s heart.
The count perceived her affright.
“Do not feel anxious, dear child,” he said. “Noel is good; and I will
tell you more, he loves Albert. Do not shake your head so; Noel told me
himself, on this very spot, that he did not believe Albert guilty. He
declared that he intended doing everything to dispel the fatal mistake,
and that he would be his advocate.”
These assertions did not seem to reassure the young girl. She thought
to herself, “What then has this Noel done for Albert?” But she made no
remark.
“I will send for him,” continued M. de Commarin; “he is now with
Albert’s mother, who brought him up, and who is now on her deathbed.”
“Albert’s mother!”
“Yes, my child. Albert will explain to you what may perhaps seem to you
an enigma. Now time presses. But I think--”
He stopped suddenly. He thought, that, instead of sending for Noel at
Madame Gerdy’s, he might go there himself. He would thus see Valerie!
and he had longed to see her again so much!
It was one of those actions which the heart urges, but which one does
not dare risk, because a thousand subtle reasons and interests are
against it.
One wishes, desires, and even longs for it; and yet one struggles,
combats, and resists. But, if an opportunity occurs, one is only too
happy to seize it; then one has an excuse with which to silence one’s
conscience.
In thus yielding to the impulse of one’s feelings, one can say: “It was
not I who willed it, it was fate.”
“It will be quicker, perhaps,” observed the count, “to go to Noel.”
“Let us start then, sir.”
“I hardly know though, my child,” said the old gentleman, hesitating,
“whether I may, whether I ought to take you with me. Propriety--”
“Ah, sir, propriety has nothing to do with it!” replied Claire
impetuously. “With you, and for his sake, I can go anywhere. Is it not
indispensable that I should give some explanations? Only send word to my
grandmother by Schmidt, who will come back here and await my return. I
am ready, sir.”
“Very well, then,” said the count.
Then, ringing the bell violently, he called to the servant, “My
carriage.”
In descending the steps, he insisted upon Claire’s taking his arm.
The gallant and elegant politeness of the friend of the Count d’Artois
reappeared.
“You have taken twenty years from my age,” he said; “it is but right
that I should devote to you the youth you have restored to me.”
As soon as Claire had entered the carriage, he said to the footman: “Rue
St. Lazare, quick!”
Whenever the count said “quick,” on entering his carriage, the
pedestrians had to get out of the way. But the coachman was a skillful
driver, and arrived without accident.
Aided by the concierge’s directions, the count and the young girl went
towards Madame Gerdy’s apartments. The count mounted slowly, holding
tightly to the balustrade, stopping at every landing to recover his
breath. He was, then, about to see her again! His emotion pressed his
heart like a vice.
“M. Noel Gerdy?” he asked of the servant.
The advocate had just that moment gone out. She did not know where he
had gone; but he had said he should not be out more than half an hour.
“We will wait for him, then,” said the count.
He advanced; and the servant drew back to let them pass. Noel had
strictly forbidden her to admit any visitors; but the Count de Commarin
was one of those whose appearance makes servants forget all their
orders.
Three persons were in the room into which the servant introduced the
count and Mademoiselle d’Arlange.
They were the parish priest, the doctor, and a tall man, an officer
of the Legion of Honour, whose figure and bearing indicated the old
soldier.
They were conversing near the fireplace, and the arrival of strangers
appeared to astonish them exceedingly.
In bowing, in response to M. de Commarin’s and Claire’s salutations,
they seemed to inquire their business: but this hesitation was brief,
for the soldier almost immediately offered Mademoiselle d’Arlange a
chair.
The count considered that his presence was inopportune; and he thought
that he was called upon to introduce himself, and explain his visit.
“You will excuse me, gentlemen,” said he, “if I am indiscreet. I did not
think of being so when I asked to wait for Noel, whom I have the most
pressing need of seeing. I am the Count de Commarin.”
At this name, the old soldier let go the back of the chair which he was
still holding and haughtily raised his head. An angry light flashed in
his eyes, and he made a threatening gesture. His lips moved, as if he
were about to speak; but he restrained himself, and retired, bowing his
head, to the window.
Neither the count nor the two other men noticed his strange behaviour;
but it did not escape Claire.
While Mademoiselle d’Arlange sat down rather surprised, the count, much
embarrassed at his position, went up to the priest, and asked in a low
voice, “What is, I pray, M. l’Abbe; Madame Gerdy’s condition?”
The doctor, who had a sharp ear, heard the question, and approached
quickly.
He was very pleased to have an opportunity to speak to a person as
celebrated as the Count de Commarin, and to become acquainted with him.
“I fear, sir,” he said, “that she cannot live throughout the day.”
The count pressed his hand against his forehead, as though he had felt a
sudden pain there. He hesitated to inquire further.
After a moment of chilling silence, he resolved to go on.
“Does she recognise her friends?” he murmured.
“No, sir. Since last evening, however, there has been a great change.
She was very uneasy all last night: she had moments of fierce delirium.
About an hour ago, we thought she was recovering her senses, and we sent
for M. l’Abbe.”
“Very needlessly, though,” put in the priest, “and it is a sad
misfortune. Her reason is quite gone. Poor woman! I have known her ten
years. I have been to see her nearly every week; I never knew a more
worthy person.”
“She must suffer dreadfully,” said the doctor.
Almost at the same instant, and as if to bear out the doctor’s words,
they heard stifled cries from the next room, the door of which was
slightly open.
“Do you hear?” exclaimed the count, trembling from head to foot.
Claire understood nothing of this strange scene. Dark presentiments
oppressed her; she felt as though she were enveloped in an atmosphere of
evil. She grew frightened, rose from her chair, and drew near the count.
“She is, I presume, in there?” asked M. de Commarin.
“Yes, sir,” harshly answered the old soldier, who had also drawn near.
At any other time, the count would have noticed the soldier’s tone,
and have resented it. Now, he did not even raise his eyes. He remained
insensible to everything. Was she not there, close to him? His thoughts
were in the past; it seemed to him but yesterday that he had quitted her
for the last time.
“I should very much like to see her,” he said timidly.
“That is impossible.” replied the old soldier.
“Why?” stammered the count.
“At least, M. de Commarin,” replied the soldier, “let her die in peace.”
The count started, as if he had been struck. His eyes encountered the
officer’s; he lowered them like a criminal before his judge.
“Nothing need prevent the count’s entering Madame Gerdy’s room,” put in
the doctor, who purposely saw nothing of all this. “She would probably
not notice his presence; and if--”
“Oh, she would perceive nothing!” said the priest. “I have just spoken
to her, taken her hand, she remained quite insensible.”
The old soldier reflected deeply.
“Enter,” said he at last to the count; “perhaps it is God’s will.”
The count tottered so that the doctor offered to assist him. He gently
motioned him away.
The doctor and the priest entered with him; Claire and the old soldier
remained at the threshold of the door, facing the bed.
The count took three or four steps, and was obliged to stop. He wished
to, but could not go further.
Could this dying woman really be Valerie?
He taxed his memory severely; nothing in those withered features,
nothing in that distorted face, recalled the beautiful, the adored
Valerie of his youth. He did not recognise her.
But she knew him, or rather divined his presence. With supernatural
strength, she raised herself, exposing her shoulders and emaciated arms;
then pushing away the ice from her forehead, and throwing back her still
plentiful hair, bathed with water and perspiration, she cried, “Guy!
Guy!”
The count trembled all over.
He did not perceive that which immediately struck all the other persons
present--the transformation in the sick woman. Her contracted features
relaxed, a celestial joy spread over her face, and her eyes, sunken by
disease, assumed an expression of infinite tenderness.
“Guy,” said she in a voice heartrending by its sweetness, “you have come
at last! How long, O my God! I have waited for you! You cannot think
what I have suffered by your absence. I should have died of grief, had
it not been for the hope of seeing you again. Who kept you from me?
Your parents again? How cruel of them! Did you not tell them that no one
could love you here below as I do? No, that is not it; I remember. You
were angry when you left me. Your friends wished to separate us; they
said that I was deceiving you with another. Who have I injured that I
should have so many enemies! They envied my happiness; and we were so
happy! But you did not believe the wicked calumny, you scorned it, for
are you not here?”
The nun, who had risen on seeing so many persons enter the sick room,
opened her eyes with astonishment.
“I deceive you?” continued the dying woman; “only a madman would
believe it. Am I not yours, your very own, heart and soul? To me you are
everything: and there is nothing I could expect or hope for from another
which you have not already given me. Was I not yours, alone, from the
very first? I never hesitated to give myself entirely to you; I felt
that I was born for you, Guy, do you remember? I was working for a lace
maker, and was barely earning a living. You told me you were a poor
student; I thought you were depriving yourself for me. You insisted on
having our little apartment on the Quai Saint-Michel done up. It was
lovely, with the new paper all covered with flowers, which we hung
ourselves. How delightful it was! From the window, we could see the
great trees of the Tuileries gardens; and by leaning out a little we
could see the sun set through the arches of the bridges. Oh, those happy
days! The first time that we went into the country together, one Sunday,
you brought me a more beautiful dress than I had ever dreamed of, and
such darling little boots, that it was a shame to walk out in them! But
you had deceived me! You were not a poor student. One day, when taking
my work home, I met you in an elegant carriage, with tall footmen,
dressed in liveries covered with gold lace, behind. I could not believe
my eyes. That evening you told me the truth, that you were a nobleman
and immensely rich. O my darling, why did you tell me?”
Had she her reason, or was this a mere delirium?
Great tears rolled down the Count de Commarin’s wrinkled face, and the
doctor and the priest were touched by the sad spectacle of an old man
weeping like a child.
Only the previous evening, the count had thought his heart dead; and now
this penetrating voice was sufficient to regain the fresh and powerful
feelings of his youth. Yet, how many years had passed away since then!
“After that,” continued Madame Gerdy, “we left the Quai Saint-Michel.
You wished it; and I obeyed, in spite of my apprehensions. You told me,
that, to please you, I ought to look like a great lady. You provided
teachers for me, for I was so ignorant that I scarcely knew how to sign
my name. Do you remember the queer spelling in my first letter? Ah, Guy,
if you had really only been a poor student! When I knew that you were so
rich, I lost my simplicity, my thoughtlessness, my gaiety. I feared that
you would think me covetous, that you would imagine that your fortune
influenced my love. Men who, like you, have millions, must be unhappy!
They must be always doubting and full of suspicions, they can never be
sure whether it is themselves or their gold which is loved, and this
awful doubt makes them mistrustful, jealous, and cruel. Oh my dearest,
why did we leave our dear little room? There, we were happy. Why did you
not leave me always where you first found me? Did you not know that the
sight of happiness irritates mankind? If we had been wise, we would have
hid ours like a crime. You thought to raise me, but you only sunk me
lower. You were proud of our love; you published it abroad. Vainly I
asked you in mercy to leave me in obscurity, and unknown. Soon the whole
town knew that I was your mistress. Every one was talking of the money
you spent on me. How I blushed at the flaunting luxury you thrust upon
me! You were satisfied, because my beauty became celebrated; I wept,
because my shame became so too. People talked about me, as those women
who make their lovers commit the greatest follies. Was not my name in
the papers? And it was through the same papers that I heard of your
approaching marriage. Unhappy woman! I should have fled from you, but I
had not the courage. I resigned myself, without an effort, to the most
humiliating, the most shameful of positions. You were married; and I
remained your mistress. Oh, what anguish I suffered during that terrible
evening. I was alone in my own home, in that room so associated with
you; and you were marrying another! I said to myself, ‘At this moment,
a pure, noble young girl is giving herself to him.’ I said again, ‘What
oaths is that mouth, which has so often pressed my lips, now taking?’
Often since that dreadful misfortune, I have asked heaven what crime I
had committed that I should be so terribly punished? This was the crime.
I remained your mistress, and your wife died. I only saw her once, and
then scarcely for a minute, but she looked at you, and I knew that she
loved you as only I could. Ah, Guy, it was our love that killed her!”
She stopped exhausted, but none of the bystanders moved. They listened
breathlessly, and waited with feverish emotion for her to resume.
Mademoiselle d’Arlange had not the strength to remain standing; she had
fallen upon her knees, and was pressing her handkerchief to her mouth to
keep back her sobs. Was not this woman Albert’s mother?
The worthy nun was alone unmoved; she had seen, she said to herself,
many such deliriums before. She understood absolutely nothing of what
was passing.
“These people are very foolish,” she muttered, “to pay so much attention
to the ramblings of a person out of her mind.”
She thought she had more sense than the others, so, approaching the bed,
she began to cover up the sick woman.
“Come, madame,” said she, “cover yourself, or you will catch cold.”
“Sister!” remonstrated the doctor and priest at the same moment.
“For God’s sake!” exclaimed the soldier, “let her speak.”
“Who,” continued the sick woman, unconscious of all that was passing
about her, “who told you I was deceiving you? Oh, the wretches! They set
spies upon me; they discovered that an officer came frequently to see
me. But that officer was my brother, my dear Louis! When he was eighteen
years old, and being unable to obtain work, he enlisted, saying to my
mother, that there would then be one mouth the less in the family. He
was a good soldier, and his officers always liked him. He worked whilst
with his regiment; he taught himself, and he quickly rose in rank. He
was promoted a lieutenant, then captain, and finally became major. Louis
always loved me; had he remained in Paris I should not have fallen. But
our mother died, and I was left all alone in this great city. He was a
non-commissioned officer when he first knew that I had a lover; and
he was so enraged that I feared he would never forgive me. But he did
forgive me, saying that my constancy in my error was its only excuse.
Ah, my friend, he was more jealous of your honour than you yourself! He
came to see me in secret, because I placed him in the unhappy position
of blushing for his sister. I had condemned myself never to speak of
him, never to mention his name. Could a brave soldier confess that his
sister was the mistress of a count? That it might not be known, I took
the utmost precautions, but alas! only to make you doubt me. When Louis
knew what was said, he wished in his blind rage to challenge you; and
then I was obliged to make him think that he had no right to defend me.
What misery! Ah, I have paid dearly for my years of stolen happiness!
But you are here, and all is forgotten. For you do believe me, do you
not, Guy? I will write to Louis; he will come, he will tell you that I
do not lie, and you cannot doubt his, a soldier’s word.”
“Yes, on my honour,” said the old soldier, “what my sister says is the
truth.”
The dying woman did not hear him; she continued in a voice panting
from weariness: “How your presence revives me. I feel that I am growing
stronger. I have nearly been very ill. I am afraid I am not very pretty
today; but never mind, kiss me!”
She opened her arms, and thrust out her lips as if to kiss him.
“But it is on one condition, Guy, that you will leave me my child? Oh! I
beg of you, I entreat you not to take him from me; leave him to me.
What is a mother without her child? You are anxious to give him
an illustrious name, an immense fortune. No! You tell me that this
sacrifice will be for his good. No! My child is mine; I will keep him.
The world has no honours, no riches, which can replace a mother’s love.
You wish to give me in exchange, that other woman’s child. Never! What!
you would have that woman embrace my boy! It is impossible. Take away
this strange child from me; he fills me with horror; I want my own! Ah,
do not insist, do not threaten me with anger, do not leave me. I should
give in, and then, I should die. Guy, forget this fatal project, the
thought of it alone is a crime. Cannot my prayers, my tears, can nothing
move you? Ah, well, God will punish us. All will be discovered. The day
will come when these children will demand a fearful reckoning. Guy, I
foresee the future; I see my son coming towards me, justly angered.
What does he say, great heaven! Oh, those letters, those letters, sweet
memories of our love! My son, he threatens me! He strikes me! Ah, help!
A son strike his mother. Tell no one of it, though. O my God, what
torture! Yet he knows well that I am his mother. He pretends not to
believe me. Lord, this is too much! Guy! pardon! oh, my only friend! I
have neither the power to resist, nor the courage to obey you.”
At this moment the door opening on to the landing opened, and Noel
appeared, pale as usual, but calm and composed. The dying woman saw him,
and the sight affected her like an electric shock. A terrible shudder
shook her frame; her eyes grew inordinately large, her hair seemed to
stand on end. She raised herself on her pillows, stretched out her
arm in the direction where Noel stood, and in a loud voice exclaimed,
“Assassin!”
She fell back convulsively on the bed. Some one hastened forward: she
was dead.
A deep silence prevailed.
Such is the majesty of death, and the terror which accompanies it, that,
in its presence, even the strongest and most sceptical bow their heads.
For a time, passions and interests are forgotten. Involuntarily we
are drawn together, when some mutual friend breathes his last in our
presence.
All the bystanders were deeply moved by this painful scene, this last
confession, wrested so to say from the delirium.
And the last word uttered by Madame Gerdy, “assassin,” surprised no one.
All, excepting the nun, knew of the awful accusation which had been made
against Albert.
To him they applied the unfortunate mother’s malediction.
Noel seemed quite broken hearted. Kneeling by the bedside of her who had
been as a mother to him, he took one of her hands, and pressed it close
to his lips.
“Dead!” he groaned, “she is dead!”
The nun and the priest knelt beside him, and repeated in a low voice the
prayers for the dead.
They implored God to shed his peace and mercy on the departed soul.
They begged for a little happiness in heaven for her who had suffered so
much on earth.
Fallen into a chair, his head thrown back, the Count de Commarin was
more overwhelmed and more livid than this dead woman, his old love, once
so beautiful.
Claire and the doctor hastened to assist him.
They undid his cravat, and took off his shirt collar, for he was
suffocating. With the help of the old soldier, whose red, tearful
eyes, told of suppressed grief, they moved the count’s chair to the
half-opened window to give him a little air. Three days before, this
scene would have killed him. But the heart hardens by misfortune, like
hands by labour.
“His tears have saved him,” whispered the doctor to Claire.
M. de Commarin gradually recovered, and, as his thoughts became clearer,
his sufferings returned.
Prostration follows great mental shocks. Nature seems to collect her
strength to sustain the misfortune. We do not feel all its intensity at
once; it is only afterwards that we realize the extent and profundity of
the evil.
The count’s gaze was fixed upon the bed where lay Valerie’s body. There,
then, was all that remained of her. The soul, that soul so devoted and
so tender, had flown.
What would he not have given if God would have restored that unfortunate
woman to life for a day, or even for an hour? With what transports
of repentance he would have cast himself at her feet, to implore her
pardon, to tell her how much he detested his past conduct! How had
he acknowledged the inexhaustible love of that angel? Upon a mere
suspicion, without deigning to inquire, without giving her a hearing,
he had treated her with the coldest contempt. Why had he not seen her
again? He would have spared himself twenty years of doubt as to Albert’s
birth. Instead of an isolated existence, he would have led a happy,
joyous life.
Then he remembered the countess’s death. She also had loved him, and had
died of her love.
He had not understood them; he had killed them both.
The hour of expiation had come; and he could not say: “Lord, the
punishment is too great.”
And yet, what punishment, what misfortunes, during the last five days!
“Yes,” he stammered, “she predicted it. Why did I not listen to her?”
Madame Gerdy’s brother pitied the old man, so severely tried. He held
out his hand.
“M. de Commarin,” he said, in a grave, sad voice, “my sister forgave
you long ago, even if she ever had any ill feeling against you. It is my
turn to-day; I forgive you sincerely.”
“Thank you, sir,” murmured the count, “thank you!” and then he added:
“What a death!”
“Yes,” murmured Claire, “she breathed her last in the idea that her son
was guilty of a crime. And we were not able to undeceive her.”
“At least,” cried the count, “her son should be free to render her his
last duties; yes, he must be. Noel!”
The advocate had approached his father, and heard all.
“I have promised, father,” he replied, “to save him.”
For the first time, Mademoiselle d’Arlange was face to face with Noel.
Their eyes met, and she could not restrain a movement of repugnance,
which the advocate perceived.
“Albert is already saved,” she said proudly. “What we ask is, that
prompt justice shall be done him; that he shall be immediately set at
liberty. The magistrate now knows the truth.”
“The truth?” exclaimed the advocate.
“Yes; Albert passed at my house, with me, the evening the crime was
committed.”
Noel looked at her surprised; so singular a confession from such a
mouth, without explanation, might well surprise him.
She drew herself up haughtily.
“I am Mademoiselle Claire d’Arlange, sir,” said she.
M. de Commarin now quickly ran over all the incidents reported by
Claire.
When he had finished, Noel replied: “You see, sir, my position at this
moment, to-morrow--”
“To-morrow?” interrupted the count, “you said, I believe, to-morrow!
Honour demands, sir, that we act to-day, at this moment. You can show
your love for this poor woman much better by delivering her son than by
praying for her.”
Noel bowed low.
“To hear your wish, sir, is to obey it,” he said; “I go. This evening,
at your house, I shall have the honour of giving you an account of my
proceedings. Perhaps I shall be able to bring Albert with me.”
He spoke, and, again embracing the dead woman, went out.
Soon the count and Mademoiselle d’Arlange also retired.
The old soldier went to the Mayor, to give notice of the death, and to
fulfil the necessary formalities.
The nun alone remained, awaiting the priest, which the cure had promised
to send to watch the corpse.
The daughter of St. Vincent felt neither fear nor embarrassment, she had
been so many times in a similar position. Her prayers said, she arose
and went about the room, arranging everything as it should be in the
presence of death. She removed all traces of the illness, put away the
medicine bottles, burnt some sugar upon the fire shovel, and, on a table
covered with a white cloth at the head of the bed, placed some lighted
candles, a crucifix with holy water, and a branch of palm.
CHAPTER XVII.
Greatly troubled and perplexed by Mademoiselle d’Arlange’s revelations,
M. Daburon was ascending the stairs that led to the offices of the
investigating magistrates, when he saw old Tabaret coming towards him.
The sight pleased him, and he at once called out: “M. Tabaret!”
But the old fellow, who showed signs of the most intense agitation, was
scarcely disposed to stop, or to lose a single minute.
“You must excuse me, sir,” he said, bowing, “but I am expected at home.”
“I hope, however--”
“Oh, he is innocent,” interrupted old Tabaret. “I have already some
proofs; and before three days--But you are going to see Gevrol’s man
with the earrings. He is very cunning, Gevrol; I misjudged him.”
And without listening to another word, he hurried away, jumping down
three steps at a times, at the risk of breaking his neck.
M. Daburon, greatly disappointed, also hastened on.
In the passage, on a bench of rough wood before his office door, Albert
sat awaiting him, under the charge of a Garde de Paris.
“You will be summoned immediately, sir,” said the magistrate to the
prisoner, as he opened his door.
In the office, Constant was talking with a skinny little man, who
might have been taken, from his dress, for a well-to-do inhabitant of
Batignolles, had it not been for the enormous pin in imitation gold
which shone in his cravat, and betrayed the detective.
“You received my letters?” asked M. Daburon of his clerk.
“Your orders have been executed, sir; the prisoner is without, and here
is M. Martin, who this moment arrived from the neighbourhood of the
Invalides.”
“That is well,” said the magistrate in a satisfied tone. And, turning
towards the detective, “Well, M. Martin,” he asked, “what did you see?”
“The walls had been scaled, sir.”
“Lately?”
“Five or six days ago.”
“You are sure of this?”
“As sure as I am that I see M. Constant at this moment mending his pen.”
“The marks are plain?”
“As plain as the nose on my face, sir, if I may so express myself. The
thief--it was done by a thief, I imagine,” continued M. Martin, who was
a great talker--“the thief entered the garden before the rain, and went
away after it, as you had conjectured. This circumstance is easy to
establish by examining the marks on the wall of the ascent and the
descent on the side towards the street. These marks are several
abrasions, evidently made by feet of some one climbing. The first are
clean; the others, muddy. The scamp--he was a nimble fellow--in getting
in, pulled himself up by the strength of his wrists; but when going
away, he enjoyed the luxury of a ladder, which he threw down as soon as
he was on the top of the wall. It is to see where he placed it, by holes
made in the ground by the fellow’s weight; and also by the mortar which
has been knocked away from the top of the wall.”
“Is that all?” asked the magistrate.
“Not yet, sir. Three of the pieces of glass which cover the top of the
wall have been removed. Several of the acacia branches, which extend
over the wall have been twisted or broken. Adhering to the thorns of
one of these branches, I found this little piece of lavender kid, which
appears to me to belong to a glove.”
The magistrate eagerly seized the piece of kid.
It had evidently come from a glove.
“You took care, I hope, M. Martin,” said M. Daburon, “not to attract
attention at the house where you made this investigation?”
“Certainly, sir. I first of all examined the exterior of the wall at my
leisure. After that, leaving my hat at a wine shop round the corner,
I called at the Marchioness d’Arlange’s house, pretending to be the
servant of a neighbouring duchess, who was in despair at having lost a
favourite, and, if I may so speak, an eloquent parrot. I was very
kindly given permission to explore the garden; and, as I spoke as
disrespectfully as possible of my pretended mistress they, no doubt,
took me for a genuine servant.”
“You are an adroit and prompt fellow, M. Martin,” interrupted the
magistrate. “I am well satisfied with you; and I will report you
favourably at headquarters.”
He rang his bell, while the detective, delighted at the praise he had
received, moved backwards to the door, bowing the while.
Albert was then brought in.
“Have you decided, sir,” asked the investigating magistrate without
preamble, “to give me a true account of how you spent last Tuesday
evening?”
“I have already told you, sir.”
“No, sir, you have not; and I regret to say that you lied to me.”
Albert, at this apparent insult, turned red, and his eyes flashed.
“I know all that you did on that evening,” continued the magistrate,
“because justice, as I have already told you, is ignorant of nothing
that it is important for it to know.”
Then, looking straight into Albert’s eyes, he continued slowly: “I have
seen Mademoiselle Claire d’Arlange.”
On hearing that name, the prisoner’s features, contracted by a firm
resolve not to give way, relaxed.
It seemed as though he experienced an immense sensation of delight, like
a man who escapes almost by a miracle from an imminent danger which he
had despaired of avoiding. However, he made no reply.
“Mademoiselle d’Arlange,” continued the magistrate, “has told me where
you were on Tuesday evening.”
Albert still hesitated.
“I am not setting a trap for you,” added M. Daburon; “I give you my word
of honour. She has told me all, you understand?”
This time Albert decided to speak.
His explanations corresponded exactly with Claire’s; not one detail
more. Henceforth, doubt was impossible.
Mademoiselle d’Arlange had not been imposed upon. Either Albert was
innocent, or she was his accomplice.
Could she knowingly be the accomplice of such an odious crime? No; she
could not even be suspected of it.
But who then was the assassin?
For, when a crime has been committed, justice demands a culprit.
“You see, sir,” said the magistrate severely to Albert, “you did deceive
me. You risked your life, sir, and, what is also very serious, you
exposed me, you exposed justice, to commit a most deplorable mistake.
Why did you not tell me the truth at once?”
“Mademoiselle d’Arlange, sir,” replied Albert, “in according me a
meeting, trusted in my honour.”
“And you would have died sooner than mention that interview?”
interrupted M. Daburon with a touch of irony. “That is all very fine,
sir, and worthy of the days of chivalry!”
“I am not the hero that you suppose, sir,” replied the prisoner simply.
“If I told you that I did not count on Claire, I should be telling a
falsehood. I was waiting for her. I knew that, on learning of my arrest,
she would brave everything to save me. But her friends might have hid it
from her; and that was what I feared. In that event, I do not think,
so far as one can answer for oneself, that I should have mentioned her
name.”
There was no appearance of bravado. What Albert said, he thought and
felt. M. Daburon regretted his irony.
“Sir,” he said kindly, “you must return to your prison. I cannot release
you yet; but you will be no longer in solitary confinement. You will be
treated with every attention due to a prisoner whose innocence appears
probable.”
Albert bowed, and thanked him; and was then removed.
“We are now ready for Gevrol,” said the magistrate to his clerk.
The chief of detectives was absent: he had been sent for from the
Prefecture of Police; but his witness, the man with the earrings, was
waiting in the passage.
He was told to enter.
He was one of those short, thick-set men, powerful as oaks, who look as
though they could carry almost any weight on their broad shoulders.
His white hair and whiskers set off his features, hardened and tanned
by the inclemency of the weather, the sea winds and the heat of the
tropics.
He had large callous black hands, with big sinewy fingers which must
have possessed the strength of a vice.
Great earrings in the form of anchors hung from his ears. He was dressed
in the costume of a well-to-do Normandy fisherman, out for a holiday.
The clerk was obliged to push him into the office, for this son of the
ocean was timid and abashed when on shore.
He advanced, balancing himself first on one leg, then on the other, with
that irregular walk of the sailor, who, used to the rolling and tossing
of the waves, is surprised to find anything immovable beneath his feet.
To give himself confidence, he fumbled over his soft felt hat, decorated
with little lead medals, like the cap of king Louis XI. of devout
memory, and also adorned with some of that worsted twist made by the
young country girls, on a primitive frame composed of four or five pins
stuck in a hollow cork.
M. Daburon examined him, and estimated him at a glance. There was no
doubt but that he was the sunburnt man described by one of the witnesses
at La Jonchere.
It was also impossible to doubt his honesty. His open countenance
displayed sincerity and good nature.
“Your name?” demanded the investigating magistrate.
“Marie Pierre Lerouge.”
“Are you, then, related to Claudine Lerouge?”
“I am her husband, sir.”
What, the husband of the victim alive, and the police ignorant of his
existence!
Thus thought M. Daburon.
What, then, does this wonderful progress in invention accomplish?
To-day, precisely as twenty years ago, when Justice is in doubt, it
requires the same inordinate loss of time and money to obtain the
slightest information.
On Friday, they had written to inquire about Claudine’s past life; it
was now Monday, and no reply had arrived.
And yet photography was in existence, and the electric telegraph. They
had at their service a thousand means, formerly unknown; and they made
no use of them.
“Every one,” said the magistrate, “believed her a widow. She herself
pretended to be one.”
“Yes, for in that way she partly excused her conduct. Besides, it was an
arrangement between ourselves. I had told her that I would have nothing
more to do with her.”
“Indeed? Well, you know that she is dead, victim of an odious crime?”
“The detective who brought me here told me of it, sir,” replied the
sailor, his face darkening. “She was a wretch!” he added in a hollow
voice.
“How? You, her husband, accuse her?”
“I have but too good reason to do so, sir. Ah, my dead father, who
foresaw it all at the time, warned me! I laughed, when he said, ‘Take
care, or she will dishonour us all.’ He was right. Through her, I
have been hunted down by the police, just like some skulking thief.
Everywhere that they inquired after me with their warrant, people must
have said ‘Ah, ha, he has then committed some crime!’ And here I am
before a magistrate! Ah, sir, what a disgrace! The Lerouges have been
honest people, from father to son, ever since the world began.
Inquire of all who have ever had dealings with me, they will tell you,
‘Lerouge’s word is as good as another man’s writing.’ Yes, she was a
wicked woman; and I have often told her that she would come to a bad
end.”
“You told her that?”
“More than a hundred times, sir.”
“Why? Come, my friend, do not be uneasy, your honour is not at stake
here, no one questions it. When did you warn her so wisely?”
“Ah, a long time ago, sir,” replied the sailor, “the first time was more
than thirty years back. She had ambition even in her blood; she wished
to mix herself up in the intrigues of the great. It was that that ruined
her. She said that one got money for keeping secrets; and I said that
one got disgraced and that was all. To help the great to hide their
villainies, and to expect happiness from it, is like making your bed of
thorns, in the hope of sleeping well. But she had a will of her own.”
“You were her husband, though,” objected M. Daburon, “you had the right
to command her obedience.”
The sailor shook his head, and heaved a deep sigh.
“Alas, sir! it was I who obeyed.”
To proceed by short inquiries with a witness, when you have no idea of
the information he brings, is but to lose time in attempting to gain it.
When you think you are approaching the important fact, you may be just
avoiding it. It is much better to give the witness the rein, and to
listen carefully, putting him back on the track should he get too
far away. It is the surest and easiest method. This was the course
M. Daburon adopted, all the time cursing Gevrol’s absence, as he by a
single word could have shortened by a good half the examination, the
importance of which, by the way, the magistrate did not even suspect.
“In what intrigues did your wife mingle?” asked he. “Go on, my friend,
tell me everything exactly; here, you know, we must have not only the
truth, but the whole truth.”
Lerouge placed his hat on a chair. Then he began alternately to pull
his fingers, making them crack almost sufficiently to break them, and
ultimately scratched his head violently. It was his way of arranging his
ideas.
“I must tell you,” he began, “that it will be thirty-five years on St.
John’s day since I fell in love with Claudine. She was a pretty, neat,
fascinating girl, with a voice sweeter than honey. She was the most
beautiful girl in our part of the country, straight as a mast, supple as
a willow, graceful and strong as a racing boat. Her eyes sparkled like
old cider; her hair was black, her teeth as white as pearls, and her
breath was as fresh as the sea breeze. The misfortune was, that she
hadn’t a sou, while we were in easy circumstances. Her mother, who was
the widow of I can’t say how many husbands, was, saving your presence,
a bad woman, and my father was the worthiest man alive. When I spoke to
the old fellow of marrying Claudine he swore fiercely, and eight
days after, he sent me to Porto on a schooner belonging to one of our
neighbours, just to give me a change of air. I came back, at the end of
six months, thinner than a marling spike, but more in love than ever.
Recollections of Claudine scorched me like a fire. I could scarcely eat
or drink; but I felt that she loved me a little in return, for I was a
fine young fellow, and more than one girl had set her cap at me. Then
my father, seeing that he could do nothing, that I was wasting away,
and was on the road to join my mother in the cemetery, decided to let
me complete my folly. So one evening, after we had returned from fishing
and I got up from supper without tasting it, he said to me, ‘Marry
the hag’s daughter, and let’s have no more of this.’ I remember it
distinctly, because, when I heard the old fellow call my love such a
name, I flew into a great passion, and almost wanted to kill him. Ah,
one never gains anything by marrying in opposition to one’s parents!”
The worthy fellow was lost in the midst of his recollections. He was
very far from his story. The investigating magistrate attempted to bring
him back into the right path, “Come to the point,” he said.
“I am going to, sir; but it was necessary to begin at the beginning.
I married. The evening after the wedding, and when the relatives and
guests had departed, I was about to join my wife, when I perceived my
father all alone in a corner weeping. The sight touched my heart, and
I had a foreboding of evil; but it quickly passed away. It is so
delightful during the first six months one passes with a dearly loved
wife! One seems to be surrounded by mists that change the very rocks
into palaces and temples so completely that novices are taken in. For
two years, in spite of a few little quarrels, everything went on nicely.
Claudine managed me like a child. Ah, she was cunning! She might have
seized and bound me, and carried me to market and sold me, without my
noticing it. Her great fault was her love of finery. All that I earned,
and my business was very prosperous, she put on her back. Every week
there was something new, dresses, jewels, bonnets, the devil’s baubles,
which the dealers invent for the perdition of the female sex. The
neighbors chattered, but I thought it was all right. At the baptism
of our son, who was called Jacques after my father, to please her, I
squandered all I had economized during my youth, more than three hundred
pistoles, with which I had intended purchasing a meadow that lay in the
midst of our property.”
M. Daburon was boiling over with impatience, but he could do nothing.
“Go on, go on,” he said every time Lerouge seemed inclined to stop.
“I was well enough pleased,” continued the sailor, “until one morning
I saw one of the Count de Commarin’s servants entering our house; the
count’s chateau is only about a mile from where I lived on the other
side of the town. It was a fellow named Germain whom I didn’t like at
all. It was said about the country that he had been mixed up in the
seduction of poor Thomassine, a fine young girl who lived near us; she
appears to have pleased the count, and one day suddenly disappeared. I
asked my wife what the fellow wanted; she replied that he had come to
ask her to take a child to nurse. I would not hear of it at first, for
our means were sufficient to allow Claudine to keep all her milk for
our own child. But she gave me the very best of reasons. She said she
regretted her past flirtations and her extravagance. She wished to
earn a little money, being ashamed of doing nothing while I was killing
myself with work. She wanted to save, to economize, so that our child
should not be obliged in his turn to go to sea. She was to get a very
good price, that we could save up to go towards the three hundred
pistoles. That confounded meadow, to which she alluded, decided me.”
“Did she not tell you of the commission with which she was charged?”
asked the magistrate.
This question astonished Lerouge. He thought that there was good reason
to say that justice sees and knows everything.
“Not then,” he answered, “but you will see. Eight days after, the
postman brought a letter, asking her to go to Paris to fetch the
child. It arrived in the evening. ‘Very well,’ said she, ‘I will start
to-morrow by the diligence.’ I didn’t say a word then; but next morning,
when she was about to take her seat in the diligence, I declared that I
was going with her. She didn’t seem at all angry, on the contrary. She
kissed me, and I was delighted. At Paris, she was to call for the little
one at a Madame Gerdy’s, who lived on the Boulevard. We arranged that
she should go alone, while I awaited for her at our inn. After she
had gone, I grew uneasy. I went out soon after, and prowled about near
Madame Gerdy’s house, making inquiries of the servants and others; I
soon discovered that she was the Count de Commarin’s mistress. I felt
so annoyed that, if I had been master, my wife should have come away
without the little bastard. I am only a poor sailor, and I know that
a man sometimes forgets himself. One takes too much to drink, for
instance, or goes out on the loose with some friends; but that a man
with a wife and children should live with another woman and give her
what really belongs to his legitimate offspring, I think is bad--very
bad. Is it not so, sir?”
The investigating magistrate moved impatiently in his chair. “Will
this man never come to the point,” he muttered. “Yes, you are perfectly
right,” he added aloud; “but never mind your thoughts. Go on, go on!”
“Claudine, sir, was more obstinate than a mule. After three days of
violent discussion, she obtained from me a reluctant consent, between
two kisses. Then she told me that we were not going to return home by
the diligence. The lady, who feared the fatigue of the journey for her
child, had arranged that we should travel back by short stages, in her
carriage, and drawn by her horses. For she was kept in grand style. I
was ass enough to be delighted, because it gave me a chance to see the
country at my leisure. We were, therefore, installed with the children,
mine and the other, in an elegant carriage, drawn by magnificent
animals, and driven by a coachman in livery. My wife was mad with joy;
she kissed me over and over again, and chinked handfuls of gold in my
face. I felt as foolish as an honest husband who finds money in his
house which he didn’t earn himself. Seeing how I felt, Claudine, hoping
to pacify me, resolved to tell me the whole truth. ‘See here,’ she said
to me,--”
Lerouge stopped, and, changing his tone, said, “You understand that it
is my wife who is speaking?”
“Yes, yes. Go on.”
“She said to me, shaking her pocket full of money, ‘See here, my man, we
shall always have as much of this as ever we may want, and this is why:
The count, who also had a legitimate child at the same time as this
bastard, wishes that this one shall bear his name instead of the other;
and this can be accomplished, thanks to me. On the road, we shall meet
at the inn, where we are to sleep, M. Germain and the nurse to whom they
have entrusted the legitimate son. We shall be put in the same room,
and, during the night, I am to change the little ones, who have been
purposely dressed alike. For this the count gives me eight thousand
francs down, and a life annuity of a thousand francs.’”
“And you!” exclaimed the magistrate, “you, who call yourself an honest
man, permitted such villainy, when one word would have been sufficient
to prevent it?”
“Sir, I beg of you,” entreated Lerouge, “permit me to finish.”
“Well, continue!”
“I could say nothing at first, I was so choked with rage. I must have
looked terrible. But she, who was generally afraid of me when I was in
a passion, burst out laughing, and said, ‘What a fool you are! Listen,
before turning sour like a bowl of milk. The count is the only one who
wants this change made; and he is the one that’s to pay for it. His
mistress, this little one’s mother, doesn’t want it at all; she merely
pretended to consent, so as not to quarrel with her lover, and because
she has got a plan of her own. She took me aside, during my visit in her
room, and, after having made me swear secrecy on a crucifix, she told
me that she couldn’t bear the idea of separating herself from her babe
forever, and of bringing up another’s child. She added that, if I would
agree not to change the children, and not to tell the count, she would
give me ten thousand francs down, and guarantee me an annuity equal to
the one the count had promised me. She declared, also, that she could
easily find out whether I kept my word, as she had made a mark of
recognition on her little one. She didn’t show me the mark; and I have
examined him carefully, but can’t find it. Do you understand now? I
merely take care of this little fellow here. I tell the count that I
have changed the children; we receive from both sides, and Jacques will
be rich. Now kiss your little wife who has more sense than you, you old
dear!’ That, sir, is word for word what Claudine said to me.”
The rough sailor drew from his pocket a large blue-checked handkerchief,
and blew his nose so violently that the windows shook. It was his way of
weeping.
M. Daburon was confounded. Since the beginning of this sad affair, he
had encountered surprise after surprise. Scarcely had he got his ideas
in order on one point, when all his attention was directed to another.
He felt himself utterly routed. What was he about to learn now? He
longed to interrogate quickly, but he saw that Lerouge told his story
with difficulty, laboriously disentangling his recollections; he was
guided by a single thread which the least interruption might seriously
entangle.
“What Claudine proposed to me,” continued the sailor, “was villainous;
and I am an honest man. But she kneaded me to her will as easily as a
baker kneads dough. She turned my heart topsy-turvy: she made me see
white as snow that which was really as black as ink. How I loved her!
She proved to me that we were wronging no one, that we were making
little Jacques’s fortune, and I was silenced. At evening we arrived at
some village; and the coachman, stopping the carriage before an inn,
told us we were to sleep there. We entered, and who do you think we saw?
That scamp, Germain, with a nurse carrying a child dressed so exactly
like the one we had that I was startled. They had journeyed there, like
ourselves, in one of the count’s carriages. A suspicion crossed my mind.
How could I be sure that Claudine had not invented the second story
to pacify me? She was certainly capable of it. I was enraged. I had
consented to the one wickedness, but not to the other. I resolved not
to lose sight of the little bastard, swearing that they shouldn’t change
it; so I kept him all the evening on my knees, and to be all the more
sure, I tied my handkerchief about his waist. Ah! the plan had been well
laid. After supper, some one spoke of retiring, and then it turned out
that there were only two double-bedded rooms in the house. It seemed as
though it had been built expressly for the scheme. The innkeeper said
that the two nurses might sleep in one room, and Germain and myself in
the other. Do you understand, sir? Add to this, that during the evening
I had surprised looks of intelligence passing between my wife and
that rascally servant, and you can imagine how furious I was. It was
conscience that spoke; and I was trying to silence it. I knew very well
that I was doing wrong; and I almost wished myself dead. Why is it that
women can turn an honest man’s conscience about like a weather-cock with
their wheedling?”
M. Daburon’s only reply was a heavy blow of his fist on the table.
Lerouge proceeded more quickly.
“As for me, I upset that arrangement, pretending to be too jealous to
leave my wife a minute. They were obliged to give way to me. The other
nurse went up to bed first. Claudine and I followed soon afterwards. My
wife undressed and got into bed with our son and the little bastard. I
did not undress. Under the pretext that I should be in the way of the
children, I installed myself in a chair near the bed, determined not to
shut my eyes, and to keep close watch. I put out the candle, in order to
let the women sleep, though I could not think of doing so myself; and I
thought of my father, and of what he would say, if he ever heard of my
behaviour. Towards midnight, I heard Claudine moving. I held my breath.
She was getting out of bed. Was she going to change the children? Now,
I knew that she was not; then, I felt sure that she was. I was beside
myself, and seizing her by the arm, I commenced to beat her roughly,
giving free vent to all that I had on my heart. I spoke in a loud voice,
the same as when I am on board ship in a storm; I swore like a fiend, I
raised a frightful disturbance. The other nurse cried out as though she
were being murdered. At this uproar, Germain rushed in with a lighted
candle. The sight of him finished me. Not knowing what I was doing, I
drew from my pocket a long Spanish knife, which I always carried, and
seizing the cursed bastard, I thrust the blade through his arm, crying,
‘This way, at least, he can’t be changed without my knowing it; he is
marked for life!’”
Lerouge could scarcely utter another word. Great drops of sweat stood
out upon his brow, then, trickling down his cheeks, lodged in the deep
wrinkles of his face. He panted; but the magistrate’s stern glance
harassed him, and urged him on, like the whip which flogs the negro
slave overcome with fatigue.
“The little fellow’s wound,” he resumed, “was terrible. It bled
dreadfully, and he might have died; but I didn’t think of that. I was
only troubled about the future, about what might happen afterwards. I
declared that I would write out all that had occurred, and that everyone
should sign it. This was done; we could all four write. Germain didn’t
dare resist; for I spoke with knife in hand. He wrote his name first,
begging me to say nothing about it to the count, swearing that, for his
part, he would never breathe a word of it, and pledging the other nurse
to a like secrecy.”
“And have you kept this paper?” asked M. Daburon.
“Yes, sir, and as the detective to whom I confessed all, advised me to
bring it with me, I went to take it from the place where I always kept
it, and I have it here.”
“Give it to me.”
Lerouge took from his coat pocket an old parchment pocket-book, fastened
with a leather thong, and withdrew from it a paper yellowed by age and
carefully sealed.
“Here it is,” said he. “The paper hasn’t been opened since that accursed
night.”
And, in fact, when the magistrate unfolded it, some dust fell out, which
had been used to keep the writing, when wet, from blotting.
It was really a brief description of the scene, described by the old
sailor. The four signatures were there.
“What has become of the witnesses who signed this declaration?” murmured
the magistrate, speaking to himself.
Lerouge, who thought the question was put to him, replied, “Germain is
dead. I have been told that he was drowned when out rowing. Claudine
has just been assassinated; but the other nurse still lives. I even know
that she spoke of the affair to her husband, for he hinted as much
to me. His name is Brosette, and she lives in the village of Commarin
itself.”
“And what next?” asked the magistrate, after having taken down the name
and address.
“The next day, sir, Claudine managed to pacify me, and extorted a
promise of secrecy. The child was scarcely ill at all; but he retained
an enormous scar on his arm.”
“Was Madame Gerdy informed of what took place?”
“I do not think so, sir. But I would rather say that I do not know.”
“What! you do not know?”
“Yes, sir, I swear it. You see my ignorance comes from what happened
afterwards.”
“What happened, then?”
The sailor hesitated.
“That, sir, concerns only myself, and--”
“My friend,” interrupted the magistrate, “you are an honest man, I
believe; in fact, I am sure of it. But once in your life, influenced by
a wicked woman, you did wrong, you became an accomplice in a very guilty
action. Repair that error by speaking truly now. All that is said here,
and which is not directly connected with the crime, will remain secret;
even I will forget it immediately. Fear nothing, therefore; and, if you
experience some humiliation, think that it is your punishment for the
past.”
“Alas, sir,” answered the sailor, “I have been already greatly punished;
and it is a long time since my troubles began. Money, wickedly acquired,
brings no good. On arriving home, I bought the wretched meadow for much
more than it was worth; and the day I walked over it, feeling that is
was actually mine, closed my happiness. Claudine was a coquette; but she
had a great many other vices. When she realised how much money we had
these vices showed themselves, just like a fire, smouldering at the
bottom of the hold, bursts forth when you open the hatches. From
slightly greedy as she had been, she became a regular glutton. In our
house there was feasting without end. Whenever I went to sea, she would
entertain the worst women in the place; and there was nothing too good
or too expensive for them. She would get so drunk that she would have to
be put to bed. Well, one night, when she thought me at Rouen, I returned
unexpectedly. I entered, and found her with a man. And such a man, sir!
A miserable looking wretch, ugly, dirty, stinking; shunned by everyone;
in a word the bailiff’s clerk. I should have killed him, like the vermin
that he was; it was my right, but he was such a pitiful object. I took
him by the neck and pitched him out of the window, without opening it!
It didn’t kill him. Then I fell upon my wife, and beat her until she
couldn’t stir.”
Lerouge spoke in a hoarse voice, every now and then thrusting his fists
into his eyes.
“I pardoned her,” he continued; “but the man who beats his wife and then
pardons her is lost. In the future, she took better precautions, became
a greater hypocrite, and that was all. In the meanwhile, Madame Gerdy
took back her child; and Claudine had nothing more to restrain her.
Protected and counselled by her mother, whom she had taken to live with
us, on the pretence of looking after Jacques, she managed to deceive me
for more than a year. I thought she had given up her bad habits, but not
at all; she lived a most disgraceful life. My house became the resort of
all the good-for-nothing rogues in the country, for whom my wife brought
out bottles of wine and brandy, whenever I was away at sea, and they got
drunk promiscuously. When money failed, she wrote to the count or his
mistress, and the orgies continued. Occasionally I had doubts which
disturbed me; and then without reason, for a simple yes or no, I would
beat her until I was tired, and then I would forgive her, like a coward,
like a fool. It was a cursed life. I don’t know which gave me the most
pleasure, embracing her or beating her. My neighbors despised me, and
turned their backs on me; they believed me an accomplice or a willing
dupe. I heard, afterwards, that they believed I profited by my wife’s
misconduct; while in reality she paid her lovers. At all events, people
wondered where all the money came from that was spent in my house. To
distinguish me from a cousin of mine, also named Lerouge, they tacked
an infamous word on to my name. What disgrace! And I knew nothing of all
the scandal, no, nothing. Was I not the husband? Fortunately, though, my
poor father was dead.”
M. Daburon pitied the speaker sincerely.
“Rest a while, my friend,” he said; “compose yourself.”
“No,” replied the sailor, “I would rather get through with it quickly.
One man, the priest, had the charity to tell me of it. If ever he should
want Lerouge! Without losing a minute, I went and saw a lawyer, and
asked him how an honest sailor who had had the misfortune to marry a
hussy ought to act. He said that nothing could be done. To go to law was
simply to publish abroad one’s own dishonour, while a separation would
accomplish nothing. When once a man has given his name to a woman, he
told me, he cannot take it back; it belongs to her for the rest of her
days, and she has a right to dispose of it. She may sully it, cover it
with mire, drag it from wine shop to wine shop, and her husband can do
nothing. That being the case, my course was soon taken. That same day, I
sold the fatal meadow, and sent the proceeds of it to Claudine, wishing
to keep nothing of the price of shame. I then had a document drawn up,
authorising her to administer our property, but not allowing her either
to sell or mortgage it. Then I wrote her a letter in which I told her
that she need never expect to hear of me again, that I was nothing more
to her, and that she might look upon herself as a widow. That same night
I went away with my son.”
“And what became of your wife after your departure?”
“I cannot say, sir; I only know that she quitted the neighbourhood a
year after I did.”
“You have never lived with her since?”
“Never.”
“But you were at her house three days before the crime was committed.”
“That is true, but it was absolutely necessary. I had had much trouble
to find her, no one knew what had become of her. Fortunately my notary
was able to procure Madame Gerdy’s address; he wrote to her, and that
is how I learnt that Claudine was living at La Jonchere. I was then at
Rome. Captain Gervais, who is a friend of mine, offered to take me to
Paris on his boat, and I accepted. Ah, sir, what a shock I experienced
when I entered her house! My wife did not know me! By constantly telling
everyone that I was dead, she had without a doubt ended by believing
it herself. When I told her my name, she fell back in her chair. The
wretched woman had not changed in the least; she had by her side a glass
and a bottle of brandy--”
“All this doesn’t explain why you went to seek your wife.”
“It was on Jacques’s account, sir, that I went. The youngster has grown
to be a man; and he wants to marry. For that, his mother’s consent was
necessary; and I was taking to Claudine a document which the notary had
drawn up, and which she signed. This is it.”
M. Daburon took the paper, and appeared to read it attentively. After
a moment he asked: “Have you thought who could have assassinated your
wife?”
Lerouge made no reply.
“Do you suspect any one?” persisted the magistrate.
“Well, sir,” replied the sailor, “what can I say? I thought that
Claudine had wearied out the people from whom she drew money, like water
from a well; or else getting drunk one day, she had blabbed too freely.”
The testimony being as complete as possible, M. Daburon dismissed
Lerouge, at the same time telling him to wait for Gevrol, who would take
him to a hotel, where he might wait, at the disposal of justice, until
further orders.
“All your expenses will be paid you,” added the magistrate.
Lerouge had scarcely left, when an extraordinary, unheard of,
unprecedented event took place in the magistrate’s office. Constant, the
serious, impressive, immovable, deaf and dumb Constant, rose from his
seat and spoke.
He broke a silence of fifteen years. He forgot himself so far as to
offer an opinion.
“This, sir,” said he, “is a most extraordinary affair.”
Very extraordinary, truly, thought M. Daburon, and calculated to rout
all predictions, all preconceived opinions.
Why had he, the magistrate, moved with such deplorable haste? Why before
risking anything, had he not waited to possess all the elements of this
important case, to hold all the threads of this complicated drama?
Justice is accused of slowness; but it is this very slowness that
constitutes its strength and surety, its almost infallibility. One
scarcely knows what a time evidence takes to produce itself. There is no
knowing what important testimony investigations apparently useless may
reveal.
When the entanglement of the various passions and motives seems
hopeless, an unknown personage presents himself, coming from no one
knows where, and it is he who explains everything.
M. Daburon, usually the most prudent of men, had considered as simple
one of the most complex of cases. He had acted in a mysterious crime,
which demanded the utmost caution, as carelessly as though it were a
case of simple misdemeanour. Why? Because his memory had not left him
his free deliberation, judgment, and discernment. He had feared equally
appearing weak and being revengeful. Thinking himself sure of his facts,
he had been carried away by his animosity. And yet how often had he
not asked himself: Where is duty? But then, when one is at all doubtful
about duty, one is on the wrong road.
The singular part of it all was that the magistrate’s faults sprang from
his very honesty. He had been led astray by a too great refinement of
conscience. The scruples which troubled him had filled his mind with
phantoms, and had prompted in him the passionate animosity he had
displayed at a certain moment.
Calmer now, he examined the case more soundly. As a whole, thank heaven!
there was nothing done which could not be repaired. He accused himself,
however, none the less harshly. Chance alone had stopped him. At that
moment he resolved that he would never undertake another investigation.
His profession henceforth inspired him with an unconquerable loathing.
Then his interview with Claire had re-opened all the old wounds in his
heart, and they bled more painfully than ever. He felt, in despair, that
his life was broken, ruined. A man may well feel so, when all women are
as nothing to him except one, whom he may never dare hope to possess.
Too pious a man to think of suicide, he asked himself with anguish what
would become of him when he threw aside his magistrate’s robes.
Then he turned again to the business in hand. In any case, innocent
or guilty, Albert was really the Viscount de Commarin, the count’s
legitimate son. But was he guilty? Evidently he was not.
“I think,” exclaimed M. Daburon suddenly, “I must speak to the Count de
Commarin. Constant, send to his house a message for him to come here at
once; if he is not at home, he must be sought for.”
M. Daburon felt that an unpleasant duty was before him. He would be
obliged to say to the old nobleman: “Sir, your legitimate son is not
Noel, but Albert.” What a position, not only painful, but bordering on
the ridiculous! As a compensation, though, he could tell him that Albert
was innocent.
To Noel he would also have to tell the truth: hurl him to earth, after
having raised him among the clouds. What a blow it would be! But,
without a doubt, the count would make him some compensation; at least,
he ought to.
“Now,” murmured the magistrate, “who can be the criminal?”
An idea crossed his mind, at first it seemed to him absurd. He rejected
it, then thought of it again. He examined it in all its various aspects.
He had almost adopted it, when M. de Commarin entered. M. Daburon’s
messenger had arrived just as the count was alighting from his carriage,
on returning with Claire from Madame Gerdy’s.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Old Tabaret talked, but he acted also.
Abandoned by the investigating magistrate to his own resources, he set
to work without losing a minute and without taking a moment’s rest.
The story of the cabriolet, drawn by a swift horse, was exact in every
particular.
Lavish with his money, the old fellow had gathered together a dozen
detectives on leave or rogues out of work; and at the head of these
worthy assistants, seconded by his friend Lecoq, he had gone to
Bougival.
He had actually searched the country, house by house, with the obstinacy
and the patience of a maniac hunting for a needle in a hay-stack.
His efforts were not absolutely wasted.
After three days’ investigation, he felt comparatively certain that the
assassin had not left the train at Rueil, as all the people of Bougival,
La Jonchere, and Marly do, but had gone on as far as Chatou.
Tabaret thought he recognized him in a man described to him by the
porters at that station as rather young, dark, and with black whiskers,
carrying an overcoat and an umbrella.
This person, who arrived by the train which left Paris for St. Germain
at thirty-five minutes past eight in the evening, had appeared to be in
a very great hurry.
On quitting the station, he had started off at a rapid pace on the road
which led to Bougival. Upon the way, two men from Marly and a woman from
La Malmaison had noticed him on account of his rapid pace. He smoked as
he hurried along.
On crossing the bridge which joins the two banks of the Seine at
Bougival, he had been still more noticed.
It is usual to pay a toll on crossing this bridge; and the supposed
assassin had apparently forgotten this circumstance. He passed without
paying, keeping up his rapid pace, pressing his elbows to his side,
husbanding his breath, and the gate-keeper was obliged to run after him
for his toll.
He seemed greatly annoyed at the circumstance, threw the man a ten sou
piece, and hurried on, without waiting for the nine sous change.
Nor was that all.
The station master at Rueil remembered, that, two minutes before the
quarter past ten train came up, a passenger arrived very agitated, and
so out of breath that he could scarcely ask for a second class ticket
for Paris.
The appearance of this man corresponded exactly with the description
given of him by the porters at Chatou, and by the gatekeeper at the
bridge.
Finally, the old man thought he was on the track of some one who entered
the same carriage as the breathless passenger. He had been told of a
baker living at Asnieres, and he had written to him, asking him to call
at his house.
Such was old Tabaret’s information, when on the Monday morning he called
at the Palais de Justice, in order to find out if the record of Widow
Lerouge’s past life had been received. He found that nothing had
arrived, but in the passage he met Gevrol and his man.
The chief of detectives was triumphant, and showed it too. As soon as
he saw Tabaret, he called out, “Well, my illustrious mare’s-nest hunter,
what news? Have you had any more scoundrels guillotined since the other
day? Ah, you old rogue, you want to oust me from my place I can see!”
The old man was sadly changed.
The consciousness of his mistake made him humble and meek. These
pleasantries, which a few days before would have made him angry, now
did not touch him. Instead of retaliating, he bowed his head in such a
penitent manner that Gevrol was astonished.
“Jeer at me, my good M. Gevrol,” he replied, “mock me without pity; you
are right, I deserve it all.”
“Ah, come now,” said the chief, “have you then performed some new
masterpiece, you impetuous old fellow?”
Old Tabaret shook his head sadly.
“I have delivered up an innocent man,” he said, “and justice will not
restore him his freedom.”
Gevrol was delighted, and rubbed his hands until he almost wore away the
skin.
“This is fine,” he sang out, “this is capital. To bring criminals to
justice is of no account at all. But to free the innocent, by Jove! that
is the last touch of art. Tirauclair, you are an immense wonder; and I
bow before you.”
And at the same time, he raised his hat ironically.
“Don’t crush me,” replied the old fellow. “As you know, in spite of my
grey hairs, I am young in the profession. Because chance served me three
or four times, I became foolishly proud. I have learned too late that
I am not all that I had thought myself; I am but an apprentice, and
success has turned my head; while you, M. Gevrol, you are the master of
all of us. Instead of laughing, pray help me, aid me with your
advice and your experience. Alone, I can do nothing, while with your
assistance----!”
Gevrol is vain in the highest degree.
Tabaret’s submission tickled his pretensions as a detective immensely;
for in reality he thought the old man very clever. He was softened.
“I suppose,” he said patronisingly, “you refer to the La Jonchere
affair?”
“Alas! yes, my dear M. Gevrol, I wished to work without you, and I have
got myself into a pretty mess.”
Cunning old Tabaret kept his countenance as penitent as that of a
sacristan caught eating meat on a Friday; but he was inwardly laughing
and rejoicing all the while.
“Conceited fool!” he thought, “I will flatter you so much that you will
end by doing everything I want.”
M. Gevrol rubbed his nose, put out his lower lip, and said, “Ah,--hem!”
He pretended to hesitate; but it was only because he enjoyed prolonging
the old amateur’s discomfiture.
“Come,” said he at last, “cheer up, old Tirauclair. I’m a good fellow at
heart, and I’ll give you a lift. That’s kind, isn’t it? But, to-day, I’m
too busy, I’ve an appointment to keep. Come to me to-morrow morning,
and we’ll talk it over. But before we part I’ll give you a light to find
your way with. Do you know who that witness is that I’ve brought?”
“No; but tell me, my good M. Gevrol.”
“Well, that fellow on the bench there, who is waiting for M. Daburon, is
the husband of the victim of the La Jonchere tragedy!”
“Is it possible?” exclaimed old Tabaret, perfectly astounded. Then,
after reflecting a moment, he added, “You are joking with me.”
“No, upon my word. Go and ask him his name; he will tell you that it is
Pierre Lerouge.”
“She wasn’t a widow then?”
“It appears not,” replied Gevrol sarcastically, “since there is her
happy spouse.”
“Whew!” muttered the old fellow. “And does he know anything?”
In a few sentences, the chief of detectives related to his amateur
colleague the story that Lerouge was about to tell the investigating
magistrate.
“What do you say to that?” he asked when he came to the end.
“What do I say to that?” stammered old Tabaret, whose countenance
indicated intense astonishment; “what do I say to that? I don’t say
anything. But I think,--no, I don’t think anything either!”
“A slight surprise, eh?” said Gevrol, beaming.
“Say rather an immense one,” replied Tabaret.
But suddenly he started, and gave his forehead a hard blow with his
fist.
“And my baker!” he cried, “I will see you to-morrow, then, M. Gevrol.”
“He is crazed,” thought the head detective.
The old fellow was sane enough, but he had suddenly recollected the
Asnieres baker, whom he had asked to call at his house. Would he still
find him there?
Going down the stairs he met M. Daburon; but, as one has already seen,
he hardly deigned to reply to him.
He was soon outside, and trotted off along the quays.
“Now,” said he to himself, “let us consider. Noel is once more plain
Noel Gerdy. He won’t feel very pleased, for he thought so much of having
a great name. Pshaw! if he likes, I’ll adopt him. Tabaret doesn’t sound
so well as Commarin, but it’s at least a name. Anyhow, Gevrol’s story
in no way affects Albert’s situation nor my convictions. He is the
legitimate son; so much the better for him! That however, would not
prove his innocence to me, if I doubted it. He evidently knew nothing of
these surprising circumstances, any more than his father. He must have
believed as well as the count in the substitution having taken place.
Madame Gerdy, too, must have been ignorant of these facts; they probably
invented some story to explain the scar. Yes, but Madame Gerdy certainly
knew that Noel was really her son, for when he was returned to her,
she no doubt looked for the mark she had made on him. Then, when Noel
discovered the count’s letters, she must have hastened to explain to
him--”
Old Tabaret stopped as suddenly as if further progress were obstructed
by some dangerous reptile. He was terrified at the conclusion he had
reached.
“Noel, then, must have assassinated Widow Lerouge, to prevent her
confessing that the substitution had never taken place, and have burnt
the letters and papers which proved it!”
But he repelled this supposition with horror, as every honest man drives
away a detestable thought which by accident enters his mind.
“What an old idiot I am!” he exclaimed, resuming his walk; “this is the
result of the horrible profession I once gloried in following! Suspect
Noel, my boy, my sole heir, the personification of virtue and honour!
Noel, whom ten years of constant intercourse have taught me to esteem
and admire to such a degree that I would speak for him as I would for
myself! Men of his class must indeed be moved by terrible passions to
cause them to shed blood; and I have always known Noel to have but two
passions, his mother and his profession. And I dare even to breath a
suspicion against this noble soul? I ought to be whipped! Old fool!
isn’t the lesson you have already received sufficiently terrible? Will
you never be more cautious?”
Thus he reasoned, trying to dismiss his disquieting thoughts, and
restraining his habits of investigation; but in his heart a tormenting
voice constantly whispered, “Suppose it is Noel.”
He at length reached the Rue St. Lazare. Before the door of his house
stood a magnificent horse harnessed to an elegant blue brougham. At the
sight of these he stopped.
“A handsome animal!” he said to himself; “my tenants receive some swell
people.”
They apparently received visitors of an opposite class also, for, at
that moment, he saw M. Clergeot came out, worthy M. Clergeot, whose
presence in a house betrayed ruin just as surely as the presence of the
undertakers announce a death. The old detective, who knew everybody, was
well acquainted with the worthy banker. He had even done business with
him once, when collecting books. He stopped him and said: “Halloa! you
old crocodile, you have clients, then, in my house?”
“So it seems,” replied Clergeot dryly, for he does not like being
treated with such familiarity.
“Ah! ah!” said old Tabaret. And, prompted by the very natural curiosity
of a landlord who is bound to be very careful about the financial
condition of his tenants, he added, “Who the deuce are you ruining now?”
“I am ruining no one,” replied M. Clergeot, with an air of offended
dignity. “Have you ever had reason to complain of me whenever we have
done business together? I think not. Mention me to the young advocate
up there, if you like; he will tell you whether he has reason to regret
knowing me.”
These words produced a painful impression on Tabaret. What, Noel, the
prudent Noel, one of Clergeot’s customers! What did it mean? Perhaps
there was no harm in it; but then he remembered the fifteen thousand
francs he had lent Noel on the Thursday.
“Yes,” said he, wishing to obtain some more information, “I know that M.
Gerdy spends a pretty round sum.”
Clergeot has the delicacy never to leave his clients undefended when
attacked.
“It isn’t he personally,” he objected, “who makes the money dance; its
that charming little woman of his. Ah, she’s no bigger than your thumb,
but she’d eat the devil, hoofs, horns, and all!”
What! Noel had a mistress, a woman whom Clergeot himself, the friend of
such creatures, considered expensive! The revelation, at such a moment,
pierced the old man’s heart. But he dissembled. A gesture, a look, might
awaken the usurer’s mistrust, and close his mouth.
“That’s well known,” replied Tabaret in a careless tone. “Youth must
have it’s day. But what do you suppose the wench costs him a year?”
“Oh, I don’t know! He made the mistake of not fixing a price with her.
According to my calculation, she must have, during the four years that
she has been under his protection, cost him close upon five hundred
thousand francs.”
Four years? Five hundred thousand francs! These words, these figures,
burst like bombshells on old Tabaret’s brain. Half a million! In that
case, Noel was utterly ruined. But then--
“It is a great deal,” said he, succeeding by desperate efforts in hiding
his emotion; “it is enormous. M. Gerdy, however, has resources.”
“He!” interrupted the usurer, shrugging his shoulders. “Not even that!”
he added, snapping his fingers; “He is utterly cleaned out. But, if he
owes you money, do not be anxious. He is a sly dog. He is going to be
married; and I have just renewed bills of his for twenty-six thousand
francs. Good-bye, M. Tabaret.”
The usurer hurried away, leaving the poor old fellow standing like a
milestone in the middle of the pavement. He experienced something of
that terrible grief which breaks a father’s heart when he begins to
realize that his dearly loved son is perhaps the worst of scoundrels.
And, yet, such was his confidence in Noel that he again struggled with
his reason to resist the suspicions which tormented him. Perhaps the
usurer had been slandering his friend. People who lend their money
at more than ten per cent are capable of anything. Evidently he had
exaggerated the extent of Noel’s follies.
And, supposing it were true? Have not many men done just such insane
things for women, without ceasing to be honest?
As he was about to enter his house, a whirlwind of silk, lace, and
velvet, stopped the way. A pretty young brunette came out and jumped as
lightly as a bird into the blue brougham.
Old Tabaret was a gallant man, and the young woman was most charming,
but he never even looked at her. He passed in, and found his concierge
standing, cap in hand, and tenderly examining a twenty franc piece.
“Ah, sir,” said the man, “such a pretty young person, and so lady-like!
If you had only been here five minutes sooner.”
“What lady? why?”
“That elegant lady, who just went out, sir; she came to make some
inquiries about M. Gerdy. She gave me twenty francs for answering her
questions. It seems that the gentleman is going to be married; and she
was evidently much annoyed about it. Superb creature! I have an idea
that she is his mistress. I know now why he goes out every night.”
“M. Gerdy?”
“Yes, sir, but I never mentioned it to you, because he seemed to wish to
hide it. He never asks me to open the door for him, no, not he. He slips
out by the little stable door. I have often said to myself, ‘Perhaps he
doesn’t want to disturb me; it is very thoughtful on his part, and he
seems to enjoy it so.’”
The concierge spoke with his eyes fixed on the gold piece. When he
raised his head to examine the countenance of his lord and master, old
Tabaret had disappeared.
“There’s another!” said the concierge to himself. “I’ll bet a hundred
sous, that he’s running after the superb creature! Run ahead, go it,
old dotard, you shall have a little bit, but not much, for it’s very
expensive!”
The concierge was right. Old Tabaret was running after the lady in the
blue brougham.
“She will tell me all,” he thought, and with a bound he was in the
street. He reached it just in time to see the blue brougham turn the
corner of the Rue St. Lazare.
“Heavens!” he murmured. “I shall lose sight of her, and yet she can tell
me the truth.”
He was in one of those states of nervous excitement which engender
prodigies. He ran to the end of the Rue St. Lazare as rapidly as if he
had been a young man of twenty.
Joy! He saw the blue brougham a short distance from him in the Rue du
Havre, stopped in the midst of a block of carriages.
“I have her,” said he to himself. He looked all about him, but there was
not an empty cab to be seen. Gladly would he have cried, like Richard
the III., “My kingdom for a cab!”
The brougham got out of the entanglement, and started off rapidly
towards the Rue Tronchet. The old fellow followed.
He kept his ground. The brougham gained but little upon him.
While running in the middle of the street, at the same time looking out
for a cab, he kept saying to himself: “Hurry on, old fellow, hurry on.
When one has no brains, one must use one’s legs. Why didn’t you think to
get this woman’s address from Clergeot? You must hurry yourself, my old
friend, you must hurry yourself! When one goes in for being a detective,
one should be fit for the profession, and have the shanks of a deer.”
But he was losing ground, plainly losing ground. He was only halfway
down the Rue Tronchet, and quite tired out; he felt that his legs could
not carry him a hundred steps farther, and the brougham had almost
reached the Madeleine.
At last an open cab, going in the same direction as himself, passed by.
He made a sign, more despairing than any drowning man ever made. The
sign was seen. He made a supreme effort, and with a bound jumped into
the vehicle without touching the step.
“There,” he gasped, “that blue brougham, twenty francs!”
“All right!” replied the coachman, nodding.
And he covered his ill-conditioned horse with vigorous blows, muttering,
“A jealous husband following his wife; that’s evident. Gee up!”
As for old Tabaret, he was a long time recovering himself, his strength
was almost exhausted.
For more than a minute, he could not catch his breath. They were soon
on the Boulevards. He stood up in the cab leaning against the driver’s
seat.
“I don’t see the brougham anywhere,” he said.
“Oh, I see it all right, sir. But it is drawn by a splendid horse!”
“Yours ought to be a better one. I said twenty francs; I’ll make it
forty.”
The driver whipped up his horse most mercilessly, and growled, “It’s no
use, I must catch her. For twenty francs, I would have let her escape;
for I love the girls, and am on their side. But, fancy! Forty francs! I
wonder how such an ugly man can be so jealous.”
Old Tabaret tried in every way to occupy his mind with other matters. He
did not wish to reflect before seeing the woman, speaking with her, and
carefully questioning her.
He was sure that by one word she would either condemn or save her lover.
“What! condemn Noel? Ah, well! yes.”
The idea that Noel was the assassin harassed and tormented him, and
buzzed in his brain, like the moth which flies again and again against
the window where it sees a light.
As they passed the Chaussee d’Antin, the brougham was scarcely thirty
paces in advance. The cab driver turned, and said: “But the Brougham is
stopping.”
“Then stop also. Don’t lose sight of it; but be ready to follow it again
as soon as it goes off.”
Old Tabaret leaned as far as he could out of the cab.
The young woman alighted, crossed the pavement, and entered a shop where
cashmeres and laces were sold.
“There,” thought the old fellow, “is where the thousand franc notes go!
Half a million in four years! What can these creatures do with the money
so lavishly bestowed upon them? Do they eat it? On the altar of what
caprices do they squander these fortunes? They must have the devil’s own
potions which they give to drink to the idiots who ruin themselves
for them. They must possess some peculiar art of preparing and spicing
pleasure; since, once they get hold of a man, he sacrifices everything
before forsaking them.”
The cab moved on once more, but soon stopped again.
The brougham had made a fresh pause, this time in front of a curiosity
shop.
“The woman wants then to buy out half of Paris!” said old Tabaret to
himself in a passion. “Yes, if Noel committed the crime, it was she
who forced him to it. These are my fifteen thousand francs that she is
frittering away now. How long will they last her? It must have been for
money, then, that Noel murdered Widow Lerouge. If so, he is the lowest,
the most infamous of men! What a monster of dissimulation and hypocrisy!
And to think that he would be my heir, if I should die here of rage! For
it is written in my will in so many words, ‘I bequeath to my son, Noel
Gerdy!’ If he is guilty, there isn’t a punishment sufficiently severe
for him. But is this woman never going home?”
The woman was in no hurry. The weather was charming, her dress
irresistible, and she intended showing herself off. She visited three
or four more shops, and at last stopped at a confectioner’s, where she
remained for more than a quarter of an hour.
The old fellow, devoured by anxiety, moved about and stamped in his cab.
It was torture thus to be kept from the key to a terrible enigma by the
caprice of a worthless hussy! He was dying to rush after her, to seize
her by the arm, and cry out to her: “Home, wretched, creature, home at
once! What are you doing here? Don’t you know that at this moment your
lover, he whom you have ruined, is suspected of an assassination? Home,
then, that I may question you, that I may learn from you whether he is
innocent or guilty. For you will tell me, without knowing it. Ah! I have
prepared a fine trap for you! Go home, then, this anxiety is killing
me!”
She returned to her carriage. It started off once more, passed up the
Rue de Faubourg Montmarte, turned into the Rue de Provence, deposited
its fair freight at her own door, and drove away.
“She lives here,” said old Tabaret, with a sigh of relief.
He got out of the cab, gave the driver his forty francs, bade him wait,
and followed in the young woman’s footsteps.
“The old fellow is patient,” thought the driver; “and the little
brunette is caught.”
The detective opened the door of the concierge’s lodge.
“What is the name of the lady who just came in?” he demanded.
The concierge did not seem disposed to reply.
“Her name!” insisted the old man.
The tone was so sharp, so imperative, that the concierge was upset.
“Madame Juliette Chaffour,” he answered.
“On what floor does she reside?”
“On the second, the door opposite the stairs.”
A minute later, the old man was waiting in Madame Juliette’s
drawing-room. Madame was dressing, the maid informed him, and would be
down directly.
Tabaret was astonished at the luxury of the room. There was nothing
flaring or coarse, or in bad taste. It was not at all like the apartment
of a kept woman. The old fellow, who knew a good deal about such things,
saw that everything was of great value. The ornaments on the mantelpiece
alone must have cost, at the lowest estimate, twenty thousand francs.
“Clergeot,” thought he, “didn’t exaggerate a bit.”
Juliette’s entrance disturbed his reflections.
She had taken off her dress, and had hastily thrown about her a loose
black dressing-gown, trimmed with cherry-coloured satin. Her beautiful
hair, slightly disordered after her drive, fell in cascades about her
neck, and curled behind her delicate ears. She dazzled old Tabaret. He
began to understand.
“You wished, sir, to speak with me?” she inquired, bowing gracefully.
“Madame,” replied M. Tabaret, “I am a friend of Noel Gerdy’s, I may say
his best friend, and--”
“Pray sit down, sir,” interrupted the young woman.
She placed herself on a sofa, just showing the tips of her little feet
encased in slippers matching her dressing-gown, while the old man sat
down in a chair.
“I come, madame,” he resumed, “on very serious business. Your presence
at M. Gerdy’s--”
“Ah,” cried Juliette, “he already knows of my visit? Then he must employ
a detective.”
“My dear child--” began Tabaret, paternally.
“Oh! I know, sir, what your errand is. Noel has sent you here to scold
me. He forbade my going to his house, but I couldn’t help it. It’s
annoying to have a puzzle for a lover, a man whom one knows nothing
whatever about, a riddle in a black coat and a white cravat, a sad and
mysterious being--”
“You have been imprudent.”
“Why? Because he is going to get married? Why does he not admit it
then?”
“Suppose that it is not true.”
“Oh, but it is! He told that old shark Clergeot so, who repeated it to
me. Any way, he must be plotting something in that head of his; for the
last month he has been so peculiar, he has changed so, that I hardly
recognize him.”
Old Tabaret was especially anxious to know whether Noel had prepared
an _alibi_ for the evening of the crime. For him that was the grand
question. If he had, he was certainly guilty; if not, he might still be
innocent. Madame Juliette, he had no doubt, could enlighten him on that
point.
Consequently he had presented himself with his lesson all prepared, his
little trap all set.
The young woman’s outburst disconcerted him a little; but trusting to
the chances of conversation, he resumed.
“Will you oppose Noel’s marriage, then?”
“His marriage!” cried Juliette, bursting out into a laugh; “ah, the poor
boy! If he meets no worse obstacle than myself, his path will be smooth.
Let him marry by all means, the sooner the better, and let me hear no
more of him.”
“You don’t love him, then?” asked the old fellow, surprised at this
amiable frankness.
“Listen, sir. I have loved him a great deal, but everything has an
end. For four years, I, who am so fond of pleasure, have passed an
intolerable existence. If Noel doesn’t leave me, I shall be obliged to
leave him. I am tired of having a lover who is ashamed of me and who
despises me.”
“If he despises you, my pretty lady, he scarcely shows it here,” replied
old Tabaret, casting a significant glance about the room.
“You mean,” said she rising, “that he spends a great deal of money on
me. It’s true. He pretends that he has ruined himself on my account;
it’s very possible. But what’s that to me! I am not a grabbing
woman; and I would much have preferred less money and more regard. My
extravagance has been inspired by anger and want of occupation. M. Gerdy
treats me like a mercenary woman; and so I act like one. We are quits.”
“You know very well that he worships you.”
“He? I tell you he is ashamed of me. He hides me as though I were some
horrible disease. You are the first of his friends to whom I have ever
spoken. Ask him how often he takes me out. One would think that my
presence dishonoured him. Why, no longer ago than last Tuesday, we went
to the theatre! He hired an entire box. But do you think that he sat
in it with me? Not at all. He slipped away and I saw no more of him the
whole evening.”
“How so? Were you obliged to return home alone?”
“No. At the end of the play, towards midnight, he deigned to reappear.
We had arranged to go to the masked ball at the Opera and then to have
some supper. Ah, it was amusing! At the ball, he didn’t dare to let down
his hood, or take off his mask. At supper, I had to treat him like a
perfect stranger, because some of his friends were present.”
This, then, was the _alibi_ prepared in case of trouble. Juliette, had
she been less carried away by her own feelings, would have noticed old
Tabaret’s emotion, and would certainly have held her tongue. He was
perfectly livid, and trembled like a leaf.
“Well,” he said, making a great effort to utter the words, “the supper,
I suppose, was none the less gay for that.”
“Gay!” echoed the young woman, shrugging her shoulders; “you do not seem
to know much of your friend. If you ever ask him to dinner, take good
care not to give him anything to drink. Wine makes him as merry as a
funeral procession. At the second bottle, he was more tipsy than a
cork; so much so, that he lost nearly everything he had with him: his
overcoat, purse, umbrella, cigar-case--”
Old Tabaret couldn’t sit and listen any longer; he jumped to his feet
like a raving madman.
“Miserable wretch!” he cried, “infamous scoundrel! It is he; but I have
him!”
And he rushed out, leaving Juliette so terrified that she called her
maid.
“Child,” said she, “I have just made some awful blunder, have let some
secret out. I am sure that something dreadful is going to happen; I feel
it. That old rogue was no friend of Noel’s, he came to circumvent me,
to lead me by the nose; and he succeeded. Without knowing it I must have
spoken against Noel. What can I have said? I have thought carefully, and
can remember nothing; but he must be warned though. I will write him a
line, while you find a messenger to take it.”
Old Tabaret was soon in his cab and hurrying towards the Prefecture of
Police. Noel an assassin! His hate was without bounds, as formerly had
been his confiding affection. He had been cruelly deceived, unworthily
duped, by the vilest and the most criminal of men. He thirsted for
vengeance; he asked himself what punishment would be great enough for
the crime.
“For he not only assassinated Claudine,” thought he, “but he so arranged
the whole thing as to have an innocent man accused and condemned. And
who can say that he did not kill his poor mother?”
He regretted the abolition of torture, the refined cruelty of the middle
ages: quartering, the stake, the wheel. The guillotine acts so quickly
that the condemned man has scarcely time to feel the cold steel cutting
through his muscles; it is nothing more than a fillip on the neck.
Through trying so much to mitigate the pain of death, it has now become
little more than a joke, and might be abolished altogether.
The certainty of confounding Noel, of delivering him up to justice, of
taking vengeance upon him, alone kept old Tabaret up.
“It is clear,” he murmured, “that the wretch forgot his things at the
railway station, in his haste to rejoin his mistress. Will they still be
found there? If he has had the prudence to go boldly, and ask for them
under a false name, I can see no further proofs against him. Madame
Chaffour’s evidence won’t help me. The hussy, seeing her lover in
danger, will deny what she has just told me; she will assert that Noel
left her long after ten o’clock. But I cannot think he has dared to go
to the railway station again.”
About half way down the Rue Richelieu, M. Tabaret was seized with a
sudden giddiness.
“I am going to have an attack, I fear,” thought he. “If I die, Noel
will escape, and will be my heir. A man should always keep his will
constantly with him, to be able to destroy it, if necessary.”
A few steps further on, he saw a doctor’s plate on a door; he stopped
the cab, and rushed into the house. He was so excited, so beside
himself, his eyes had such a wild expression, that the doctor was almost
afraid of his peculiar patient, who said to him hoarsely: “Bleed me!”
The doctor ventured an objection; but already the old fellow had taken
off his coat, and drawn up one of his shirtsleeves.
“Bleed me!” he repeated. “Do you want me to die?”
The doctor finally obeyed, and old Tabaret came out quieted and
relieved.
An hour later, armed with the necessary power, and accompanied by a
policeman, he proceeded to the lost property office at the St. Lazare
railway station, to make the necessary search. It resulted as he had
expected. He learnt that, on the evening of Shrove Tuesday, there had
been found in one of the second class carriages, of train No. 45, an
overcoat and an umbrella. He was shown the articles; and he at once
recognised them as belonging to Noel. In one of the pockets of the
overcoat, he found a pair of lavender kid gloves, frayed and soiled, as
well as a return ticket from Chatou, which had not been used.
In hurrying on, in pursuit of the truth, old Tabaret knew only too well,
what it was. His conviction, unwillingly formed when Clergeot had told
him of Noel’s follies, had since been strengthened in a number of other
ways. When with Juliette, he had felt positively sure, and yet, at this
last moment, when doubt had become impossible, he was, on beholding the
evidence arrayed against Noel, absolutely thunderstruck.
“Onwards!” he cried at last. “Now to arrest him.”
And, without losing an instant, he hastened to the Palais de Justice,
where he hoped to find the investigating magistrate. Notwithstanding
the lateness of the hour, M. Daburon was still in his office. He was
conversing with the Count de Commarin, having related to him the facts
revealed by Pierre Lerouge whom the count had believed dead many years
before.
Old Tabaret entered like a whirlwind, too distracted to notice the
presence of a stranger.
“Sir,” he cried, stuttering with suppressed rage, “we have discovered
the real assassin! It is he, my adopted son, my heir, Noel!”
“Noel!” repeated M. Daburon, rising. And then in a lower tone, he added,
“I suspected it.”
“A warrant is necessary at once,” continued the old fellow. “If we lose
a minute, he will slip through our fingers. He will know that he is
discovered, if his mistress has time to warn him of my visit. Hasten,
sir, hasten!”
M. Daburon opened his lips to ask an explanation; but the old detective
continued: “That is not all. An innocent man, Albert, is still in
prison.”
“He will not be so an hour longer,” replied the magistrate; “a moment
before your arrival, I had made arrangements to have him released. We
must now occupy ourselves with the other one.”
Neither old Tabaret nor M. Daburon had noticed the disappearance of the
Count de Commarin. On hearing Noel’s name mentioned, he gained the door
quietly, and rushed out into the passage.
CHAPTER XIX.
Noel had promised to use every effort, to attempt even the impossible,
to obtain Albert’s release. He in fact did interview the Public
Prosecutor and some members of the bar, but managed to be repulsed
everywhere. At four o’clock, he called at the Count de Commarin’s house,
to inform his father of the ill success of his efforts.
“The Count has gone out,” said Denis; “but if you will take the trouble
to wait----”
“I will wait,” answered Noel.
“Then,” replied the valet, “will you please follow me? I have the
count’s orders to show you into his private room.”
This confidence gave Noel an idea of his new power. He was at home,
henceforth, in that magnificent house, he was the master, the heir! His
glance, which wandered over the entire room, noticed the genealogical
tree, hanging on the wall. He approached it, and read.
It was like a page, and one of the most illustrious, taken from the
golden book of French nobility. Every name which has a place in our
history was there. The Commarins had mingled their blood with all the
great families; two of them had even married daughters of royalty. A
warm glow of pride filled the advocate’s heart, his pulse beat quicker,
he raised his head haughtily, as he murmured, “Viscount de Commarin!”
The door opened. He turned, and saw the count entering. As Noel was
about to bow respectfully, he was petrified by the look of hatred,
anger, and contempt on his father’s face.
A shiver ran through his veins; his teeth chattered; he felt that he was
lost.
“Wretch!” cried the count.
And, dreading his own violence, the old nobleman threw his cane into a
corner. He was unwilling to strike his son; he considered him unworthy
of being struck by his hand. Then there was a moment of mortal silence,
which seemed to both of them a century.
At the same time their minds were filled with thoughts, which would
require a volume to transcribe.
Noel had the courage to speak first.
“Sir,” he began.
“Silence!” exclaimed the count hoarsely; “be silent! Can it be, heaven
forgive me! that you are my son? Alas, I cannot doubt it now! Wretch!
you knew well that you were Madame Gerdy’s son. Infamous villain! you
not only committed this murder, but you did everything to cause an
innocent man to be charged with your crime! Parricide! you have also
killed your mother.”
The advocate attempted to stammer forth a protest.
“You killed her,” continued the count with increased energy, “if not
by poison, at least by your crime. I understand all now; she was not
delirious this morning. But you know as well as I do what she was
saying. You were listening, and, if you dared to enter at that moment
when one word more would have betrayed you, it was because you had
calculated the effect of your presence. It was to you that she addressed
her last word, ‘Assassin!’”
Little by little, Noel had retired to the end of the room, and he stood
leaning against the wall, his head thrown back, his hair on end, his
look haggard. A convulsive trembling shook his frame. His face betrayed
a terror most horrible to see, the terror of the criminal found out.
“I know all, you see,” continued the count; “and I am not alone in my
knowledge. At this moment, a warrant of arrest is issued against you.”
A cry of rage like a hollow rattle burst from the advocate’s breast. His
lips, which were hanging through terror, now grew firm. Overwhelmed in
the very midst of his triumph, he struggled against this fright. He drew
himself up with a look of defiance.
M. de Commarin, without seeming to pay any attention to Noel, approached
his writing table, and opened a drawer.
“My duty,” said he, “would be to leave you to the executioner who awaits
you; but I remember that I have the misfortune to be your father. Sit
down; write and sign a confession of your crime. You will then find
fire-arms in this drawer. May heaven forgive you!”
The old nobleman moved towards the door. Noel with a sign stopped him,
and drawing at the same time a revolver from his pocket, he said: “Your
fire-arms are needless, sir; my precautions, as you see, are already
taken; they will never catch me alive. Only----”
“Only?” repeated the count harshly.
“I must tell you, sir,” continued the advocate coldly, “that I do not
choose to kill myself--at least, not at present.”
“Ah!” cried M. de Commarin in disgust, “you are a coward!”
“No, sir, not a coward; but I will not kill myself until I am sure that
every opening is closed against me, that I cannot save myself.”
“Miserable wretch!” said the count, threateningly, “must I then do it
myself?”
He moved towards the drawer, but Noel closed it with a kick.
“Listen to me, sir,” said he, in that hoarse, quick tone, which men use
in moments of imminent danger, “do not let us waste in vain words the
few moments’ respite left me. I have committed a crime, it is true, and
I do not attempt to justify it; but who laid the foundation of it, if
not yourself? Now, you do me the favor of offering me a pistol. Thanks.
I must decline it. This generosity is not through any regard for me.
You only wish to avoid the scandal of my trial, and the disgrace which
cannot fail to reflect upon your name.”
The count was about to reply.
“Permit me,” interrupted Noel imperiously. “I do not choose to kill
myself; I wish to save my life, if possible. Supply me with the means
of escape; and I promise you that I will sooner die than be captured. I
say, supply me with means, for I have not twenty francs in the world.
My last thousand franc note was nearly all gone the day when--you
understand me. There isn’t sufficient money at home to give my mother a
decent burial. Therefore, I say, give me some money.”
“Never!”
“Then I will deliver myself up to justice, and you will see what will
happen to the name you hold so dear!”
The count, mad with rage, rushed to his table for a pistol. Noel placed
himself before him.
“Oh, do not let us have any struggle,” said he coldly; “I am the
strongest.”
M. de Commarin recoiled. By thus speaking of the trial, of the scandal
and of the disgrace, the advocate had made an impression upon him.
For a moment hesitating between love for his name and his burning desire
to see this wretch punished, the old nobleman stood undecided.
Finally his feeling for his rank triumphed.
“Let us end this,” he said in a tremulous voice, filled with the utmost
contempt; “let us end this disgraceful scene. What do you demand of me?”
“I have already told you, money, all that you have here. But make up
your mind quickly.”
On the previous Saturday the count had withdrawn from his bankers the
sum he had destined for fitting up the apartments of him whom he thought
was his legitimate child.
“I have eighty thousand francs here,” he replied.
“That’s very little,” said the advocate; “but give them to me. I will
tell you though that I had counted on you for five hundred thousand
francs. If I succeed in escaping my pursuers, you must hold at my
disposal the balance, four hundred and twenty thousand francs. Will you
pledge yourself to give them to me at the first demand? I will find some
means of sending for them, without any risk to myself. At that price,
you need never fear hearing of me again.”
By way of reply, the count opened a little iron chest imbedded in the
wall, and took out a roll of bank notes, which he threw at Noel’s feet.
An angry look flashed in the advocate’s eyes, as he took one step
towards his father.
“Oh! take care!” he said threateningly; “people who, like me, have
nothing to lose are dangerous. I can yet give myself up, and----”
He stooped down, however, and picked up the notes.
“Will you give me your word,” he continued, “to let me have the rest
whenever I ask for them?”
“Yes.”
“Then I am going. Do not fear, I will be faithful to our compact, they
shall not take me alive. Adieu, my father! in all this you are the true
criminal, but you alone will go unpunished. Ah, heaven is not just. I
curse you!”
When, an hour later, the servants entered the count’s room, they found
him stretched on the floor with his face against the carpet, and showing
scarcely a sign of life.
On leaving the Commarin house, Noel staggered up the Rue de
l’Universite.
It seemed to him that the pavement oscillated beneath his feet, and that
everything about him was turning round. His mouth was parched, his eyes
were burning, and every now and then a sudden fit of sickness overcame
him.
But, at the same time, strange to relate, he felt an incredible relief,
almost delight. It was ended then, all was over; the game was lost. No
more anguish now, no more useless fright and foolish terrors, no more
dissembling, no more struggles. Henceforth he had nothing more to fear.
His horrible part being played to the bitter end, he could now lay aside
his mask and breathe freely.
An irresistible weariness succeeded the desperate energy which, in the
presence of the count, had sustained his impudent arrogance. All the
springs of his organization, stretched for more than a week past far
beyond their ordinary limits, now relaxed and gave way. The fever which
for the last few days had kept him up failed him now; and, with the
weariness, he felt an imperative need of rest. He experienced a great
void, an utter indifference for everything.
His insensibility bore a striking resemblance to that felt by persons
afflicted with sea-sickness, who care for nothing, whom no sensations
are capable of moving, who have neither strength nor courage to think,
and who could not be aroused from their lethargy by the presence of any
great danger, not even of death itself.
Had any one come to him then he would never have thought of resisting,
nor of defending himself; he would not have taken a step to hide
himself, to fly, to save his head.
For a moment he had serious thoughts of giving himself up, in order to
secure peace, to gain quiet, to free himself from the anxiety about his
safety.
But he struggled against this dull stupor, and at last the reaction
came, shaking off this weakness of mind and body.
The consciousness of his position, and of his danger, returned to him.
He foresaw, with horror, the scaffold, as one sees the depth of the
abyss by the lightning flashes.
“I must save my life,” he thought; “but how?”
That mortal terror which deprives the assassin of even ordinary common
sense seized him. He looked eagerly about him, and thought he noticed
three or four passers-by look at him curiously. His terror increased.
He began running in the direction of the Latin quarter without purpose,
without aim, running for the sake of running, to get away, like Crime,
as represented in paintings, fleeing under the lashes of the Furies.
He very soon stopped, however, for it occurred to him that this
extraordinary behaviour would attract attention.
It seemed to him that everything in him betokened the murderer; he
thought he read contempt and horror upon every face, and suspicion in
every eye.
He walked along, instinctively repeating to himself: “I must do
something.”
But he was so agitated that he was incapable of thinking or of planning
anything.
When he still hesitated to commit the crime, he had said to himself; “I
may be discovered.” And with that possibility in view, he had perfected
a plan which should put him beyond all fear of pursuit. He would do
this and that; he would have recourse to this ruse, he would take that
precaution. Useless forethought! Now, nothing he had imagined seemed
feasible. The police were seeking him, and he could think of no place in
the whole world where he would feel perfectly safe.
He was near the Odeon theatre, when a thought quicker than a flash of
lightning lit up the darkness of his brain.
It occurred to him that as the police were doubtless already in pursuit
of him, his description would soon be known to everyone, his white
cravat and well trimmed whiskers would betray him as surely as though he
carried a placard stating who he was.
Seeing a barber’s shop, he hurried to the door; but, when on the point
of turning the handle, he grew frightened.
The barber might think it strange that he wanted his whiskers shaved
off, and supposing he should question him!
He passed on.
He soon saw another barber’s shop, but the same fears as before again
prevented his entering.
Gradually night had fallen, and, with the darkness, Noel seemed to
recover his confidence and boldness.
After this great shipwreck in port, hope rose to the surface. Why should
he not save himself? There had been many just such cases. He could go to
a foreign country, change his name, begin his life over again, become a
new man entirely. He had money; and that was the main thing.
And, besides, as soon as his eighty thousand francs were spent, he had
the certainty of receiving, on his first request, five or six times as
much more.
He was already thinking of the disguise he should assume, and of the
frontier to which he should proceed, when the recollection of Juliette
pierced his heart like a red hot iron.
Was he going to leave without her, going away with the certainty of
never seeing her again? What! he would fly, pursued by all the police
of the civilized world, tracked like a wild beast, and she would remain
peaceably in Paris? Was it possible? For whom then had he committed this
crime? For her. Who would have reaped the benefits of it? She. Was it
not just, then, that she should bear her share of the punishment?
“She does not love me,” thought the advocate bitterly, “she never loved
me. She would be delighted to be forever free of me. She will not regret
me, for I am no longer necessary to her. An empty coffer is a useless
piece of furniture. Juliette is prudent; she has managed to save a
nice little fortune. Grown rich at my expense, she will take some other
lover. She will forget me, she will live happily, while I--And I was
about to go away without her!”
The voice of prudence cried out to him: “Unhappy man! to drag a woman
along with you, and a pretty woman too, is but to stupidly attract
attention upon you, to render flight impossible, to give yourself up
like a fool.”
“What of that?” replied passion. “We will be saved or we will perish
together. If she does not love me, I love her; I must have her! She will
come, otherwise--”
But how to see Juliette, to speak with her, to persuade her. To go to
her house, was a great risk for him to run. The police were perhaps
there already.
“No,” thought Noel; “no one knows that she is my mistress. It will
not be found out for two or three days and, besides, it would be more
dangerous still to write.”
He took a cab not far from the Carrefour de l’Observatoire, and in a
low tone told the driver the number of the house in the Rue de Provence,
which had proved so fatal to him. Stretched on the cushions of the cab,
lulled by its monotonous jolts, Noel gave no thought to the future, he
did not even think over what he should say to Juliette. No. He passed
involuntarily in review the events which had brought on and hastened the
catastrophe, like a man on the point of death, reviews the tragedy or
the comedy of his life.
Just one month before, ruined, at the end of his expedients and
absolutely without resources, he had determined, cost what it might,
to procure money, so as to be able to continue to keep Madame Juliette,
when chance placed in his hands Count de Commarin’s correspondence.
Not only the letters read to old Tabaret, and shown to Albert, but also
those, which, written by the count when he believed the substitution an
accomplished fact, plainly established it.
The reading of these gave him an hour of mad delight.
He believed himself the legitimate son; but his mother soon undeceived
him, told him the truth, proved to him by several letters she had
received from Widow Lerouge, called on Claudine to bear witness to it,
and demonstrated it to him by the scar he bore.
But a falling man never selects the branch he tries to save himself by.
Noel resolved to make use of the letters all the same.
He attempted to induce his mother to leave the count in his ignorance,
so that he might thus blackmail him. But Madame Gerdy spurned the
proposition with horror.
Then the advocate made a confession of all his follies, laid bare his
financial condition, showed himself in his true light, sunk in debt; and
he finally begged his mother to have recourse to M. de Commarin.
This also she refused, and prayers and threats availed nothing against
her resolution. For a fortnight, there was a terrible struggle between
mother and son, in which the advocate was conquered.
It was then that the idea of murdering Claudine occurred to him.
The unhappy woman had not been more frank with Madame Gerdy than
with others, so that Noel really thought her a widow. Therefore, her
testimony suppressed, who else stood in his way?
Madame Gerdy, and perhaps the count. He feared them but little. If
Madame Gerdy spoke, he could always reply: “After stealing my name for
your son, you will do everything in the world to enable him to keep it.”
But how to do away with Claudine without danger to himself?
After long reflection, the advocate thought of a diabolical stratagem.
He burnt all the count’s letters establishing the substitution, and he
preserved only those which made it probable.
These last he went and showed to Albert, feeling sure, that, should
justice ever discover the reason of Claudine’s death, it would naturally
suspect he who appeared to have most interest in it.
Not that he really wished Albert to be suspected of the crime, it was
simply a precaution. He thought that he could so arrange matters
that the police would waste their time in the pursuit of an imaginary
criminal.
Nor did he think of ousting the Viscount de Commarin and putting himself
in his place. His plan was simply this; the crime once committed,
he would wait; things would take their own course, there would be
negotiations, and ultimately he would compromise the matter at the price
of a fortune.
He felt sure of his mother’s silence, should she ever suspect him guilty
of the assassination.
His plan settled, he decided to strike the fatal blow on the Shrove
Tuesday.
To neglect no precaution, he, that very same evening, took Juliette to
the theatre, and afterwards to the masked ball at the opera. In case
things went against him, he thus secured an unanswerable _alibi_.
The loss of his overcoat only troubled him for a moment. On reflection,
he reassured himself, saying: “Pshaw! who will ever know?”
Everything had resulted in accordance with his calculations; it was, in
his opinion, a matter of patience.
But when Madame Gerdy read the account of the murder, the unhappy woman
divined her son’s work, and, in the first paroxysms of her grief, she
declared that she would denounce him.
He was terrified. A frightful delirium had taken possession of his
mother. One word from her might destroy him. Putting a bold face on it,
however, he acted at once and staked his all.
To put the police on Albert’s track was to guarantee his own safety,
to insure to himself, in the event of a probable success, Count de
Commarin’s name and fortune.
Circumstances, as well as his own terror, increased his boldness and his
ingenuity.
Old Tabaret’s visit occurred just at the right moment.
Noel knew of his connection with the police, and guessed that the old
fellow would make a most valuable confidant.
So long as Madame Gerdy lived, Noel trembled. In her delirium she
might betray him at any moment. But when she had breathed her last, he
believed himself safe. He thought it all over, he could see no further
obstacle in his way; he was sure he had triumphed.
And now all was discovered, just as he was about to reach the goal of
his ambition. But how? By whom? What fatality had resuscitated a secret
which he had believed buried with Madame Gerdy?
But where is the use, when one is at the bottom of an abyss, of knowing
which stone gave way, or of asking down what side one fell?
The cab stopped in the Rue de Provence. Noel leaned out of the door, his
eyes exploring the neighbourhood and throwing a searching glance into
the depths of the hall of the house. Seeing no one, he paid the fare
through the front window, before getting out of the cab, and, crossing
the pavement with a bound, he rushed up stairs.
Charlotte, at sight of him, gave a shout of joy.
“At last it is you, sir!” she cried. “Ah, madame has been expecting you
with the greatest impatience! She has been very anxious.”
Juliette expecting him! Juliette anxious!
The advocate did not stop to ask questions. On reaching this spot,
he seemed suddenly to recover all his composure. He understood his
imprudence; he knew the exact value of every minute he delayed here.
“If any one rings,” said he to Charlotte, “don’t open the door. No
matter what may be said or done, don’t open the door!”
On hearing Noel’s voice, Juliette ran out to meet him. He pushed her
gently into the salon, and followed, closing the door.
There for the first time she saw his face.
He was so changed; his look was so haggard that she could not keep from
crying out, “What is the matter?”
Noel made no reply; he advanced towards her and took her hand.
“Juliette,” he demanded in a hollow voice, fastening his flashing eyes
upon her,--“Juliette, be sincere; do you love me?”
She instinctively felt that something dreadful had occurred: she
seemed to breathe an atmosphere of evil; but she, as usual, affected
indifference.
“You ill-natured fellow,” she replied, pouting her lips most
provokingly, “do you deserve--”
“Oh, enough!” broke in Noel, stamping his feet fiercely. “Answer me,” he
continued, bruising her pretty hands in his grasp, “yes, or no,--do you
love me?”
A hundred times had she played with her lover’s anger, delighting to
excite him into a fury, to enjoy the pleasure of appeasing him with a
word; but she had never seen him like this before.
She had wronged him greatly; and she dared not complain of this his
first harshness.
“Yes, I love you,” she stammered, “do you not know it?”
“Why?” replied the advocate, releasing her hands; “why? Because, if
you love me you must prove it; if you love me, you must follow me at
once,--abandon everything. Come, fly with me. Time presses----”
The young girl was terrified.
“Great heavens! what has happened?”
“Nothing, except that I have loved you too much, Juliette. When I found
I had no more money for your luxury, your caprices, I became wild. To
procure money, I,--I committed a crime,--a crime; do you understand?
They are pursuing me now. I must fly: will you follow me?”
Juliette’s eyes grew wide with astonishment; but she doubted Noel.
“A crime? You?” she began.
“Yes, me! Would you know the truth? I have committed murder, an
assassination. But it was all for you.”
The advocate felt that Juliette would certainly recoil from him in
horror. He expected that terror which a murderer inspires. He was
resigned to it in advance. He thought that she would fly from him;
perhaps there would be a scene. She might, who knows, have hysterics;
might cry out, call for succor, for help, for aid. He was wrong.
With a bound, Juliette flew to him, throwing herself upon him, her arms
about his neck, and embraced him as she had never embraced him before.
“Yes, I do love you!” she cried. “Yes, you have committed a crime for
my sake, because you loved me. You have a heart. I never really knew you
before!”
It had cost him dear to inspire this passion in Madame Juliette; but
Noel never thought of that.
He experienced a moment of intense delight: nothing appeared hopeless to
him now.
But he had the presence of mind to free himself from her embrace.
“Let us go,” he said; “the one great danger is, that I do not know from
whence the attack comes. How they have discovered the truth is still a
mystery to me.”
Juliette remembered her alarming visitor of the afternoon; she
understood it all.
“Oh, what a wretched woman I am!” she cried, wringing her hands in
despair; “it is I who have betrayed you. It occurred on Tuesday, did it
not?”
“Yes, Tuesday.”
“Ah, then I have told all, without a doubt, to your friend, the old man
I supposed you had sent, Tabaret!”
“Has Tabaret been here?”
“Yes; just a little while ago.”
“Come, then,” cried Noel, “quickly; it’s a miracle that he hasn’t been
back.”
He took her arm, to hurry her away; but she nimbly released herself.
“Wait,” said she. “I have some money, some jewels. I will take them.”
“It is useless. Leave everything behind. I have a fortune, Juliette; let
us fly!”
She had already opened her jewel box, and was throwing everything of
value that she possessed pell mell into a little travelling bag.
“Ah, you are ruining me,” cried Noel, “you are ruining me!”
He spoke thus; but his heart was overflowing with joy.
“What sublime devotion! She loves me truly,” he said to himself; “for my
sake, she renounces her happy life without hesitation; for my sake, she
sacrifices all!”
Juliette had finished her preparations, and was hastily tying on her
bonnet, when the door-bell rang.
“It is the police!” cried Noel, becoming, if possible, even more livid.
The young woman and her lover stood as immovable as two statues, with
great drops of perspiration on their foreheads, their eyes dilated, and
their ears listening intently. A second ring was heard, then a third.
Charlotte appeared walking on tip-toe.
“There are several,” she whispered; “I heard them talking together.”
Grown tired of ringing, they knocked loudly on the door. The sound of a
voice reached the drawing-room, and the word “law” was plainly heard.
“No more hope!” murmured Noel.
“Don’t despair,” cried Juliette; “try the servants’ staircase!”
“You may be sure they have not forgotten it.”
Juliette went to see, and returned dejected and terrified. She had
distinguished heavy foot-steps on the landing, made by some one
endeavouring to walk softly.
“There must be some way of escape!” she cried fiercely.
“Yes,” replied Noel, “one way. I have given my word. They are picking
the lock. Fasten all the doors, and let them break them down; it will
give me time.”
Juliette and Charlotte ran to carry out his directions. Then Noel,
leaning against the mantel piece, seized his revolver and pointed it at
his breast.
But Juliette, who had returned, perceiving the movement, threw herself
upon her lover, but so violently that the revolver turned aside and
went off. The shot took effect, the bullet entering Noel’s stomach. He
uttered a frightful cry.
Juliette had made his death a terrible punishment; she had prolonged his
agony.
He staggered, but remained standing, supporting himself by the mantel
piece, while the blood flowed copiously from his wound.
Juliette clung to him, trying to wrest the revolver from his grasp.
“You shall not kill yourself,” she cried, “I will not let you. You are
mine; I love you! Let them come. What can they do to you? If they
put you in prison, you can escape. I will help you, we will bribe the
jailors. Ah, we will live so happily together, no matter where, far away
in America where no one knows us!”
The outer door had yielded; the police were now picking the lock of the
door of the ante-chamber.
“Let me finish!” murmured Noel; “they must not take me alive!”
And, with a supreme effort, triumphing over his dreadful agony, he
released himself, and roughly pushed Juliette away. She fell down near
the sofa.
Then, he once more aimed his revolver at the place where he felt his
heart beating, pulled the trigger and rolled to the floor.
It was full time, for the police at that moment entered the room.
Their first thought was, that before shooting himself, Noel had shot his
mistress. They knew of cases where people had romantically desired
to quit this world in company; and, moreover, had they not heard two
reports? But Juliette was already on her feet again.
“A doctor,” she cried, “a doctor! He can not be dead!”
One man ran out; while the others, under old Tabaret’s direction, raised
the body, and carried it to Madame Juliette’s bedroom where they laid it
on the bed.
“For his sake, I trust his wounds are mortal!” murmured the old
detective, whose anger left him at the sight. “After all, I loved him as
though he were my own child; his name is still in my will!”
Old Tabaret stopped. Noel just then uttered a groan, and opened his
eyes.
“You see that he will live!” cried Juliette.
The advocate shook his head feebly, and, for a moment, he tossed about
painfully on the bed, passing his right hand first under his coat, and
then under his pillow. He even succeeded in turning himself half-way
towards the wall and then back again.
Upon a sign, which was at once understood, someone placed another pillow
under his head. Then in a broken, hissing voice, he uttered a few words:
“I am the assassin,” he said. “Write it down, I will sign it; it will
please Albert. I owe him that at least.”
While they were writing, he drew Juliette’s head close to his lips.
“My fortune is beneath the pillow,” he whispered. “I give it all to
you.”
A flow of blood rose to his mouth; and they all thought him dead. But he
still had strength enough to sign his confession, and to say jestingly
to M. Tabaret, “Ah, ha, my friend, so you go in for the detective
business, do you! It must be great fun to trap one’s friends in person!
Ah, I have had a fine game; but, with three women in the play, I was
sure to lose.”
The death struggle commenced, and, when the doctor arrived, he could
only announce the decease of M. Noel Gerdy, advocate.
CHAPTER XX.
Some months later, one evening, at old Mademoiselle de Goello’s house,
the Marchioness d’Arlange, looking ten years younger than when we saw
her last, was giving her dowager friends an account of the wedding of
her granddaughter Claire, who had just married the Viscount Albert de
Commarin.
“The wedding,” said she, “took place on our estate in Normandy, without
any flourish of trumpets. My son-in-law wished it; for which I think he
is greatly to blame. The scandal raised by the mistake of which he had
been the victim, called for a brilliant wedding. That was my opinion,
and I did not conceal it. But the boy is as stubborn as his father,
which is saying a good deal; he persisted in his obstinacy. And my
impudent granddaughter, obeying beforehand her future husband, also
sided against me. It is, however, of no consequence; I defy anyone to
find to-day a single individual with courage enough to confess that he
ever for an instant doubted Albert’s innocence. I have left the young
people in all the bliss of the honeymoon, billing and cooing like a
pair of turtle doves. It must be admitted that they have paid dearly
for their happiness. May they be happy then, and may they have lots of
children, for they will have no difficulty in bringing them up and in
providing for them. I must tell you that, for the first time in his
life, and probably for the last, the Count de Commarin has behaved like
an angel! He has settled all his fortune on his son, absolutely all. He
intends living alone on one of his estates. I am afraid the poor dear
old man will not live long. I am not sure that he has entirely recovered
from that last attack. Anyhow, my grandchild is settled, and grandly
too. I know what it has cost me, and how economical I shall have to be.
But I do not think much of those parents who hesitate at any pecuniary
sacrifice when their children’s happiness is at stake.”
The marchioness forgot, however, to state that, a week before the
wedding, Albert freed her from a very embarrassing position, and had
discharged a considerable amount of her debts.
Since then, she had not borrowed more than nine thousand francs of him;
but she intends confessing to him some day how greatly she is annoyed by
her upholsterer, by her dressmaker, by three linen drapers, and by five
or six other tradesmen.
Ah, well, she is all the same a worthy woman; she never says anything
against her son-in-law!
Retiring to his father’s home in Poitou, after sending in his
resignation, M. Daburon has at length found rest; forgetfulness will
come later on. His friends do not yet despair of inducing him to marry.
Madame Juliette is quite consoled for the loss of Noel. The eighty
thousand francs hidden by him under the pillow were not taken from her.
They are nearly all gone now though. Before long the sale of a handsome
suite of furniture will be announced.
Old Tabaret, alone, is indelibly impressed. After having believed in the
infallibility of justice, he now sees every where nothing but judicial
errors.
The ex-amateur detective doubts the very existence of crime, and
maintains that the evidence of one’s senses proves nothing. He
circulates petitions for the abolition of capital punishment, and has
organised a society for the defence of poor and innocent prisoners. | null |
A Study in Scarlet | Arthur Conan Doyle | 123 | ['Jefferson Hope'] | A STUDY IN SCARLET
By A. Conan Doyle
CONTENTS
A STUDY IN SCARLET.
PART I.
CHAPTER I. MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES.
CHAPTER II. THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION.
CHAPTER III. THE LAURISTON GARDENS MYSTERY
CHAPTER IV. WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL.
CHAPTER V. OUR ADVERTISEMENT BRINGS A VISITOR.
CHAPTER VI. TOBIAS GREGSON SHOWS WHAT HE CAN DO.
CHAPTER VII. LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.
PART II. THE COUNTRY OF THE SAINTS
CHAPTER I. ON THE GREAT ALKALI PLAIN.
CHAPTER II. THE FLOWER OF UTAH.
CHAPTER III. JOHN FERRIER TALKS WITH THE PROPHET.
CHAPTER IV. A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.
CHAPTER V. THE AVENGING ANGELS.
CHAPTER VI. A CONTINUATION OF THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN WATSON, M.D.
CHAPTER VII. THE CONCLUSION.
A STUDY IN SCARLET.
PART I.
(_Being a reprint from the Reminiscences of_ JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.,
_Late of the Army Medical Department._)
CHAPTER I.
MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES.
In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the
University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course
prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there,
I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant
Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I
could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at
Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and
was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many
other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded
in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once
entered upon my new duties.
The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had
nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and
attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of
Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which
shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have
fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the
devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a
pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.
Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had
undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to
the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved
so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little
upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse
of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and
when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak
and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be
lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in
the troopship “Orontes,” and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty,
with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a
paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to
improve it.
I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as
air—or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will
permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to
London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of
the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a
private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless
existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely
than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become, that I
soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate
somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in
my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making
up my mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my quarters in some less
pretentious and less expensive domicile.
On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at
the Criterion Bar, when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and turning
round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at
Barts. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London
is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had
never been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with
enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In
the exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn,
and we started off together in a hansom.
“Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?” he asked in
undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets.
“You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.”
I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded it
by the time that we reached our destination.
“Poor devil!” he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my
misfortunes. “What are you up to now?”
“Looking for lodgings,” I answered. “Trying to solve the problem as to
whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.”
“That’s a strange thing,” remarked my companion; “you are the second
man to-day that has used that expression to me.”
“And who was the first?” I asked.
“A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital.
He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone
to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which
were too much for his purse.”
“By Jove!” I cried, “if he really wants someone to share the rooms and
the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a
partner to being alone.”
Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass. “You
don’t know Sherlock Holmes yet,” he said; “perhaps you would not care
for him as a constant companion.”
“Why, what is there against him?”
“Oh, I didn’t say there was anything against him. He is a little queer
in his ideas—an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I
know he is a decent fellow enough.”
“A medical student, I suppose?” said I.
“No—I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well
up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know,
he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are
very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the
way knowledge which would astonish his professors.”
“Did you never ask him what he was going in for?” I asked.
“No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be
communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.”
“I should like to meet him,” I said. “If I am to lodge with anyone, I
should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong
enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in
Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How
could I meet this friend of yours?”
“He is sure to be at the laboratory,” returned my companion. “He either
avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning to
night. If you like, we shall drive round together after luncheon.”
“Certainly,” I answered, and the conversation drifted away into other
channels.
As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn, Stamford
gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed to
take as a fellow-lodger.
“You mustn’t blame me if you don’t get on with him,” he said; “I know
nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally
in the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so you must not hold
me responsible.”
“If we don’t get on it will be easy to part company,” I answered. “It
seems to me, Stamford,” I added, looking hard at my companion, “that
you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this
fellow’s temper so formidable, or what is it? Don’t be mealy-mouthed
about it.”
“It is not easy to express the inexpressible,” he answered with a
laugh. “Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes—it approaches
to cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch
of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you
understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an
accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would
take it himself with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion
for definite and exact knowledge.”
“Very right too.”
“Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the
subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking
rather a bizarre shape.”
“Beating the subjects!”
“Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw him
at it with my own eyes.”
“And yet you say he is not a medical student?”
“No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we are,
and you must form your own impressions about him.” As he spoke, we
turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door, which
opened into a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar ground to me,
and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and
made our way down the long corridor with its vista of whitewashed wall
and dun-coloured doors. Near the further end a low arched passage
branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory.
This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles.
Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts,
test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames.
There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant
table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round
and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. “I’ve found it! I’ve
found it,” he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a
test-tube in his hand. “I have found a re-agent which is precipitated
by hæmoglobin, and by nothing else.” Had he discovered a gold mine,
greater delight could not have shone upon his features.
“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford, introducing us.
“How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for
which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have been in
Afghanistan, I perceive.”
“How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment.
“Never mind,” said he, chuckling to himself. “The question now is about
hæmoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of
mine?”
“It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,” I answered, “but
practically——”
“Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years.
Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains.
Come over here now!” He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness,
and drew me over to the table at which he had been working. “Let us
have some fresh blood,” he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger,
and drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette.
“Now, I add this small quantity of blood to a litre of water. You
perceive that the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water.
The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no
doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic
reaction.” As he spoke, he threw into the vessel a few white crystals,
and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant the
contents assumed a dull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was
precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar.
“Ha! ha!” he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a
child with a new toy. “What do you think of that?”
“It seems to be a very delicate test,” I remarked.
“Beautiful! beautiful! The old Guiacum test was very clumsy and
uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The
latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this
appears to act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test
been invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who
would long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes.”
“Indeed!” I murmured.
“Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is
suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His
linen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon
them. Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit
stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an
expert, and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the
Sherlock Holmes’ test, and there will no longer be any difficulty.”
His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his
heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his
imagination.
“You are to be congratulated,” I remarked, considerably surprised at
his enthusiasm.
“There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He would
certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there
was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of
Montpellier, and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases
in which it would have been decisive.”
“You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,” said Stamford with a
laugh. “You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the ‘Police
News of the Past.’”
“Very interesting reading it might be made, too,” remarked Sherlock
Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger.
“I have to be careful,” he continued, turning to me with a smile, “for
I dabble with poisons a good deal.” He held out his hand as he spoke,
and I noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of
plaster, and discoloured with strong acids.
“We came here on business,” said Stamford, sitting down on a high
three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with his
foot. “My friend here wants to take diggings, and as you were
complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought
that I had better bring you together.”
Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with
me. “I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street,” he said, “which would
suit us down to the ground. You don’t mind the smell of strong tobacco,
I hope?”
“I always smoke ‘ship’s’ myself,” I answered.
“That’s good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally
do experiments. Would that annoy you?”
“By no means.”
“Let me see—what are my other shortcomings. I get in the dumps at
times, and don’t open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am
sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I’ll soon be right. What
have you to confess now? It’s just as well for two fellows to know the
worst of one another before they begin to live together.”
I laughed at this cross-examination. “I keep a bull pup,” I said, “and
I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all
sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of
vices when I’m well, but those are the principal ones at present.”
“Do you include violin-playing in your category of rows?” he asked,
anxiously.
“It depends on the player,” I answered. “A well-played violin is a
treat for the gods—a badly-played one——”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he cried, with a merry laugh. “I think we may
consider the thing as settled—that is, if the rooms are agreeable to
you.”
“When shall we see them?”
“Call for me here at noon to-morrow, and we’ll go together and settle
everything,” he answered.
“All right—noon exactly,” said I, shaking his hand.
We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together towards
my hotel.
“By the way,” I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon Stamford,
“how the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?”
My companion smiled an enigmatical smile. “That’s just his little
peculiarity,” he said. “A good many people have wanted to know how he
finds things out.”
“Oh! a mystery is it?” I cried, rubbing my hands. “This is very
piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. ‘The proper
study of mankind is man,’ you know.”
“You must study him, then,” Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye.
“You’ll find him a knotty problem, though. I’ll wager he learns more
about you than you about him. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably
interested in my new acquaintance.
CHAPTER II.
THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION.
We met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No.
221B, Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They
consisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large airy
sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad
windows. So desirable in every way were the apartments, and so moderate
did the terms seem when divided between us, that the bargain was
concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into possession. That
very evening I moved my things round from the hotel, and on the
following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and
portmanteaus. For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking and
laying out our property to the best advantage. That done, we gradually
began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our new
surroundings.
Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in
his ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up
after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out
before I rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the
chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and
occasionally in long walks, which appeared to take him into the lowest
portions of the City. Nothing could exceed his energy when the working
fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for
days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly
uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these
occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes,
that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some
narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life
forbidden such a notion.
As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his
aims in life, gradually deepened and increased. His very person and
appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual
observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively
lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and
piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have
alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air
of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and
squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were
invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was
possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had
occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile
philosophical instruments.
The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess how
much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured to
break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned
himself. Before pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered, how
objectless was my life, and how little there was to engage my
attention. My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather
was exceptionally genial, and I had no friends who would call upon me
and break the monotony of my daily existence. Under these
circumstances, I eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around my
companion, and spent much of my time in endeavouring to unravel it.
He was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply to a question,
confirmed Stamford’s opinion upon that point. Neither did he appear to
have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in
science or any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance
into the learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies was
remarkable, and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so
extraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly
astounded me. Surely no man would work so hard or attain such precise
information unless he had some definite end in view. Desultory readers
are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. No man
burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason
for doing so.
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary
literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to
nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way
who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax,
however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the
Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any
civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware
that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an
extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of
surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”
“To forget it!”
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is
like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture
as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he
comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets
crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so
that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful
workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his
brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in
doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the
most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has
elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes
a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that
you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to
have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
“But the Solar System!” I protested.
“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that
we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a
pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”
I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something
in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I
pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw
my deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which
did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he
possessed was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own
mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was
exceptionally well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down.
I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it. It
ran in this way—
SHERLOCK HOLMES—his limits.
generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers,
and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he
had received them.
every horror perpetrated in the century.
When I had got so far in my list I threw it into the fire in despair.
“If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all
these accomplishments, and discovering a calling which needs them all,”
I said to myself, “I may as well give up the attempt at once.”
I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin. These
were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other
accomplishments. That he could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I
knew well, because at my request he has played me some of Mendelssohn’s
Lieder, and other favourites. When left to himself, however, he would
seldom produce any music or attempt any recognized air. Leaning back in
his arm-chair of an evening, he would close his eyes and scrape
carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his knee. Sometimes
the chords were sonorous and melancholy. Occasionally they were
fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they reflected the thoughts which
possessed him, but whether the music aided those thoughts, or whether
the playing was simply the result of a whim or fancy was more than I
could determine. I might have rebelled against these exasperating solos
had it not been that he usually terminated them by playing in quick
succession a whole series of my favourite airs as a slight compensation
for the trial upon my patience.
During the first week or so we had no callers, and I had begun to think
that my companion was as friendless a man as I was myself. Presently,
however, I found that he had many acquaintances, and those in the most
different classes of society. There was one little sallow rat-faced,
dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade, and who came
three or four times in a single week. One morning a young girl called,
fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more. The same
afternoon brought a grey-headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew
pedlar, who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely
followed by a slip-shod elderly woman. On another occasion an old
white-haired gentleman had an interview with my companion; and on
another a railway porter in his velveteen uniform. When any of these
nondescript individuals put in an appearance, Sherlock Holmes used to
beg for the use of the sitting-room, and I would retire to my bed-room.
He always apologized to me for putting me to this inconvenience. “I
have to use this room as a place of business,” he said, “and these
people are my clients.” Again I had an opportunity of asking him a
point blank question, and again my delicacy prevented me from forcing
another man to confide in me. I imagined at the time that he had some
strong reason for not alluding to it, but he soon dispelled the idea by
coming round to the subject of his own accord.
It was upon the 4th of March, as I have good reason to remember, that I
rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that Sherlock Holmes had
not yet finished his breakfast. The landlady had become so accustomed
to my late habits that my place had not been laid nor my coffee
prepared. With the unreasonable petulance of mankind I rang the bell
and gave a curt intimation that I was ready. Then I picked up a
magazine from the table and attempted to while away the time with it,
while my companion munched silently at his toast. One of the articles
had a pencil mark at the heading, and I naturally began to run my eye
through it.
Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life,” and it attempted
to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and
systematic examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as
being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The
reasoning was close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to
be far-fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary
expression, a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a
man’s inmost thoughts. Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility
in the case of one trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions
were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid. So startling
would his results appear to the uninitiated that until they learned the
processes by which he had arrived at them they might well consider him
as a necromancer.
“From a drop of water,” said the writer, “a logician could infer the
possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of
one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is
known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts,
the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired
by long and patient study nor, is life long enough to allow any mortal
to attain the highest possible perfection in it. Before turning to
those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest
difficulties, let the enquirer begin by mastering more elementary
problems. Let him, on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to
distinguish the history of the man, and the trade or profession to
which he belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the
faculties of observation, and teaches one where to look and what to
look for. By a man’s finger nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boot, by
his trouser knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by
his expression, by his shirt cuffs—by each of these things a man’s
calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten
the competent enquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.”
“What ineffable twaddle!” I cried, slapping the magazine down on the
table, “I never read such rubbish in my life.”
“What is it?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
“Why, this article,” I said, pointing at it with my egg spoon as I sat
down to my breakfast. “I see that you have read it since you have
marked it. I don’t deny that it is smartly written. It irritates me
though. It is evidently the theory of some arm-chair lounger who
evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own
study. It is not practical. I should like to see him clapped down in a
third class carriage on the Underground, and asked to give the trades
of all his fellow-travellers. I would lay a thousand to one against
him.”
“You would lose your money,” Sherlock Holmes remarked calmly. “As for
the article I wrote it myself.”
“You!”
“Yes, I have a turn both for observation and for deduction. The
theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so
chimerical are really extremely practical—so practical that I depend
upon them for my bread and cheese.”
“And how?” I asked involuntarily.
“Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the
world. I’m a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is.
Here in London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of
private ones. When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I
manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before
me, and I am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history
of crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance
about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your
finger ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the thousand and first.
Lestrade is a well-known detective. He got himself into a fog recently
over a forgery case, and that was what brought him here.”
“And these other people?”
“They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They are all
people who are in trouble about something, and want a little
enlightening. I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and
then I pocket my fee.”
“But do you mean to say,” I said, “that without leaving your room you
can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although
they have seen every detail for themselves?”
“Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. Now and again a case
turns up which is a little more complex. Then I have to bustle about
and see things with my own eyes. You see I have a lot of special
knowledge which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters
wonderfully. Those rules of deduction laid down in that article which
aroused your scorn, are invaluable to me in practical work. Observation
with me is second nature. You appeared to be surprised when I told you,
on our first meeting, that you had come from Afghanistan.”
“You were told, no doubt.”
“Nothing of the sort. I _knew_ you came from Afghanistan. From long
habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind, that I
arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate
steps. There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran,
‘Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military
man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics,
for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for
his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his
haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it
in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English
army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in
Afghanistan.’ The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I
then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished.”
“It is simple enough as you explain it,” I said, smiling. “You remind
me of Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did
exist outside of stories.”
Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. “No doubt you think that you are
complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “Now, in my
opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of
breaking in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a
quarter of an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial. He
had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a
phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.”
“Have you read Gaboriau’s works?” I asked. “Does Lecoq come up to your
idea of a detective?”
Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. “Lecoq was a miserable bungler,”
he said, in an angry voice; “he had only one thing to recommend him,
and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question
was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in
twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a
text-book for detectives to teach them what to avoid.”
I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired
treated in this cavalier style. I walked over to the window, and stood
looking out into the busy street. “This fellow may be very clever,” I
said to myself, “but he is certainly very conceited.”
“There are no crimes and no criminals in these days,” he said,
querulously. “What is the use of having brains in our profession. I
know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or
has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural
talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the
result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling
villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard
official can see through it.”
I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation. I thought
it best to change the topic.
“I wonder what that fellow is looking for?” I asked, pointing to a
stalwart, plainly-dressed individual who was walking slowly down the
other side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers. He had a
large blue envelope in his hand, and was evidently the bearer of a
message.
“You mean the retired sergeant of Marines,” said Sherlock Holmes.
“Brag and bounce!” thought I to myself. “He knows that I cannot verify
his guess.”
The thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man whom we were
watching caught sight of the number on our door, and ran rapidly across
the roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and heavy steps
ascending the stair.
“For Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said, stepping into the room and handing
my friend the letter.
Here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him. He little
thought of this when he made that random shot. “May I ask, my lad,” I
said, in the blandest voice, “what your trade may be?”
“Commissionaire, sir,” he said, gruffly. “Uniform away for repairs.”
“And you were?” I asked, with a slightly malicious glance at my
companion.
“A sergeant, sir, Royal Marine Light Infantry, sir. No answer? Right,
sir.”
He clicked his heels together, raised his hand in a salute, and was
gone.
CHAPTER III.
THE LAURISTON GARDENS MYSTERY
I confess that I was considerably startled by this fresh proof of the
practical nature of my companion’s theories. My respect for his powers
of analysis increased wondrously. There still remained some lurking
suspicion in my mind, however, that the whole thing was a pre-arranged
episode, intended to dazzle me, though what earthly object he could
have in taking me in was past my comprehension. When I looked at him he
had finished reading the note, and his eyes had assumed the vacant,
lack-lustre expression which showed mental abstraction.
“How in the world did you deduce that?” I asked.
“Deduce what?” said he, petulantly.
“Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines.”
“I have no time for trifles,” he answered, brusquely; then with a
smile, “Excuse my rudeness. You broke the thread of my thoughts; but
perhaps it is as well. So you actually were not able to see that that
man was a sergeant of Marines?”
“No, indeed.”
“It was easier to know it than to explain why I knew it. If you were
asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some
difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. Even across the
street I could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the
fellow’s hand. That smacked of the sea. He had a military carriage,
however, and regulation side whiskers. There we have the marine. He was
a man with some amount of self-importance and a certain air of command.
You must have observed the way in which he held his head and swung his
cane. A steady, respectable, middle-aged man, too, on the face of
him—all facts which led me to believe that he had been a sergeant.”
“Wonderful!” I ejaculated.
“Commonplace,” said Holmes, though I thought from his expression that
he was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. “I said just now
that there were no criminals. It appears that I am wrong—look at this!”
He threw me over the note which the commissionaire had brought.
“Why,” I cried, as I cast my eye over it, “this is terrible!”
“It does seem to be a little out of the common,” he remarked, calmly.
“Would you mind reading it to me aloud?”
This is the letter which I read to him—
“MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,—
“There has been a bad business during the night at 3, Lauriston
Gardens, off the Brixton Road. Our man on the beat saw a light there
about two in the morning, and as the house was an empty one, suspected
that something was amiss. He found the door open, and in the front
room, which is bare of furniture, discovered the body of a gentleman,
well dressed, and having cards in his pocket bearing the name of ‘Enoch
J. Drebber, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.’ There had been no robbery, nor is
there any evidence as to how the man met his death. There are marks of
blood in the room, but there is no wound upon his person. We are at a
loss as to how he came into the empty house; indeed, the whole affair
is a puzzler. If you can come round to the house any time before
twelve, you will find me there. I have left everything _in statu quo_
until I hear from you. If you are unable to come I shall give you
fuller details, and would esteem it a great kindness if you would
favour me with your opinion.
Yours faithfully,
“TOBIAS GREGSON.”
“Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,” my friend remarked;
“he and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and
energetic, but conventional—shockingly so. They have their knives into
one another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of professional
beauties. There will be some fun over this case if they are both put
upon the scent.”
I was amazed at the calm way in which he rippled on. “Surely there is
not a moment to be lost,” I cried, “shall I go and order you a cab?”
“I’m not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most incurably lazy
devil that ever stood in shoe leather—that is, when the fit is on me,
for I can be spry enough at times.”
“Why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing for.”
“My dear fellow, what does it matter to me. Supposing I unravel the
whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will
pocket all the credit. That comes of being an unofficial personage.”
“But he begs you to help him.”
“Yes. He knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to me; but
he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third person.
However, we may as well go and have a look. I shall work it out on my
own hook. I may have a laugh at them if I have nothing else. Come on!”
He hustled on his overcoat, and bustled about in a way that showed that
an energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one.
“Get your hat,” he said.
“You wish me to come?”
“Yes, if you have nothing better to do.” A minute later we were both in
a hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road.
It was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-coloured veil hung over the
house-tops, looking like the reflection of the mud-coloured streets
beneath. My companion was in the best of spirits, and prattled away
about Cremona fiddles, and the difference between a Stradivarius and an
Amati. As for myself, I was silent, for the dull weather and the
melancholy business upon which we were engaged, depressed my spirits.
“You don’t seem to give much thought to the matter in hand,” I said at
last, interrupting Holmes’ musical disquisition.
“No data yet,” he answered. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before
you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”
“You will have your data soon,” I remarked, pointing with my finger;
“this is the Brixton Road, and that is the house, if I am not very much
mistaken.”
“So it is. Stop, driver, stop!” We were still a hundred yards or so
from it, but he insisted upon our alighting, and we finished our
journey upon foot.
Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look. It
was one of four which stood back some little way from the street, two
being occupied and two empty. The latter looked out with three tiers of
vacant melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary, save that here
and there a “To Let” card had developed like a cataract upon the
bleared panes. A small garden sprinkled over with a scattered eruption
of sickly plants separated each of these houses from the street, and
was traversed by a narrow pathway, yellowish in colour, and consisting
apparently of a mixture of clay and of gravel. The whole place was very
sloppy from the rain which had fallen through the night. The garden was
bounded by a three-foot brick wall with a fringe of wood rails upon the
top, and against this wall was leaning a stalwart police constable,
surrounded by a small knot of loafers, who craned their necks and
strained their eyes in the vain hope of catching some glimpse of the
proceedings within.
I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once have hurried into the
house and plunged into a study of the mystery. Nothing appeared to be
further from his intention. With an air of nonchalance which, under the
circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation, he lounged up
and down the pavement, and gazed vacantly at the ground, the sky, the
opposite houses and the line of railings. Having finished his scrutiny,
he proceeded slowly down the path, or rather down the fringe of grass
which flanked the path, keeping his eyes riveted upon the ground. Twice
he stopped, and once I saw him smile, and heard him utter an
exclamation of satisfaction. There were many marks of footsteps upon
the wet clayey soil, but since the police had been coming and going
over it, I was unable to see how my companion could hope to learn
anything from it. Still I had had such extraordinary evidence of the
quickness of his perceptive faculties, that I had no doubt that he
could see a great deal which was hidden from me.
At the door of the house we were met by a tall, white-faced,
flaxen-haired man, with a notebook in his hand, who rushed forward and
wrung my companion’s hand with effusion. “It is indeed kind of you to
come,” he said, “I have had everything left untouched.”
“Except that!” my friend answered, pointing at the pathway. “If a herd
of buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess. No
doubt, however, you had drawn your own conclusions, Gregson, before you
permitted this.”
“I have had so much to do inside the house,” the detective said
evasively. “My colleague, Mr. Lestrade, is here. I had relied upon him
to look after this.”
Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically. “With two
such men as yourself and Lestrade upon the ground, there will not be
much for a third party to find out,” he said.
Gregson rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way. “I think we have done
all that can be done,” he answered; “it’s a queer case though, and I
knew your taste for such things.”
“You did not come here in a cab?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
“No, sir.”
“Nor Lestrade?”
“No, sir.”
“Then let us go and look at the room.” With which inconsequent remark
he strode on into the house, followed by Gregson, whose features
expressed his astonishment.
A short passage, bare planked and dusty, led to the kitchen and
offices. Two doors opened out of it to the left and to the right. One
of these had obviously been closed for many weeks. The other belonged
to the dining-room, which was the apartment in which the mysterious
affair had occurred. Holmes walked in, and I followed him with that
subdued feeling at my heart which the presence of death inspires.
It was a large square room, looking all the larger from the absence of
all furniture. A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls, but it was
blotched in places with mildew, and here and there great strips had
become detached and hung down, exposing the yellow plaster beneath.
Opposite the door was a showy fireplace, surmounted by a mantelpiece of
imitation white marble. On one corner of this was stuck the stump of a
red wax candle. The solitary window was so dirty that the light was
hazy and uncertain, giving a dull grey tinge to everything, which was
intensified by the thick layer of dust which coated the whole
apartment.
All these details I observed afterwards. At present my attention was
centred upon the single grim motionless figure which lay stretched upon
the boards, with vacant sightless eyes staring up at the discoloured
ceiling. It was that of a man about forty-three or forty-four years of
age, middle-sized, broad shouldered, with crisp curling black hair, and
a short stubbly beard. He was dressed in a heavy broadcloth frock coat
and waistcoat, with light-coloured trousers, and immaculate collar and
cuffs. A top hat, well brushed and trim, was placed upon the floor
beside him. His hands were clenched and his arms thrown abroad, while
his lower limbs were interlocked as though his death struggle had been
a grievous one. On his rigid face there stood an expression of horror,
and as it seemed to me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon human
features. This malignant and terrible contortion, combined with the low
forehead, blunt nose, and prognathous jaw gave the dead man a
singularly simious and ape-like appearance, which was increased by his
writhing, unnatural posture. I have seen death in many forms, but never
has it appeared to me in a more fearsome aspect than in that dark grimy
apartment, which looked out upon one of the main arteries of suburban
London.
Lestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, was standing by the doorway,
and greeted my companion and myself.
“This case will make a stir, sir,” he remarked. “It beats anything I
have seen, and I am no chicken.”
“There is no clue?” said Gregson.
“None at all,” chimed in Lestrade.
Sherlock Holmes approached the body, and, kneeling down, examined it
intently. “You are sure that there is no wound?” he asked, pointing to
numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay all round.
“Positive!” cried both detectives.
“Then, of course, this blood belongs to a second individual—presumably
the murderer, if murder has been committed. It reminds me of the
circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen, in Utrecht, in the
year ‘34. Do you remember the case, Gregson?”
“No, sir.”
“Read it up—you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It
has all been done before.”
As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and
everywhere, feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining, while his eyes
wore the same far-away expression which I have already remarked upon.
So swiftly was the examination made, that one would hardly have guessed
the minuteness with which it was conducted. Finally, he sniffed the
dead man’s lips, and then glanced at the soles of his patent leather
boots.
“He has not been moved at all?” he asked.
“No more than was necessary for the purposes of our examination.”
“You can take him to the mortuary now,” he said. “There is nothing more
to be learned.”
Gregson had a stretcher and four men at hand. At his call they entered
the room, and the stranger was lifted and carried out. As they raised
him, a ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor. Lestrade grabbed
it up and stared at it with mystified eyes.
“There’s been a woman here,” he cried. “It’s a woman’s wedding-ring.”
He held it out, as he spoke, upon the palm of his hand. We all gathered
round him and gazed at it. There could be no doubt that that circlet of
plain gold had once adorned the finger of a bride.
“This complicates matters,” said Gregson. “Heaven knows, they were
complicated enough before.”
“You’re sure it doesn’t simplify them?” observed Holmes. “There’s
nothing to be learned by staring at it. What did you find in his
pockets?”
“We have it all here,” said Gregson, pointing to a litter of objects
upon one of the bottom steps of the stairs. “A gold watch, No. 97163,
by Barraud, of London. Gold Albert chain, very heavy and solid. Gold
ring, with masonic device. Gold pin—bull-dog’s head, with rubies as
eyes. Russian leather card-case, with cards of Enoch J. Drebber of
Cleveland, corresponding with the E. J. D. upon the linen. No purse,
but loose money to the extent of seven pounds thirteen. Pocket edition
of Boccaccio’s _Decameron_, with name of Joseph Stangerson upon the
fly-leaf. Two letters—one addressed to E. J. Drebber and one to Joseph
Stangerson.”
“At what address?”
“American Exchange, Strand—to be left till called for. They are both
from the Guion Steamship Company, and refer to the sailing of their
boats from Liverpool. It is clear that this unfortunate man was about
to return to New York.”
“Have you made any inquiries as to this man, Stangerson?”
“I did it at once, sir,” said Gregson. “I have had advertisements sent
to all the newspapers, and one of my men has gone to the American
Exchange, but he has not returned yet.”
“Have you sent to Cleveland?”
“We telegraphed this morning.”
“How did you word your inquiries?”
“We simply detailed the circumstances, and said that we should be glad
of any information which could help us.”
“You did not ask for particulars on any point which appeared to you to
be crucial?”
“I asked about Stangerson.”
“Nothing else? Is there no circumstance on which this whole case
appears to hinge? Will you not telegraph again?”
“I have said all I have to say,” said Gregson, in an offended voice.
Sherlock Holmes chuckled to himself, and appeared to be about to make
some remark, when Lestrade, who had been in the front room while we
were holding this conversation in the hall, reappeared upon the scene,
rubbing his hands in a pompous and self-satisfied manner.
“Mr. Gregson,” he said, “I have just made a discovery of the highest
importance, and one which would have been overlooked had I not made a
careful examination of the walls.”
The little man’s eyes sparkled as he spoke, and he was evidently in a
state of suppressed exultation at having scored a point against his
colleague.
“Come here,” he said, bustling back into the room, the atmosphere of
which felt clearer since the removal of its ghastly inmate. “Now, stand
there!”
He struck a match on his boot and held it up against the wall.
“Look at that!” he said, triumphantly.
I have remarked that the paper had fallen away in parts. In this
particular corner of the room a large piece had peeled off, leaving a
yellow square of coarse plastering. Across this bare space there was
scrawled in blood-red letters a single word—
RACHE.
“What do you think of that?” cried the detective, with the air of a
showman exhibiting his show. “This was overlooked because it was in the
darkest corner of the room, and no one thought of looking there. The
murderer has written it with his or her own blood. See this smear where
it has trickled down the wall! That disposes of the idea of suicide
anyhow. Why was that corner chosen to write it on? I will tell you. See
that candle on the mantelpiece. It was lit at the time, and if it was
lit this corner would be the brightest instead of the darkest portion
of the wall.”
“And what does it mean now that you _have_ found it?” asked Gregson in
a depreciatory voice.
“Mean? Why, it means that the writer was going to put the female name
Rachel, but was disturbed before he or she had time to finish. You mark
my words, when this case comes to be cleared up you will find that a
woman named Rachel has something to do with it. It’s all very well for
you to laugh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You may be very smart and clever,
but the old hound is the best, when all is said and done.”
“I really beg your pardon!” said my companion, who had ruffled the
little man’s temper by bursting into an explosion of laughter. “You
certainly have the credit of being the first of us to find this out,
and, as you say, it bears every mark of having been written by the
other participant in last night’s mystery. I have not had time to
examine this room yet, but with your permission I shall do so now.”
As he spoke, he whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying
glass from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted noiselessly
about the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once
lying flat upon his face. So engrossed was he with his occupation that
he appeared to have forgotten our presence, for he chattered away to
himself under his breath the whole time, keeping up a running fire of
exclamations, groans, whistles, and little cries suggestive of
encouragement and of hope. As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded
of a pure-blooded well-trained foxhound as it dashes backwards and
forwards through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes
across the lost scent. For twenty minutes or more he continued his
researches, measuring with the most exact care the distance between
marks which were entirely invisible to me, and occasionally applying
his tape to the walls in an equally incomprehensible manner. In one
place he gathered up very carefully a little pile of grey dust from the
floor, and packed it away in an envelope. Finally, he examined with his
glass the word upon the wall, going over every letter of it with the
most minute exactness. This done, he appeared to be satisfied, for he
replaced his tape and his glass in his pocket.
“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,” he
remarked with a smile. “It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply
to detective work.”
Gregson and Lestrade had watched the manœuvres of their amateur
companion with considerable curiosity and some contempt. They evidently
failed to appreciate the fact, which I had begun to realize, that
Sherlock Holmes’ smallest actions were all directed towards some
definite and practical end.
“What do you think of it, sir?” they both asked.
“It would be robbing you of the credit of the case if I was to presume
to help you,” remarked my friend. “You are doing so well now that it
would be a pity for anyone to interfere.” There was a world of sarcasm
in his voice as he spoke. “If you will let me know how your
investigations go,” he continued, “I shall be happy to give you any
help I can. In the meantime I should like to speak to the constable who
found the body. Can you give me his name and address?”
Lestrade glanced at his note-book. “John Rance,” he said. “He is off
duty now. You will find him at 46, Audley Court, Kennington Park Gate.”
Holmes took a note of the address.
“Come along, Doctor,” he said; “we shall go and look him up. I’ll tell
you one thing which may help you in the case,” he continued, turning to
the two detectives. “There has been murder done, and the murderer was a
man. He was more than six feet high, was in the prime of life, had
small feet for his height, wore coarse, square-toed boots and smoked a
Trichinopoly cigar. He came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab,
which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his
off fore leg. In all probability the murderer had a florid face, and
the finger-nails of his right hand were remarkably long. These are only
a few indications, but they may assist you.”
Lestrade and Gregson glanced at each other with an incredulous smile.
“If this man was murdered, how was it done?” asked the former.
“Poison,” said Sherlock Holmes curtly, and strode off. “One other
thing, Lestrade,” he added, turning round at the door: “‘Rache,’ is the
German for ‘revenge;’ so don’t lose your time looking for Miss Rachel.”
With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals
open-mouthed behind him.
CHAPTER IV.
WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL.
It was one o’clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens. Sherlock
Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched a
long telegram. He then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take us
to the address given us by Lestrade.
“There is nothing like first hand evidence,” he remarked; “as a matter
of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may as
well learn all that is to be learned.”
“You amaze me, Holmes,” said I. “Surely you are not as sure as you
pretend to be of all those particulars which you gave.”
“There’s no room for a mistake,” he answered. “The very first thing
which I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts
with its wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we have had
no rain for a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep
impression must have been there during the night. There were the marks
of the horse’s hoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far more
clearly cut than that of the other three, showing that that was a new
shoe. Since the cab was there after the rain began, and was not there
at any time during the morning—I have Gregson’s word for that—it
follows that it must have been there during the night, and, therefore,
that it brought those two individuals to the house.”
“That seems simple enough,” said I; “but how about the other man’s
height?”
“Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from
the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though
there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow’s stride
both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of
checking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct
leads him to write about the level of his own eyes. Now that writing
was just over six feet from the ground. It was child’s play.”
“And his age?” I asked.
“Well, if a man can stride four and a-half feet without the smallest
effort, he can’t be quite in the sere and yellow. That was the breadth
of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across.
Patent-leather boots had gone round, and Square-toes had hopped over.
There is no mystery about it at all. I am simply applying to ordinary
life a few of those precepts of observation and deduction which I
advocated in that article. Is there anything else that puzzles you?”
“The finger nails and the Trichinopoly,” I suggested.
“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger dipped in
blood. My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly
scratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the man’s
nail had been trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor.
It was dark in colour and flakey—such an ash as is only made by a
Trichinopoly. I have made a special study of cigar ashes—in fact, I
have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can
distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand, either of cigar or
of tobacco. It is just in such details that the skilled detective
differs from the Gregson and Lestrade type.”
“And the florid face?” I asked.
“Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that I was
right. You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.”
I passed my hand over my brow. “My head is in a whirl,” I remarked;
“the more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came these
two men—if there were two men—into an empty house? What has become of
the cabman who drove them? How could one man compel another to take
poison? Where did the blood come from? What was the object of the
murderer, since robbery had no part in it? How came the woman’s ring
there? Above all, why should the second man write up the German word
RACHE before decamping? I confess that I cannot see any possible way of
reconciling all these facts.”
My companion smiled approvingly.
“You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well,” he
said. “There is much that is still obscure, though I have quite made up
my mind on the main facts. As to poor Lestrade’s discovery it was
simply a blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by
suggesting Socialism and secret societies. It was not done by a German.
The A, if you noticed, was printed somewhat after the German fashion.
Now, a real German invariably prints in the Latin character, so that we
may safely say that this was not written by one, but by a clumsy
imitator who overdid his part. It was simply a ruse to divert inquiry
into a wrong channel. I’m not going to tell you much more of the case,
Doctor. You know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained
his trick, and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will
come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”
“I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought detection as
near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.”
My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way
in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as
sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of
her beauty.
“I’ll tell you one other thing,” he said. “Patent-leathers and
Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway
together as friendly as possible—arm-in-arm, in all probability. When
they got inside they walked up and down the room—or rather,
Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes walked up and down. I
could read all that in the dust; and I could read that as he walked he
grew more and more excited. That is shown by the increased length of
his strides. He was talking all the while, and working himself up, no
doubt, into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I’ve told you all I know
myself now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good
working basis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want
to go to Halle’s concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon.”
This conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its way
through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary by-ways. In the
dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a stand.
“That’s Audley Court in there,” he said, pointing to a narrow slit in
the line of dead-coloured brick. “You’ll find me here when you come
back.”
Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow passage led us
into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings. We
picked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines of
discoloured linen, until we came to Number 46, the door of which was
decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Rance was
engraved. On enquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we
were shown into a little front parlour to await his coming.
He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being disturbed in
his slumbers. “I made my report at the office,” he said.
Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with it
pensively. “We thought that we should like to hear it all from your own
lips,” he said.
“I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can,” the constable
answered with his eyes upon the little golden disk.
“Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred.”
Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows as though
determined not to omit anything in his narrative.
“I’ll tell it ye from the beginning,” he said. “My time is from ten at
night to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the ‘White
Hart’; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o’clock it
began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher—him who has the Holland Grove
beat—and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street a-talkin’.
Presently—maybe about two or a little after—I thought I would take a
look round and see that all was right down the Brixton Road. It was
precious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I meet all the way down,
though a cab or two went past me. I was a strollin’ down, thinkin’
between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be, when
suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that same
house. Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens was empty
on account of him that owns them who won’t have the drains seen to,
though the very last tenant what lived in one of them died o’ typhoid
fever. I was knocked all in a heap therefore at seeing a light in the
window, and I suspected as something was wrong. When I got to the
door——”
“You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,” my companion
interrupted. “What did you do that for?”
Rance gave a violent jump, and stared at Sherlock Holmes with the
utmost amazement upon his features.
“Why, that’s true, sir,” he said; “though how you come to know it,
Heaven only knows. Ye see, when I got up to the door it was so still
and so lonesome, that I thought I’d be none the worse for some one with
me. I ain’t afeared of anything on this side o’ the grave; but I
thought that maybe it was him that died o’ the typhoid inspecting the
drains what killed him. The thought gave me a kind o’ turn, and I
walked back to the gate to see if I could see Murcher’s lantern, but
there wasn’t no sign of him nor of anyone else.”
“There was no one in the street?”
“Not a livin’ soul, sir, nor as much as a dog. Then I pulled myself
together and went back and pushed the door open. All was quiet inside,
so I went into the room where the light was a-burnin’. There was a
candle flickerin’ on the mantelpiece—a red wax one—and by its light I
saw——”
“Yes, I know all that you saw. You walked round the room several times,
and you knelt down by the body, and then you walked through and tried
the kitchen door, and then——”
John Rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face and suspicion in
his eyes. “Where was you hid to see all that?” he cried. “It seems to
me that you knows a deal more than you should.”
Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the constable.
“Don’t get arresting me for the murder,” he said. “I am one of the
hounds and not the wolf; Mr. Gregson or Mr. Lestrade will answer for
that. Go on, though. What did you do next?”
Rance resumed his seat, without however losing his mystified
expression. “I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle. That
brought Murcher and two more to the spot.”
“Was the street empty then?”
“Well, it was, as far as anybody that could be of any good goes.”
“What do you mean?”
The constable’s features broadened into a grin. “I’ve seen many a drunk
chap in my time,” he said, “but never anyone so cryin’ drunk as that
cove. He was at the gate when I came out, a-leanin’ up agin the
railings, and a-singin’ at the pitch o’ his lungs about Columbine’s
New-fangled Banner, or some such stuff. He couldn’t stand, far less
help.”
“What sort of a man was he?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
John Rance appeared to be somewhat irritated at this digression. “He
was an uncommon drunk sort o’ man,” he said. “He’d ha’ found hisself in
the station if we hadn’t been so took up.”
“His face—his dress—didn’t you notice them?” Holmes broke in
impatiently.
“I should think I did notice them, seeing that I had to prop him up—me
and Murcher between us. He was a long chap, with a red face, the lower
part muffled round——”
“That will do,” cried Holmes. “What became of him?”
“We’d enough to do without lookin’ after him,” the policeman said, in
an aggrieved voice. “I’ll wager he found his way home all right.”
“How was he dressed?”
“A brown overcoat.”
“Had he a whip in his hand?”
“A whip—no.”
“He must have left it behind,” muttered my companion. “You didn’t
happen to see or hear a cab after that?”
“No.”
“There’s a half-sovereign for you,” my companion said, standing up and
taking his hat. “I am afraid, Rance, that you will never rise in the
force. That head of yours should be for use as well as ornament. You
might have gained your sergeant’s stripes last night. The man whom you
held in your hands is the man who holds the clue of this mystery, and
whom we are seeking. There is no use of arguing about it now; I tell
you that it is so. Come along, Doctor.”
We started off for the cab together, leaving our informant incredulous,
but obviously uncomfortable.
“The blundering fool,” Holmes said, bitterly, as we drove back to our
lodgings. “Just to think of his having such an incomparable bit of good
luck, and not taking advantage of it.”
“I am rather in the dark still. It is true that the description of this
man tallies with your idea of the second party in this mystery. But why
should he come back to the house after leaving it? That is not the way
of criminals.”
“The ring, man, the ring: that was what he came back for. If we have no
other way of catching him, we can always bait our line with the ring. I
shall have him, Doctor—I’ll lay you two to one that I have him. I must
thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have
missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why
shouldn’t we use a little art jargon. There’s the scarlet thread of
murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to
unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. And now for
lunch, and then for Norman Neruda. Her attack and her bowing are
splendid. What’s that little thing of Chopin’s she plays so
magnificently: Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay.”
Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a
lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.
CHAPTER V.
OUR ADVERTISEMENT BRINGS A VISITOR.
Our morning’s exertions had been too much for my weak health, and I was
tired out in the afternoon. After Holmes’ departure for the concert, I
lay down upon the sofa and endeavoured to get a couple of hours’ sleep.
It was a useless attempt. My mind had been too much excited by all that
had occurred, and the strangest fancies and surmises crowded into it.
Every time that I closed my eyes I saw before me the distorted
baboon-like countenance of the murdered man. So sinister was the
impression which that face had produced upon me that I found it
difficult to feel anything but gratitude for him who had removed its
owner from the world. If ever human features bespoke vice of the most
malignant type, they were certainly those of Enoch J. Drebber, of
Cleveland. Still I recognized that justice must be done, and that the
depravity of the victim was no condonement in the eyes of the law.
The more I thought of it the more extraordinary did my companion’s
hypothesis, that the man had been poisoned, appear. I remembered how he
had sniffed his lips, and had no doubt that he had detected something
which had given rise to the idea. Then, again, if not poison, what had
caused the man’s death, since there was neither wound nor marks of
strangulation? But, on the other hand, whose blood was that which lay
so thickly upon the floor? There were no signs of a struggle, nor had
the victim any weapon with which he might have wounded an antagonist.
As long as all these questions were unsolved, I felt that sleep would
be no easy matter, either for Holmes or myself. His quiet
self-confident manner convinced me that he had already formed a theory
which explained all the facts, though what it was I could not for an
instant conjecture.
He was very late in returning—so late, that I knew that the concert
could not have detained him all the time. Dinner was on the table
before he appeared.
“It was magnificent,” he said, as he took his seat. “Do you remember
what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and
appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of
speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced
by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries
when the world was in its childhood.”
“That’s rather a broad idea,” I remarked.
“One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret
Nature,” he answered. “What’s the matter? You’re not looking quite
yourself. This Brixton Road affair has upset you.”
“To tell the truth, it has,” I said. “I ought to be more case-hardened
after my Afghan experiences. I saw my own comrades hacked to pieces at
Maiwand without losing my nerve.”
“I can understand. There is a mystery about this which stimulates the
imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror. Have you
seen the evening paper?”
“No.”
“It gives a fairly good account of the affair. It does not mention the
fact that when the man was raised up, a woman’s wedding ring fell upon
the floor. It is just as well it does not.”
“Why?”
“Look at this advertisement,” he answered. “I had one sent to every
paper this morning immediately after the affair.”
He threw the paper across to me and I glanced at the place indicated.
It was the first announcement in the “Found” column. “In Brixton Road,
this morning,” it ran, “a plain gold wedding ring, found in the roadway
between the ‘White Hart’ Tavern and Holland Grove. Apply Dr. Watson,
221B, Baker Street, between eight and nine this evening.”
“Excuse my using your name,” he said. “If I used my own some of these
dunderheads would recognize it, and want to meddle in the affair.”
“That is all right,” I answered. “But supposing anyone applies, I have
no ring.”
“Oh yes, you have,” said he, handing me one. “This will do very well.
It is almost a facsimile.”
“And who do you expect will answer this advertisement.”
“Why, the man in the brown coat—our florid friend with the square toes.
If he does not come himself he will send an accomplice.”
“Would he not consider it as too dangerous?”
“Not at all. If my view of the case is correct, and I have every reason
to believe that it is, this man would rather risk anything than lose
the ring. According to my notion he dropped it while stooping over
Drebber’s body, and did not miss it at the time. After leaving the
house he discovered his loss and hurried back, but found the police
already in possession, owing to his own folly in leaving the candle
burning. He had to pretend to be drunk in order to allay the suspicions
which might have been aroused by his appearance at the gate. Now put
yourself in that man’s place. On thinking the matter over, it must have
occurred to him that it was possible that he had lost the ring in the
road after leaving the house. What would he do, then? He would eagerly
look out for the evening papers in the hope of seeing it among the
articles found. His eye, of course, would light upon this. He would be
overjoyed. Why should he fear a trap? There would be no reason in his
eyes why the finding of the ring should be connected with the murder.
He would come. He will come. You shall see him within an hour?”
“And then?” I asked.
“Oh, you can leave me to deal with him then. Have you any arms?”
“I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.”
“You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate man, and
though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for
anything.”
I went to my bedroom and followed his advice. When I returned with the
pistol the table had been cleared, and Holmes was engaged in his
favourite occupation of scraping upon his violin.
“The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered; “I have just had an answer
to my American telegram. My view of the case is the correct one.”
“And that is?” I asked eagerly.
“My fiddle would be the better for new strings,” he remarked. “Put your
pistol in your pocket. When the fellow comes speak to him in an
ordinary way. Leave the rest to me. Don’t frighten him by looking at
him too hard.”
“It is eight o’clock now,” I said, glancing at my watch.
“Yes. He will probably be here in a few minutes. Open the door
slightly. That will do. Now put the key on the inside. Thank you! This
is a queer old book I picked up at a stall yesterday—‘De Jure inter
Gentes’—published in Latin at Liege in the Lowlands, in 1642. Charles’
head was still firm on his shoulders when this little brown-backed
volume was struck off.”
“Who is the printer?”
“Philippe de Croy, whoever he may have been. On the fly-leaf, in very
faded ink, is written ‘Ex libris Guliolmi Whyte.’ I wonder who William
Whyte was. Some pragmatical seventeenth century lawyer, I suppose. His
writing has a legal twist about it. Here comes our man, I think.”
As he spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell. Sherlock Holmes rose
softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. We heard the
servant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she
opened it.
“Does Dr. Watson live here?” asked a clear but rather harsh voice. We
could not hear the servant’s reply, but the door closed, and some one
began to ascend the stairs. The footfall was an uncertain and shuffling
one. A look of surprise passed over the face of my companion as he
listened to it. It came slowly along the passage, and there was a
feeble tap at the door.
“Come in,” I cried.
At my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we expected, a very
old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. She appeared to be
dazzled by the sudden blaze of light, and after dropping a curtsey, she
stood blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling in her pocket
with nervous, shaky fingers. I glanced at my companion, and his face
had assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do
to keep my countenance.
The old crone drew out an evening paper, and pointed at our
advertisement. “It’s this as has brought me, good gentlemen,” she said,
dropping another curtsey; “a gold wedding ring in the Brixton Road. It
belongs to my girl Sally, as was married only this time twelvemonth,
which her husband is steward aboard a Union boat, and what he’d say if
he come ‘ome and found her without her ring is more than I can think,
he being short enough at the best o’ times, but more especially when he
has the drink. If it please you, she went to the circus last night
along with——”
“Is that her ring?” I asked.
“The Lord be thanked!” cried the old woman; “Sally will be a glad woman
this night. That’s the ring.”
“And what may your address be?” I inquired, taking up a pencil.
“13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch. A weary way from here.”
“The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and Houndsditch,”
said Sherlock Holmes sharply.
The old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her little
red-rimmed eyes. “The gentleman asked me for _my_ address,” she said.
“Sally lives in lodgings at 3, Mayfield Place, Peckham.”
“And your name is——?”
“My name is Sawyer—her’s is Dennis, which Tom Dennis married her—and a
smart, clean lad, too, as long as he’s at sea, and no steward in the
company more thought of; but when on shore, what with the women and
what with liquor shops——”
“Here is your ring, Mrs. Sawyer,” I interrupted, in obedience to a sign
from my companion; “it clearly belongs to your daughter, and I am glad
to be able to restore it to the rightful owner.”
With many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude the old
crone packed it away in her pocket, and shuffled off down the stairs.
Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet the moment that she was gone and
rushed into his room. He returned in a few seconds enveloped in an
ulster and a cravat. “I’ll follow her,” he said, hurriedly; “she must
be an accomplice, and will lead me to him. Wait up for me.” The hall
door had hardly slammed behind our visitor before Holmes had descended
the stair. Looking through the window I could see her walking feebly
along the other side, while her pursuer dogged her some little distance
behind. “Either his whole theory is incorrect,” I thought to myself,
“or else he will be led now to the heart of the mystery.” There was no
need for him to ask me to wait up for him, for I felt that sleep was
impossible until I heard the result of his adventure.
It was close upon nine when he set out. I had no idea how long he might
be, but I sat stolidly puffing at my pipe and skipping over the pages
of Henri Murger’s “Vie de Bohème.” Ten o’clock passed, and I heard the
footsteps of the maid as they pattered off to bed. Eleven, and the more
stately tread of the landlady passed my door, bound for the same
destination. It was close upon twelve before I heard the sharp sound of
his latch-key. The instant he entered I saw by his face that he had not
been successful. Amusement and chagrin seemed to be struggling for the
mastery, until the former suddenly carried the day, and he burst into a
hearty laugh.
“I wouldn’t have the Scotland Yarders know it for the world,” he cried,
dropping into his chair; “I have chaffed them so much that they would
never have let me hear the end of it. I can afford to laugh, because I
know that I will be even with them in the long run.”
“What is it then?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t mind telling a story against myself. That creature had
gone a little way when she began to limp and show every sign of being
foot-sore. Presently she came to a halt, and hailed a four-wheeler
which was passing. I managed to be close to her so as to hear the
address, but I need not have been so anxious, for she sang it out loud
enough to be heard at the other side of the street, ‘Drive to 13,
Duncan Street, Houndsditch,’ she cried. This begins to look genuine, I
thought, and having seen her safely inside, I perched myself behind.
That’s an art which every detective should be an expert at. Well, away
we rattled, and never drew rein until we reached the street in
question. I hopped off before we came to the door, and strolled down
the street in an easy, lounging way. I saw the cab pull up. The driver
jumped down, and I saw him open the door and stand expectantly. Nothing
came out though. When I reached him he was groping about frantically in
the empty cab, and giving vent to the finest assorted collection of
oaths that ever I listened to. There was no sign or trace of his
passenger, and I fear it will be some time before he gets his fare. On
inquiring at Number 13 we found that the house belonged to a
respectable paperhanger, named Keswick, and that no one of the name
either of Sawyer or Dennis had ever been heard of there.”
“You don’t mean to say,” I cried, in amazement, “that that tottering,
feeble old woman was able to get out of the cab while it was in motion,
without either you or the driver seeing her?”
“Old woman be damned!” said Sherlock Holmes, sharply. “We were the old
women to be so taken in. It must have been a young man, and an active
one, too, besides being an incomparable actor. The get-up was
inimitable. He saw that he was followed, no doubt, and used this means
of giving me the slip. It shows that the man we are after is not as
lonely as I imagined he was, but has friends who are ready to risk
something for him. Now, Doctor, you are looking done-up. Take my advice
and turn in.”
I was certainly feeling very weary, so I obeyed his injunction. I left
Holmes seated in front of the smouldering fire, and long into the
watches of the night I heard the low, melancholy wailings of his
violin, and knew that he was still pondering over the strange problem
which he had set himself to unravel.
CHAPTER VI.
TOBIAS GREGSON SHOWS WHAT HE CAN DO.
The papers next day were full of the “Brixton Mystery,” as they termed
it. Each had a long account of the affair, and some had leaders upon it
in addition. There was some information in them which was new to me. I
still retain in my scrap-book numerous clippings and extracts bearing
upon the case. Here is a condensation of a few of them:—
The _Daily Telegraph_ remarked that in the history of crime there had
seldom been a tragedy which presented stranger features. The German
name of the victim, the absence of all other motive, and the sinister
inscription on the wall, all pointed to its perpetration by political
refugees and revolutionists. The Socialists had many branches in
America, and the deceased had, no doubt, infringed their unwritten
laws, and been tracked down by them. After alluding airily to the
Vehmgericht, aqua tofana, Carbonari, the Marchioness de Brinvilliers,
the Darwinian theory, the principles of Malthus, and the Ratcliff
Highway murders, the article concluded by admonishing the Government
and advocating a closer watch over foreigners in England.
The _Standard_ commented upon the fact that lawless outrages of the
sort usually occurred under a Liberal Administration. They arose from
the unsettling of the minds of the masses, and the consequent weakening
of all authority. The deceased was an American gentleman who had been
residing for some weeks in the Metropolis. He had stayed at the
boarding-house of Madame Charpentier, in Torquay Terrace, Camberwell.
He was accompanied in his travels by his private secretary, Mr. Joseph
Stangerson. The two bade adieu to their landlady upon Tuesday, the 4th
inst., and departed to Euston Station with the avowed intention of
catching the Liverpool express. They were afterwards seen together upon
the platform. Nothing more is known of them until Mr. Drebber’s body
was, as recorded, discovered in an empty house in the Brixton Road,
many miles from Euston. How he came there, or how he met his fate, are
questions which are still involved in mystery. Nothing is known of the
whereabouts of Stangerson. We are glad to learn that Mr. Lestrade and
Mr. Gregson, of Scotland Yard, are both engaged upon the case, and it
is confidently anticipated that these well-known officers will speedily
throw light upon the matter.
The _Daily News_ observed that there was no doubt as to the crime being
a political one. The despotism and hatred of Liberalism which animated
the Continental Governments had had the effect of driving to our shores
a number of men who might have made excellent citizens were they not
soured by the recollection of all that they had undergone. Among these
men there was a stringent code of honour, any infringement of which was
punished by death. Every effort should be made to find the secretary,
Stangerson, and to ascertain some particulars of the habits of the
deceased. A great step had been gained by the discovery of the address
of the house at which he had boarded—a result which was entirely due to
the acuteness and energy of Mr. Gregson of Scotland Yard.
Sherlock Holmes and I read these notices over together at breakfast,
and they appeared to afford him considerable amusement.
“I told you that, whatever happened, Lestrade and Gregson would be sure
to score.”
“That depends on how it turns out.”
“Oh, bless you, it doesn’t matter in the least. If the man is caught,
it will be _on account_ of their exertions; if he escapes, it will be
_in spite_ of their exertions. It’s heads I win and tails you lose.
Whatever they do, they will have followers. ‘Un sot trouve toujours un
plus sot qui l’admire.’”
“What on earth is this?” I cried, for at this moment there came the
pattering of many steps in the hall and on the stairs, accompanied by
audible expressions of disgust upon the part of our landlady.
“It’s the Baker Street division of the detective police force,” said my
companion, gravely; and as he spoke there rushed into the room half a
dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that ever I clapped
eyes on.
“‘Tention!” cried Holmes, in a sharp tone, and the six dirty little
scoundrels stood in a line like so many disreputable statuettes. “In
future you shall send up Wiggins alone to report, and the rest of you
must wait in the street. Have you found it, Wiggins?”
“No, sir, we hain’t,” said one of the youths.
“I hardly expected you would. You must keep on until you do. Here are
your wages.” He handed each of them a shilling.
“Now, off you go, and come back with a better report next time.”
He waved his hand, and they scampered away downstairs like so many
rats, and we heard their shrill voices next moment in the street.
“There’s more work to be got out of one of those little beggars than
out of a dozen of the force,” Holmes remarked. “The mere sight of an
official-looking person seals men’s lips. These youngsters, however, go
everywhere and hear everything. They are as sharp as needles, too; all
they want is organisation.”
“Is it on this Brixton case that you are employing them?” I asked.
“Yes; there is a point which I wish to ascertain. It is merely a matter
of time. Hullo! we are going to hear some news now with a vengeance!
Here is Gregson coming down the road with beatitude written upon every
feature of his face. Bound for us, I know. Yes, he is stopping. There
he is!”
There was a violent peal at the bell, and in a few seconds the
fair-haired detective came up the stairs, three steps at a time, and
burst into our sitting-room.
“My dear fellow,” he cried, wringing Holmes’ unresponsive hand,
“congratulate me! I have made the whole thing as clear as day.”
A shade of anxiety seemed to me to cross my companion’s expressive
face.
“Do you mean that you are on the right track?” he asked.
“The right track! Why, sir, we have the man under lock and key.”
“And his name is?”
“Arthur Charpentier, sub-lieutenant in Her Majesty’s navy,” cried
Gregson, pompously, rubbing his fat hands and inflating his chest.
Sherlock Holmes gave a sigh of relief, and relaxed into a smile.
“Take a seat, and try one of these cigars,” he said. “We are anxious to
know how you managed it. Will you have some whiskey and water?”
“I don’t mind if I do,” the detective answered. “The tremendous
exertions which I have gone through during the last day or two have
worn me out. Not so much bodily exertion, you understand, as the strain
upon the mind. You will appreciate that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for we
are both brain-workers.”
“You do me too much honour,” said Holmes, gravely. “Let us hear how you
arrived at this most gratifying result.”
The detective seated himself in the arm-chair, and puffed complacently
at his cigar. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a paroxysm of
amusement.
“The fun of it is,” he cried, “that that fool Lestrade, who thinks
himself so smart, has gone off upon the wrong track altogether. He is
after the secretary Stangerson, who had no more to do with the crime
than the babe unborn. I have no doubt that he has caught him by this
time.”
The idea tickled Gregson so much that he laughed until he choked.
“And how did you get your clue?”
“Ah, I’ll tell you all about it. Of course, Doctor Watson, this is
strictly between ourselves. The first difficulty which we had to
contend with was the finding of this American’s antecedents. Some
people would have waited until their advertisements were answered, or
until parties came forward and volunteered information. That is not
Tobias Gregson’s way of going to work. You remember the hat beside the
dead man?”
“Yes,” said Holmes; “by John Underwood and Sons, 129, Camberwell Road.”
Gregson looked quite crest-fallen.
“I had no idea that you noticed that,” he said. “Have you been there?”
“No.”
“Ha!” cried Gregson, in a relieved voice; “you should never neglect a
chance, however small it may seem.”
“To a great mind, nothing is little,” remarked Holmes, sententiously.
“Well, I went to Underwood, and asked him if he had sold a hat of that
size and description. He looked over his books, and came on it at once.
He had sent the hat to a Mr. Drebber, residing at Charpentier’s
Boarding Establishment, Torquay Terrace. Thus I got at his address.”
“Smart—very smart!” murmured Sherlock Holmes.
“I next called upon Madame Charpentier,” continued the detective. “I
found her very pale and distressed. Her daughter was in the room,
too—an uncommonly fine girl she is, too; she was looking red about the
eyes and her lips trembled as I spoke to her. That didn’t escape my
notice. I began to smell a rat. You know the feeling, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes, when you come upon the right scent—a kind of thrill in your
nerves. ‘Have you heard of the mysterious death of your late boarder
Mr. Enoch J. Drebber, of Cleveland?’ I asked.
“The mother nodded. She didn’t seem able to get out a word. The
daughter burst into tears. I felt more than ever that these people knew
something of the matter.
“‘At what o’clock did Mr. Drebber leave your house for the train?’ I
asked.
“‘At eight o’clock,’ she said, gulping in her throat to keep down her
agitation. ‘His secretary, Mr. Stangerson, said that there were two
trains—one at 9.15 and one at 11. He was to catch the first.’
“‘And was that the last which you saw of him?’
“A terrible change came over the woman’s face as I asked the question.
Her features turned perfectly livid. It was some seconds before she
could get out the single word ‘Yes’—and when it did come it was in a
husky unnatural tone.
“There was silence for a moment, and then the daughter spoke in a calm
clear voice.
“‘No good can ever come of falsehood, mother,’ she said. ‘Let us be
frank with this gentleman. We _did_ see Mr. Drebber again.’
“‘God forgive you!’ cried Madame Charpentier, throwing up her hands and
sinking back in her chair. ‘You have murdered your brother.’
“‘Arthur would rather that we spoke the truth,’ the girl answered
firmly.
“‘You had best tell me all about it now,’ I said. ‘Half-confidences are
worse than none. Besides, you do not know how much we know of it.’
“‘On your head be it, Alice!’ cried her mother; and then, turning to
me, ‘I will tell you all, sir. Do not imagine that my agitation on
behalf of my son arises from any fear lest he should have had a hand in
this terrible affair. He is utterly innocent of it. My dread is,
however, that in your eyes and in the eyes of others he may appear to
be compromised. That however is surely impossible. His high character,
his profession, his antecedents would all forbid it.’
“‘Your best way is to make a clean breast of the facts,’ I answered.
‘Depend upon it, if your son is innocent he will be none the worse.’
“‘Perhaps, Alice, you had better leave us together,’ she said, and her
daughter withdrew. ‘Now, sir,’ she continued, ‘I had no intention of
telling you all this, but since my poor daughter has disclosed it I
have no alternative. Having once decided to speak, I will tell you all
without omitting any particular.’
“‘It is your wisest course,’ said I.
“‘Mr. Drebber has been with us nearly three weeks. He and his
secretary, Mr. Stangerson, had been travelling on the Continent. I
noticed a “Copenhagen” label upon each of their trunks, showing that
that had been their last stopping place. Stangerson was a quiet
reserved man, but his employer, I am sorry to say, was far otherwise.
He was coarse in his habits and brutish in his ways. The very night of
his arrival he became very much the worse for drink, and, indeed, after
twelve o’clock in the day he could hardly ever be said to be sober. His
manners towards the maid-servants were disgustingly free and familiar.
Worst of all, he speedily assumed the same attitude towards my
daughter, Alice, and spoke to her more than once in a way which,
fortunately, she is too innocent to understand. On one occasion he
actually seized her in his arms and embraced her—an outrage which
caused his own secretary to reproach him for his unmanly conduct.’
“‘But why did you stand all this,’ I asked. ‘I suppose that you can get
rid of your boarders when you wish.’
“Mrs. Charpentier blushed at my pertinent question. ‘Would to God that
I had given him notice on the very day that he came,’ she said. ‘But it
was a sore temptation. They were paying a pound a day each—fourteen
pounds a week, and this is the slack season. I am a widow, and my boy
in the Navy has cost me much. I grudged to lose the money. I acted for
the best. This last was too much, however, and I gave him notice to
leave on account of it. That was the reason of his going.’
“‘Well?’
“‘My heart grew light when I saw him drive away. My son is on leave
just now, but I did not tell him anything of all this, for his temper
is violent, and he is passionately fond of his sister. When I closed
the door behind them a load seemed to be lifted from my mind. Alas, in
less than an hour there was a ring at the bell, and I learned that Mr.
Drebber had returned. He was much excited, and evidently the worse for
drink. He forced his way into the room, where I was sitting with my
daughter, and made some incoherent remark about having missed his
train. He then turned to Alice, and before my very face, proposed to
her that she should fly with him. “You are of age,” he said, “and there
is no law to stop you. I have money enough and to spare. Never mind the
old girl here, but come along with me now straight away. You shall live
like a princess.” Poor Alice was so frightened that she shrunk away
from him, but he caught her by the wrist and endeavoured to draw her
towards the door. I screamed, and at that moment my son Arthur came
into the room. What happened then I do not know. I heard oaths and the
confused sounds of a scuffle. I was too terrified to raise my head.
When I did look up I saw Arthur standing in the doorway laughing, with
a stick in his hand. “I don’t think that fine fellow will trouble us
again,” he said. “I will just go after him and see what he does with
himself.” With those words he took his hat and started off down the
street. The next morning we heard of Mr. Drebber’s mysterious death.’
“This statement came from Mrs. Charpentier’s lips with many gasps and
pauses. At times she spoke so low that I could hardly catch the words.
I made shorthand notes of all that she said, however, so that there
should be no possibility of a mistake.”
“It’s quite exciting,” said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn. “What
happened next?”
“When Mrs. Charpentier paused,” the detective continued, “I saw that
the whole case hung upon one point. Fixing her with my eye in a way
which I always found effective with women, I asked her at what hour her
son returned.
“‘I do not know,’ she answered.
“‘Not know?’
“‘No; he has a latch-key, and he let himself in.’
“‘After you went to bed?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘When did you go to bed?’
“‘About eleven.’
“‘So your son was gone at least two hours?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Possibly four or five?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘What was he doing during that time?’
“‘I do not know,’ she answered, turning white to her very lips.
“Of course after that there was nothing more to be done. I found out
where Lieutenant Charpentier was, took two officers with me, and
arrested him. When I touched him on the shoulder and warned him to come
quietly with us, he answered us as bold as brass, ‘I suppose you are
arresting me for being concerned in the death of that scoundrel
Drebber,’ he said. We had said nothing to him about it, so that his
alluding to it had a most suspicious aspect.”
“Very,” said Holmes.
“He still carried the heavy stick which the mother described him as
having with him when he followed Drebber. It was a stout oak cudgel.”
“What is your theory, then?”
“Well, my theory is that he followed Drebber as far as the Brixton
Road. When there, a fresh altercation arose between them, in the course
of which Drebber received a blow from the stick, in the pit of the
stomach, perhaps, which killed him without leaving any mark. The night
was so wet that no one was about, so Charpentier dragged the body of
his victim into the empty house. As to the candle, and the blood, and
the writing on the wall, and the ring, they may all be so many tricks
to throw the police on to the wrong scent.”
“Well done!” said Holmes in an encouraging voice. “Really, Gregson, you
are getting along. We shall make something of you yet.”
“I flatter myself that I have managed it rather neatly,” the detective
answered proudly. “The young man volunteered a statement, in which he
said that after following Drebber some time, the latter perceived him,
and took a cab in order to get away from him. On his way home he met an
old shipmate, and took a long walk with him. On being asked where this
old shipmate lived, he was unable to give any satisfactory reply. I
think the whole case fits together uncommonly well. What amuses me is
to think of Lestrade, who had started off upon the wrong scent. I am
afraid he won’t make much of it. Why, by Jove, here’s the very man
himself!”
It was indeed Lestrade, who had ascended the stairs while we were
talking, and who now entered the room. The assurance and jauntiness
which generally marked his demeanour and dress were, however, wanting.
His face was disturbed and troubled, while his clothes were disarranged
and untidy. He had evidently come with the intention of consulting with
Sherlock Holmes, for on perceiving his colleague he appeared to be
embarrassed and put out. He stood in the centre of the room, fumbling
nervously with his hat and uncertain what to do. “This is a most
extraordinary case,” he said at last—“a most incomprehensible affair.”
“Ah, you find it so, Mr. Lestrade!” cried Gregson, triumphantly. “I
thought you would come to that conclusion. Have you managed to find the
Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson?”
“The Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson,” said Lestrade gravely, “was
murdered at Halliday’s Private Hotel about six o’clock this morning.”
CHAPTER VII.
LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.
The intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous and so
unexpected, that we were all three fairly dumfoundered. Gregson sprang
out of his chair and upset the remainder of his whiskey and water. I
stared in silence at Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were compressed and
his brows drawn down over his eyes.
“Stangerson too!” he muttered. “The plot thickens.”
“It was quite thick enough before,” grumbled Lestrade, taking a chair.
“I seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war.”
“Are you—are you sure of this piece of intelligence?” stammered
Gregson.
“I have just come from his room,” said Lestrade. “I was the first to
discover what had occurred.”
“We have been hearing Gregson’s view of the matter,” Holmes observed.
“Would you mind letting us know what you have seen and done?”
“I have no objection,” Lestrade answered, seating himself. “I freely
confess that I was of the opinion that Stangerson was concerned in the
death of Drebber. This fresh development has shown me that I was
completely mistaken. Full of the one idea, I set myself to find out
what had become of the Secretary. They had been seen together at Euston
Station about half-past eight on the evening of the third. At two in
the morning Drebber had been found in the Brixton Road. The question
which confronted me was to find out how Stangerson had been employed
between 8.30 and the time of the crime, and what had become of him
afterwards. I telegraphed to Liverpool, giving a description of the
man, and warning them to keep a watch upon the American boats. I then
set to work calling upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in the
vicinity of Euston. You see, I argued that if Drebber and his companion
had become separated, the natural course for the latter would be to put
up somewhere in the vicinity for the night, and then to hang about the
station again next morning.”
“They would be likely to agree on some meeting-place beforehand,”
remarked Holmes.
“So it proved. I spent the whole of yesterday evening in making
enquiries entirely without avail. This morning I began very early, and
at eight o’clock I reached Halliday’s Private Hotel, in Little George
Street. On my enquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was living there,
they at once answered me in the affirmative.
“‘No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,’ they said. ‘He
has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.’
“‘Where is he now?’ I asked.
“‘He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.’
“‘I will go up and see him at once,’ I said.
“It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his nerves and
lead him to say something unguarded. The Boots volunteered to show me
the room: it was on the second floor, and there was a small corridor
leading up to it. The Boots pointed out the door to me, and was about
to go downstairs again when I saw something that made me feel sickish,
in spite of my twenty years’ experience. From under the door there
curled a little red ribbon of blood, which had meandered across the
passage and formed a little pool along the skirting at the other side.
I gave a cry, which brought the Boots back. He nearly fainted when he
saw it. The door was locked on the inside, but we put our shoulders to
it, and knocked it in. The window of the room was open, and beside the
window, all huddled up, lay the body of a man in his nightdress. He was
quite dead, and had been for some time, for his limbs were rigid and
cold. When we turned him over, the Boots recognized him at once as
being the same gentleman who had engaged the room under the name of
Joseph Stangerson. The cause of death was a deep stab in the left side,
which must have penetrated the heart. And now comes the strangest part
of the affair. What do you suppose was above the murdered man?”
I felt a creeping of the flesh, and a presentiment of coming horror,
even before Sherlock Holmes answered.
“The word RACHE, written in letters of blood,” he said.
“That was it,” said Lestrade, in an awe-struck voice; and we were all
silent for a while.
There was something so methodical and so incomprehensible about the
deeds of this unknown assassin, that it imparted a fresh ghastliness to
his crimes. My nerves, which were steady enough on the field of battle
tingled as I thought of it.
“The man was seen,” continued Lestrade. “A milk boy, passing on his way
to the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which leads from the mews
at the back of the hotel. He noticed that a ladder, which usually lay
there, was raised against one of the windows of the second floor, which
was wide open. After passing, he looked back and saw a man descend the
ladder. He came down so quietly and openly that the boy imagined him to
be some carpenter or joiner at work in the hotel. He took no particular
notice of him, beyond thinking in his own mind that it was early for
him to be at work. He has an impression that the man was tall, had a
reddish face, and was dressed in a long, brownish coat. He must have
stayed in the room some little time after the murder, for we found
blood-stained water in the basin, where he had washed his hands, and
marks on the sheets where he had deliberately wiped his knife.”
I glanced at Holmes on hearing the description of the murderer, which
tallied so exactly with his own. There was, however, no trace of
exultation or satisfaction upon his face.
“Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue to the
murderer?” he asked.
“Nothing. Stangerson had Drebber’s purse in his pocket, but it seems
that this was usual, as he did all the paying. There was eighty odd
pounds in it, but nothing had been taken. Whatever the motives of these
extraordinary crimes, robbery is certainly not one of them. There were
no papers or memoranda in the murdered man’s pocket, except a single
telegram, dated from Cleveland about a month ago, and containing the
words, ‘J. H. is in Europe.’ There was no name appended to this
message.”
“And there was nothing else?” Holmes asked.
“Nothing of any importance. The man’s novel, with which he had read
himself to sleep was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair
beside him. There was a glass of water on the table, and on the
window-sill a small chip ointment box containing a couple of pills.”
Sherlock Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of delight.
“The last link,” he cried, exultantly. “My case is complete.”
The two detectives stared at him in amazement.
“I have now in my hands,” my companion said, confidently, “all the
threads which have formed such a tangle. There are, of course, details
to be filled in, but I am as certain of all the main facts, from the
time that Drebber parted from Stangerson at the station, up to the
discovery of the body of the latter, as if I had seen them with my own
eyes. I will give you a proof of my knowledge. Could you lay your hand
upon those pills?”
“I have them,” said Lestrade, producing a small white box; “I took them
and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them put in a place
of safety at the Police Station. It was the merest chance my taking
these pills, for I am bound to say that I do not attach any importance
to them.”
“Give them here,” said Holmes. “Now, Doctor,” turning to me, “are those
ordinary pills?”
They certainly were not. They were of a pearly grey colour, small,
round, and almost transparent against the light. “From their lightness
and transparency, I should imagine that they are soluble in water,” I
remarked.
“Precisely so,” answered Holmes. “Now would you mind going down and
fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so
long, and which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain
yesterday.”
I went downstairs and carried the dog upstairs in my arms. Its laboured
breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far from its end.
Indeed, its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it had already exceeded
the usual term of canine existence. I placed it upon a cushion on the
rug.
“I will now cut one of these pills in two,” said Holmes, and drawing
his penknife he suited the action to the word. “One half we return into
the box for future purposes. The other half I will place in this wine
glass, in which is a teaspoonful of water. You perceive that our
friend, the Doctor, is right, and that it readily dissolves.”
“This may be very interesting,” said Lestrade, in the injured tone of
one who suspects that he is being laughed at, “I cannot see, however,
what it has to do with the death of Mr. Joseph Stangerson.”
“Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that it has
everything to do with it. I shall now add a little milk to make the
mixture palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we find that he laps
it up readily enough.”
As he spoke he turned the contents of the wine glass into a saucer and
placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry. Sherlock
Holmes’ earnest demeanour had so far convinced us that we all sat in
silence, watching the animal intently, and expecting some startling
effect. None such appeared, however. The dog continued to lie stretched
upon the cushion, breathing in a laboured way, but apparently neither
the better nor the worse for its draught.
Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without
result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment appeared
upon his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers upon the
table, and showed every other symptom of acute impatience. So great was
his emotion, that I felt sincerely sorry for him, while the two
detectives smiled derisively, by no means displeased at this check
which he had met.
“It can’t be a coincidence,” he cried, at last springing from his chair
and pacing wildly up and down the room; “it is impossible that it
should be a mere coincidence. The very pills which I suspected in the
case of Drebber are actually found after the death of Stangerson. And
yet they are inert. What can it mean? Surely my whole chain of
reasoning cannot have been false. It is impossible! And yet this
wretched dog is none the worse. Ah, I have it! I have it!” With a
perfect shriek of delight he rushed to the box, cut the other pill in
two, dissolved it, added milk, and presented it to the terrier. The
unfortunate creature’s tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in
it before it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid
and lifeless as if it had been struck by lightning.
Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from his
forehead. “I should have more faith,” he said; “I ought to know by this
time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of
deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other
interpretation. Of the two pills in that box one was of the most deadly
poison, and the other was entirely harmless. I ought to have known that
before ever I saw the box at all.”
This last statement appeared to me to be so startling, that I could
hardly believe that he was in his sober senses. There was the dead dog,
however, to prove that his conjecture had been correct. It seemed to me
that the mists in my own mind were gradually clearing away, and I began
to have a dim, vague perception of the truth.
“All this seems strange to you,” continued Holmes, “because you failed
at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the single
real clue which was presented to you. I had the good fortune to seize
upon that, and everything which has occurred since then has served to
confirm my original supposition, and, indeed, was the logical sequence
of it. Hence things which have perplexed you and made the case more
obscure, have served to enlighten me and to strengthen my conclusions.
It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most
commonplace crime is often the most mysterious because it presents no
new or special features from which deductions may be drawn. This murder
would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had the body of
the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of those
_outré_ and sensational accompaniments which have rendered it
remarkable. These strange details, far from making the case more
difficult, have really had the effect of making it less so.”
Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with considerable
impatience, could contain himself no longer. “Look here, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes,” he said, “we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a smart
man, and that you have your own methods of working. We want something
more than mere theory and preaching now, though. It is a case of taking
the man. I have made my case out, and it seems I was wrong. Young
Charpentier could not have been engaged in this second affair. Lestrade
went after his man, Stangerson, and it appears that he was wrong too.
You have thrown out hints here, and hints there, and seem to know more
than we do, but the time has come when we feel that we have a right to
ask you straight how much you do know of the business. Can you name the
man who did it?”
“I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir,” remarked Lestrade.
“We have both tried, and we have both failed. You have remarked more
than once since I have been in the room that you had all the evidence
which you require. Surely you will not withhold it any longer.”
“Any delay in arresting the assassin,” I observed, “might give him time
to perpetrate some fresh atrocity.”
Thus pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution. He
continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his chest
and his brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in thought.
“There will be no more murders,” he said at last, stopping abruptly and
facing us. “You can put that consideration out of the question. You
have asked me if I know the name of the assassin. I do. The mere
knowing of his name is a small thing, however, compared with the power
of laying our hands upon him. This I expect very shortly to do. I have
good hopes of managing it through my own arrangements; but it is a
thing which needs delicate handling, for we have a shrewd and desperate
man to deal with, who is supported, as I have had occasion to prove, by
another who is as clever as himself. As long as this man has no idea
that anyone can have a clue there is some chance of securing him; but
if he had the slightest suspicion, he would change his name, and vanish
in an instant among the four million inhabitants of this great city.
Without meaning to hurt either of your feelings, I am bound to say that
I consider these men to be more than a match for the official force,
and that is why I have not asked your assistance. If I fail I shall, of
course, incur all the blame due to this omission; but that I am
prepared for. At present I am ready to promise that the instant that I
can communicate with you without endangering my own combinations, I
shall do so.”
Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this assurance,
or by the depreciating allusion to the detective police. The former had
flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the other’s beady
eyes glistened with curiosity and resentment. Neither of them had time
to speak, however, before there was a tap at the door, and the
spokesman of the street Arabs, young Wiggins, introduced his
insignificant and unsavoury person.
“Please, sir,” he said, touching his forelock, “I have the cab
downstairs.”
“Good boy,” said Holmes, blandly. “Why don’t you introduce this pattern
at Scotland Yard?” he continued, taking a pair of steel handcuffs from
a drawer. “See how beautifully the spring works. They fasten in an
instant.”
“The old pattern is good enough,” remarked Lestrade, “if we can only
find the man to put them on.”
“Very good, very good,” said Holmes, smiling. “The cabman may as well
help me with my boxes. Just ask him to step up, Wiggins.”
I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he were about
to set out on a journey, since he had not said anything to me about it.
There was a small portmanteau in the room, and this he pulled out and
began to strap. He was busily engaged at it when the cabman entered the
room.
“Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman,” he said, kneeling over
his task, and never turning his head.
The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air, and put
down his hands to assist. At that instant there was a sharp click, the
jangling of metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.
“Gentlemen,” he cried, with flashing eyes, “let me introduce you to Mr.
Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph
Stangerson.”
The whole thing occurred in a moment—so quickly that I had no time to
realize it. I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes’
triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the cabman’s dazed,
savage face, as he glared at the glittering handcuffs, which had
appeared as if by magic upon his wrists. For a second or two we might
have been a group of statues. Then, with an inarticulate roar of fury,
the prisoner wrenched himself free from Holmes’s grasp, and hurled
himself through the window. Woodwork and glass gave way before him; but
before he got quite through, Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon
him like so many staghounds. He was dragged back into the room, and
then commenced a terrific conflict. So powerful and so fierce was he,
that the four of us were shaken off again and again. He appeared to
have the convulsive strength of a man in an epileptic fit. His face and
hands were terribly mangled by his passage through the glass, but loss
of blood had no effect in diminishing his resistance. It was not until
Lestrade succeeded in getting his hand inside his neckcloth and
half-strangling him that we made him realize that his struggles were of
no avail; and even then we felt no security until we had pinioned his
feet as well as his hands. That done, we rose to our feet breathless
and panting.
“We have his cab,” said Sherlock Holmes. “It will serve to take him to
Scotland Yard. And now, gentlemen,” he continued, with a pleasant
smile, “we have reached the end of our little mystery. You are very
welcome to put any questions that you like to me now, and there is no
danger that I will refuse to answer them.”
PART II.
_The Country of the Saints._
CHAPTER I.
ON THE GREAT ALKALI PLAIN.
In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies
an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a
barrier against the advance of civilisation. From the Sierra Nevada to
Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado
upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence. Nor is Nature
always in one mood throughout this grim district. It comprises
snow-capped and lofty mountains, and dark and gloomy valleys. There are
swift-flowing rivers which dash through jagged cañons; and there are
enormous plains, which in winter are white with snow, and in summer are
grey with the saline alkali dust. They all preserve, however, the
common characteristics of barrenness, inhospitality, and misery.
There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. A band of Pawnees or
of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other
hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose sight
of those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon their
prairies. The coyote skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps heavily
through the air, and the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through the dark
ravines, and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the rocks.
These are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.
In the whole world there can be no more dreary view than that from the
northern slope of the Sierra Blanco. As far as the eye can reach
stretches the great flat plain-land, all dusted over with patches of
alkali, and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral bushes. On
the extreme verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain peaks,
with their rugged summits flecked with snow. In this great stretch of
country there is no sign of life, nor of anything appertaining to life.
There is no bird in the steel-blue heaven, no movement upon the dull,
grey earth—above all, there is absolute silence. Listen as one may,
there is no shadow of a sound in all that mighty wilderness; nothing
but silence—complete and heart-subduing silence.
It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon the broad
plain. That is hardly true. Looking down from the Sierra Blanco, one
sees a pathway traced out across the desert, which winds away and is
lost in the extreme distance. It is rutted with wheels and trodden down
by the feet of many adventurers. Here and there there are scattered
white objects which glisten in the sun, and stand out against the dull
deposit of alkali. Approach, and examine them! They are bones: some
large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate. The former have
belonged to oxen, and the latter to men. For fifteen hundred miles one
may trace this ghastly caravan route by these scattered remains of
those who had fallen by the wayside.
Looking down on this very scene, there stood upon the fourth of May,
eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller. His appearance
was such that he might have been the very genius or demon of the
region. An observer would have found it difficult to say whether he was
nearer to forty or to sixty. His face was lean and haggard, and the
brown parchment-like skin was drawn tightly over the projecting bones;
his long, brown hair and beard were all flecked and dashed with white;
his eyes were sunken in his head, and burned with an unnatural lustre;
while the hand which grasped his rifle was hardly more fleshy than that
of a skeleton. As he stood, he leaned upon his weapon for support, and
yet his tall figure and the massive framework of his bones suggested a
wiry and vigorous constitution. His gaunt face, however, and his
clothes, which hung so baggily over his shrivelled limbs, proclaimed
what it was that gave him that senile and decrepit appearance. The man
was dying—dying from hunger and from thirst.
He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little
elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the
great salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of
savage mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might
indicate the presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape there
was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild
questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had come to
an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to die. “Why
not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence,” he
muttered, as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.
Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless
rifle, and also a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl, which he had
carried slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too
heavy for his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the ground
with some little violence. Instantly there broke from the grey parcel a
little moaning cry, and from it there protruded a small, scared face,
with very bright brown eyes, and two little speckled, dimpled fists.
“You’ve hurt me!” said a childish voice reproachfully.
“Have I though,” the man answered penitently, “I didn’t go for to do
it.” As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty
little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart
pink frock with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother’s care. The
child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that she
had suffered less than her companion.
“How is it now?” he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the
towsy golden curls which covered the back of her head.
“Kiss it and make it well,” she said, with perfect gravity, showing the
injured part up to him. “That’s what mother used to do. Where’s
mother?”
“Mother’s gone. I guess you’ll see her before long.”
“Gone, eh!” said the little girl. “Funny, she didn’t say good-bye; she
‘most always did if she was just goin’ over to Auntie’s for tea, and
now she’s been away three days. Say, it’s awful dry, ain’t it? Ain’t
there no water, nor nothing to eat?”
“No, there ain’t nothing, dearie. You’ll just need to be patient
awhile, and then you’ll be all right. Put your head up agin me like
that, and then you’ll feel bullier. It ain’t easy to talk when your
lips is like leather, but I guess I’d best let you know how the cards
lie. What’s that you’ve got?”
“Pretty things! fine things!” cried the little girl enthusiastically,
holding up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we goes back to home
I’ll give them to brother Bob.”
“You’ll see prettier things than them soon,” said the man confidently.
“You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though—you remember when
we left the river?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, we reckoned we’d strike another river soon, d’ye see. But there
was somethin’ wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin’, and it didn’t
turn up. Water ran out. Just except a little drop for the likes of you
and—and——”
“And you couldn’t wash yourself,” interrupted his companion gravely,
staring up at his grimy visage.
“No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender, he was the fust to go, and then Indian
Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then, dearie,
your mother.”
“Then mother’s a deader too,” cried the little girl dropping her face
in her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.
“Yes, they all went except you and me. Then I thought there was some
chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over my shoulder and
we tramped it together. It don’t seem as though we’ve improved matters.
There’s an almighty small chance for us now!”
“Do you mean that we are going to die too?” asked the child, checking
her sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.
“I guess that’s about the size of it.”
“Why didn’t you say so before?” she said, laughing gleefully. “You gave
me such a fright. Why, of course, now as long as we die we’ll be with
mother again.”
“Yes, you will, dearie.”
“And you too. I’ll tell her how awful good you’ve been. I’ll bet she
meets us at the door of Heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot
of buckwheat cakes, hot, and toasted on both sides, like Bob and me was
fond of. How long will it be first?”
“I don’t know—not very long.” The man’s eyes were fixed upon the
northern horizon. In the blue vault of the heaven there had appeared
three little specks which increased in size every moment, so rapidly
did they approach. They speedily resolved themselves into three large
brown birds, which circled over the heads of the two wanderers, and
then settled upon some rocks which overlooked them. They were buzzards,
the vultures of the west, whose coming is the forerunner of death.
“Cocks and hens,” cried the little girl gleefully, pointing at their
ill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise. “Say, did
God make this country?”
“In course He did,” said her companion, rather startled by this
unexpected question.
“He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the Missouri,” the
little girl continued. “I guess somebody else made the country in these
parts. It’s not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and the
trees.”
“What would ye think of offering up prayer?” the man asked diffidently.
“It ain’t night yet,” she answered.
“It don’t matter. It ain’t quite regular, but He won’t mind that, you
bet. You say over them ones that you used to say every night in the
waggon when we was on the Plains.”
“Why don’t you say some yourself?” the child asked, with wondering
eyes.
“I disremember them,” he answered. “I hain’t said none since I was half
the height o’ that gun. I guess it’s never too late. You say them out,
and I’ll stand by and come in on the choruses.”
“Then you’ll need to kneel down, and me too,” she said, laying the
shawl out for that purpose. “You’ve got to put your hands up like this.
It makes you feel kind o’ good.”
It was a strange sight had there been anything but the buzzards to see
it. Side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers, the
little prattling child and the reckless, hardened adventurer. Her
chubby face, and his haggard, angular visage were both turned up to the
cloudless heaven in heartfelt entreaty to that dread being with whom
they were face to face, while the two voices—the one thin and clear,
the other deep and harsh—united in the entreaty for mercy and
forgiveness. The prayer finished, they resumed their seat in the shadow
of the boulder until the child fell asleep, nestling upon the broad
breast of her protector. He watched over her slumber for some time, but
Nature proved to be too strong for him. For three days and three nights
he had allowed himself neither rest nor repose. Slowly the eyelids
drooped over the tired eyes, and the head sunk lower and lower upon the
breast, until the man’s grizzled beard was mixed with the gold tresses
of his companion, and both slept the same deep and dreamless slumber.
Had the wanderer remained awake for another half hour a strange sight
would have met his eyes. Far away on the extreme verge of the alkali
plain there rose up a little spray of dust, very slight at first, and
hardly to be distinguished from the mists of the distance, but
gradually growing higher and broader until it formed a solid,
well-defined cloud. This cloud continued to increase in size until it
became evident that it could only be raised by a great multitude of
moving creatures. In more fertile spots the observer would have come to
the conclusion that one of those great herds of bisons which graze upon
the prairie land was approaching him. This was obviously impossible in
these arid wilds. As the whirl of dust drew nearer to the solitary
bluff upon which the two castaways were reposing, the canvas-covered
tilts of waggons and the figures of armed horsemen began to show up
through the haze, and the apparition revealed itself as being a great
caravan upon its journey for the West. But what a caravan! When the
head of it had reached the base of the mountains, the rear was not yet
visible on the horizon. Right across the enormous plain stretched the
straggling array, waggons and carts, men on horseback, and men on foot.
Innumerable women who staggered along under burdens, and children who
toddled beside the waggons or peeped out from under the white
coverings. This was evidently no ordinary party of immigrants, but
rather some nomad people who had been compelled from stress of
circumstances to seek themselves a new country. There rose through the
clear air a confused clattering and rumbling from this great mass of
humanity, with the creaking of wheels and the neighing of horses. Loud
as it was, it was not sufficient to rouse the two tired wayfarers above
them.
At the head of the column there rode a score or more of grave ironfaced
men, clad in sombre homespun garments and armed with rifles. On
reaching the base of the bluff they halted, and held a short council
among themselves.
“The wells are to the right, my brothers,” said one, a hard-lipped,
clean-shaven man with grizzly hair.
“To the right of the Sierra Blanco—so we shall reach the Rio Grande,”
said another.
“Fear not for water,” cried a third. “He who could draw it from the
rocks will not now abandon His own chosen people.”
“Amen! Amen!” responded the whole party.
They were about to resume their journey when one of the youngest and
keenest-eyed uttered an exclamation and pointed up at the rugged crag
above them. From its summit there fluttered a little wisp of pink,
showing up hard and bright against the grey rocks behind. At the sight
there was a general reining up of horses and unslinging of guns, while
fresh horsemen came galloping up to reinforce the vanguard. The word
‘Redskins’ was on every lip.
“There can’t be any number of Injuns here,” said the elderly man who
appeared to be in command. “We have passed the Pawnees, and there are
no other tribes until we cross the great mountains.”
“Shall I go forward and see, Brother Stangerson,” asked one of the
band.
“And I,” “and I,” cried a dozen voices.
“Leave your horses below and we will await you here,” the Elder
answered. In a moment the young fellows had dismounted, fastened their
horses, and were ascending the precipitous slope which led up to the
object which had excited their curiosity. They advanced rapidly and
noiselessly, with the confidence and dexterity of practised scouts. The
watchers from the plain below could see them flit from rock to rock
until their figures stood out against the skyline. The young man who
had first given the alarm was leading them. Suddenly his followers saw
him throw up his hands, as though overcome with astonishment, and on
joining him they were affected in the same way by the sight which met
their eyes.
On the little plateau which crowned the barren hill there stood a
single giant boulder, and against this boulder there lay a tall man,
long-bearded and hard-featured, but of an excessive thinness. His
placid face and regular breathing showed that he was fast asleep.
Beside him lay a little child, with her round white arms encircling his
brown sinewy neck, and her golden haired head resting upon the breast
of his velveteen tunic. Her rosy lips were parted, showing the regular
line of snow-white teeth within, and a playful smile played over her
infantile features. Her plump little white legs terminating in white
socks and neat shoes with shining buckles, offered a strange contrast
to the long shrivelled members of her companion. On the ledge of rock
above this strange couple there stood three solemn buzzards, who, at
the sight of the new comers uttered raucous screams of disappointment
and flapped sullenly away.
The cries of the foul birds awoke the two sleepers who stared about
them in bewilderment. The man staggered to his feet and looked down
upon the plain which had been so desolate when sleep had overtaken him,
and which was now traversed by this enormous body of men and of beasts.
His face assumed an expression of incredulity as he gazed, and he
passed his boney hand over his eyes. “This is what they call delirium,
I guess,” he muttered. The child stood beside him, holding on to the
skirt of his coat, and said nothing but looked all round her with the
wondering questioning gaze of childhood.
The rescuing party were speedily able to convince the two castaways
that their appearance was no delusion. One of them seized the little
girl, and hoisted her upon his shoulder, while two others supported her
gaunt companion, and assisted him towards the waggons.
“My name is John Ferrier,” the wanderer explained; “me and that little
un are all that’s left o’ twenty-one people. The rest is all dead o’
thirst and hunger away down in the south.”
“Is she your child?” asked someone.
“I guess she is now,” the other cried, defiantly; “she’s mine ‘cause I
saved her. No man will take her from me. She’s Lucy Ferrier from this
day on. Who are you, though?” he continued, glancing with curiosity at
his stalwart, sunburned rescuers; “there seems to be a powerful lot of
ye.”
“Nigh upon ten thousand,” said one of the young men; “we are the
persecuted children of God—the chosen of the Angel Merona.”
“I never heard tell on him,” said the wanderer. “He appears to have
chosen a fair crowd of ye.”
“Do not jest at that which is sacred,” said the other sternly. “We are
of those who believe in those sacred writings, drawn in Egyptian
letters on plates of beaten gold, which were handed unto the holy
Joseph Smith at Palmyra. We have come from Nauvoo, in the State of
Illinois, where we had founded our temple. We have come to seek a
refuge from the violent man and from the godless, even though it be the
heart of the desert.”
The name of Nauvoo evidently recalled recollections to John Ferrier. “I
see,” he said, “you are the Mormons.”
“We are the Mormons,” answered his companions with one voice.
“And where are you going?”
“We do not know. The hand of God is leading us under the person of our
Prophet. You must come before him. He shall say what is to be done with
you.”
They had reached the base of the hill by this time, and were surrounded
by crowds of the pilgrims—pale-faced meek-looking women, strong
laughing children, and anxious earnest-eyed men. Many were the cries of
astonishment and of commiseration which arose from them when they
perceived the youth of one of the strangers and the destitution of the
other. Their escort did not halt, however, but pushed on, followed by a
great crowd of Mormons, until they reached a waggon, which was
conspicuous for its great size and for the gaudiness and smartness of
its appearance. Six horses were yoked to it, whereas the others were
furnished with two, or, at most, four a-piece. Beside the driver there
sat a man who could not have been more than thirty years of age, but
whose massive head and resolute expression marked him as a leader. He
was reading a brown-backed volume, but as the crowd approached he laid
it aside, and listened attentively to an account of the episode. Then
he turned to the two castaways.
“If we take you with us,” he said, in solemn words, “it can only be as
believers in our own creed. We shall have no wolves in our fold. Better
far that your bones should bleach in this wilderness than that you
should prove to be that little speck of decay which in time corrupts
the whole fruit. Will you come with us on these terms?”
“Guess I’ll come with you on any terms,” said Ferrier, with such
emphasis that the grave Elders could not restrain a smile. The leader
alone retained his stern, impressive expression.
“Take him, Brother Stangerson,” he said, “give him food and drink, and
the child likewise. Let it be your task also to teach him our holy
creed. We have delayed long enough. Forward! On, on to Zion!”
“On, on to Zion!” cried the crowd of Mormons, and the words rippled
down the long caravan, passing from mouth to mouth until they died away
in a dull murmur in the far distance. With a cracking of whips and a
creaking of wheels the great waggons got into motion, and soon the
whole caravan was winding along once more. The Elder to whose care the
two waifs had been committed, led them to his waggon, where a meal was
already awaiting them.
“You shall remain here,” he said. “In a few days you will have
recovered from your fatigues. In the meantime, remember that now and
for ever you are of our religion. Brigham Young has said it, and he has
spoken with the voice of Joseph Smith, which is the voice of God.”
CHAPTER II.
THE FLOWER OF UTAH.
This is not the place to commemorate the trials and privations endured
by the immigrant Mormons before they came to their final haven. From
the shores of the Mississippi to the western slopes of the Rocky
Mountains they had struggled on with a constancy almost unparalleled in
history. The savage man, and the savage beast, hunger, thirst, fatigue,
and disease—every impediment which Nature could place in the way, had
all been overcome with Anglo-Saxon tenacity. Yet the long journey and
the accumulated terrors had shaken the hearts of the stoutest among
them. There was not one who did not sink upon his knees in heartfelt
prayer when they saw the broad valley of Utah bathed in the sunlight
beneath them, and learned from the lips of their leader that this was
the promised land, and that these virgin acres were to be theirs for
evermore.
Young speedily proved himself to be a skilful administrator as well as
a resolute chief. Maps were drawn and charts prepared, in which the
future city was sketched out. All around farms were apportioned and
allotted in proportion to the standing of each individual. The
tradesman was put to his trade and the artisan to his calling. In the
town streets and squares sprang up, as if by magic. In the country
there was draining and hedging, planting and clearing, until the next
summer saw the whole country golden with the wheat crop. Everything
prospered in the strange settlement. Above all, the great temple which
they had erected in the centre of the city grew ever taller and larger.
From the first blush of dawn until the closing of the twilight, the
clatter of the hammer and the rasp of the saw was never absent from the
monument which the immigrants erected to Him who had led them safe
through many dangers.
The two castaways, John Ferrier and the little girl who had shared his
fortunes and had been adopted as his daughter, accompanied the Mormons
to the end of their great pilgrimage. Little Lucy Ferrier was borne
along pleasantly enough in Elder Stangerson’s waggon, a retreat which
she shared with the Mormon’s three wives and with his son, a headstrong
forward boy of twelve. Having rallied, with the elasticity of
childhood, from the shock caused by her mother’s death, she soon became
a pet with the women, and reconciled herself to this new life in her
moving canvas-covered home. In the meantime Ferrier having recovered
from his privations, distinguished himself as a useful guide and an
indefatigable hunter. So rapidly did he gain the esteem of his new
companions, that when they reached the end of their wanderings, it was
unanimously agreed that he should be provided with as large and as
fertile a tract of land as any of the settlers, with the exception of
Young himself, and of Stangerson, Kemball, Johnston, and Drebber, who
were the four principal Elders.
On the farm thus acquired John Ferrier built himself a substantial
log-house, which received so many additions in succeeding years that it
grew into a roomy villa. He was a man of a practical turn of mind, keen
in his dealings and skilful with his hands. His iron constitution
enabled him to work morning and evening at improving and tilling his
lands. Hence it came about that his farm and all that belonged to him
prospered exceedingly. In three years he was better off than his
neighbours, in six he was well-to-do, in nine he was rich, and in
twelve there were not half a dozen men in the whole of Salt Lake City
who could compare with him. From the great inland sea to the distant
Wahsatch Mountains there was no name better known than that of John
Ferrier.
There was one way and only one in which he offended the
susceptibilities of his co-religionists. No argument or persuasion
could ever induce him to set up a female establishment after the manner
of his companions. He never gave reasons for this persistent refusal,
but contented himself by resolutely and inflexibly adhering to his
determination. There were some who accused him of lukewarmness in his
adopted religion, and others who put it down to greed of wealth and
reluctance to incur expense. Others, again, spoke of some early love
affair, and of a fair-haired girl who had pined away on the shores of
the Atlantic. Whatever the reason, Ferrier remained strictly celibate.
In every other respect he conformed to the religion of the young
settlement, and gained the name of being an orthodox and
straight-walking man.
Lucy Ferrier grew up within the log-house, and assisted her adopted
father in all his undertakings. The keen air of the mountains and the
balsamic odour of the pine trees took the place of nurse and mother to
the young girl. As year succeeded to year she grew taller and stronger,
her cheek more rudy, and her step more elastic. Many a wayfarer upon
the high road which ran by Ferrier’s farm felt long-forgotten thoughts
revive in their mind as they watched her lithe girlish figure tripping
through the wheatfields, or met her mounted upon her father’s mustang,
and managing it with all the ease and grace of a true child of the
West. So the bud blossomed into a flower, and the year which saw her
father the richest of the farmers left her as fair a specimen of
American girlhood as could be found in the whole Pacific slope.
It was not the father, however, who first discovered that the child had
developed into the woman. It seldom is in such cases. That mysterious
change is too subtle and too gradual to be measured by dates. Least of
all does the maiden herself know it until the tone of a voice or the
touch of a hand sets her heart thrilling within her, and she learns,
with a mixture of pride and of fear, that a new and a larger nature has
awoken within her. There are few who cannot recall that day and
remember the one little incident which heralded the dawn of a new life.
In the case of Lucy Ferrier the occasion was serious enough in itself,
apart from its future influence on her destiny and that of many
besides.
It was a warm June morning, and the Latter Day Saints were as busy as
the bees whose hive they have chosen for their emblem. In the fields
and in the streets rose the same hum of human industry. Down the dusty
high roads defiled long streams of heavily-laden mules, all heading to
the west, for the gold fever had broken out in California, and the
Overland Route lay through the City of the Elect. There, too, were
droves of sheep and bullocks coming in from the outlying pasture lands,
and trains of tired immigrants, men and horses equally weary of their
interminable journey. Through all this motley assemblage, threading her
way with the skill of an accomplished rider, there galloped Lucy
Ferrier, her fair face flushed with the exercise and her long chestnut
hair floating out behind her. She had a commission from her father in
the City, and was dashing in as she had done many a time before, with
all the fearlessness of youth, thinking only of her task and how it was
to be performed. The travel-stained adventurers gazed after her in
astonishment, and even the unemotional Indians, journeying in with
their pelties, relaxed their accustomed stoicism as they marvelled at
the beauty of the pale-faced maiden.
She had reached the outskirts of the city when she found the road
blocked by a great drove of cattle, driven by a half-dozen wild-looking
herdsmen from the plains. In her impatience she endeavoured to pass
this obstacle by pushing her horse into what appeared to be a gap.
Scarcely had she got fairly into it, however, before the beasts closed
in behind her, and she found herself completely imbedded in the moving
stream of fierce-eyed, long-horned bullocks. Accustomed as she was to
deal with cattle, she was not alarmed at her situation, but took
advantage of every opportunity to urge her horse on in the hopes of
pushing her way through the cavalcade. Unfortunately the horns of one
of the creatures, either by accident or design, came in violent contact
with the flank of the mustang, and excited it to madness. In an instant
it reared up upon its hind legs with a snort of rage, and pranced and
tossed in a way that would have unseated any but a most skilful rider.
The situation was full of peril. Every plunge of the excited horse
brought it against the horns again, and goaded it to fresh madness. It
was all that the girl could do to keep herself in the saddle, yet a
slip would mean a terrible death under the hoofs of the unwieldy and
terrified animals. Unaccustomed to sudden emergencies, her head began
to swim, and her grip upon the bridle to relax. Choked by the rising
cloud of dust and by the steam from the struggling creatures, she might
have abandoned her efforts in despair, but for a kindly voice at her
elbow which assured her of assistance. At the same moment a sinewy
brown hand caught the frightened horse by the curb, and forcing a way
through the drove, soon brought her to the outskirts.
“You’re not hurt, I hope, miss,” said her preserver, respectfully.
She looked up at his dark, fierce face, and laughed saucily. “I’m awful
frightened,” she said, naively; “whoever would have thought that Poncho
would have been so scared by a lot of cows?”
“Thank God you kept your seat,” the other said earnestly. He was a
tall, savage-looking young fellow, mounted on a powerful roan horse,
and clad in the rough dress of a hunter, with a long rifle slung over
his shoulders. “I guess you are the daughter of John Ferrier,” he
remarked, “I saw you ride down from his house. When you see him, ask
him if he remembers the Jefferson Hopes of St. Louis. If he’s the same
Ferrier, my father and he were pretty thick.”
“Hadn’t you better come and ask yourself?” she asked, demurely.
The young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion, and his dark eyes
sparkled with pleasure. “I’ll do so,” he said, “we’ve been in the
mountains for two months, and are not over and above in visiting
condition. He must take us as he finds us.”
“He has a good deal to thank you for, and so have I,” she answered,
“he’s awful fond of me. If those cows had jumped on me he’d have never
got over it.”
“Neither would I,” said her companion.
“You! Well, I don’t see that it would make much matter to you, anyhow.
You ain’t even a friend of ours.”
The young hunter’s dark face grew so gloomy over this remark that Lucy
Ferrier laughed aloud.
“There, I didn’t mean that,” she said; “of course, you are a friend
now. You must come and see us. Now I must push along, or father won’t
trust me with his business any more. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye,” he answered, raising his broad sombrero, and bending over
her little hand. She wheeled her mustang round, gave it a cut with her
riding-whip, and darted away down the broad road in a rolling cloud of
dust.
Young Jefferson Hope rode on with his companions, gloomy and taciturn.
He and they had been among the Nevada Mountains prospecting for silver,
and were returning to Salt Lake City in the hope of raising capital
enough to work some lodes which they had discovered. He had been as
keen as any of them upon the business until this sudden incident had
drawn his thoughts into another channel. The sight of the fair young
girl, as frank and wholesome as the Sierra breezes, had stirred his
volcanic, untamed heart to its very depths. When she had vanished from
his sight, he realized that a crisis had come in his life, and that
neither silver speculations nor any other questions could ever be of
such importance to him as this new and all-absorbing one. The love
which had sprung up in his heart was not the sudden, changeable fancy
of a boy, but rather the wild, fierce passion of a man of strong will
and imperious temper. He had been accustomed to succeed in all that he
undertook. He swore in his heart that he would not fail in this if
human effort and human perseverance could render him successful.
He called on John Ferrier that night, and many times again, until his
face was a familiar one at the farm-house. John, cooped up in the
valley, and absorbed in his work, had had little chance of learning the
news of the outside world during the last twelve years. All this
Jefferson Hope was able to tell him, and in a style which interested
Lucy as well as her father. He had been a pioneer in California, and
could narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost in
those wild, halcyon days. He had been a scout too, and a trapper, a
silver explorer, and a ranchman. Wherever stirring adventures were to
be had, Jefferson Hope had been there in search of them. He soon became
a favourite with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently of his virtues.
On such occasions, Lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek and her
bright, happy eyes, showed only too clearly that her young heart was no
longer her own. Her honest father may not have observed these symptoms,
but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the man who had won her
affections.
It was a summer evening when he came galloping down the road and pulled
up at the gate. She was at the doorway, and came down to meet him. He
threw the bridle over the fence and strode up the pathway.
“I am off, Lucy,” he said, taking her two hands in his, and gazing
tenderly down into her face; “I won’t ask you to come with me now, but
will you be ready to come when I am here again?”
“And when will that be?” she asked, blushing and laughing.
“A couple of months at the outside. I will come and claim you then, my
darling. There’s no one who can stand between us.”
“And how about father?” she asked.
“He has given his consent, provided we get these mines working all
right. I have no fear on that head.”
“Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it all, there’s
no more to be said,” she whispered, with her cheek against his broad
breast.
“Thank God!” he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her. “It is
settled, then. The longer I stay, the harder it will be to go. They are
waiting for me at the cañon. Good-bye, my own darling—good-bye. In two
months you shall see me.”
He tore himself from her as he spoke, and, flinging himself upon his
horse, galloped furiously away, never even looking round, as though
afraid that his resolution might fail him if he took one glance at what
he was leaving. She stood at the gate, gazing after him until he
vanished from her sight. Then she walked back into the house, the
happiest girl in all Utah.
CHAPTER III.
JOHN FERRIER TALKS WITH THE PROPHET.
Three weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades had
departed from Salt Lake City. John Ferrier’s heart was sore within him
when he thought of the young man’s return, and of the impending loss of
his adopted child. Yet her bright and happy face reconciled him to the
arrangement more than any argument could have done. He had always
determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing would ever
induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon. Such a marriage he
regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace. Whatever
he might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he was
inflexible. He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for to
express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in
the Land of the Saints.
Yes, a dangerous matter—so dangerous that even the most saintly dared
only whisper their religious opinions with bated breath, lest something
which fell from their lips might be misconstrued, and bring down a
swift retribution upon them. The victims of persecution had now turned
persecutors on their own account, and persecutors of the most terrible
description. Not the Inquisition of Seville, nor the German
Vehmgericht, nor the Secret Societies of Italy, were ever able to put
a more formidable machinery in motion than that which cast a cloud over
the State of Utah.
Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it, made this
organization doubly terrible. It appeared to be omniscient and
omnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard. The man who held out
against the Church vanished away, and none knew whither he had gone or
what had befallen him. His wife and his children awaited him at home,
but no father ever returned to tell them how he had fared at the hands
of his secret judges. A rash word or a hasty act was followed by
annihilation, and yet none knew what the nature might be of this
terrible power which was suspended over them. No wonder that men went
about in fear and trembling, and that even in the heart of the
wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed them.
At first this vague and terrible power was exercised only upon the
recalcitrants who, having embraced the Mormon faith, wished afterwards
to pervert or to abandon it. Soon, however, it took a wider range. The
supply of adult women was running short, and polygamy without a female
population on which to draw was a barren doctrine indeed. Strange
rumours began to be bandied about—rumours of murdered immigrants and
rifled camps in regions where Indians had never been seen. Fresh women
appeared in the harems of the Elders—women who pined and wept, and bore
upon their faces the traces of an unextinguishable horror. Belated
wanderers upon the mountains spoke of gangs of armed men, masked,
stealthy, and noiseless, who flitted by them in the darkness. These
tales and rumours took substance and shape, and were corroborated and
re-corroborated, until they resolved themselves into a definite name.
To this day, in the lonely ranches of the West, the name of the Danite
Band, or the Avenging Angels, is a sinister and an ill-omened one.
Fuller knowledge of the organization which produced such terrible
results served to increase rather than to lessen the horror which it
inspired in the minds of men. None knew who belonged to this ruthless
society. The names of the participators in the deeds of blood and
violence done under the name of religion were kept profoundly secret.
The very friend to whom you communicated your misgivings as to the
Prophet and his mission, might be one of those who would come forth at
night with fire and sword to exact a terrible reparation. Hence every
man feared his neighbour, and none spoke of the things which were
nearest his heart.
One fine morning, John Ferrier was about to set out to his wheatfields,
when he heard the click of the latch, and, looking through the window,
saw a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man coming up the pathway. His
heart leapt to his mouth, for this was none other than the great
Brigham Young himself. Full of trepidation—for he knew that such a
visit boded him little good—Ferrier ran to the door to greet the Mormon
chief. The latter, however, received his salutations coldly, and
followed him with a stern face into the sitting-room.
“Brother Ferrier,” he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the farmer keenly
from under his light-coloured eyelashes, “the true believers have been
good friends to you. We picked you up when you were starving in the
desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to the Chosen Valley,
gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to wax rich under our
protection. Is not this so?”
“It is so,” answered John Ferrier.
“In return for all this we asked but one condition: that was, that you
should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its usages.
This you promised to do, and this, if common report says truly, you
have neglected.”
“And how have I neglected it?” asked Ferrier, throwing out his hands in
expostulation. “Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not
attended at the Temple? Have I not——?”
“Where are your wives?” asked Young, looking round him. “Call them in,
that I may greet them.”
“It is true that I have not married,” Ferrier answered. “But women were
few, and there were many who had better claims than I. I was not a
lonely man: I had my daughter to attend to my wants.”
“It is of that daughter that I would speak to you,” said the leader of
the Mormons. “She has grown to be the flower of Utah, and has found
favour in the eyes of many who are high in the land.”
John Ferrier groaned internally.
“There are stories of her which I would fain disbelieve—stories that
she is sealed to some Gentile. This must be the gossip of idle tongues.
What is the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted Joseph Smith?
‘Let every maiden of the true faith marry one of the elect; for if she
wed a Gentile, she commits a grievous sin.’ This being so, it is
impossible that you, who profess the holy creed, should suffer your
daughter to violate it.”
John Ferrier made no answer, but he played nervously with his
riding-whip.
“Upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested—so it has been
decided in the Sacred Council of Four. The girl is young, and we would
not have her wed grey hairs, neither would we deprive her of all
choice. We Elders have many heifers,[1] but our children must also be
provided. Stangerson has a son, and Drebber has a son, and either of
them would gladly welcome your daughter to their house. Let her choose
between them. They are young and rich, and of the true faith. What say
you to that?”
[1] Heber C. Kemball, in one of his sermons, alludes to his hundred
wives under this endearing epithet.
Ferrier remained silent for some little time with his brows knitted.
“You will give us time,” he said at last. “My daughter is very
young—she is scarce of an age to marry.”
“She shall have a month to choose,” said Young, rising from his seat.
“At the end of that time she shall give her answer.”
He was passing through the door, when he turned, with flushed face and
flashing eyes. “It were better for you, John Ferrier,” he thundered,
“that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons upon the Sierra
Blanco, than that you should put your weak wills against the orders of
the Holy Four!”
With a threatening gesture of his hand, he turned from the door, and
Ferrier heard his heavy step scrunching along the shingly path.
He was still sitting with his elbows upon his knees, considering how he
should broach the matter to his daughter when a soft hand was laid upon
his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside him. One glance at her
pale, frightened face showed him that she had heard what had passed.
“I could not help it,” she said, in answer to his look. “His voice rang
through the house. Oh, father, father, what shall we do?”
“Don’t you scare yourself,” he answered, drawing her to him, and
passing his broad, rough hand caressingly over her chestnut hair.
“We’ll fix it up somehow or another. You don’t find your fancy kind o’
lessening for this chap, do you?”
A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.
“No; of course not. I shouldn’t care to hear you say you did. He’s a
likely lad, and he’s a Christian, which is more than these folk here,
in spite o’ all their praying and preaching. There’s a party starting
for Nevada to-morrow, and I’ll manage to send him a message letting him
know the hole we are in. If I know anything o’ that young man, he’ll be
back here with a speed that would whip electro-telegraphs.”
Lucy laughed through her tears at her father’s description.
“When he comes, he will advise us for the best. But it is for you that
I am frightened, dear. One hears—one hears such dreadful stories about
those who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always happens to
them.”
“But we haven’t opposed him yet,” her father answered. “It will be time
to look out for squalls when we do. We have a clear month before us; at
the end of that, I guess we had best shin out of Utah.”
“Leave Utah!”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“But the farm?”
“We will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest go. To tell
the truth, Lucy, it isn’t the first time I have thought of doing it. I
don’t care about knuckling under to any man, as these folk do to their
darned prophet. I’m a free-born American, and it’s all new to me. Guess
I’m too old to learn. If he comes browsing about this farm, he might
chance to run up against a charge of buckshot travelling in the
opposite direction.”
“But they won’t let us leave,” his daughter objected.
“Wait till Jefferson comes, and we’ll soon manage that. In the
meantime, don’t you fret yourself, my dearie, and don’t get your eyes
swelled up, else he’ll be walking into me when he sees you. There’s
nothing to be afeared about, and there’s no danger at all.”
John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident tone,
but she could not help observing that he paid unusual care to the
fastening of the doors that night, and that he carefully cleaned and
loaded the rusty old shotgun which hung upon the wall of his bedroom.
CHAPTER IV.
A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.
On the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon Prophet,
John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City, and having found his
acquaintance, who was bound for the Nevada Mountains, he entrusted him
with his message to Jefferson Hope. In it he told the young man of the
imminent danger which threatened them, and how necessary it was that he
should return. Having done thus he felt easier in his mind, and
returned home with a lighter heart.
As he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse hitched to
each of the posts of the gate. Still more surprised was he on entering
to find two young men in possession of his sitting-room. One, with a
long pale face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair, with his feet
cocked up upon the stove. The other, a bull-necked youth with coarse
bloated features, was standing in front of the window with his hands in
his pocket, whistling a popular hymn. Both of them nodded to Ferrier as
he entered, and the one in the rocking-chair commenced the
conversation.
“Maybe you don’t know us,” he said. “This here is the son of Elder
Drebber, and I’m Joseph Stangerson, who travelled with you in the
desert when the Lord stretched out His hand and gathered you into the
true fold.”
“As He will all the nations in His own good time,” said the other in a
nasal voice; “He grindeth slowly but exceeding small.”
John Ferrier bowed coldly. He had guessed who his visitors were.
“We have come,” continued Stangerson, “at the advice of our fathers to
solicit the hand of your daughter for whichever of us may seem good to
you and to her. As I have but four wives and Brother Drebber here has
seven, it appears to me that my claim is the stronger one.”
“Nay, nay, Brother Stangerson,” cried the other; “the question is not
how many wives we have, but how many we can keep. My father has now
given over his mills to me, and I am the richer man.”
“But my prospects are better,” said the other, warmly. “When the Lord
removes my father, I shall have his tanning yard and his leather
factory. Then I am your elder, and am higher in the Church.”
“It will be for the maiden to decide,” rejoined young Drebber, smirking
at his own reflection in the glass. “We will leave it all to her
decision.”
During this dialogue, John Ferrier had stood fuming in the doorway,
hardly able to keep his riding-whip from the backs of his two visitors.
“Look here,” he said at last, striding up to them, “when my daughter
summons you, you can come, but until then I don’t want to see your
faces again.”
The two young Mormons stared at him in amazement. In their eyes this
competition between them for the maiden’s hand was the highest of
honours both to her and her father.
“There are two ways out of the room,” cried Ferrier; “there is the
door, and there is the window. Which do you care to use?”
His brown face looked so savage, and his gaunt hands so threatening,
that his visitors sprang to their feet and beat a hurried retreat. The
old farmer followed them to the door.
“Let me know when you have settled which it is to be,” he said,
sardonically.
“You shall smart for this!” Stangerson cried, white with rage. “You
have defied the Prophet and the Council of Four. You shall rue it to
the end of your days.”
“The hand of the Lord shall be heavy upon you,” cried young Drebber;
“He will arise and smite you!”
“Then I’ll start the smiting,” exclaimed Ferrier furiously, and would
have rushed upstairs for his gun had not Lucy seized him by the arm and
restrained him. Before he could escape from her, the clatter of horses’
hoofs told him that they were beyond his reach.
“The young canting rascals!” he exclaimed, wiping the perspiration from
his forehead; “I would sooner see you in your grave, my girl, than the
wife of either of them.”
“And so should I, father,” she answered, with spirit; “but Jefferson
will soon be here.”
“Yes. It will not be long before he comes. The sooner the better, for
we do not know what their next move may be.”
It was, indeed, high time that someone capable of giving advice and
help should come to the aid of the sturdy old farmer and his adopted
daughter. In the whole history of the settlement there had never been
such a case of rank disobedience to the authority of the Elders. If
minor errors were punished so sternly, what would be the fate of this
arch rebel. Ferrier knew that his wealth and position would be of no
avail to him. Others as well known and as rich as himself had been
spirited away before now, and their goods given over to the Church. He
was a brave man, but he trembled at the vague, shadowy terrors which
hung over him. Any known danger he could face with a firm lip, but this
suspense was unnerving. He concealed his fears from his daughter,
however, and affected to make light of the whole matter, though she,
with the keen eye of love, saw plainly that he was ill at ease.
He expected that he would receive some message or remonstrance from
Young as to his conduct, and he was not mistaken, though it came in an
unlooked-for manner. Upon rising next morning he found, to his
surprise, a small square of paper pinned on to the coverlet of his bed
just over his chest. On it was printed, in bold straggling letters:—
“Twenty-nine days are given you for amendment, and then——”
The dash was more fear-inspiring than any threat could have been. How
this warning came into his room puzzled John Ferrier sorely, for his
servants slept in an outhouse, and the doors and windows had all been
secured. He crumpled the paper up and said nothing to his daughter, but
the incident struck a chill into his heart. The twenty-nine days were
evidently the balance of the month which Young had promised. What
strength or courage could avail against an enemy armed with such
mysterious powers? The hand which fastened that pin might have struck
him to the heart, and he could never have known who had slain him.
Still more shaken was he next morning. They had sat down to their
breakfast when Lucy with a cry of surprise pointed upwards. In the
centre of the ceiling was scrawled, with a burned stick apparently, the
number 28. To his daughter it was unintelligible, and he did not
enlighten her. That night he sat up with his gun and kept watch and
ward. He saw and he heard nothing, and yet in the morning a great 27
had been painted upon the outside of his door.
Thus day followed day; and as sure as morning came he found that his
unseen enemies had kept their register, and had marked up in some
conspicuous position how many days were still left to him out of the
month of grace. Sometimes the fatal numbers appeared upon the walls,
sometimes upon the floors, occasionally they were on small placards
stuck upon the garden gate or the railings. With all his vigilance John
Ferrier could not discover whence these daily warnings proceeded. A
horror which was almost superstitious came upon him at the sight of
them. He became haggard and restless, and his eyes had the troubled
look of some hunted creature. He had but one hope in life now, and that
was for the arrival of the young hunter from Nevada.
Twenty had changed to fifteen and fifteen to ten, but there was no news
of the absentee. One by one the numbers dwindled down, and still there
came no sign of him. Whenever a horseman clattered down the road, or a
driver shouted at his team, the old farmer hurried to the gate thinking
that help had arrived at last. At last, when he saw five give way to
four and that again to three, he lost heart, and abandoned all hope of
escape. Single-handed, and with his limited knowledge of the mountains
which surrounded the settlement, he knew that he was powerless. The
more-frequented roads were strictly watched and guarded, and none could
pass along them without an order from the Council. Turn which way he
would, there appeared to be no avoiding the blow which hung over him.
Yet the old man never wavered in his resolution to part with life
itself before he consented to what he regarded as his daughter’s
dishonour.
He was sitting alone one evening pondering deeply over his troubles,
and searching vainly for some way out of them. That morning had shown
the figure 2 upon the wall of his house, and the next day would be the
last of the allotted time. What was to happen then? All manner of vague
and terrible fancies filled his imagination. And his daughter—what was
to become of her after he was gone? Was there no escape from the
invisible network which was drawn all round them. He sank his head upon
the table and sobbed at the thought of his own impotence.
What was that? In the silence he heard a gentle scratching sound—low,
but very distinct in the quiet of the night. It came from the door of
the house. Ferrier crept into the hall and listened intently. There was
a pause for a few moments, and then the low insidious sound was
repeated. Someone was evidently tapping very gently upon one of the
panels of the door. Was it some midnight assassin who had come to carry
out the murderous orders of the secret tribunal? Or was it some agent
who was marking up that the last day of grace had arrived. John Ferrier
felt that instant death would be better than the suspense which shook
his nerves and chilled his heart. Springing forward he drew the bolt
and threw the door open.
Outside all was calm and quiet. The night was fine, and the stars were
twinkling brightly overhead. The little front garden lay before the
farmer’s eyes bounded by the fence and gate, but neither there nor on
the road was any human being to be seen. With a sigh of relief, Ferrier
looked to right and to left, until happening to glance straight down at
his own feet he saw to his astonishment a man lying flat upon his face
upon the ground, with arms and legs all asprawl.
So unnerved was he at the sight that he leaned up against the wall with
his hand to his throat to stifle his inclination to call out. His first
thought was that the prostrate figure was that of some wounded or dying
man, but as he watched it he saw it writhe along the ground and into
the hall with the rapidity and noiselessness of a serpent. Once within
the house the man sprang to his feet, closed the door, and revealed to
the astonished farmer the fierce face and resolute expression of
Jefferson Hope.
“Good God!” gasped John Ferrier. “How you scared me! Whatever made you
come in like that.”
“Give me food,” the other said, hoarsely. “I have had no time for bite
or sup for eight-and-forty hours.” He flung himself upon the cold meat
and bread which were still lying upon the table from his host’s supper,
and devoured it voraciously. “Does Lucy bear up well?” he asked, when
he had satisfied his hunger.
“Yes. She does not know the danger,” her father answered.
“That is well. The house is watched on every side. That is why I
crawled my way up to it. They may be darned sharp, but they’re not
quite sharp enough to catch a Washoe hunter.”
John Ferrier felt a different man now that he realized that he had a
devoted ally. He seized the young man’s leathery hand and wrung it
cordially. “You’re a man to be proud of,” he said. “There are not many
who would come to share our danger and our troubles.”
“You’ve hit it there, pard,” the young hunter answered. “I have a
respect for you, but if you were alone in this business I’d think twice
before I put my head into such a hornet’s nest. It’s Lucy that brings
me here, and before harm comes on her I guess there will be one less o’
the Hope family in Utah.”
“What are we to do?”
“To-morrow is your last day, and unless you act to-night you are lost.
I have a mule and two horses waiting in the Eagle Ravine. How much
money have you?”
“Two thousand dollars in gold, and five in notes.”
“That will do. I have as much more to add to it. We must push for
Carson City through the mountains. You had best wake Lucy. It is as
well that the servants do not sleep in the house.”
While Ferrier was absent, preparing his daughter for the approaching
journey, Jefferson Hope packed all the eatables that he could find into
a small parcel, and filled a stoneware jar with water, for he knew by
experience that the mountain wells were few and far between. He had
hardly completed his arrangements before the farmer returned with his
daughter all dressed and ready for a start. The greeting between the
lovers was warm, but brief, for minutes were precious, and there was
much to be done.
“We must make our start at once,” said Jefferson Hope, speaking in a
low but resolute voice, like one who realizes the greatness of the
peril, but has steeled his heart to meet it. “The front and back
entrances are watched, but with caution we may get away through the
side window and across the fields. Once on the road we are only two
miles from the Ravine where the horses are waiting. By daybreak we
should be half-way through the mountains.”
“What if we are stopped,” asked Ferrier.
Hope slapped the revolver butt which protruded from the front of his
tunic. “If they are too many for us we shall take two or three of them
with us,” he said with a sinister smile.
The lights inside the house had all been extinguished, and from the
darkened window Ferrier peered over the fields which had been his own,
and which he was now about to abandon for ever. He had long nerved
himself to the sacrifice, however, and the thought of the honour and
happiness of his daughter outweighed any regret at his ruined fortunes.
All looked so peaceful and happy, the rustling trees and the broad
silent stretch of grain-land, that it was difficult to realize that the
spirit of murder lurked through it all. Yet the white face and set
expression of the young hunter showed that in his approach to the house
he had seen enough to satisfy him upon that head.
Ferrier carried the bag of gold and notes, Jefferson Hope had the
scanty provisions and water, while Lucy had a small bundle containing a
few of her more valued possessions. Opening the window very slowly and
carefully, they waited until a dark cloud had somewhat obscured the
night, and then one by one passed through into the little garden. With
bated breath and crouching figures they stumbled across it, and gained
the shelter of the hedge, which they skirted until they came to the gap
which opened into the cornfields. They had just reached this point when
the young man seized his two companions and dragged them down into the
shadow, where they lay silent and trembling.
It was as well that his prairie training had given Jefferson Hope the
ears of a lynx. He and his friends had hardly crouched down before the
melancholy hooting of a mountain owl was heard within a few yards of
them, which was immediately answered by another hoot at a small
distance. At the same moment a vague shadowy figure emerged from the
gap for which they had been making, and uttered the plaintive signal
cry again, on which a second man appeared out of the obscurity.
“To-morrow at midnight,” said the first who appeared to be in
authority. “When the Whip-poor-Will calls three times.”
“It is well,” returned the other. “Shall I tell Brother Drebber?”
“Pass it on to him, and from him to the others. Nine to seven!”
“Seven to five!” repeated the other, and the two figures flitted away
in different directions. Their concluding words had evidently been some
form of sign and countersign. The instant that their footsteps had died
away in the distance, Jefferson Hope sprang to his feet, and helping
his companions through the gap, led the way across the fields at the
top of his speed, supporting and half-carrying the girl when her
strength appeared to fail her.
“Hurry on! hurry on!” he gasped from time to time. “We are through the
line of sentinels. Everything depends on speed. Hurry on!”
Once on the high road they made rapid progress. Only once did they meet
anyone, and then they managed to slip into a field, and so avoid
recognition. Before reaching the town the hunter branched away into a
rugged and narrow footpath which led to the mountains. Two dark jagged
peaks loomed above them through the darkness, and the defile which led
between them was the Eagle Cañon in which the horses were awaiting
them. With unerring instinct Jefferson Hope picked his way among the
great boulders and along the bed of a dried-up watercourse, until he
came to the retired corner, screened with rocks, where the faithful
animals had been picketed. The girl was placed upon the mule, and old
Ferrier upon one of the horses, with his money-bag, while Jefferson
Hope led the other along the precipitous and dangerous path.
It was a bewildering route for anyone who was not accustomed to face
Nature in her wildest moods. On the one side a great crag towered up a
thousand feet or more, black, stern, and menacing, with long basaltic
columns upon its rugged surface like the ribs of some petrified
monster. On the other hand a wild chaos of boulders and debris made all
advance impossible. Between the two ran the irregular track, so narrow
in places that they had to travel in Indian file, and so rough that
only practised riders could have traversed it at all. Yet in spite of
all dangers and difficulties, the hearts of the fugitives were light
within them, for every step increased the distance between them and the
terrible despotism from which they were flying.
They soon had a proof, however, that they were still within the
jurisdiction of the Saints. They had reached the very wildest and most
desolate portion of the pass when the girl gave a startled cry, and
pointed upwards. On a rock which overlooked the track, showing out dark
and plain against the sky, there stood a solitary sentinel. He saw them
as soon as they perceived him, and his military challenge of “Who goes
there?” rang through the silent ravine.
“Travellers for Nevada,” said Jefferson Hope, with his hand upon the
rifle which hung by his saddle.
They could see the lonely watcher fingering his gun, and peering down
at them as if dissatisfied at their reply.
“By whose permission?” he asked.
“The Holy Four,” answered Ferrier. His Mormon experiences had taught
him that that was the highest authority to which he could refer.
“Nine from seven,” cried the sentinel.
“Seven from five,” returned Jefferson Hope promptly, remembering the
countersign which he had heard in the garden.
“Pass, and the Lord go with you,” said the voice from above. Beyond his
post the path broadened out, and the horses were able to break into a
trot. Looking back, they could see the solitary watcher leaning upon
his gun, and knew that they had passed the outlying post of the chosen
people, and that freedom lay before them.
CHAPTER V.
THE AVENGING ANGELS.
All night their course lay through intricate defiles and over irregular
and rock-strewn paths. More than once they lost their way, but Hope’s
intimate knowledge of the mountains enabled them to regain the track
once more. When morning broke, a scene of marvellous though savage
beauty lay before them. In every direction the great snow-capped peaks
hemmed them in, peeping over each other’s shoulders to the far horizon.
So steep were the rocky banks on either side of them, that the larch
and the pine seemed to be suspended over their heads, and to need only
a gust of wind to come hurtling down upon them. Nor was the fear
entirely an illusion, for the barren valley was thickly strewn with
trees and boulders which had fallen in a similar manner. Even as they
passed, a great rock came thundering down with a hoarse rattle which
woke the echoes in the silent gorges, and startled the weary horses
into a gallop.
As the sun rose slowly above the eastern horizon, the caps of the great
mountains lit up one after the other, like lamps at a festival, until
they were all ruddy and glowing. The magnificent spectacle cheered the
hearts of the three fugitives and gave them fresh energy. At a wild
torrent which swept out of a ravine they called a halt and watered
their horses, while they partook of a hasty breakfast. Lucy and her
father would fain have rested longer, but Jefferson Hope was
inexorable. “They will be upon our track by this time,” he said.
“Everything depends upon our speed. Once safe in Carson we may rest for
the remainder of our lives.”
During the whole of that day they struggled on through the defiles, and
by evening they calculated that they were more than thirty miles from
their enemies. At night-time they chose the base of a beetling crag,
where the rocks offered some protection from the chill wind, and there
huddled together for warmth, they enjoyed a few hours’ sleep. Before
daybreak, however, they were up and on their way once more. They had
seen no signs of any pursuers, and Jefferson Hope began to think that
they were fairly out of the reach of the terrible organization whose
enmity they had incurred. He little knew how far that iron grasp could
reach, or how soon it was to close upon them and crush them.
About the middle of the second day of their flight their scanty store
of provisions began to run out. This gave the hunter little uneasiness,
however, for there was game to be had among the mountains, and he had
frequently before had to depend upon his rifle for the needs of life.
Choosing a sheltered nook, he piled together a few dried branches and
made a blazing fire, at which his companions might warm themselves, for
they were now nearly five thousand feet above the sea level, and the
air was bitter and keen. Having tethered the horses, and bade Lucy
adieu, he threw his gun over his shoulder, and set out in search of
whatever chance might throw in his way. Looking back he saw the old man
and the young girl crouching over the blazing fire, while the three
animals stood motionless in the back-ground. Then the intervening rocks
hid them from his view.
He walked for a couple of miles through one ravine after another
without success, though from the marks upon the bark of the trees, and
other indications, he judged that there were numerous bears in the
vicinity. At last, after two or three hours’ fruitless search, he was
thinking of turning back in despair, when casting his eyes upwards he
saw a sight which sent a thrill of pleasure through his heart. On the
edge of a jutting pinnacle, three or four hundred feet above him, there
stood a creature somewhat resembling a sheep in appearance, but armed
with a pair of gigantic horns. The big-horn—for so it is called—was
acting, probably, as a guardian over a flock which were invisible to
the hunter; but fortunately it was heading in the opposite direction,
and had not perceived him. Lying on his face, he rested his rifle upon
a rock, and took a long and steady aim before drawing the trigger. The
animal sprang into the air, tottered for a moment upon the edge of the
precipice, and then came crashing down into the valley beneath.
The creature was too unwieldy to lift, so the hunter contented himself
with cutting away one haunch and part of the flank. With this trophy
over his shoulder, he hastened to retrace his steps, for the evening
was already drawing in. He had hardly started, however, before he
realized the difficulty which faced him. In his eagerness he had
wandered far past the ravines which were known to him, and it was no
easy matter to pick out the path which he had taken. The valley in
which he found himself divided and sub-divided into many gorges, which
were so like each other that it was impossible to distinguish one from
the other. He followed one for a mile or more until he came to a
mountain torrent which he was sure that he had never seen before.
Convinced that he had taken the wrong turn, he tried another, but with
the same result. Night was coming on rapidly, and it was almost dark
before he at last found himself in a defile which was familiar to him.
Even then it was no easy matter to keep to the right track, for the
moon had not yet risen, and the high cliffs on either side made the
obscurity more profound. Weighed down with his burden, and weary from
his exertions, he stumbled along, keeping up his heart by the
reflection that every step brought him nearer to Lucy, and that he
carried with him enough to ensure them food for the remainder of their
journey.
He had now come to the mouth of the very defile in which he had left
them. Even in the darkness he could recognize the outline of the cliffs
which bounded it. They must, he reflected, be awaiting him anxiously,
for he had been absent nearly five hours. In the gladness of his heart
he put his hands to his mouth and made the glen re-echo to a loud
halloo as a signal that he was coming. He paused and listened for an
answer. None came save his own cry, which clattered up the dreary
silent ravines, and was borne back to his ears in countless
repetitions. Again he shouted, even louder than before, and again no
whisper came back from the friends whom he had left such a short time
ago. A vague, nameless dread came over him, and he hurried onwards
frantically, dropping the precious food in his agitation.
When he turned the corner, he came full in sight of the spot where the
fire had been lit. There was still a glowing pile of wood ashes there,
but it had evidently not been tended since his departure. The same dead
silence still reigned all round. With his fears all changed to
convictions, he hurried on. There was no living creature near the
remains of the fire: animals, man, maiden, all were gone. It was only
too clear that some sudden and terrible disaster had occurred during
his absence—a disaster which had embraced them all, and yet had left no
traces behind it.
Bewildered and stunned by this blow, Jefferson Hope felt his head spin
round, and had to lean upon his rifle to save himself from falling. He
was essentially a man of action, however, and speedily recovered from
his temporary impotence. Seizing a half-consumed piece of wood from the
smouldering fire, he blew it into a flame, and proceeded with its help
to examine the little camp. The ground was all stamped down by the feet
of horses, showing that a large party of mounted men had overtaken the
fugitives, and the direction of their tracks proved that they had
afterwards turned back to Salt Lake City. Had they carried back both of
his companions with them? Jefferson Hope had almost persuaded himself
that they must have done so, when his eye fell upon an object which
made every nerve of his body tingle within him. A little way on one
side of the camp was a low-lying heap of reddish soil, which had
assuredly not been there before. There was no mistaking it for anything
but a newly-dug grave. As the young hunter approached it, he perceived
that a stick had been planted on it, with a sheet of paper stuck in the
cleft fork of it. The inscription upon the paper was brief, but to the
point:
JOHN FERRIER,
FORMERLY OF SALT LAKE CITY,
Died August 4th, 1860.
The sturdy old man, whom he had left so short a time before, was gone,
then, and this was all his epitaph. Jefferson Hope looked wildly round
to see if there was a second grave, but there was no sign of one. Lucy
had been carried back by their terrible pursuers to fulfil her original
destiny, by becoming one of the harem of the Elder’s son. As the young
fellow realized the certainty of her fate, and his own powerlessness to
prevent it, he wished that he, too, was lying with the old farmer in
his last silent resting-place.
Again, however, his active spirit shook off the lethargy which springs
from despair. If there was nothing else left to him, he could at least
devote his life to revenge. With indomitable patience and perseverance,
Jefferson Hope possessed also a power of sustained vindictiveness,
which he may have learned from the Indians amongst whom he had lived.
As he stood by the desolate fire, he felt that the only one thing which
could assuage his grief would be thorough and complete retribution,
brought by his own hand upon his enemies. His strong will and untiring
energy should, he determined, be devoted to that one end. With a grim,
white face, he retraced his steps to where he had dropped the food, and
having stirred up the smouldering fire, he cooked enough to last him
for a few days. This he made up into a bundle, and, tired as he was, he
set himself to walk back through the mountains upon the track of the
avenging angels.
For five days he toiled footsore and weary through the defiles which he
had already traversed on horseback. At night he flung himself down
among the rocks, and snatched a few hours of sleep; but before daybreak
he was always well on his way. On the sixth day, he reached the Eagle
Cañon, from which they had commenced their ill-fated flight. Thence he
could look down upon the home of the saints. Worn and exhausted, he
leaned upon his rifle and shook his gaunt hand fiercely at the silent
widespread city beneath him. As he looked at it, he observed that there
were flags in some of the principal streets, and other signs of
festivity. He was still speculating as to what this might mean when he
heard the clatter of horse’s hoofs, and saw a mounted man riding
towards him. As he approached, he recognized him as a Mormon named
Cowper, to whom he had rendered services at different times. He
therefore accosted him when he got up to him, with the object of
finding out what Lucy Ferrier’s fate had been.
“I am Jefferson Hope,” he said. “You remember me.”
The Mormon looked at him with undisguised astonishment—indeed, it was
difficult to recognize in this tattered, unkempt wanderer, with ghastly
white face and fierce, wild eyes, the spruce young hunter of former
days. Having, however, at last, satisfied himself as to his identity,
the man’s surprise changed to consternation.
“You are mad to come here,” he cried. “It is as much as my own life is
worth to be seen talking with you. There is a warrant against you from
the Holy Four for assisting the Ferriers away.”
“I don’t fear them, or their warrant,” Hope said, earnestly. “You must
know something of this matter, Cowper. I conjure you by everything you
hold dear to answer a few questions. We have always been friends. For
God’s sake, don’t refuse to answer me.”
“What is it?” the Mormon asked uneasily. “Be quick. The very rocks have
ears and the trees eyes.”
“What has become of Lucy Ferrier?”
“She was married yesterday to young Drebber. Hold up, man, hold up, you
have no life left in you.”
“Don’t mind me,” said Hope faintly. He was white to the very lips, and
had sunk down on the stone against which he had been leaning. “Married,
you say?”
“Married yesterday—that’s what those flags are for on the Endowment
House. There was some words between young Drebber and young Stangerson
as to which was to have her. They’d both been in the party that
followed them, and Stangerson had shot her father, which seemed to give
him the best claim; but when they argued it out in council, Drebber’s
party was the stronger, so the Prophet gave her over to him. No one
won’t have her very long though, for I saw death in her face yesterday.
She is more like a ghost than a woman. Are you off, then?”
“Yes, I am off,” said Jefferson Hope, who had risen from his seat. His
face might have been chiselled out of marble, so hard and set was its
expression, while its eyes glowed with a baleful light.
“Where are you going?”
“Never mind,” he answered; and, slinging his weapon over his shoulder,
strode off down the gorge and so away into the heart of the mountains
to the haunts of the wild beasts. Amongst them all there was none so
fierce and so dangerous as himself.
The prediction of the Mormon was only too well fulfilled. Whether it
was the terrible death of her father or the effects of the hateful
marriage into which she had been forced, poor Lucy never held up her
head again, but pined away and died within a month. Her sottish
husband, who had married her principally for the sake of John Ferrier’s
property, did not affect any great grief at his bereavement; but his
other wives mourned over her, and sat up with her the night before the
burial, as is the Mormon custom. They were grouped round the bier in
the early hours of the morning, when, to their inexpressible fear and
astonishment, the door was flung open, and a savage-looking,
weather-beaten man in tattered garments strode into the room. Without a
glance or a word to the cowering women, he walked up to the white
silent figure which had once contained the pure soul of Lucy Ferrier.
Stooping over her, he pressed his lips reverently to her cold forehead,
and then, snatching up her hand, he took the wedding-ring from her
finger. “She shall not be buried in that,” he cried with a fierce
snarl, and before an alarm could be raised sprang down the stairs and
was gone. So strange and so brief was the episode, that the watchers
might have found it hard to believe it themselves or persuade other
people of it, had it not been for the undeniable fact that the circlet
of gold which marked her as having been a bride had disappeared.
For some months Jefferson Hope lingered among the mountains, leading a
strange wild life, and nursing in his heart the fierce desire for
vengeance which possessed him. Tales were told in the City of the weird
figure which was seen prowling about the suburbs, and which haunted the
lonely mountain gorges. Once a bullet whistled through Stangerson’s
window and flattened itself upon the wall within a foot of him. On
another occasion, as Drebber passed under a cliff a great boulder
crashed down on him, and he only escaped a terrible death by throwing
himself upon his face. The two young Mormons were not long in
discovering the reason of these attempts upon their lives, and led
repeated expeditions into the mountains in the hope of capturing or
killing their enemy, but always without success. Then they adopted the
precaution of never going out alone or after nightfall, and of having
their houses guarded. After a time they were able to relax these
measures, for nothing was either heard or seen of their opponent, and
they hoped that time had cooled his vindictiveness.
Far from doing so, it had, if anything, augmented it. The hunter’s mind
was of a hard, unyielding nature, and the predominant idea of revenge
had taken such complete possession of it that there was no room for any
other emotion. He was, however, above all things practical. He soon
realized that even his iron constitution could not stand the incessant
strain which he was putting upon it. Exposure and want of wholesome
food were wearing him out. If he died like a dog among the mountains,
what was to become of his revenge then? And yet such a death was sure
to overtake him if he persisted. He felt that that was to play his
enemy’s game, so he reluctantly returned to the old Nevada mines, there
to recruit his health and to amass money enough to allow him to pursue
his object without privation.
His intention had been to be absent a year at the most, but a
combination of unforeseen circumstances prevented his leaving the mines
for nearly five. At the end of that time, however, his memory of his
wrongs and his craving for revenge were quite as keen as on that
memorable night when he had stood by John Ferrier’s grave. Disguised,
and under an assumed name, he returned to Salt Lake City, careless what
became of his own life, as long as he obtained what he knew to be
justice. There he found evil tidings awaiting him. There had been a
schism among the Chosen People a few months before, some of the younger
members of the Church having rebelled against the authority of the
Elders, and the result had been the secession of a certain number of
the malcontents, who had left Utah and become Gentiles. Among these had
been Drebber and Stangerson; and no one knew whither they had gone.
Rumour reported that Drebber had managed to convert a large part of his
property into money, and that he had departed a wealthy man, while his
companion, Stangerson, was comparatively poor. There was no clue at
all, however, as to their whereabouts.
Many a man, however vindictive, would have abandoned all thought of
revenge in the face of such a difficulty, but Jefferson Hope never
faltered for a moment. With the small competence he possessed, eked out
by such employment as he could pick up, he travelled from town to town
through the United States in quest of his enemies. Year passed into
year, his black hair turned grizzled, but still he wandered on, a human
bloodhound, with his mind wholly set upon the one object upon which he
had devoted his life. At last his perseverance was rewarded. It was but
a glance of a face in a window, but that one glance told him that
Cleveland in Ohio possessed the men whom he was in pursuit of. He
returned to his miserable lodgings with his plan of vengeance all
arranged. It chanced, however, that Drebber, looking from his window,
had recognized the vagrant in the street, and had read murder in his
eyes. He hurried before a justice of the peace, accompanied by
Stangerson, who had become his private secretary, and represented to
him that they were in danger of their lives from the jealousy and
hatred of an old rival. That evening Jefferson Hope was taken into
custody, and not being able to find sureties, was detained for some
weeks. When at last he was liberated, it was only to find that
Drebber’s house was deserted, and that he and his secretary had
departed for Europe.
Again the avenger had been foiled, and again his concentrated hatred
urged him to continue the pursuit. Funds were wanting, however, and for
some time he had to return to work, saving every dollar for his
approaching journey. At last, having collected enough to keep life in
him, he departed for Europe, and tracked his enemies from city to city,
working his way in any menial capacity, but never overtaking the
fugitives. When he reached St. Petersburg they had departed for Paris;
and when he followed them there he learned that they had just set off
for Copenhagen. At the Danish capital he was again a few days late, for
they had journeyed on to London, where he at last succeeded in running
them to earth. As to what occurred there, we cannot do better than
quote the old hunter’s own account, as duly recorded in Dr. Watson’s
Journal, to which we are already under such obligations.
CHAPTER VI.
A CONTINUATION OF THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN WATSON, M.D.
Our prisoner’s furious resistance did not apparently indicate any
ferocity in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding himself
powerless, he smiled in an affable manner, and expressed his hopes that
he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle. “I guess you’re going to take
me to the police-station,” he remarked to Sherlock Holmes. “My cab’s at
the door. If you’ll loose my legs I’ll walk down to it. I’m not so
light to lift as I used to be.”
Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances as if they thought this
proposition rather a bold one; but Holmes at once took the prisoner at
his word, and loosened the towel which we had bound round his ankles.
He rose and stretched his legs, as though to assure himself that they
were free once more. I remember that I thought to myself, as I eyed
him, that I had seldom seen a more powerfully built man; and his dark
sunburned face bore an expression of determination and energy which was
as formidable as his personal strength.
“If there’s a vacant place for a chief of the police, I reckon you are
the man for it,” he said, gazing with undisguised admiration at my
fellow-lodger. “The way you kept on my trail was a caution.”
“You had better come with me,” said Holmes to the two detectives.
“I can drive you,” said Lestrade.
“Good! and Gregson can come inside with me. You too, Doctor, you have
taken an interest in the case and may as well stick to us.”
I assented gladly, and we all descended together. Our prisoner made no
attempt at escape, but stepped calmly into the cab which had been his,
and we followed him. Lestrade mounted the box, whipped up the horse,
and brought us in a very short time to our destination. We were ushered
into a small chamber where a police Inspector noted down our prisoner’s
name and the names of the men with whose murder he had been charged.
The official was a white-faced unemotional man, who went through his
duties in a dull mechanical way. “The prisoner will be put before the
magistrates in the course of the week,” he said; “in the mean time, Mr.
Jefferson Hope, have you anything that you wish to say? I must warn you
that your words will be taken down, and may be used against you.”
“I’ve got a good deal to say,” our prisoner said slowly. “I want to
tell you gentlemen all about it.”
“Hadn’t you better reserve that for your trial?” asked the Inspector.
“I may never be tried,” he answered. “You needn’t look startled. It
isn’t suicide I am thinking of. Are you a Doctor?” He turned his fierce
dark eyes upon me as he asked this last question.
“Yes; I am,” I answered.
“Then put your hand here,” he said, with a smile, motioning with his
manacled wrists towards his chest.
I did so; and became at once conscious of an extraordinary throbbing
and commotion which was going on inside. The walls of his chest seemed
to thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when some
powerful engine was at work. In the silence of the room I could hear a
dull humming and buzzing noise which proceeded from the same source.
“Why,” I cried, “you have an aortic aneurism!”
“That’s what they call it,” he said, placidly. “I went to a Doctor last
week about it, and he told me that it is bound to burst before many
days passed. It has been getting worse for years. I got it from
over-exposure and under-feeding among the Salt Lake Mountains. I’ve
done my work now, and I don’t care how soon I go, but I should like to
leave some account of the business behind me. I don’t want to be
remembered as a common cut-throat.”
The Inspector and the two detectives had a hurried discussion as to the
advisability of allowing him to tell his story.
“Do you consider, Doctor, that there is immediate danger?” the former
asked.
“Most certainly there is,” I answered.
“In that case it is clearly our duty, in the interests of justice, to
take his statement,” said the Inspector. “You are at liberty, sir, to
give your account, which I again warn you will be taken down.”
“I’ll sit down, with your leave,” the prisoner said, suiting the action
to the word. “This aneurism of mine makes me easily tired, and the
tussle we had half an hour ago has not mended matters. I’m on the brink
of the grave, and I am not likely to lie to you. Every word I say is
the absolute truth, and how you use it is a matter of no consequence to
me.”
With these words, Jefferson Hope leaned back in his chair and began the
following remarkable statement. He spoke in a calm and methodical
manner, as though the events which he narrated were commonplace enough.
I can vouch for the accuracy of the subjoined account, for I have had
access to Lestrade’s note-book, in which the prisoner’s words were
taken down exactly as they were uttered.
“It don’t much matter to you why I hated these men,” he said; “it’s
enough that they were guilty of the death of two human beings—a father
and a daughter—and that they had, therefore, forfeited their own lives.
After the lapse of time that has passed since their crime, it was
impossible for me to secure a conviction against them in any court. I
knew of their guilt though, and I determined that I should be judge,
jury, and executioner all rolled into one. You’d have done the same, if
you have any manhood in you, if you had been in my place.
“That girl that I spoke of was to have married me twenty years ago. She
was forced into marrying that same Drebber, and broke her heart over
it. I took the marriage ring from her dead finger, and I vowed that his
dying eyes should rest upon that very ring, and that his last thoughts
should be of the crime for which he was punished. I have carried it
about with me, and have followed him and his accomplice over two
continents until I caught them. They thought to tire me out, but they
could not do it. If I die to-morrow, as is likely enough, I die knowing
that my work in this world is done, and well done. They have perished,
and by my hand. There is nothing left for me to hope for, or to desire.
“They were rich and I was poor, so that it was no easy matter for me to
follow them. When I got to London my pocket was about empty, and I
found that I must turn my hand to something for my living. Driving and
riding are as natural to me as walking, so I applied at a cabowner’s
office, and soon got employment. I was to bring a certain sum a week to
the owner, and whatever was over that I might keep for myself. There
was seldom much over, but I managed to scrape along somehow. The
hardest job was to learn my way about, for I reckon that of all the
mazes that ever were contrived, this city is the most confusing. I had
a map beside me though, and when once I had spotted the principal
hotels and stations, I got on pretty well.
“It was some time before I found out where my two gentlemen were
living; but I inquired and inquired until at last I dropped across
them. They were at a boarding-house at Camberwell, over on the other
side of the river. When once I found them out I knew that I had them at
my mercy. I had grown my beard, and there was no chance of their
recognizing me. I would dog them and follow them until I saw my
opportunity. I was determined that they should not escape me again.
“They were very near doing it for all that. Go where they would about
London, I was always at their heels. Sometimes I followed them on my
cab, and sometimes on foot, but the former was the best, for then they
could not get away from me. It was only early in the morning or late at
night that I could earn anything, so that I began to get behind hand
with my employer. I did not mind that, however, as long as I could lay
my hand upon the men I wanted.
“They were very cunning, though. They must have thought that there was
some chance of their being followed, for they would never go out alone,
and never after nightfall. During two weeks I drove behind them every
day, and never once saw them separate. Drebber himself was drunk half
the time, but Stangerson was not to be caught napping. I watched them
late and early, but never saw the ghost of a chance; but I was not
discouraged, for something told me that the hour had almost come. My
only fear was that this thing in my chest might burst a little too soon
and leave my work undone.
“At last, one evening I was driving up and down Torquay Terrace, as the
street was called in which they boarded, when I saw a cab drive up to
their door. Presently some luggage was brought out, and after a time
Drebber and Stangerson followed it, and drove off. I whipped up my
horse and kept within sight of them, feeling very ill at ease, for I
feared that they were going to shift their quarters. At Euston Station
they got out, and I left a boy to hold my horse, and followed them on
to the platform. I heard them ask for the Liverpool train, and the
guard answer that one had just gone and there would not be another for
some hours. Stangerson seemed to be put out at that, but Drebber was
rather pleased than otherwise. I got so close to them in the bustle
that I could hear every word that passed between them. Drebber said
that he had a little business of his own to do, and that if the other
would wait for him he would soon rejoin him. His companion remonstrated
with him, and reminded him that they had resolved to stick together.
Drebber answered that the matter was a delicate one, and that he must
go alone. I could not catch what Stangerson said to that, but the other
burst out swearing, and reminded him that he was nothing more than his
paid servant, and that he must not presume to dictate to him. On that
the Secretary gave it up as a bad job, and simply bargained with him
that if he missed the last train he should rejoin him at Halliday’s
Private Hotel; to which Drebber answered that he would be back on the
platform before eleven, and made his way out of the station.
“The moment for which I had waited so long had at last come. I had my
enemies within my power. Together they could protect each other, but
singly they were at my mercy. I did not act, however, with undue
precipitation. My plans were already formed. There is no satisfaction
in vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that
strikes him, and why retribution has come upon him. I had my plans
arranged by which I should have the opportunity of making the man who
had wronged me understand that his old sin had found him out. It
chanced that some days before a gentleman who had been engaged in
looking over some houses in the Brixton Road had dropped the key of one
of them in my carriage. It was claimed that same evening, and returned;
but in the interval I had taken a moulding of it, and had a duplicate
constructed. By means of this I had access to at least one spot in this
great city where I could rely upon being free from interruption. How to
get Drebber to that house was the difficult problem which I had now to
solve.
“He walked down the road and went into one or two liquor shops, staying
for nearly half-an-hour in the last of them. When he came out he
staggered in his walk, and was evidently pretty well on. There was a
hansom just in front of me, and he hailed it. I followed it so close
that the nose of my horse was within a yard of his driver the whole
way. We rattled across Waterloo Bridge and through miles of streets,
until, to my astonishment, we found ourselves back in the Terrace in
which he had boarded. I could not imagine what his intention was in
returning there; but I went on and pulled up my cab a hundred yards or
so from the house. He entered it, and his hansom drove away. Give me a
glass of water, if you please. My mouth gets dry with the talking.”
I handed him the glass, and he drank it down.
“That’s better,” he said. “Well, I waited for a quarter of an hour, or
more, when suddenly there came a noise like people struggling inside
the house. Next moment the door was flung open and two men appeared,
one of whom was Drebber, and the other was a young chap whom I had
never seen before. This fellow had Drebber by the collar, and when they
came to the head of the steps he gave him a shove and a kick which sent
him half across the road. ‘You hound,’ he cried, shaking his stick at
him; ‘I’ll teach you to insult an honest girl!’ He was so hot that I
think he would have thrashed Drebber with his cudgel, only that the cur
staggered away down the road as fast as his legs would carry him. He
ran as far as the corner, and then, seeing my cab, he hailed me and
jumped in. ‘Drive me to Halliday’s Private Hotel,’ said he.
“When I had him fairly inside my cab, my heart jumped so with joy that
I feared lest at this last moment my aneurism might go wrong. I drove
along slowly, weighing in my own mind what it was best to do. I might
take him right out into the country, and there in some deserted lane
have my last interview with him. I had almost decided upon this, when
he solved the problem for me. The craze for drink had seized him again,
and he ordered me to pull up outside a gin palace. He went in, leaving
word that I should wait for him. There he remained until closing time,
and when he came out he was so far gone that I knew the game was in my
own hands.
“Don’t imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It would only
have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could not bring myself
to do it. I had long determined that he should have a show for his life
if he chose to take advantage of it. Among the many billets which I
have filled in America during my wandering life, I was once janitor and
sweeper out of the laboratory at York College. One day the professor
was lecturing on poisons, and he showed his students some alkaloid, as
he called it, which he had extracted from some South American arrow
poison, and which was so powerful that the least grain meant instant
death. I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was kept, and
when they were all gone, I helped myself to a little of it. I was a
fairly good dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid into small, soluble
pills, and each pill I put in a box with a similar pill made without
the poison. I determined at the time that when I had my chance, my
gentlemen should each have a draw out of one of these boxes, while I
ate the pill that remained. It would be quite as deadly, and a good
deal less noisy than firing across a handkerchief. From that day I had
always my pill boxes about with me, and the time had now come when I
was to use them.
“It was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night, blowing hard
and raining in torrents. Dismal as it was outside, I was glad within—so
glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation. If any of you
gentlemen have ever pined for a thing, and longed for it during twenty
long years, and then suddenly found it within your reach, you would
understand my feelings. I lit a cigar, and puffed at it to steady my
nerves, but my hands were trembling, and my temples throbbing with
excitement. As I drove, I could see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy
looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me, just as plain as I
see you all in this room. All the way they were ahead of me, one on
each side of the horse until I pulled up at the house in the Brixton
Road.
“There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the
dripping of the rain. When I looked in at the window, I found Drebber
all huddled together in a drunken sleep. I shook him by the arm, ‘It’s
time to get out,’ I said.
“‘All right, cabby,’ said he.
“I suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had mentioned,
for he got out without another word, and followed me down the garden. I
had to walk beside him to keep him steady, for he was still a little
top-heavy. When we came to the door, I opened it, and led him into the
front room. I give you my word that all the way, the father and the
daughter were walking in front of us.
“‘It’s infernally dark,’ said he, stamping about.
“‘We’ll soon have a light,’ I said, striking a match and putting it to
a wax candle which I had brought with me. ‘Now, Enoch Drebber,’ I
continued, turning to him, and holding the light to my own face, ‘who
am I?’
“He gazed at me with bleared, drunken eyes for a moment, and then I saw
a horror spring up in them, and convulse his whole features, which
showed me that he knew me. He staggered back with a livid face, and I
saw the perspiration break out upon his brow, while his teeth chattered
in his head. At the sight, I leaned my back against the door and
laughed loud and long. I had always known that vengeance would be
sweet, but I had never hoped for the contentment of soul which now
possessed me.
“‘You dog!’ I said; ‘I have hunted you from Salt Lake City to St.
Petersburg, and you have always escaped me. Now, at last your
wanderings have come to an end, for either you or I shall never see
to-morrow’s sun rise.’ He shrunk still further away as I spoke, and I
could see on his face that he thought I was mad. So I was for the time.
The pulses in my temples beat like sledge-hammers, and I believe I
would have had a fit of some sort if the blood had not gushed from my
nose and relieved me.
“‘What do you think of Lucy Ferrier now?’ I cried, locking the door,
and shaking the key in his face. ‘Punishment has been slow in coming,
but it has overtaken you at last.’ I saw his coward lips tremble as I
spoke. He would have begged for his life, but he knew well that it was
useless.
“‘Would you murder me?’ he stammered.
“‘There is no murder,’ I answered. ‘Who talks of murdering a mad dog?
What mercy had you upon my poor darling, when you dragged her from her
slaughtered father, and bore her away to your accursed and shameless
harem.’
“‘It was not I who killed her father,’ he cried.
“‘But it was you who broke her innocent heart,’ I shrieked, thrusting
the box before him. ‘Let the high God judge between us. Choose and eat.
There is death in one and life in the other. I shall take what you
leave. Let us see if there is justice upon the earth, or if we are
ruled by chance.’
“He cowered away with wild cries and prayers for mercy, but I drew my
knife and held it to his throat until he had obeyed me. Then I
swallowed the other, and we stood facing one another in silence for a
minute or more, waiting to see which was to live and which was to die.
Shall I ever forget the look which came over his face when the first
warning pangs told him that the poison was in his system? I laughed as
I saw it, and held Lucy’s marriage ring in front of his eyes. It was
but for a moment, for the action of the alkaloid is rapid. A spasm of
pain contorted his features; he threw his hands out in front of him,
staggered, and then, with a hoarse cry, fell heavily upon the floor. I
turned him over with my foot, and placed my hand upon his heart. There
was no movement. He was dead!
“The blood had been streaming from my nose, but I had taken no notice
of it. I don’t know what it was that put it into my head to write upon
the wall with it. Perhaps it was some mischievous idea of setting the
police upon a wrong track, for I felt light-hearted and cheerful. I
remembered a German being found in New York with RACHE written up above
him, and it was argued at the time in the newspapers that the secret
societies must have done it. I guessed that what puzzled the New
Yorkers would puzzle the Londoners, so I dipped my finger in my own
blood and printed it on a convenient place on the wall. Then I walked
down to my cab and found that there was nobody about, and that the
night was still very wild. I had driven some distance when I put my
hand into the pocket in which I usually kept Lucy’s ring, and found
that it was not there. I was thunderstruck at this, for it was the only
memento that I had of her. Thinking that I might have dropped it when I
stooped over Drebber’s body, I drove back, and leaving my cab in a side
street, I went boldly up to the house—for I was ready to dare anything
rather than lose the ring. When I arrived there, I walked right into
the arms of a police-officer who was coming out, and only managed to
disarm his suspicions by pretending to be hopelessly drunk.
“That was how Enoch Drebber came to his end. All I had to do then was
to do as much for Stangerson, and so pay off John Ferrier’s debt. I
knew that he was staying at Halliday’s Private Hotel, and I hung about
all day, but he never came out. I fancy that he suspected something
when Drebber failed to put in an appearance. He was cunning, was
Stangerson, and always on his guard. If he thought he could keep me off
by staying indoors he was very much mistaken. I soon found out which
was the window of his bedroom, and early next morning I took advantage
of some ladders which were lying in the lane behind the hotel, and so
made my way into his room in the grey of the dawn. I woke him up and
told him that the hour had come when he was to answer for the life he
had taken so long before. I described Drebber’s death to him, and I
gave him the same choice of the poisoned pills. Instead of grasping at
the chance of safety which that offered him, he sprang from his bed and
flew at my throat. In self-defence I stabbed him to the heart. It would
have been the same in any case, for Providence would never have allowed
his guilty hand to pick out anything but the poison.
“I have little more to say, and it’s as well, for I am about done up. I
went on cabbing it for a day or so, intending to keep at it until I
could save enough to take me back to America. I was standing in the
yard when a ragged youngster asked if there was a cabby there called
Jefferson Hope, and said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at
221B, Baker Street. I went round, suspecting no harm, and the next
thing I knew, this young man here had the bracelets on my wrists, and
as neatly shackled as ever I saw in my life. That’s the whole of my
story, gentlemen. You may consider me to be a murderer; but I hold that
I am just as much an officer of justice as you are.”
So thrilling had the man’s narrative been, and his manner was so
impressive that we had sat silent and absorbed. Even the professional
detectives, _blasé_ as they were in every detail of crime, appeared to
be keenly interested in the man’s story. When he finished we sat for
some minutes in a stillness which was only broken by the scratching of
Lestrade’s pencil as he gave the finishing touches to his shorthand
account.
“There is only one point on which I should like a little more
information,” Sherlock Holmes said at last. “Who was your accomplice
who came for the ring which I advertised?”
The prisoner winked at my friend jocosely. “I can tell my own secrets,”
he said, “but I don’t get other people into trouble. I saw your
advertisement, and I thought it might be a plant, or it might be the
ring which I wanted. My friend volunteered to go and see. I think
you’ll own he did it smartly.”
“Not a doubt of that,” said Holmes heartily.
“Now, gentlemen,” the Inspector remarked gravely, “the forms of the law
must be complied with. On Thursday the prisoner will be brought before
the magistrates, and your attendance will be required. Until then I
will be responsible for him.” He rang the bell as he spoke, and
Jefferson Hope was led off by a couple of warders, while my friend and
I made our way out of the Station and took a cab back to Baker Street.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CONCLUSION.
We had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon the
Thursday; but when the Thursday came there was no occasion for our
testimony. A higher Judge had taken the matter in hand, and Jefferson
Hope had been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would be
meted out to him. On the very night after his capture the aneurism
burst, and he was found in the morning stretched upon the floor of the
cell, with a placid smile upon his face, as though he had been able in
his dying moments to look back upon a useful life, and on work well
done.
“Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death,” Holmes remarked,
as we chatted it over next evening. “Where will their grand
advertisement be now?”
“I don’t see that they had very much to do with his capture,” I
answered.
“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” returned my
companion, bitterly. “The question is, what can you make people believe
that you have done. Never mind,” he continued, more brightly, after a
pause. “I would not have missed the investigation for anything. There
has been no better case within my recollection. Simple as it was, there
were several most instructive points about it.”
“Simple!” I ejaculated.
“Well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise,” said Sherlock
Holmes, smiling at my surprise. “The proof of its intrinsic simplicity
is, that without any help save a few very ordinary deductions I was
able to lay my hand upon the criminal within three days.”
“That is true,” said I.
“I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is
usually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem of this
sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very
useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise
it much. In the every-day affairs of life it is more useful to reason
forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who
can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.”
“I confess,” said I, “that I do not quite follow you.”
“I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I can make it clearer.
Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you
what the result would be. They can put those events together in their
minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are
few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to
evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led
up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning
backwards, or analytically.”
“I understand,” said I.
“Now this was a case in which you were given the result and had to find
everything else for yourself. Now let me endeavour to show you the
different steps in my reasoning. To begin at the beginning. I
approached the house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely
free from all impressions. I naturally began by examining the roadway,
and there, as I have already explained to you, I saw clearly the marks
of a cab, which, I ascertained by inquiry, must have been there during
the night. I satisfied myself that it was a cab and not a private
carriage by the narrow gauge of the wheels. The ordinary London growler
is considerably less wide than a gentleman’s brougham.
“This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down the garden
path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly suitable
for taking impressions. No doubt it appeared to you to be a mere
trampled line of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon its
surface had a meaning. There is no branch of detective science which is
so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps.
Happily, I have always laid great stress upon it, and much practice has
made it second nature to me. I saw the heavy footmarks of the
constables, but I saw also the track of the two men who had first
passed through the garden. It was easy to tell that they had been
before the others, because in places their marks had been entirely
obliterated by the others coming upon the top of them. In this way my
second link was formed, which told me that the nocturnal visitors were
two in number, one remarkable for his height (as I calculated from the
length of his stride), and the other fashionably dressed, to judge from
the small and elegant impression left by his boots.
“On entering the house this last inference was confirmed. My
well-booted man lay before me. The tall one, then, had done the murder,
if murder there was. There was no wound upon the dead man’s person, but
the agitated expression upon his face assured me that he had foreseen
his fate before it came upon him. Men who die from heart disease, or
any sudden natural cause, never by any chance exhibit agitation upon
their features. Having sniffed the dead man’s lips I detected a
slightly sour smell, and I came to the conclusion that he had had
poison forced upon him. Again, I argued that it had been forced upon
him from the hatred and fear expressed upon his face. By the method of
exclusion, I had arrived at this result, for no other hypothesis would
meet the facts. Do not imagine that it was a very unheard of idea. The
forcible administration of poison is by no means a new thing in
criminal annals. The cases of Dolsky in Odessa, and of Leturier in
Montpellier, will occur at once to any toxicologist.
“And now came the great question as to the reason why. Robbery had not
been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken. Was it politics,
then, or was it a woman? That was the question which confronted me. I
was inclined from the first to the latter supposition. Political
assassins are only too glad to do their work and to fly. This murder
had, on the contrary, been done most deliberately, and the perpetrator
had left his tracks all over the room, showing that he had been there
all the time. It must have been a private wrong, and not a political
one, which called for such a methodical revenge. When the inscription
was discovered upon the wall I was more inclined than ever to my
opinion. The thing was too evidently a blind. When the ring was found,
however, it settled the question. Clearly the murderer had used it to
remind his victim of some dead or absent woman. It was at this point
that I asked Gregson whether he had enquired in his telegram to
Cleveland as to any particular point in Mr. Drebber’s former career. He
answered, you remember, in the negative.
“I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room, which
confirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer’s height, and furnished
me with the additional details as to the Trichinopoly cigar and the
length of his nails. I had already come to the conclusion, since there
were no signs of a struggle, that the blood which covered the floor had
burst from the murderer’s nose in his excitement. I could perceive that
the track of blood coincided with the track of his feet. It is seldom
that any man, unless he is very full-blooded, breaks out in this way
through emotion, so I hazarded the opinion that the criminal was
probably a robust and ruddy-faced man. Events proved that I had judged
correctly.
“Having left the house, I proceeded to do what Gregson had neglected. I
telegraphed to the head of the police at Cleveland, limiting my enquiry
to the circumstances connected with the marriage of Enoch Drebber. The
answer was conclusive. It told me that Drebber had already applied for
the protection of the law against an old rival in love, named Jefferson
Hope, and that this same Hope was at present in Europe. I knew now that
I held the clue to the mystery in my hand, and all that remained was to
secure the murderer.
“I had already determined in my own mind that the man who had walked
into the house with Drebber, was none other than the man who had driven
the cab. The marks in the road showed me that the horse had wandered on
in a way which would have been impossible had there been anyone in
charge of it. Where, then, could the driver be, unless he were inside
the house? Again, it is absurd to suppose that any sane man would carry
out a deliberate crime under the very eyes, as it were, of a third
person, who was sure to betray him. Lastly, supposing one man wished to
dog another through London, what better means could he adopt than to
turn cabdriver. All these considerations led me to the irresistible
conclusion that Jefferson Hope was to be found among the jarveys of the
Metropolis.
“If he had been one there was no reason to believe that he had ceased
to be. On the contrary, from his point of view, any sudden change would
be likely to draw attention to himself. He would, probably, for a time
at least, continue to perform his duties. There was no reason to
suppose that he was going under an assumed name. Why should he change
his name in a country where no one knew his original one? I therefore
organized my Street Arab detective corps, and sent them systematically
to every cab proprietor in London until they ferreted out the man that
I wanted. How well they succeeded, and how quickly I took advantage of
it, are still fresh in your recollection. The murder of Stangerson was
an incident which was entirely unexpected, but which could hardly in
any case have been prevented. Through it, as you know, I came into
possession of the pills, the existence of which I had already surmised.
You see the whole thing is a chain of logical sequences without a break
or flaw.”
“It is wonderful!” I cried. “Your merits should be publicly recognized.
You should publish an account of the case. If you won’t, I will for
you.”
“You may do what you like, Doctor,” he answered. “See here!” he
continued, handing a paper over to me, “look at this!”
It was the _Echo_ for the day, and the paragraph to which he pointed
was devoted to the case in question.
“The public,” it said, “have lost a sensational treat through the
sudden death of the man Hope, who was suspected of the murder of Mr.
Enoch Drebber and of Mr. Joseph Stangerson. The details of the case
will probably be never known now, though we are informed upon good
authority that the crime was the result of an old standing and romantic
feud, in which love and Mormonism bore a part. It seems that both the
victims belonged, in their younger days, to the Latter Day Saints, and
Hope, the deceased prisoner, hails also from Salt Lake City. If the
case has had no other effect, it, at least, brings out in the most
striking manner the efficiency of our detective police force, and will
serve as a lesson to all foreigners that they will do wisely to settle
their feuds at home, and not to carry them on to British soil. It is an
open secret that the credit of this smart capture belongs entirely to
the well-known Scotland Yard officials, Messrs. Lestrade and Gregson.
The man was apprehended, it appears, in the rooms of a certain Mr.
Sherlock Holmes, who has himself, as an amateur, shown some talent in
the detective line, and who, with such instructors, may hope in time to
attain to some degree of their skill. It is expected that a testimonial
of some sort will be presented to the two officers as a fitting
recognition of their services.”
“Didn’t I tell you so when we started?” cried Sherlock Holmes with a
laugh. “That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a
testimonial!”
“Never mind,” I answered, “I have all the facts in my journal, and the
public shall know them. In the meantime you must make yourself
contented by the consciousness of success, like the Roman miser—
“‘Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.’” | null |
The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place | Arthur Conan Doyle | 17 | ['Robert Norberton'] |
Sherlock Holmes had been bending for a long time over a low-power
microscope. Now he straightened himself up and looked round at me in
triumph.
"It is glue, Watson," said he. "Unquestionably it is glue. Have a
look at these scattered objects in the field!"
I stooped to the eyepiece and focused for my vision.
"Those hairs are threads from a tweed coat. The irregular grey masses
are dust. There are epithelial scales on the left. Those brown blobs
in the centre are undoubtedly glue."
"Well," I said, laughing, "I am prepared to take your word for it.
Does anything depend upon it?"
"It is a very fine demonstration," he answered. "In the St. Pancras
case you may remember that a cap was found beside the dead policeman.
The accused man denies that it is his. But he is a picture-frame maker
who habitually handles glue."
"Is it one of your cases?"
"No; my friend, Merivale of the Yard, asked me to look into the case.
Since I ran down that coiner by the zinc and copper filings in the seam
of his cuff they have begun to realize the importance of the
microscope." He looked impatiently at his watch. "I had a new client
calling, but he is overdue. By the way, Watson, you know something of
racing?"
"I ought to. I pay for it with about half my wound pension."
"Then I'll make you my 'Handy Guide to the Turf.' What about Sir
Robert Norberton? Does the name recall anything?"
"Well, I should say so. He lives at Shoscombe Old Place, and I know it
well, for my summer quarters were down there once. Norberton nearly
came within your province once."
"How was that?"
"It was when he horsewhipped Sam Brewer, the well-known Curzon Street
moneylender, on Newmarket Heath. He nearly killed the man."
"Ah, he sounds interesting! Does he often indulge in that way?"
"Well, he has the name of being a dangerous man. He is about the most
daredevil rider in England--second in the Grand National a few years
back. He is one of those men who have overshot their true generation.
He should have been a buck in the days of the Regency--a boxer, an
athlete, a plunger on the Turf, a lover of fair ladies, and, by all
account, so far down Queer Street that he may never find his way back
again."
"Capital, Watson! A thumb-nail sketch. I seem to know the man. Now,
can you give me some idea of Shoscombe Old Place?"
"Only that it is in the centre of Shoscombe Park, and that the famous
Shoscombe stud and training quarters are to be found there."
"And the head trainer," said Holmes, "is John Mason. You need not look
surprised at my knowledge, Watson, for this is a letter from him which
I am unfolding. But let us have some more about Shoscombe. I seem to
have struck a rich vein."
"There are the Shoscombe spaniels," said I. "You hear of them at every
dog show. The most exclusive breed in England. They are the special
pride of the lady of Shoscombe Old Place."
"Sir Robert Norberton's wife, I presume!"
"Sir Robert has never married. Just as well, I think, considering his
prospects. He lives with his widowed sister, Lady Beatrice Falder."
"You mean that she lives with him?"
"No, no. The place belonged to her late husband, Sir James. Norberton
has no claim on it at all. It is only a life interest and reverts to
her husband's brother. Meantime, she draws the rents every year."
"And brother Robert, I suppose, spends the said rents?"
"That is about the size of it. He is a devil of a fellow and must lead
her a most uneasy life. Yet I have heard that she is devoted to him.
But what is amiss at Shoscombe?"
"Ah, that is just what I want to know. And here, I expect, is the man
who can tell us."
The door had opened and the page had shown in a tall, clean-shaven man
with the firm, austere expression which is only seen upon those who
have to control horses or boys. Mr. John Mason had many of both under
his sway, and he looked equal to the task. He bowed with cold
self-possession and seated himself upon the chair to which Holmes had
waved him.
"You had my note, Mr. Holmes?"
"Yes, but it explained nothing."
"It was too delicate a thing for me to put the details on paper. And
too complicated. It was only face to face I could do it."
"Well, we are at your disposal."
"First of all, Mr. Holmes, I think that my employer, Sir Robert, has
gone mad."
Holmes raised his eyebrows. "This is Baker Street, not Harley Street,"
said he. "But why do you say so?"
"Well, sir, when a man does one queer thing, or two queer things, there
may be a meaning to it, but when everything he does is queer, then you
begin to wonder. I believe Shoscombe Prince and the Derby have turned
his brain."
"That is a colt you are running?"
"The best in England, Mr. Holmes. I should know, if anyone does. Now,
I'll be plain with you, for I know you are gentlemen of honour and that
it won't go beyond the room. Sir Robert has got to win this Derby.
He's up to the neck, and it's his last chance. Everything he could
raise or borrow is on the horse--and at fine odds, too! You can get
forties now, but it was nearer the hundred when he began to back him."
"But how is that, if the horse is so good?"
"The public don't know how good he is. Sir Robert has been too clever
for the touts. He has the Prince's half-brother out for spins. You
can't tell 'em apart. But there are two lengths in a furlong between
them when it comes to a gallop. He thinks of nothing but the horse and
the race. His whole life is on it. He's holding off the Jews till
then. If the Prince fails him, he is done."
"It seems a rather desperate gamble, but where does the madness come
in?"
"Well, first of all, you have only to look at him. I don't believe he
sleeps at night. He is down at the stables at all hours. His eyes are
wild. It has all been too much for his nerves. Then there is his
conduct to Lady Beatrice!"
"Ah! what is that?"
"They have always been the best of friends. They had the same tastes,
the two of them, and she loved the horses as much as he did. Every day
at the same hour she would drive down to see them--and, above all, she
loved the Prince. He would prick up his ears when he heard the wheels
on the gravel, and he would trot out each morning to the carriage to
get his lump of sugar. But that's all over now."
"Why?"
"Well, she seems to have lost all interest in the horses. For a week
now she has driven past the stables with never so much as 'good
morning'!"
"You think there has been a quarrel?"
"And a bitter, savage, spiteful quarrel at that. Why else would he
give away her pet spaniel that she loved as if he were her child? He
gave it a few days ago to old Barnes, what keeps the 'Green Dragon,'
three miles off, at Crendall."
"That certainly did seem strange."
"Of course, with her weak heart and dropsy one couldn't expect that she
could get about with him, but he spent two hours every evening in her
room. He might well do what he could, for she has been a rare good
friend to him. But that's all over, too. He never goes near her. And
she takes it to heart. She is brooding and sulky and drinking, Mr.
Holmes--drinking like a fish."
"Did she drink before this estrangement?"
"Well, she took her glass, but now it is often a whole bottle of an
evening. So Stephens, the butler, told me. It's all changed, Mr.
Holmes, and there is something damned rotten about it. But then,
again, what is master doing down at the old church crypt at night? And
who is the man that meets him there?"
Holmes rubbed his hands.
"Go on, Mr. Mason. You get more and more interesting."
"It was the butler who saw him go. Twelve o'clock at night and raining
hard. So next night I was up at the house and, sure enough, master was
off again. Stephens and I went after him, but it was jumpy work, for
it would have been a bad job if he had seen us. He's a terrible man
with his fists if he gets started, and no respecter of persons. So we
were shy of getting too near, but we marked him down all right. It was
the haunted crypt that he was making for, and there was a man waiting
for him there."
"What is this haunted crypt?"
"Well, sir, there is an old ruined chapel in the park. It is so old
that nobody could fix its date. And under it there's a crypt which has
a bad name among us. It's a dark, damp, lonely place by day, but there
are few in that county that would have the nerve to go near it at
night. But master's not afraid. He never feared anything in his life.
But what is he doing there in the night-time?"
"Wait a bit!" said Holmes. "You say there is another man there. It
must be one of your own stable-men, or someone from the house! Surely
you have only to spot who it is and question him?"
"It's no one I know."
"How can you say that?"
"Because I have seen him, Mr. Holmes. It was on that second night.
Sir Robert turned and passed us--me and Stephens, quaking in the bushes
like two bunny-rabbits, for there was a bit of moon that night. But we
could hear the other moving about behind. We were not afraid of him.
So we up when Sir Robert was gone and pretended we were just having a
walk like in the moonlight, and so we came right on him as casual and
innocent as you please. 'Hullo, mate! who may you be?' says I. I
guess he had not heard us coming, so he looked over his shoulder with a
face as if he had seen the Devil coming out of Hell. He let out a
yell, and away he went as hard as he could lick it in the darkness. He
could run!--I'll give him that. In a minute he was out of sight and
hearing, and who he was, or what he was, we never found."
"But you saw him clearly in the moonlight?"
"Yes, I would swear to his yellow face--a mean dog, I should say. What
could he have in common with Sir Robert?"
Holmes sat for some time lost in thought.
"Who keeps Lady Beatrice Falder company?" he asked at last.
"There is her maid, Carrie Evans. She has been with her this five
years."
"And is, no doubt, devoted?"
Mr. Mason shuffled uncomfortably.
"She's devoted enough," he answered at last. "But I won't say to whom."
"Ah!" said Holmes.
"I can't tell tales out of school."
"I quite understand, Mr. Mason. Of course, the situation is clear
enough. From Dr. Watson's description of Sir Robert I can realize that
no woman is safe from him. Don't you think the quarrel between brother
and sister may lie there?"
"Well, the scandal has been pretty clear for a long time."
"But she may not have seen it before. Let us suppose that she has
suddenly found it out. She wants to get rid of the woman. Her brother
will not permit it. The invalid, with her weak heart and inability to
get about, has no means of enforcing her will. The hated maid is still
tied to her. The lady refuses to speak, sulks, takes to drink. Sir
Robert in his anger takes her pet spaniel away from her. Does not all
this hang together?"
"Well, it might do--so far as it goes."
"Exactly! As far as it goes. How would all that bear upon the visits
by night to the old crypt? We can't fit that into our plot."
"No, sir, and there is something more that I can't fit in. Why should
Sir Robert want to dig up a dead body?"
Holmes sat up abruptly.
"We only found it out yesterday--after I had written to you. Yesterday
Sir Robert had gone to London, so Stephens and I went down to the
crypt. It was all in order, sir, except that in one corner was a bit
of a human body."
"You informed the police, I suppose?"
Our visitor smiled grimly.
"Well, sir, I think it would hardly interest them. It was just the
head and a few bones of a mummy. It may have been a thousand years
old. But it wasn't there before. That I'll swear, and so will
Stephens. It had been stowed away in a corner and covered over with a
board, but that corner had always been empty before."
"What did you do with it?"
"Well, we just left it there."
"That was wise. You say Sir Robert was away yesterday. Has he
returned?"
"We expect him back to-day."
"When did Sir Robert give away his sister's dog?"
"It was just a week ago to-day. The creature was howling outside the
old well-house, and Sir Robert was in one of his tantrums that morning.
He caught it up and I thought he would have killed it. Then he gave it
to Sandy Bain, the jockey, and told him to take the dog to old Barnes
at the 'Green Dragon,' for he never wished to see it again."
Holmes sat for some time in silent thought. He had lit the oldest and
foulest of his pipes.
"I am not clear yet what you want me to do in this matter, Mr. Mason,"
he said at last. "Can't you make it more definite?"
"Perhaps this will make it more definite, Mr. Holmes," said our visitor.
He took a paper from his pocket and, unwrapping it carefully, he
exposed a charred fragment of bone.
Holmes examined it with interest.
"Where did you get it?"
"There is a central heating furnace in the cellar under Lady Beatrice's
room. It's been off for some time, but Sir Robert complained of cold
and had it on again. Harvey runs it--he's one of my lads. This very
morning he came to me with this which he found raking out the cinders.
He didn't like the look of it."
"Nor do I," said Holmes. "What do you make of it, Watson?"
It was burned to a black cinder, but there could be no question as to
its anatomical significance.
"It's the upper condyle of a human femur," said I.
"Exactly!" Holmes had become very serious. "When does this lad tend
to the furnace?"
"He makes it up every evening and then leaves it."
"Then anyone could visit it during the night?
"Yes, sir."
"Can you enter it from outside?"
"There is one door from outside. There is another which leads up by a
stair to the passage in which Lady Beatrice's room is situated."
"These are deep waters, Mr. Mason; deep and rather dirty. You say that
Sir Robert was not at home last night?"
"No, sir."
"Then, whoever was burning bones, it was not he."
"That's true, sir."
"What is the name of that inn you spoke of?"
"The 'Green Dragon.'"
"Is there good fishing in that part of Berkshire?"
The honest trainer showed very clearly upon his face that he was
convinced that yet another lunatic had come into his harassed life.
"Well, sir, I've heard there are trout in the millstream and pike in
the Hall lake."
"That's good enough. Watson and I are famous fishermen--are we not,
Watson? You may address us in future at the 'Green Dragon.' We should
reach it to-night. I need not say that we don't want to see you, Mr.
Mason, but a note will reach us, and no doubt I could find you if I
want you. When we have gone a little farther into the matter I will
let you have a considered opinion."
Thus it was that on a bright May evening Holmes and I found ourselves
alone in a first-class carriage and bound for the little
"halt-on-demand" station of Shoscombe. The rack above us was covered
with a formidable litter of rods, reels and baskets. On reaching our
destination a short drive took us to an old-fashioned tavern, where a
sporting host, Josiah Barnes, entered eagerly into our plans for the
extirpation of the fish of the neighbourhood.
"What about the Hall lake and the chance of a pike?" said Holmes.
The face of the innkeeper clouded.
"That wouldn't do, sir. You might chance to find yourself in the lake
before you were through."
"How's that, then?"
"It's Sir Robert, sir. He's terrible jealous of touts. If you two
strangers were as near his training quarters as that he'd be after you
as sure as fate. He ain't taking no chances, Sir Robert ain't."
"I've heard he has a horse entered for the Derby."
"Yes, and a good colt, too. He carries all our money for the race, and
all Sir Robert's into the bargain. By the way"--he looked at us with
thoughtful eyes--"I suppose you ain't on the Turf yourselves?"
"No, indeed. Just two weary Londoners who badly need some good
Berkshire air."
"Well, you are in the right place for that. There is a deal of it
lying about. But mind what I have told you about Sir Robert. He's the
sort that strikes first and speaks afterwards. Keep clear of the park."
"Surely, Mr. Barnes! We certainly shall. By the way, that was a most
beautiful spaniel that was whining in the hall."
"I should say it was. That was the real Shoscombe breed. There ain't
a better in England."
"I am a dog-fancier myself," said Holmes. "Now, if it is a fair
question, what would a prize dog like that cost?"
"More than I could pay, sir. It was Sir Robert himself who gave me
this one. That's why I have to keep it on a lead. It would be off to
the Hall in a jiffy if I gave it its head."
"We are getting some cards in our hand, Watson," said Holmes, when the
landlord had left us. "It's not an easy one to play, but we may see
our way in a day or two. By the way Sir Robert is still in London, I
hear. We might, perhaps, enter the sacred domain to-night without fear
of bodily assault. There are one or two points on which I should like
reassurance."
"Have you any theory, Holmes?"
"Only this, Watson, that something happened a week or so ago which has
cut deep into the life of the Shoscombe household. What is that
something? We can only guess at it from its effects. They seem to be
of a curiously mixed character. But that should surely help us. It is
only the colourless, uneventful case which is hopeless.
"Let us consider our data. The brother no longer visits the beloved
invalid sister. He gives away her favourite dog. Her dog, Watson!
Does that suggest nothing to you?"
"Nothing but the brother's spite."
"Well, it might be so. Or--well, there is an alternative. Now to
continue our review of the situation from the time that the quarrel, if
there is a quarrel, began. The lady keeps her room, alters her habits,
is not seen save when she drives out with her maid, refuses to stop at
the stables to greet her favourite horse, and apparently takes to
drink. That covers the case, does it not?"
"Save for the business in the crypt."
"That is another line of thought. There are two, and I beg you will
not tangle them. Line A, which concerns Lady Beatrice, has a vaguely
sinister flavour, has it not?"
"I can make nothing of it."
"Well, now, let us take up line B, which concerns Sir Robert. He is
mad keen upon winning the Derby. He is in the hands of the Jews, and
may at any moment be sold up and his racing stables seized by his
creditors. He is a daring and desperate man. He derives his income
from his sister. His sister's maid is his willing tool. So far we
seem to be on fairly safe ground, do we not?"
"But the crypt?"
"Ah, yes, the crypt! Let us suppose, Watson--it is merely a scandalous
supposition, a hypothesis put forward for argument's sake--that Sir
Robert has done away with his sister."
"My dear Holmes, it is out of the question."
"Very possibly, Watson. Sir Robert is a man of an honourable stock.
But you do occasionally find a carrion crow among the eagles. Let us
for a moment argue upon this supposition. He could not fly the country
until he had realized his fortune, and that fortune could only be
realized by bringing off this coup with Shoscombe Prince. Therefore,
he has still to stand his ground. To do this he would have to dispose
of the body of his victim, and he would also have to find a substitute
who would impersonate her. With the maid as his confidante that would
not be impossible. The woman's body might be conveyed to the crypt,
which is a place so seldom visited, and it might be secretly destroyed
at night in the furnace, leaving behind it such evidence as we have
already seen. What say you to that, Watson?"
"Well, it is all possible if you grant the original monstrous
supposition."
"I think that there is a small experiment which we may try to-morrow,
Watson, in order to throw some light on the matter. Meanwhile, if we
mean to keep up our characters, I suggest that we have our host in for
a glass of his own wine and hold some high converse upon eels and dace,
which seems to be the straight road to his affections. We may chance
to come upon some useful local gossip in the process."
In the morning Holmes discovered that we had come without our
spoon-bait for jack, which absolved us from fishing for the day. About
eleven o'clock we started for a walk, and he obtained leave to take the
black spaniel with us.
"This is the place," said he, as we came to two high park gates with
heraldic griffins towering above them. "About midday, Mr. Barnes
informs me, the old lady takes a drive, and the carriage must slow down
while the gates are opened. When it comes through, and before it
gathers speed, I want you, Watson, to stop the coachman with some
question. Never mind me. I shall stand behind this holly-bush and see
what I can see."
It was not a long vigil. Within a quarter of an hour we saw the big
open yellow barouche coming down the long avenue, with two splendid,
high-stepping grey carriage horses in the shafts. Holmes crouched
behind his bush with the dog. I stood unconcernedly swinging a cane in
the roadway. A keeper ran out and the gates swung open.
The carriage had slowed to a walk and I was able to get a good look at
the occupants. A highly-coloured young woman with flaxen hair and
impudent eyes sat on the left. At her right was an elderly person with
rounded back and a huddle of shawls about her face and shoulders which
proclaimed the invalid. When the horses reached the high road I held
up my hand with an authoritative gesture, and as the coachman pulled up
I inquired if Sir Robert was at Shoscombe Old Place.
At the same moment Holmes stepped out and released the spaniel. With a
joyous cry it dashed forward to the carriage and sprang upon the step.
Then in a moment its eager greeting changed to furious rage, and it
snapped at the black skirt above it.
"Drive on! Drive on!" shrieked a harsh voice. The coachman lashed the
horses, and we were left standing in the roadway.
"Well, Watson, that's done it," said Holmes, as he fastened the lead to
the neck of the excited spaniel. "He thought it was his mistress and
he found it was a stranger. Dogs don't make mistakes."
"But it was the voice of a man!" I cried.
"Exactly! We have added one card to our hand, Watson, but it needs
careful playing, all the same."
My companion seemed to have no further plans for the day, and we did
actually use our fishing tackle in the mill-stream, with the result
that we had a dish of trout for our supper. It was only after that
meal that Holmes showed signs of renewed activity. Once more we found
ourselves upon the same road as in the morning, which led us to the
park gates. A tall, dark figure was awaiting us there, who proved to
be our London acquaintance, Mr. John Mason, the trainer.
"Good evening, gentlemen," said he. "I got your note, Mr. Holmes. Sir
Robert has not returned yet, but I hear that he is expected to-night."
"How far is this crypt from the house?" asked Holmes.
"A good quarter of a mile."
"Then I think we can disregard him altogether."
"I can't afford to do that, Mr. Holmes. The moment he arrives he will
want to see me to get the last news of Shoscombe Prince."
"I see! In that case we must work without you, Mr. Mason. You can
show us the crypt and then leave us."
It was pitch-dark and without a moon, but Mason led us over the
grass-lands until a dark mass loomed up in front of us which proved to
be the ancient chapel. We entered the broken gap which was once the
porch and our guide, stumbling among heaps of loose masonry, picked his
way to the corner of the building, where a steep stair led down into
the crypt. Striking a match, he illuminated the melancholy
place--dismal and evil-smelling, with ancient crumbling walls of
rough-hewn stone, and piles of coffins, some of lead and some of stone,
extending upon one side right up to the arched and groined roof which
lost itself in the shadows above our heads. Holmes had lit his
lantern, which shot a tiny tunnel of vivid yellow light upon the
mournful scene. Its rays were reflected back from the coffin-plates,
many of them adorned with the griffin and coronet of this old family
which carried its honours even to the gate of Death.
"You spoke of some bones, Mr. Mason. Could you show them before you
go?"
"They are here in this corner." The trainer strode across and then
stood in silent surprise as our light was turned upon the place. "They
are gone," said he.
"So I expected," said Holmes, chuckling. "I fancy the ashes of them
might even now be found in that oven which had already consumed a part."
"But why in the world would anyone want to burn the bones of a man who
has been dead a thousand years?" asked John Mason.
"That is what we are here to find out," said Holmes. "It may mean a
long search, and we need not detain you. I fancy that we shall get our
solution before morning."
When John Mason had left us, Holmes set to work making a very careful
examination of the graves, ranging from a very ancient one, which
appeared to be Saxon, in the centre, through a long line of Norman
Hugos and Odos, until we reached the Sir William and Sir Denis Falder
of the eighteenth century. It was an hour or more before Holmes came
to a leaden coffin standing on end before the entrance to the vault. I
heard his little cry of satisfaction, and was aware from his hurried
but purposeful movements that he had reached a goal. With his lens he
was eagerly examining the edges of the heavy lid. Then he drew from
his pocket a short jemmy, a box-opener, which he thrust into a chink,
levering back the whole front, which seemed to be secured by only a
couple of clamps. There was a rending, tearing sound as it gave way,
but it had hardly hinged back and partly revealed the contents before
we had an unforeseen interruption.
Someone was walking in the chapel above. It was the firm, rapid step
of one who came with a definite purpose and knew well the ground upon
which he walked. A light streamed down the stairs, and an instant
later the man who bore it was framed in the Gothic archway. He was a
terrible figure, huge in stature and fierce in manner. A large
stable-lantern which he held in front of him shone upwards upon a
strong, heavily-moustached face and angry eyes, which glared round him
into every recess of the vault, finally fixing themselves with a deadly
stare upon my companion and myself.
"Who the devil are you?" he thundered. "And what are you doing upon my
property?" Then, as Holmes returned no answer, he took a couple of
steps forward and raised a heavy stick which he carried. "Do you hear
me?" he cried. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" His cudgel
quivered in the air.
But instead of shrinking, Holmes advanced to meet him.
"I also have a question to ask you, Sir Robert," he said in his
sternest tone. "Who is this? And what is it doing here?"
He turned and tore open the coffin-lid behind him. In the glare of the
lantern I saw a body swathed in a sheet from head to foot, with
dreadful, witch-like features, all nose and chin, projecting at one
end, the dim, glazed eyes staring from a discoloured and crumbling face.
The Baronet had staggered back with a cry and supported himself against
a stone sarcophagus.
"How came you to know of this?" he cried. And then, with some return
of his truculent manner: "What business is it of yours?"
"My name is Sherlock Holmes," said my companion. "Possibly it is
familiar to you. In any case, my business is that of every other good
citizen--to uphold the law. It seems to me that you have much to
answer for."
Sir Robert glared for a moment, but Holmes's quiet voice and cool,
assured manner had their effect.
"'Fore God, Mr. Holmes, it's all right," said he. "Appearances are
against me, I'll admit, but I could act no otherwise."
"I should be happy to think so, but I fear your explanations must be
for the police."
Sir Robert shrugged his broad shoulders.
"Well, if it must be, it must. Come up to the house and you can judge
for yourself how the matter stands."
Quarter of an hour later we found ourselves in what I judge, from the
lines of polished barrels behind glass covers, to be the gun-room of
the old house. It was comfortably furnished, and here Sir Robert left
us for a few moments. When he returned he had two companions with him;
the one, the florid young woman whom we had seen in the carriage; the
other, a small rat-faced man with a disagreeably furtive manner. These
two wore an appearance of utter bewilderment, which showed that the
Baronet had not yet had time to explain to them the turn events had
taken.
"There," said Sir Robert, with a wave of his hand, "are Mr. and Mrs.
Norlett. Mrs. Norlett, under her maiden name of Evans, has for some
years been my sister's confidential maid. I have brought them here
because I feel that my best course is to explain the true position to
you, and they are the two people upon earth who can substantiate what I
say."
"Is this necessary, Sir Robert? Have you thought what you are doing?"
cried the woman.
"As to me, I entirely disclaim all responsibility," said her husband.
Sir Robert gave him a glance of contempt. "I will take all
responsibility," said he. "Now, Mr. Holmes, listen to a plain
statement of the facts.
"You have clearly gone pretty deeply into my affairs or I should not
have found you where I did. Therefore, you know already, in all
probability, that I am running a dark horse for the Derby and that
everything depends upon my success. If I win, all is easy. If I
lose--well, I dare not think of that!"
"I understand the position," said Holmes.
"I am dependent upon my sister, Lady Beatrice, for everything. But it
is well known that her interest in the estate is for her own life only.
For myself, I am deeply in the hands of the Jews. I have always known
that if my sister were to die my creditors would be on to my estate
like a flock of vultures. Everything would be seized; my stables, my
horses--everything. Well, Mr. Holmes, my sister _did_ die just a week
ago."
"And you told no one!"
"What could I do? Absolute ruin faced me. If I could stave things off
for three weeks all would be well. Her maid's husband--this man
here--is an actor. It came into our heads--it came into my head--that
he could for that short period personate my sister. It was but a case
of appearing daily in the carriage, for no one need enter her room save
the maid. It was not difficult to arrange. My sister died of the
dropsy which had long afflicted her."
"That will be for a coroner to decide."
"Her doctor would certify that for months her symptoms have threatened
such an end."
"Well, what did you do?"
"The body could not remain there. On the first night Norlett and I
carried it out to the old well-house, which is now never used. We were
followed, however, by her pet spaniel, which yapped continually at the
door, so I felt some safer place was needed. I got rid of the spaniel
and we carried the body to the crypt of the church. There was no
indignity or irreverence, Mr. Holmes. I do not feel that I have
wronged the dead."
"Your conduct seems to me inexcusable, Sir Robert."
The Baronet shook his head impatiently. "It is easy to preach," said
he. "Perhaps you would have felt differently if you had been in my
position. One cannot see all one's hopes and all one's plans shattered
at the last moment and make no effort to save them. It seemed to me
that it would be no unworthy resting-place if we put her for the time
in one of the coffins of her husband's ancestors lying in what is still
consecrated ground. We opened such a coffin, removed the contents, and
placed her as you have seen her. As to the old relics which we took
out, we could not leave them on the floor of the crypt. Norlett and I
removed them, and he descended at night and burned them in the central
furnace. There is my story, Mr. Holmes, though how you forced my hand
so that I have to tell it is more than I can say."
Holmes sat for some time lost in thought.
"There is one flaw in your narrative, Sir Robert," he said at last.
"Your bets on the race, and therefore your hopes for the future, would
hold good even if your creditors seized your estate."
"The horse would be part of the estate. What do they care for my bets?
As likely as not they would not run him at all. My chief creditor is,
unhappily, my most bitter enemy--a rascally fellow, Sam Brewer, whom I
was once compelled to horsewhip on Newmarket Heath. Do you suppose
that he would try to save me?"
"Well, Sir Robert," said Holmes, rising, "this matter must, of course,
be referred to the police. It was my duty to bring the facts to light
and there I must leave it. As to the morality or decency of your own
conduct, it is not for me to express an opinion. It is nearly
midnight, Watson, and I think we may make our way back to our humble
abode."
It is generally known now that this singular episode ended upon a
happier note than Sir Robert's actions deserved. Shoscombe Prince did
win the Derby, the sporting owner did net eighty thousand pounds in
bets, and the creditors did hold their hand until the race was over,
when they were paid in full, and enough was left to re-establish Sir
Robert in a fair position in life. Both police and coroner took a
lenient view of the transaction, and beyond a mild censure for the
delay in registering the lady's decease, the lucky owner got away
scatheless from this strange incident in a career which has now
outlived its shadows and promises to end in an honoured old age.
XII
| null |
The Sturgis Wager: A Detective Story | Edgar Wallace | 180 | ['John Sturgis'] | THE STURGIS WAGER
A Detective Story
BY EDGAR MORETTE
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1899
BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
CONTENTS
I. THE CABMAN'S FARE
II. THE WAGER
III. DOCTOR MURDOCK'S PROBLEM
IV. THE BANK PRESIDENT
V. A FOUNDATION OF FACTS
VI. THE ARTIST
VII. AGNES MURDOCK
VIII. THE PORTRAIT
IX. THE KNICKERBOCKER BANK
X. PIECING THE EVIDENCE
XI. A RECONSTRUCTED DRAMA
XII. THE BOOKKEEPER'S CONFESSION
XIII. THE LOST TRAIL
XIV. THE LETTER
XV. TWO LOVERS
XVI. THE ROENTGEN RAYS
XVII. THE QUARRY
XVIII. THE EXTENSION
XIX. THE UNDERGROUND PASSAGE
XX. THE LEAD-LINED VAT
XXI. THE DEATH CHAMBER
XXII. FATHER AND DAUGHTER
XXIII. THE SPEAKING-TUBE
XXIV. CHECKMATE!
XXV. THE MURDER SYNDICATE
The Sturgis Wager.
CHAPTER I.
THE CABMAN'S FARE.
It was bitterly cold. The keen December wind swept down the crowded
thoroughfare, nipping the noses and ears of the gay pedestrians,
comfortably muffled in their warm wraps.
Broadway was thronged with the usual holiday shoppers and
pleasure-seekers. Cabs with their jaded steeds driven by weatherbeaten
jehus, and private carriages behind well-groomed horses handled by
liveried coachmen, deftly made their way through the crowds and
deposited their fares at the entrances of the brightly lighted theaters
or fashionable restaurants. A wizened hag, seated on the curbstone at
the corner, seemed to shrink into herself with the cold as she turned
the crank of her tiny barrel-organ and ground out a dismal and scarcely
audible cacophony; while an anxious-eyed newsboy, not yet in his
teens, shivered on the opposite side of the way, as, with tremulous
lips, he solicited a purchaser for his unsold stock. One could hardly
be expected to open a warm overcoat on such a night, at the risk of
taking cold, for the sake of throwing a cent to an old beggar woman, or
of buying a newspaper from a ragged urchin. Even the gaily decorated
shop windows failed to arrest the idle passers-by; for it required
perpetual motion to keep the blood in circulation.
The giant policeman on the crossing, representing the majesty of
the law, swayed the crowd of vehicles and pedestrians with the
authoritative gestures of his ponderous hands, and gallantly escorted
bands of timid women through the inextricable moving maze.
And withal, the cable cars, with their discordant clangor, rumbled
rapidly to and fro, like noisy shuttles, shooting the woof of the
many-hued fabric which is the life of a great city.
Presently from one of the side streets there came a cab, which started
leisurely to cross Broadway. The big policeman, with his eyes fixed
upon an approaching car, held up a warning hand, to which the driver
seemed to pay no attention, for the reins remained slack and the
listless horse continued to move slowly across the avenue.
Several people turned to look with mild curiosity at the bold cabman
who dared thus to disregard the authority of blue cloth and brass
buttons. Their surprise changed quickly to amazement and dismay when
their eyes rested upon him; for his head had fallen forward upon his
chest and his limp body swayed upon the box with every motion of the
cab. He seemed unconscious of his surroundings, like one drunk or in a
stupor.
At his side sat a young man closely muffled in his overcoat, and with a
sealskin cap pulled well down over his ears. His face was deathly pale.
Those who caught sight of his features saw that his bloodless lips
were firmly set, and that his eyes glittered with a feverish light. He
carried one hand in the lapel of his coat. With the other he shook the
inert form of the unconscious cabman, in a vain effort to arouse him to
a sense of the impending danger.
The situation flashed upon the gripman on the car. Instantly he threw
his weight upon the brakewheel, at the same time loudly sounding his
gong. The policeman, too, understood in a twinkling what was about to
happen, and rushed for the horse's head. But it was too late. The cab
was fairly across the track when the car, with slackened speed, crashed
into it.
Just before the collision, the young man in the sealskin cap sprang
from the box to the street. He landed upon his feet; but, losing his
balance, he fell forward upon his left arm, which still remained in
the lapel of his coat. He must have hurt himself; for those standing
near him heard him groan. But the center of interest was elsewhere,
and no one paid much attention to the young man, who, arising quickly,
disappeared in the crowd.
The cab, after tottering for an instant on two wheels, fell over
upon its side, with a loud noise of splintering wood and breaking
glass. The driver rolled off the box in a heap. At the same time,
the panic-stricken passengers on the car rushed madly for the doors,
fighting like wild beasts in their haste to reach a place of safety.
After the first frenzied moment, it became evident that, although badly
shaken up, the passengers had received no injuries, except such bruises
as they had inflicted upon each other in their mad struggle to escape.
By this time a crowd had collected about the overturned cab, and
several more policemen had come to the assistance of the first one, who
was now seated serenely upon the head of the cab-horse, a precaution
seemingly superfluous, for the poor beast, though uninjured, appeared
to be quite satisfied to rest where he lay until he should be forced
once more to resume the grind of his unhappy existence.
The cabman had been rudely shaken by his fall. He had lain as though
unconscious for the space of a few seconds; then, with assistance, he
had managed to struggle to his feet. He stood now as though dazed by
the shock, trying to understand what had happened.
"Are you hurt?" inquired one of the policemen.
The man, mumbling an unintelligible reply, raised his hand to a scalp
wound from which the blood was flowing rather freely.
At that moment two men forced their way through the crowd which a
circle of policemen had some difficulty in keeping at a distance from
the wounded cabman. One was a middle-aged individual, who gave his name
as Doctor Thurston and offered his services as a physician; the other
was a young man with keen gray eyes, who said nothing, but exhibited a
reporter's badge.
The physician at once turned his attention to the cabman; felt him,
thumped him, pinched him; smelt his breath; and then delivered his
verdict:
"No bones broken. The slight scalp wound doesn't amount to anything.
The man has been drinking heavily. He is simply drunk."
The horse had by this time been unharnessed and the cab had been lifted
upon its wheels again.
The reporter stood by a silent and apparently listless spectator of the
scene.
Doctor Thurston turned to him:
"Come along, Sturgis; neither you nor I are needed here; and if we do
not hurry, Sprague's dinner will have to wait for us. It is a quarter
to eight now."
The reporter seemed about to follow his friend, but he stood for an
instant irresolute.
"I say, Doctor," he inquired at last, "are you sure the man is drunk?"
"He has certainly been drinking heavily. Why?"
"Because it seems to me----Hello, we cannot go yet; the passenger is
more badly hurt than the driver."
"The passenger?" queried the physician, turning in surprise to the
policeman.
"What passenger?" asked the policeman, looking at the cabman. "Have you
a passenger inside, young feller?"
"Naw," replied the cabman, who seemed to be partially sobered by the
shock and loss of blood. "Naw, I aint got no fare, barrin' the man wot
was on the box."
The reporter observed the man closely as he spoke; and then, pointing
to the step of the cab, which was plainly visible in the glare of a
neighboring electric lamp:
"I mean the passenger whose blood is trickling there," he said quietly.
Every eye was turned in the direction of his outstretched hand.
A few drops of a thick dark liquid had oozed from under the door,
and was dripping upon the iron step. The cab door was closed and the
curtain was drawn down over the sash, the glass of which had been
shattered by the fall.
One of the policemen tried to open the door. It stuck in the jamb.
Then he exerted upon it the whole of his brute strength; and, of a
sudden, it yielded. As it flew open, the body of a man lurched from the
inside of the cab, and before any one could catch it, tumbled in a heap
upon the pavement.
A low cry of horror escaped from the crowd.
The cabman's passenger was a man past middle age, neatly but plainly
dressed.
As Doctor Thurston and a policeman bent over the prostrate form, the
reporter shot a keen glance in the direction of the cabman, who stood
staring at the body with a look of ghastly terror in his bulging eyes.
Presently the physician started to his feet with a low exclamation of
surprise.
"Is he dead, Doctor?" asked the policeman.
"He has been dead for some time," replied the physician, impressively;
"the body is almost cold."
"Been dead for some time?" echoed the policeman.
"Yes; this man was shot. See there!"
As he spoke, he pointed to a red streak which, starting from the left
side of the dead man's coat, extended downward and marked the course
of the tiny stream in which the life blood had flowed to a little pool
on the floor of the cab.
"Shot!" exclaimed the policeman, who turned immediately to one of his
brother officers. "Keep your eye on the cabman, Jim. We'll have to take
him in. And look out for the other man, quick!"
Then, addressing the cabman, upon each of whose shoulders a policeman's
hand was immediately placed, he asked roughly:
"Who is this man?"
The cabman was completely sober now. He stood, pale and trembling,
between his two captors, as he replied solemnly:
"Before God, I don't know, boss. I never saw him before."
The policeman looked at the man in blank amazement for an instant. Then
he turned away contemptuously:
"All right, young feller," he said, "you don't have to confess to me.
But I guess you'll have a chance to tell that story to a judge and
jury."
Then he proceeded to examine the dead man's pockets. They were empty.
"Looks like robbery," he murmured. "What is it, Jim? Haven't you got
the other man?"
Jim had not found the other man; for the pale young fellow in the
sealskin cap had disappeared.
The reporter was stooping over the body, while Doctor Thurston cut
through the clothing and laid bare a small round wound.
"Here is another bullet wound," said Sturgis, turning over the body
slightly, and pointing out a second round hole in the back of the dead
man.
He seemed to take great interest in this discovery. He whipped out a
steel tape and rapidly but carefully took a number of measurements,
as if to locate the positions of the two wounds. Then he stepped into
the cab; and, striking match after match, he spent several minutes
apparently in eager search for something which he could not find.
"That is strange," he muttered to himself, as he came out at last.
"What is it?" inquired Thurston, who alone had caught the words.
But the reporter either did not hear or did not care to answer. He at
once renewed his search on the brilliantly lighted pavement in the
immediate vicinity of the cab; examining every stone, investigating
every joint and every rut, prodding with his cane every lump of frozen
mud, turning every stray scrap of paper.
"Well, Doctor," he said, when at length he rejoined his companion,
"if you have done all that you can we may as well go. It is one of
the prettiest problems I have met; but there is nothing more for me
to learn here for the present. By the way, as I was saying when I
interrupted myself a little while ago; are you sure the cabman is
drunk? I wish you would take another good look at him. The question may
be more important than it seemed at first."
A few minutes later, the physician and the reporter were hurrying along
to make up for the time they had lost; the cab and the cabman had
disappeared in the custody of the police, and the cabman's grewsome
fare was jolting through Twenty-sixth Street, in the direction of a
small building which stands near the East River, and in which the
stranded waifs of the new-world metropolis can find rest at last, upon
a stone slab, in the beginning of their eternal sleep.
Broadway had resumed its holiday aspect; the wizened hag at the corner
still patiently ground out her plaintive discords; the tearful
newsboy, with his slowly diminishing armful of newspapers, continued
to shiver in the cold wind, as he offered his stock to the hurrying
pedestrians; the big policeman again piloted his fair charges through
the mass of moving vehicles, and the clanging cable cars started once
more on their rumbling course, as if the snapping of a thread in the
fabric of the city's life were a thing of constant occurrence and of no
moment.
A few tiny dark red stains upon the pavement were all that remained to
tell the story of the scene which had so recently been enacted in the
busy thoroughfare. Presently even these were obliterated by the random
stroke of a horse's hoof.
The ripple had disappeared from the surface. The stream of life was
flowing steadily once more through the arteries of the metropolis.
CHAPTER II.
THE WAGER.
"What I mean to assert," said Ralph Sturgis, with quiet conviction, "is
that every crime is its own historian; that all its minutest details
are written in circumstantial evidence as completely as an eye-witness
could see them,--aye, more fully and more truly than they could be
described by the criminal himself."
The reporter was a man of about thirty, whose regular features bore
the unmistakable stamp of intelligence and refinement. In repose, they
wore an habitual expression of introspective concentration, which might
have led a careless observer to class Ralph Sturgis in the category
of aimless dreamers. But a single flash of the piercing gray eyes
generally sufficed to dispel any such impression; and told of keen
perception and underlying power. The mouth was firm and kind; the
bearing that of a gentleman and a man of education.
"But," objected the host, "you surely do not mean to express a belief
in the infallibility of circumstantial evidence?"
"Why not?"
"Because you must know as well as any one how misleading uncorroborated
circumstantial evidence is. I do not forget what remarkable results
you have often accomplished for the _Daily Tempest_ in detecting and
following up clues to which the official detectives were blind. But,
frankly, were not your conclusions usually the result of lucky guesses,
which would have remained comparatively useless as evidence had they
not been subsequently proved correct by direct testimony?"
"Let me reply to your question by another, Sprague," answered Sturgis.
"When you draw a check, does the paying teller at the bank require
the testimony of witnesses to your signature before admitting its
genuineness?"
"No; of course not."
"Precisely. He probably knows the signature of Harvey M. Sprague, the
depositor, better than he does the face of Sprague, the artist. And
yet the evidence here is purely circumstantial. I know of at least
one recent instance in which the officials of a New York bank placed
their implicit reliance upon circumstantial evidence of this sort,
in spite of the direct testimony of the depositor, who was willing
to acknowledge the genuineness of a check to which his name had been
forged."
"I suppose you refer to the Forsyth case," said Sprague; "but you must
remember that Colonel Forsyth was actuated by the desire to shield the
forger, who was his own scapegrace son."
"That is just the point," replied Sturgis; "another witness will be
biased by his interests or prejudices, blinded by jealousy, love or
hatred, or handicapped by overzealousness, stupidity, lack of memory,
or what not. Circumstantial evidence is always impartial, truthful,
absolute. When the geologist reads the history of the earth, as it
is written in its crust; when a Kepler or a Newton formulates the
immutable laws of the universe, as they are recorded in the motions of
the heavenly bodies, they draw their conclusions from evidence which is
entirely circumstantial."
"Yes; but you forget that science has often been mistaken in its
conclusions," interrupted Sprague, "so that it has constantly been
necessary to alter theories to fit newly acquired or better understood
facts."
"Granted," rejoined Sturgis, "but that is because the interpreters
of the evidence are fallible; not because the evidence itself is
incomplete. The same cause will always produce the same effect;
the same chain of events will invariably terminate in one and the
same catastrophe. The apparent deviations from this law are due to
unrecognized differences in the producing causes, to additional or
missing links in the chain of evidence. Therefore I hold that a
criminal, however clever he may be, leaves behind him a complete trace
of his every act, from which his crime may be reconstructed with
absolute certainty by a competent detective."
"In short, 'Murder will out!'" said a man who had been a silent
listener to the conversation up to this point. He spoke with a quiet
smile, which barely escaped being a polite sneer.
Sturgis's keen eyes met his interlocutor's as he replied gravely:
"I should hardly care to make so sweeping an affirmation, Doctor
Murdock. I have merely stated that the history of every crime is
indelibly written in tangible evidence. The writing is on the wall,
but of course a blind man cannot see it, nor can an illiterate man
understand it. Every event, however trivial, owes its occurrence to a
natural cause, and leaves its indelible impress upon nature. The Indian
on the trail reads with an experienced eye the story of his enemy's
passage, as it has been recorded in trodden turf and broken twigs;
while the bloodhound follows, with unerring judgment, a still surer
though less tangible trail. The latter's quarry has left behind, at
every step, an invisible, imponderable, and yet unmistakable part of
itself. Perhaps my meaning can be made clear by an illustration. When a
photographer in his dark room takes an exposed plate from his camera,
it is apparently a blank; but in reality there is upon this plate the
minutely detailed history of an event, which, in proper hands, can
be brought before the least competent of observers as irrefutable
evidence. Here, the actinic rays of the sunlight are the authors of the
evidence; but every natural force, in one way or another, conspires
with the detective to run the criminal to earth."
"Unless," suggested Murdock, "the ability happens to be on the side of
the quarry; in which case, the conspiracy of Nature's forces turns
against the hunter."
"Ah!" retorted the reporter, "the game is not an equal one. The dice
are loaded. For while on the one hand, the detective, if he falls into
an error, has a lifetime in which to correct it, any misstep on the
part of the criminal is fatal. And who is infallible?"
"Not the detective, at any rate," answered Murdock with suave irony.
"It has always seemed to me that the halo which has been conferred upon
him, chiefly through the efforts of imaginative writers of sensational
fiction, is entirely undeserved. In the first place, most of the
crimes of which we hear are committed either by men of a low order of
intelligence or else by madmen, in which latter category I include all
criminals acting under the impulse of any of the passions--hatred,
love, jealousy, anger. And then, while the detective takes good care
that his successes shall be proclaimed from the house-tops, he is
equally careful to smother all accounts, or to suppress every detail,
of his failures, whenever there is any possibility of so doing. You can
cite, I know, plenty of cases in which, even after the lapse of years,
the crime has been discovered and the criminal has been confronted
with his guilt, but----"
"In my opinion," piped the shrill voice of an elderly man of clerical
aspect, "conscience is the surest detective, after all."
"Conscience!" retorted Murdock calmly; "the word is a euphemism. Man
gives the name of conscience to his fear of discovery and punishment.
There is no such thing as conscience in the criminal who has absolute
confidence in his power to escape detection."
"But where is the man who can have that superb confidence in himself?"
asked Sprague.
"His name is probably legion," answered Murdock quickly. "He is the
author of every crime whose history remains forever unwritten."
"And are these really so numerous?"
"Let us see how the case stands in one single class of crime--say, for
instance, murder. Whenever the solution of a sensational murder mystery
is effected by the detectives, or by their allies, the gentlemen of
the press, like our friend Mr. Sturgis, we, the gullible public,
vociferously applaud the achievements of these guardians of the public
safety, and forthwith proceed to award them a niche in the temple of
Fame. So far, so good. But what of the dark mysteries which remain
forever unsolved? What of the numerous crimes of which no one ever even
knows?"
"Oh! come now, Doctor," laughed Sprague, "isn't it rather paradoxical
to base your argument on the assumption of crimes of whose very
existence you admit you have no knowledge?"
Murdock smiled grimly as he replied:
"Go to the morgue of any large city, where the unrecognized dead are
exposed for identification. Aside from the morbid crowd which is drawn
to such a place by uncanny curiosity, you will find that each corpse
is anxiously scanned by numbers of people, each of whom is seeking a
missing friend or relative. At the most, each body can furnish the
key to only one mystery. Then what of the scores, ay, the hundreds of
others?"
After a short pause, he continued:
"No; murder will not out----at least not when the criminal is what I
might call a professional, a man of genius in his vocation, educated,
intelligent, dispassionate, scientific. Fortunately for the reputation
of the detective, amateur and professional, the genius in the criminal
line is necessarily of a modest and retiring disposition. _He_ cannot
call the public attention to his ingenuity and skill; _he_ cannot puff
his achievements in the daily press. Not only are his masterpieces
unsigned, but they remain forever unheard of. The detective is known
only by his successes; the criminal's reputation is based solely upon
his failures."
Doctor Murdock delivered this parting shot with the cool deliberateness
which was characteristic of the man. The insolent irony of his words
was emphasized by the calmness of his bearing.
"I say, Doctor," laughed Sprague, "you have missed your vocation. You
should have adopted the profession of scientific criminal yourself.
You seem to possess the theory of the science as it is, and a little
experience would no doubt have made you an adept in the practice as
well."
A look of mild amusement passed over Murdock's countenance.
"Perhaps you are right, Mr. Sprague. At any rate, I think I may affirm,
without overweening conceit, that if I had followed the course you
suggest, I could have prepared for your friend Mr. Sturgis some pretty
little problems on which to sharpen his wits. I feel that I could have
been an artist as well as a scientist in that line."
"You might console yourself by writing an interesting and valuable
book, under some such title as 'Hints to the Young Criminal,' or 'Crime
as a Fine Art.' At all events, your criminals of genius have a stanch
advocate in you. But what on earth have the detectives done to you to
call forth this wholesale vituperation?"
"Nothing. But, as a disinterested observer, I like to see fair play.
If I am mistaken in my estimate of the modern detective, I am open to
conviction. I have five thousand dollars to wager against one hundred
that I can pick up any daily paper and from its columns select an
unsolved riddle, to which no detective on the face of the earth can
give the answer. Have I any taker, gentlemen?"
As he spoke, his eyes met Sturgis's and suddenly seemed to flash with
an earnest defiance, which instantly melted into the calm, cynical
smile of the man of the world.
"Done," said Sturgis, quietly.
"Very well, Mr. Sturgis," observed Doctor Murdock indifferently. "I
shall confine myself to the columns of your own newspaper for the
selection of the problem upon which you are to work.
"And," he added, with a supercilious smile, "you are at liberty to fix
the limit of time in which the wager must be decided."
"Hear! hear!" exclaimed a young broker. "This is becoming interesting,
and promises some sport for those of us who are giddy enough to enjoy
staking something on this novel contest. I, for one, am willing to lay
reasonable odds on the side of law and order, as represented by the
enlightened press, in the person of our clever friend Sturgis. Come,
Chadwick, will two to one against the scientific criminal tempt you to
champion the cause of that apparently unappreciated individual?"
"Very well, Fred," answered the man addressed; "I'll take you for a
hundred."
A few similar bets were laughingly arranged, and a copy of the _Evening
Tempest_ was sent for.
CHAPTER III.
DOCTOR MURDOCK'S PROBLEM.
Sprague's stag dinner was virtually over when a servant brought in a
copy of the _Evening Tempest_. The dessert had been removed, the coffee
and liqueurs had been served, and the guests had lighted their cigars.
The host passed the newspaper to Doctor Murdock, who proceeded to
glance leisurely through its columns.
"Ah! this will do," he exclaimed, at last. "Here is something which
will, I think, answer our purpose--
"MYSTERIOUS SHOTS IN WALL STREET.
WHO FIRED THEM?
STORY OF A STRAY SATCHEL.
THE POLICE PUZZLED.
"While on his beat, at a quarter past five o'clock this afternoon,
Policeman John Flynn, hearing the report of a pistol from the
direction of the Knickerbocker bank----"
"The Knickerbocker bank!" interrupted the young broker. "Mr. Dunlap,
that interests you. Do your directors indulge in pistol practice at the
board meetings?"
"What is that about the Knickerbocker bank?" asked the man to whom
this speech was addressed. Having been engaged with his neighbor in an
earnest discussion on financial questions, he had not been listening to
the general conversation.
Murdock adjusted his eyeglasses, and quietly resumed:
"Policeman John Flynn, hearing the report of a pistol from the
direction of the Knickerbocker bank, in Wall Street, started at the
top of his speed toward that building. When he was within about
twenty yards of the bank another shot rang out, and at the same
instant a man darted down the steps and ran toward Broadway."
Richard Dunlap, president of the Knickerbocker bank, was listening
attentively enough now. Behind the calm mask of the financier there was
the evident anxiety of the bank president. For the stability of a bank,
like the honor of a woman, is at the mercy of every passing rumor.
"He carried in his hand a small satchel, which he dropped as soon
as he saw that he was pursued. After an exciting chase, Flynn
overtook his man, whom he recognized as Michael Quinlan, _alias_
Shorty Duff, a well-known sneak thief. On the way back to the bank
the policeman questioned his prisoner about the pistol shots.
Quinlan vehemently denied having fired them; but admitted that he
had stolen the satchel. His story is that, as he was passing the
bank, the outer door was ajar. Seeing the satchel in the vestibule,
he entered, crouching low in order to avoid being seen through the
inner door, the upper portion of which is of plate glass. Scarcely
had he laid his hand upon the satchel when he was startled by the
report of a pistol. For a moment he was dazed and undecided how to
act. Then, as no one seemed to take any notice of his presence,
he was quietly slipping off, when a second shot was fired.
Panic-stricken, he took to his heels, only to be captured by Flynn.
"On reaching the bank Flynn found the outer door closed but not
fastened. The heavy iron gate between it and the inner door was
securely locked, however, so that it was impossible to enter. The
Knickerbocker bank has a second entrance on Exchange Place. But
this, too, is protected by a massive iron gate, which also was
found locked. Flynn rapped for assistance, and the call having been
answered by Policemen Kirkpatrick and O'Donnell, he left the former
to watch the Exchange Place door, and the latter to guard the
entrance on Wall Street, while he took his prisoner to the police
station.
"Messengers were at once despatched to the house of Mr. Richard
Dunlap, the president of the bank, and to that of Mr. George S.
Rutherford, the cashier. The former was not at home, and the family
being out of town, there was no one who knew where he was spending
the evening."
Every eye turned toward Richard Dunlap as this paragraph was read. His
features remained impassive, under the full control of the veteran
financier; but to an observant eye like Sturgis's, the man's real
anxiety was betrayed by the unconscious action of his right hand, which
lay upon the table and played nervously with a fork.
"Yes," said the banker, carelessly, feeling the curious gaze of the
other guests upon him, and answering their unspoken questions, "yes,
that is true; I did not tell my housekeeper that I was invited to dine
by our friend Sprague this evening. There was, of course, no reason why
I should. Well, Doctor Murdock, did they find Rutherford?"
Murdock had looked up while the banker was speaking. He now leisurely
found his place and continued the reading of the article in the
_Tempest_:
"The cashier fortunately was at home, and he hurried down town at
once with his set of the bank keys. Two detectives from the Central
Office accompanied him, and the three men carefully searched the
premises. They found nothing out of the way there, except that
three gas jets were lighted and turned on full blaze. At first the
detectives were inclined to think that bank robbers had gained
an entrance to the building; and that one of them, having caught
sight of Shorty Duff as he reached in to steal the satchel from the
vestibule, had fired upon him. This would explain the pistol shots
heard by Flynn. A careful examination of the bank, however, failed
to reveal any trace of a bullet.
"The valise, when opened, proved to contain only a change of linen
for a man and a few toilet articles of but slight intrinsic value.
The satchel itself is an ordinary cheap leather handbag, stamped in
imitation of alligator skin.
"The police are now looking for its owner in the hope that he will
be able to throw some light on the mystery of the pistol shots."
When Doctor Murdock had finished reading, everybody, except Dunlap and
Sturgis, looked disappointed. The former settled back in his chair,
the muscles of his face relaxed, and the anxious bank president once
more became the genial and polished man of the world. The reporter sat
gazing thoughtfully at his wineglass.
"Well, Mr. Sturgis," said Murdock, "what do you think of my little
problem?"
"I have already been assigned to work up this case for the _Tempest_,"
answered the reporter quietly.
"Indeed? Perhaps you are the author of this very article? No? Then are
you willing to make the solution of this little mystery the subject of
our wager and the test of your theories?"
"Hold on, Doctor," exclaimed Sprague; "you are doing Sturgis an
injustice. Why pick out, as a test of his ability, a problem which, to
all intents and purposes, has already been solved by the police? Give
him some truly knotty question and he will be in his element; and then,
at least, some interest will attach to your wager."
"Ah! you think the problem has already been solved?"
"To be sure. The article you have read us started out as if it were
going to prove interesting; but, instead of that, it ends in an
anti-climax. What is the crime here? The confessed theft, by a petty
sneak thief, of a satchel worth, with its contents, perhaps eight or
ten dollars. And where is the mystery? The ownership of a few pieces of
unmarked linen of so little value that the owner does not care to take
the trouble to claim them."
"I cannot agree with you, Mr. Sprague. While the crime in this case may
be a petty theft, it contains, to my mind, interesting features, which
you appear to lose sight of in your disdainful summary. The problem, it
seems to me, involves a suitable explanation of two rather mysterious
pistol shots, to say nothing of such minor details as lighted gas jets
behind securely locked gates. As Mr. Sturgis has informed us, in his
earnest and lucid way, every effect has a cause. I should like to know
the cause that lighted the gas in the Knickerbocker bank."
"I shall probably find out that cause the day after to-morrow," said
Mr. Dunlap smiling, "and I shall give the fellow a talking to for his
carelessness in forgetting to turn out the gas when he locked up."
"Mr. Dunlap's suggestion," continued Murdock, "is plausible in itself,
and we might even assume that the same careless employé, after locking
up the bank, forgot to close the outer door on the Wall Street side.
But even then, we have not disposed of the ownership of the satchel
nor of the two pistol shots. The police theory that these shots were
fired by bank robbers seems, I admit, very far-fetched. Professional
cracksmen would hardly be likely to fire, unless cornered; and then
they would fire to kill, or at least to disable. If their bullets
failed to hit the mark, they would at any rate leave some trace."
"I beg to suggest," remarked Dunlap, "that the shots heard by the
policeman and his prisoner were not fired from the inside of the bank."
"That appears quite likely," admitted Murdock; "but they must at
any rate have been fired in close proximity to the bank, since the
witnesses agree that they appeared to come from inside. In that case,
whence were they fired? By whom? And why? On the whole, my little
puzzle does not seem to me so ill chosen. What is your own opinion,
Mr. Sturgis?"
"I quite agree with you that the problem is probably not so simple as
it seemed at first blush to Sprague."
"Very well. Then doubtless you are willing to undertake the task of
supplying whatever data may be required to complete the chain of
evidence against Quinlan?"
"By no means," replied Sturgis decidedly.
"Indeed? Ah! well, of course, if Mr. Sturgis wishes to withdraw his
bet----"
"I do not wish to withdraw my bet," said Sturgis; "I will agree to
solve your problem within thirty days or to forfeit my stakes; but
I cannot undertake to prove the truth or falsity of any _a priori_
theory. I have no personal knowledge of the matter as yet, and
therefore no theory."
"Quite so," observed Murdock ironically. "I had forgotten your
scientific methods. Of course, it may turn out that it was the
policeman who stole the satchel from Shorty Duff."
"Perhaps," answered Sturgis, imperturbably.
Murdock smiled.
"Well, gentlemen," said he, "I accept Mr. Sturgis's conditions. If you
are willing," he continued, turning to the reporter, "our host will
hold the stakes and decide the wager."
"I, for one, agree with Sprague," said Doctor Thurston. "I am
disappointed in the problem. I have seen Sturgis unravel some extremely
puzzling tangles in my day; and such a case would not be hard to find.
Why, no longer ago than this evening, on our way here, we stumbled upon
a most peculiar case----eh?----oh!----er----please pass the cognac,
Sprague. I wish I had some like it in my cellar; it is worth its weight
in gold."
Doctor Thurston had met Sturgis's steady gaze and had understood that,
for some reason or other, the reporter did not wish him to relate their
adventure of the afternoon.
Only one person appeared to notice the abrupt termination of his
story. This was Murdock, who had looked up at the speaker with mild
curiosity, and who had also intercepted the reporter's warning glance
at his friend. He observed Doctor Thurston narrowly for a full minute,
appeared to enjoy his clumsy effort to cover his retreat, and then
quietly sipped his coffee.
CHAPTER IV.
THE BANK PRESIDENT.
Sprague's dinner party was over, and among the first to take their
leave, shortly after midnight, were Dunlap, Sturgis and Doctor Thurston.
The reporter did not often spend an evening in worldly dissipation.
He was a man of action, a hard worker and an enthusiastic student.
Almost all of the time which was not actually spent in the pursuit of
his profession, was devoted to study in many widely different fields
of art and science. For Sturgis's ideal of his profession was high; he
held that almost every form of knowledge was essential to success in
his line of work. It was seldom, therefore, that he allowed himself
to spend a precious evening in social intercourse, unless as a more
or less direct means to some end. He had made an exception in favor
of Sprague's dinner, and his meeting with Dunlap, whom he had not
previously known, had been entirely accidental.
Dunlap was, however, a man whom Sturgis needed to see in the course
of his study of the Knickerbocker bank mystery, and he had not lost
the opportunity which chance had placed in his way. After obtaining an
introduction to the bank president, the reporter had sought an occasion
to speak with him in private; and, as this did not present itself
during the course of the evening, he had timed his departure so that it
should coincide with that of Dunlap. Doctor Thurston had followed his
friend's lead.
"Are you going down to the bank this evening, Mr. Dunlap?" asked
Sturgis, as the trio faced the bleak wind.
"I? No. Why should I?" inquired the banker in apparent surprise.
"I see no particular reason why you should," replied the reporter. "If
to-day were a banking day, there would be no time to lose. But since it
is New Year's day, there is little, if any, chance of the trail being
disturbed; and it will be much easier to find it in broad daylight
than by gaslight. Our friends of the Central Office are usually pretty
clever in discovering at least the more evident clues in a case of this
sort, even when they have not the ability to correctly interpret them.
And since they have completely failed in their search to-night, we
must anticipate a more than ordinarily difficult puzzle."
"Why, Mr. Sturgis," said Dunlap somewhat anxiously. "You talk as though
you really believed that some mysterious crime has been committed at
the bank."
"I do not know enough about the case as yet to advance any positive
belief in the matter," said Sturgis; "but if we assume as correct the
circumstances related in the article which Doctor Murdock read to us
this evening, they certainly present an extraordinary aspect."
Dunlap reflected for an instant.
"Still, the fact that our cashier found everything in good order at the
bank is in itself completely reassuring," he said musingly.
"Very likely," assented Sturgis. "It is quite possible that from a
banker's point of view the problem is wholly devoid of interest; but
from a detective's standpoint it appears to be full of promising
features. Therefore, whether or not you intend to look farther into the
matter yourself, I beg you will at least authorize me to make a survey
of the field by daylight in the morning."
Dunlap looked anything but pleased as the reporter spoke these words.
He thought before replying.
"Frankly, Mr. Sturgis," he said at length with studied courtesy, "I
will not conceal the fact that what you ask places me in a rather
awkward position. You are a friend of my friend Sprague, and my
personal intercourse with you this evening has been pleasant enough to
make me hope that, in the future, I may be so fortunate as to include
you in my own circle of acquaintances. Therefore, on personal grounds,
it would give me great pleasure to grant your request. But, on the
other hand, you are a journalist and I am a banker; and it is with
banks as with nations--happy that which has no history. Capital is
proverbially timid, you know."
"I see," said Sturgis; "you fear that the reputation of the
Knickerbocker bank may suffer if the mystery of the pistol shots is
solved."
"No, no, my dear sir; not at all, not at all. You quite misunderstand
me," replied the banker, with just a shade of warmth. "It is not a
question of the bank's credit exactly, since there has been neither
robbery nor defalcation; but depositors do not like to see the name
of their bank mentioned in the newspapers; they take fright at once.
Depositors are most unreasonable beings, Mr. Sturgis; they are liable
to become panic-stricken on the most insignificant provocation; and
then they run amuck like mad sheep. The Knickerbocker bank does not
fear any run that might ever be made upon it. Its credit stands on
too secure a foundation for that. But nevertheless a run on a bank is
expensive, Mr. Sturgis, very expensive."
"The bank's affairs being in so satisfactory a condition," observed the
reporter, "it seems to me that whatever harm publicity is likely to do
has already been done. The imaginations of your depositors are now at
work sapping the foundation of the Knickerbocker bank. If the truth
cannot injure its credit, it can only strengthen it; and to withhold
the truth under the circumstances, is to invite suspicion."
Dunlap did not appear to like the turn the conversation was taking. He
walked along in silence for a few minutes, irresolute. At length he
seemed to make up his mind.
"Perhaps you are right after all, Mr. Sturgis. At any rate we have
nothing to conceal from the public. If you will be at the bank
to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, I shall be pleased to meet you
there."
Sturgis nodded his acquiescence.
"Well, gentlemen, here is my street," continued the banker. "Good
evening, good evening."
And he was off.
"Whither are you bound now, Thurston?" asked the reporter, as the two
friends resumed their walk.
"Home and to bed like a sensible fellow," replied the physician.
"Don't you do anything of the sort. Come along with me to my rooms. I
must arrange the data so far collected in the two interesting cases
that I have taken up to-day; and in the cab mystery, at least, you can
probably be of assistance to me, if you will."
"Very well, old man; lead on. I am curious to know what theories you
have adopted in these two cases."
"Theories!" replied Sturgis; "I never adopt theories. I simply
ascertain facts and arrange them in their proper sequence, as far as
possible. When this arrangement is successfully accomplished, the
history of the crime is practically completed. Detection of crime is
an exact science. Here, as in all other sciences, the imagination has
an important part to play, but that part consists only in co-ordinating
and interpreting facts. The solid foundation of facts must invariably
come first."
CHAPTER V.
A FOUNDATION OF FACTS.
When the two men were comfortably settled in the reporter's study,
Sturgis produced pipes, tobacco and writing materials.
"There now," said he, as he prepared to write, "I shall begin with
what I shall call the Cab Mystery. The data in this case are already
plentiful and curious. I shall read as I write, and you can interrupt
for suggestions and criticisms, as the points occur to you. In the
first place, then, the dead man is about fifty years old, and was
employed in some commercial house or financial institution, probably as
bookkeeper, at a fairly good salary."
"Hold on there, Sturgis," laughed Thurston. "I thought you were going
to build up a solid foundation of facts before you allowed your
imagination to run riot!"
"Well?" inquired the reporter in apparent surprise.
"Well, the only fact you have mentioned is the approximate age of
the dead man. The rest is pure assumption. How can you know anything
certain about his occupation and the amount of his salary?"
"True; I forgot you had not followed the steps in the process of
induction. Here they are: the dead man's sleeves, on the under side
below the elbow, were worn shiny. This shows that his occupation is at
a desk of some kind."
"Or behind a counter," suggested Thurston quizzically.
"No. Your hypothesis is untenable. A clerk behind a counter does
occasionally, it is true, lean upon his forearms. But incessant
contact with the counter leaves across the front of his trousers an
unmistakable line of wear, at a level varying according to the height
of the individual. This line was not present in the case of the man in
the cab. On the other hand, his waistcoat is frayed and worn at the
level of the fourth button from the top. Therefore I maintain that he
was in the habit of working at a desk. Now the trousers, although not
new, are not baggy at the knees, though free from the seams which would
suggest the effect of pressing or of a trousers stretcher. Conclusion,
the desk is a high one; for the man stood at his work. Most men who
work standing at high desks are bookkeepers of one kind or another.
Therefore, as I said before, this man was probably a bookkeeper. Now,
as to his salary; I do not pretend to know the exact amount of it, of
course. But when a man, who was evidently not a dude, has his clothes
made to order, of imported material, and when his linen, his hat and
his shoes are of good quality, it is fair to infer that the man's
income was comfortable.
"I proceed with the arrangement of my data:
"Secondly: the man in the cab died of a wound caused by a bullet fired
at very close quarters. Indeed, the weapon must have been held either
against the victim's body, or, at any rate, very near to it; for the
coat is badly burned by the powder."
"On these points at least," assented Doctor Thurston, "I can agree with
you. The bullet probably penetrated the upper lobe of the left lung."
"Yes," added Sturgis, "and it passed out at the back, far below where
it went in."
"What makes you think it passed out? The wound in the back may have
been caused by another bullet fired from the rear."
"That hypothesis might be tenable, were it not for this."
With these words, the reporter pulled out his watch, opened the case,
and with the blade of a penknife took from the surface of the crystal a
minute object, which he handed to the physician.
"Look at it," said he, pushing over a magnifying glass.
Doctor Thurston examined the tiny object carefully.
"A splinter of bone," he said at last.
"Yes. I found it on the surface of the wound in the back. How did it
get there?"
"You are right," admitted the physician; "it must have come from
within, chipped from a rib and carried out by the bullet which entered
from the front."
"I think there can be no doubt as to that. Now, the bullet does not
seem to have been deflected in its course by its contact with the rib,
for, as far as I have been able to judge by probing the two wounds with
my pencil, their direction is the same. This is important and brings
me to point three, which is illustrated by these diagrams, drawn to
scale from the measurements I took this afternoon."
As he said these words, the reporter handed his friend a sheet of paper
upon which he had drawn some geometrical figures.
"The first of these diagrams shows the angle which the course of
the bullet made with a horizontal plane; the second represents the
inclination from right to left. The former of these angles is nearly
sixty, and the latter not far from forty-five degrees. The inclination
from right to left shows that the shot was fired from the right side
of the dead man. Now then, one of two things: Either it was fired by
the man himself, the weapon being held in his right hand; or else it
was fired by an assassin who stood close to the victim's right side.
The first of these hypotheses, considered by itself, is admissible;
but it involves the assumption of an extremely awkward and unusual
position of the suicide's hand while firing. On the other hand, the
dead man is tall--six feet one inch--and to fire down, at an angle of
sixty degrees, upon a man of his height, his assailant would have to
be a colossus, or else to stand upon a chair or in some other equally
elevated position, unless the victim happened to be seated when the
shot was fired."
"Happened to be seated!" exclaimed Thurston astounded, "why, of course
he was seated, since he was in the cab."
"That brings up point four, which is not the least puzzling of this
interesting case," said Sturgis impressively; "the shooting was not
done in the cab."
"Not done in the cab!"
"No; otherwise the bullet would have remained in the cushions; and it
was not there."
"It might have fallen out into the street at the time of the
collision," suggested Thurston.
"No; I searched every inch of the space in which it might have
fallen. If it had been there I should have found it, for the spot was
brilliantly lighted by an electric light, as you remember."
The physician pondered in silence for a few minutes.
"With all due respect for the accuracy of your observations, and for
the rigorous logic of your inductions, Sturgis," he asserted at last
with decision, "I am positive that the man died seated, for his limbs
stiffened in that position."
"Yes," assented Sturgis, "and, for that matter, I grant you that he
breathed his last in the cab; for in his death struggles he clutched in
his left hand the curtain of the cab window, a piece of which remained
in his dying grasp. I merely said that he was not shot in the cab."
"Then how did he get there?" asked the physician.
"Your question is premature, my dear fellow," replied Sturgis, smiling;
"it must remain unanswered for the present. All we have established as
yet is that he did get there. And that being the case, he must have
been assisted; for, wounded as he was, he could not, I take it, have
climbed into the cab by himself."
"Certainly not," agreed Thurston.
"Point five," resumed Sturgis, "the right arm was broken just above the
wrist."
"Yes," said the physician, "I thought at first that the arm might have
been broken in the collision with the cable car; but the discoloration
of the flesh proves conclusively that the fracture occurred before
death."
"Precisely. Now, it is possible that the man broke his arm when he
fell, after being shot; but the contused wound looks to me as if it had
been made by a severe blow with some blunt instrument."
"Possibly," admitted Thurston.
"This broken arm, if we can place it in its proper chronological
position, may prove to be of some importance in the chain of evidence,"
mused Sturgis. "If the fracture occurred before the man was shot, that,
of course, excludes the possibility of suicide; but, on the other hand,
it also brings in an obstacle to the hypothesis of murder."
"How so?"
"Because we have settled, you will remember, that the shot was fired
from the right of the victim, and close to him. Now, if he did not fire
the shot himself, the person who did must have reached over his right
arm to do so. In that case, unless the victim was asleep or stupefied,
would he not instinctively have raised his arm in self-defence, and
thus deflected the weapon upward?"
"Evidently."
"Well, it is idle to speculate on this line for the present. Let us
come to point six. You remember I called your particular attention to
the cabman. Do you still think he was only drunk?"
"No," replied Thurston; "while he had unquestionably been drinking
heavily, he also showed symptoms of narcotic poisoning."
"Then the presumption is that he had been drugged by those who wished
to place the wounded man in his cab. I observed him closely and I am
satisfied that he knows as little about his dead passenger as we do. He
probably knows less about him, at all events, than the young man in the
sealskin cap who gave the police the slip during the excitement which
followed the overturning of the cab."
Sturgis paused a moment.
"This, I think," he continued, "covers all the evidence we have
thus far collected in the Cab Mystery. It is quite satisfactory, as
far as it goes, for it is circumstantial evidence, and, therefore,
absolutely truthful. In the Knickerbocker Bank Mystery, we have as yet
no satisfactory data whatever; for everything we have heard concerning
it has its origin in the fallible evidence of witnesses, and has,
moreover, reached us third or fourth hand. There is, however, one fact
that may, or may not, prove to be important. Have you noticed that
these two mysteries are contemporaneous, and, therefore, that they may
be related?"
"Do you think there is any connection between the two?" inquired
Thurston, interested.
"I do not allow myself to think about it at all as yet," replied
Sturgis; "I simply note the fact, that, so far as time is concerned,
the Cab Mystery could be the sequel to the Knickerbocker Bank
Mystery--that is all. Facts, my dear boy, are like words. A word is
only an assemblage of meaningless letters until it becomes pregnant
with sense by context. So, a fact, which, standing by itself, has no
meaning, may, when correlated with other facts, become fraught with
deep significance."
"And now," he continued, after a pause, "I think our work is concluded
for the present. I shall be able to lay it aside for the night. Let me
offer you a glass of sherry. Pleasant evening we spent at Sprague's
to-night. I have a great admiration for him as an artist, and a
great fondness for him as a man. Most of his friends are strangers
to me, though. You know I have very little time to indulge in social
dissipation. By the way, who is that Doctor Murdock with whom I have
made this bet?"
"Oh! he is a physician, though now retired from practice. He devotes
himself entirely to scientific research, especially in the domain of
chemistry. He has made some important discoveries in organic chemistry,
and they say he has succeeded in proving some of the supposed
elementary metals to be compounds. He has quite an enviable reputation
in the scientific world. I understand he is a remarkable man."
"That is evident at a glance. He showed himself this evening to be a
clear thinker and a brilliant speaker. I should say he was something
of a genius, and I should judge, moreover, that he was a man of
magnificent nerve, capable of the most heroic actions, or----"
Sturgis hesitated.
"Or----?" asked Thurston.
"Or of the most infamous cruelty and crime. It all depends upon whether
or not his great mental attributes are under the control of a heart; a
point upon which I am somewhat in doubt."
CHAPTER VI.
THE ARTIST.
Sprague was a dilettante in art as he was in life. If he had not been
rich, he might perhaps have become a great artist. But, lacking the
spur of poverty, he seemed incapable of sustained effort. Occasionally
he was seized with a frenzy for labor; and, for weeks at a time,
he would shut himself up in his studio, until he had creditably
accomplished some bit of work. But the fever was soon spent, and a
reaction invariably followed, during which palette and brush were taken
up only in desultory fashion. Thus it was that at the age of eight
and twenty, Sprague had painted a few pictures which had attracted
favorable attention at the annual exhibitions of the Academy of Design,
and which the critics had spoken of as "promising"; and thus it was
that the promise was as yet unfulfilled, and that Sprague, though a man
of undoubted talent, was not likely ever to rank as a genius in his
profession.
Sturgis, with his keen insight into human nature, fully realized the
potential capacities of the artist, and at times he could not control
his impatience at his friend's inert drifting through life. But, with
all their differences, these two men held each other in the highest
esteem, each admiring in the other those very qualities which were
lacking in himself.
The artist lived in a fashionable quarter of the city, in a bachelor
apartment which included a large and commodious studio fitted up
according to the latest canons of artistic taste.
On this particular New Year's morning, after waking and observing,
by the filtering of a few bright sunbeams through the closely drawn
blinds, that it was broad daylight, he stretched himself with a
voluptuous yawn and prepared to relapse into the sensuous enjoyment of
that semi-somnolent state which succeeds a night of calm and refreshing
sleep.
Just as he was settling himself comfortably, however, he was startled
by a knock at the bedroom door. Most men, under the circumstances,
would have betrayed some vexation at being thus unceremoniously
disturbed. But there was no suspicion of annoyance in Sprague's cheery
voice, as he exclaimed:
"You cannot come in yet, Mrs. O'Meagher. I am asleep, and I shall be
asleep for another hour at the least. Surely you cannot have forgotten
that to-day is a holiday. Happy New Year! You have time to go to
several masses before----"
"Get up, old lazybones; and don't keep a man waiting at your door in
this inhospitable way, when he is in a hurry," interrupted a voice
whose timbre was not that of the housekeeper, Mrs. O'Meagher.
"Oh! is that you, Sturgis?" laughed the artist. "Aren't you ashamed of
yourself to come routing honest men out of bed at this unseemly hour?
Wait a minute, till I put on my court costume, that I may receive you
with the honors and ceremonies due to your rank and station."
A couple of minutes later, the artist, picturesquely attired in a loose
oriental dressing gown and fez, opened the door to his friend, Ralph
Sturgis.
"Come in, old man," he said, cordially extending his hand to the
reporter; "you are welcome at any hour of the day or night. What is it
now? This is not your digestion call, I presume."
"No," replied Sturgis, "I merely dropped in to say that I should be
unable to take our projected bicycle trip this afternoon, I shall
probably be busy with the Knickerbocker bank case all day. By the way,
if you would like to come to the bank with me, I shall be glad of your
company. I am on my way there now."
"I should like nothing better," said Sprague, "but I have made an
appointment for this morning with a----er----er----with a sitter."
"What, on New Year's day, you heathen!"
Sturgis observed the artist closely, and then added quizzically:
"Accept my congratulations, old man."
"Your congratulations?" inquired Sprague, coloring slightly.
"Yes; my congratulations and my condolence. My congratulations on
the fact that she is young and beautiful, and possessed of all those
qualities of mind and heart which----and so on and so forth. My
condolence because I fear you are hit, at last."
"What do you mean?" stammered the artist sheepishly; "do you know her?
What do you know about her?"
"Nothing whatever," replied Sturgis laughing, "except what you are
telling me by your hesitations, your reticence and your confusion."
The artist spoke after a moment of thoughtful silence:
"Your inductions in this case are premature, to say the least. My
sitter is a young lady, so much is undeniably true. And there is
no doubt in my mind as to her possession of all the qualities you
jocularly attribute to her; but my interest in her is only that of the
artist in a beautiful and charming woman.
"At any rate," he added, after a moment's hesitation, "I hope so; for I
have heard that she is as good as betrothed to another man."
The reporter's keen ear detected in his friend's tones a touch of
genuine sadness of which the artist himself was probably unconscious.
Laying his hand gently upon Sprague's shoulder, he said gravely:
"I hope so too, old man; for you are one of those foolish men whose
lives can be ruined by an unhappy love affair. I suppose it is useless
to preach to you;--more's the pity--but, in my humble opinion, no
woman's love is worth the sacrifice of a good man's life."
"Yes, I know your opinion on that subject, you old cynic," replied
Sprague, "but you need not worry on my account; not yet, at all events.
I am still safe; the portrait is almost finished; and I should be a
fool to walk into such a scrape with my eyes wide open."
"Humph!" ejaculated Sturgis skeptically, "when a man makes a fool of
himself for a woman, it matters little whether his eyes be open or
shut; the result is the same."
Sprague laughed somewhat uneasily; and then, as if to change the
subject:
"Come and see the picture," he said. "I should like your opinion of it."
The reporter consulted his watch.
"I shall have to come back some other time for that," he replied; "I
must hurry off now to keep my appointment with Mr. Dunlap."
He started toward the door; but suddenly facing Sprague again, he held
out his hand to the artist, who pressed it cordially.
"Good-bye, old man," he said affectionately; "be as sensible as you
can, and don't wantonly play with the fire."
And before Sprague could frame an answer, the reporter was gone.
The artist remained thoughtfully standing until his friend's footsteps
had died away in the distance. Then he turned and walked slowly into
the studio. Here, in the middle of the room, stood an easel, upon which
was the portrait of a beautiful young girl.
Sprague gazed at it long and earnestly. Then he heaved an almost
inaudible sigh.
"Sturgis is right," he said to himself, turning away at last,
"and----and I am a confounded idiot!"
CHAPTER VII.
AGNES MURDOCK.
In a quarter of the city which is rapidly surrendering to the
relentless encroachments of trade, there still stand a few
old-fashioned houses, the sole survivors of what was once an
aristocratic settlement.
One by one their fellows have been sapped and swept away by the
resistless tide of commerce, until these ancient dwellings, stubbornly
contesting a position already lost, now rear their sepulchral
brown-stone fronts in stiff and solitary grandeur--huge sarcophagi in a
busy mart.
One of these houses stands well back from the street line, the
traditional backyard of the ordinary New York dwelling having been
sacrificed, in this instance, to make room for a tiny garden, which is
separated from the street by a tall spiked iron railing, behind which
grows an arborvitæ hedge. The former serves as a defence against the
marauding of the irrepressible metropolitan gamin; while the latter
confers upon the occupants of the garden a semblance of protection from
the curious gaze of the passers-by.
This property, having been the subject of an interminable lawsuit,
had remained for many years unoccupied, and was even beginning to be
regarded by some of the neighbors as haunted, when at last it was
bought by Doctor Murdock, a wealthy widower with an only daughter. For
some months masons and carpenters were at work; and then, one day, the
new occupants entered into possession.
The Murdocks lived quietly but luxuriously, like people accustomed to
wealth. They had their horses and carriages, their house at Lenox and
at Newport, and their yacht. Their circle of acquaintances was large,
and included not only the fashionable set, but also a scientific,
literary and artistic set. For Doctor Murdock was a chemist of national
reputation, a member of several scientific bodies, and a man of great
intelligence and broad culture.
On this particular New Year's morning, Doctor Murdock was seated in
his study, apparently absorbed in reading the daily papers, a pile of
which lay upon his table. His occupation might perhaps more accurately
be described as skimming the daily papers; for each journal in turn
was subjected to a rapid scrutiny, and only a few columns seemed
occasionally to interest the reader.
There was no haste visible in the Doctor's actions, each one of which
appeared to be performed with the coolness and deliberation of a man
who is not the slave of time; and yet, so systematic were they, that,
all lost motion being avoided, every operation was rapidly completed.
In a short time the pile of newspapers had been disposed of, and
the Doctor, lighting a choice cigar, leaned back in his comfortable
armchair and placidly puffed the wreathes of fragrant smoke
ceilingward. He was apparently satisfied with the world and with
himself, this calm, passionless man. And yet a sharp observer would
have noted an almost imperceptible furrow between the eyes, which might
perhaps have indicated only the healthy mental activity of an ordinary
man; but which, in one given so little to outward manifestation of
feeling as Doctor Murdock, might also betoken more or less serious
annoyance or displeasure.
While the chemist sat in this pensive attitude, there was a rustle of
skirts outside, and presently there came a gentle knock at the door of
the study.
"Come in!" said Murdock, removing the cigar from his lips.
The door opened, admitting a tall and beautiful young girl, evidently
not long out of her teens.
"Do I disturb you, father?" she asked, stepping lightly into the room.
"No, Agnes," replied Murdock courteously; "as you see, I am indulging
in a period of _dolce far niente_."
The young girl laughed a clear, silvery laugh, as her eyes fell upon
the pile of newspapers.
"If the reading of a dozen newspapers is _dolce far niente_, I should
think you would welcome hard work as a pleasant change."
"Oh!" replied her father, "the work I have done on those has not
amounted to much. I have only been gleaning the news from the morning
papers.
"Yes," he added, answering her surprised look, "it takes a deal of skim
milk to yield a little cream."
The last paper which Murdock had been examining lay upon the desk
before him. From the closely printed columns stood out in bold relief
the glaring headlines:
MURDER IN A CAB.
MYSTERIOUS ASSASSINATION OF AN UNKNOWN MAN, IN BROAD DAYLIGHT.
CABMAN REILLY DENIES ALL KNOWLEDGE OF THE CRIME.
Miss Murdock's glance rested carelessly upon these words for an
instant. They aroused in her nothing more than the mild curiosity which
attaches to events of palpitating human interest, when they have been
congealed in the columns of the daily newspaper and served to palates
already sated with sensational verbosity.
"Mary said you wished to speak to me," said the young girl, after a
short pause. "I thought I would step in to see you before going to Mr.
Sprague's."
"To Sprague's?" inquired Murdock, fixing his keen eyes upon the young
girl. "Ah, yes; I remember he spoke of the appointment last night. How
is the portrait coming on?"
"It is almost finished. Probably only one or two more sittings, at the
most, will be necessary."
Agnes seemed slightly embarrassed by the fixity of her father's
searching glance. She settled herself in an armchair and assumed a look
of deferent expectancy.
Not a word of affection had passed between father and daughter; not a
caress had been interchanged. The relations between this impassive man
and his charming daughter were those of well-bred, if somewhat distant,
relatives. On the one hand, there was the uniform courtesy of the man
of the world toward a woman; on the other, the deference of a young
girl of good breeding toward a person much older than herself. But the
note of cordial and intimate affection between father and child was
absolutely missing.
And yet Agnes Murdock was naturally of an affectionate and expansive
nature. During her mother's lifetime the two women had been inseparable
companions, united by a strong bond of sympathy.
Mrs. Murdock had been an invalid for many years before her death, and
with Agnes had lived either abroad or in the South during much of the
time in order to escape the rigors of the northern climate. Thus the
father, engrossed as he was with his occupations and his scientific
researches, had seen but little of his daughter during her childhood,
and had been looked upon by the child almost as a stranger.
When at last, after her mother's death, Agnes, heartbroken at the loss
of her only friend, returned to the paternal roof, she was a girl of
sixteen. In the first loneliness of her bereavement, when, hungering
for human sympathy and consolation, she turned to her father, she
received patient and courteous attention, with an offer of all the
material comforts and luxuries which wealth could procure; but she
failed to find the only thing she needed--a responsive human heart.
And yet, behind the cold and selfish exterior of the chemist, the
young girl had touched a chord which had never vibrated before in this
strange man's being. It is probable that the feeling awakened in him
by his lovely daughter was the nearest approach to an absorbing human
affection of which his nature was capable. Perhaps if the child had
been sufficiently experienced to read her father's heart she might have
persisted in her advances, and thus ultimately have conquered the cold
reserve she had at first encountered. But she was proud and impulsive,
and, bitterly disappointed in her first attempt to win from her father
a demonstration of affection, she withdrew into her isolation, and ever
after met his calm courtesy with an equally reserved deference. The
abnormal situation, which at first was maintained only by an effort on
the part of the young girl, lost with time much of its strangeness, and
ultimately crystallized under the potent force of habit, so that it was
accepted by the two as the natural outcome of their relationship.
In the first pang of her bereavement and disappointment, Agnes had
turned for consolation to her books; and, being left free to dispose of
her life as she saw fit, she had planned a course of study, which had
in due time received its consecration at one of the leading colleges
for women.
Upon her return from college she had, as far as she was permitted,
taken charge of her father's household, and had presided with charming
dignity and grace over the social functions for which Doctor Murdock's
house now became famous. Up to the time of his daughter's advent
the chemist's relations with the world had been chiefly through
the clubs and scientific bodies to which he belonged. He was well
received in the homes of the members of New York society; but in the
absence of a woman to do the honors of his own home, he was unable
to return the hospitality which he enjoyed. Now, however, everything
was changed. Agnes was glad to find an outlet for her energies in the
task of receiving her father's guests, and, being a girl of remarkable
intelligence and tact, she succeeded in creating a salon, in the best
sense of the word. Many of the shining lights in the world of art,
literature, science and fashion were among the regular devotees at the
shrine of this superb young goddess.
Among the younger men more than one gay moth, dazzled by the light of
the girl's beautiful eyes, had been tempted to hover near the flame,
only to scorch his wings. Miss Murdock had already refused several of
the "best matches" of the city during her two seasons, much to the
relief of those young men who had not yet summoned up courage enough
to try their fate, and much to the disgust of a few amiable young
women and several designing mammas. The latter could not help but
deprecate the wicked selfishness of a young girl who hypothecated and
thus rendered temporarily unavailable much potential matrimonial stock,
which, in the nature of things, would ultimately be thrown back on the
market upon the selection by the fair one of that single bond to whose
exclusive possession she was limited by the laws of church and state.
The fact of the matter was, that Agnes Murdock's ideal of life was
high. She was determined, if she ever embarked upon a matrimonial
venture, to do so only with a reasonably good prospect of finding in
the wedded state a satisfactory outlet for the depths of affection
which had remained so long unapplied in her tender maiden heart. No one
among the young men who had sought her hand had seemed worthy of the
great love she was ready to bestow. She was, therefore, still awaiting
her fate.
"You wished to see me, sir?" the young girl gently insinuated.
"Yes," said Murdock, with great deliberation; "I wished to speak to you
about----"
He watched her face intently, as if to read the effect which his words
would produce. The light in his eyes was almost tender; but Agnes was
not skilled in reading their scarcely perceptible shades of expression.
She looked up inquiringly, noting only the slight hesitation in her
father's speech.
"About a young man----" continued Murdock, with a quizzical smile.
A flush mounted to the girl's cheeks, and she fixed her eyes upon space.
"A young man who admires you greatly, and who----"
"Has he asked you to tell me this?" inquired Agnes, somewhat
impatiently.
"Oh! dear no," laughed the chemist; "he is only too anxious to do
so himself. He is a most impetuous fellow. But I thought it best to
prepare you----"
"May I ask the name of your protégé?" interrupted the young girl.
"Did I say he was my protégé?" asked Murdock, gently. "I certainly
had no intention of conveying any such impression. His name is
Chatham--Thomas Chatham."
A look, half of amusement, half of vexation, came into the girl's eyes.
It did not escape Murdock's close scrutiny.
"I judge from your reception of the gentleman's name, that his suit is
not likely to meet with much favor in your eyes."
"I am not aware that I have ever given Mr. Chatham any reason to
believe that it would," answered Agnes, stiffly.
"And yet you must have understood the drift of his attentions during
the last few months, since----"
"Since it has been perfectly clear to every one else, you mean?
"And yet," the young girl continued, reflectively, "I do not see how,
without downright rudeness, I could have done more than I have to show
him that his attentions have been distasteful to me."
"Then I may infer," said Murdock, smiling, "that you would not break
your heart if----"
He seemed to hesitate in the choice of his words.
"If he should conclude to go abroad on a long journey without
subjecting you to his impending proposal."
"On the contrary, father," admitted Agnes, "I should be everlastingly
grateful to you if such a consummation could be brought about without
unnecessary rudeness or cruelty towards Mr. Chatham."
"Very well, Agnes, that is all I wanted to see you about."
Agnes looked curiously at her father, as if to read the purpose hidden
in the depths of his inscrutable eyes. She saw nothing but a polite
dismissal in his calm face; and the interview between father and
daughter ended, as it had begun, with formal courtesy on both sides.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PORTRAIT.
Sprague was seated before his easel arranging his palette for the
morning's work. The unfinished portrait of Agnes Murdock looked down
upon him with eyes of living beauty. Occasionally the artist would
bestow a deft touch upon the glowing canvas and would retire to a
distance to note with a critical eye the new effect. Then he would
consult his watch in nervous impatience; and, going to the window, he
would glance anxiously up and down the street. Once or twice the rumble
of wheels caused him to look up in glad expectancy, which gradually
gave way to gloomy discontent as the noise died away in the distance.
At length hope seemed to depart altogether from the young man's breast.
He threw down his brushes, gave up all pretence of work and drifted off
into a brown study. His eyes, fixed upon those of the portrait, had
a troubled look in them;--so troubled, that it was clearly out of all
proportion to the professional disappointment of a painter kept waiting
for a fair subject.
So absorbed did he become in his gloomy meditations, that, when at last
a carriage stopped before the house, the artist did not hear it. But
when, presently, a gentle tap sounded upon the door of the studio, he
sprang to his feet, as if he had received an electric shock.
Perhaps he had; for it was followed by a rapid current of delicious
thrills tingling through every nerve and effecting in his whole being
a sudden and marvelous transformation. At once the furrowed brow was
smooth; the drooping lips were wreathed in smiles; the troubled look
gave way to one of glad welcome.
For she had come at last. There she stood, with laughing brown eyes and
glowing cheeks, when Sprague threw open the door. Alas, as usual, she
was accompanied by her maid. Never mind; was it not enough to have her
there at all, to bask in the sunshine of her smile, to look into the
dangerous depths of those soul-stirring eyes, to listen to the rippling
of her silvery voice?
"I fear I am a little late, Mr. Sprague; I am so sorry to have kept you
waiting. But you see this is how it was----"
What mattered it to him now how it was? Was she not there? An eternity
of suspense and misery would have been wiped out by that single
entrancing fact. Her words beat upon his ear like rapturous melody; he
drank them in, hardly conscious of their meaning.
Agnes Murdock, followed by her maid, proceeded at once to the
dressing-room set apart for the use of the artist's models. When
she returned, dressed for the sitting, she assumed under Sprague's
directions the pose of the portrait, while the artist critically
arranged her draperies and adjusted the shades and screens.
The maid had remained in the dressing-room.
"And so these are positively the last final touches, are they, Mr.
Sprague?" asked the young girl mischievously, after a few minutes. "You
artists seem to be quite as uncertain about your farewell appearances
as any famous actress or singer."
The artist looked up quickly as the girl spoke. An expression of pain
crossed his features.
"Yes, Miss Murdock," he answered gravely. "I shall not have to trouble
you to pose again."
Miss Murdock's attention was attracted by the melancholy note in his
voice. She observed him from the corner of her eyes in kindly curiosity.
The artist fell into a moody silence. For a while he worked with
feverish activity at the portrait; and then, gradually falling into
a fit of melancholy abstraction, he sat, with poised brush, gazing
intently at the beautiful girl before him. His task forgotten, he was
apparently unconscious that he was taking advantage of his privileged
position to stare at his fair subject. Agnes felt his burning glance
and was embarrassed by it; but, womanlike, she retained control of
herself, outwardly, at all events, as she uttered some commonplace
remark, which broke the spell and brought the artist to his senses with
a sharp consciousness of his rudeness. He replied to the young girl's
question in a low, changed voice, and then relapsed into a gloomy
silence. After an awkward interval he asked suddenly:
"Are you so very glad, Miss Murdock, that our sittings are almost
over?"
"Why, no, Mr. Sprague," replied Agnes; "I did not mean that. Of course
I shall be glad when the portrait is finished, because I wish to have
it home and to let my friends see it. But I should be indeed ungrateful
if I begrudged my poor little time and trouble, when yours have been so
lavishly and so ungrudgingly spent."
"These sittings have been a source of so much pleasure to me,"
continued Sprague thoughtfully, "that I have selfishly overlooked the
fact that they could only be an annoyance and a bore to you. I fear I
have needlessly prolonged them."
"But indeed, Mr. Sprague, I assure you it has been anything but a bore
to me to pose. I am sure I shall miss the pleasant morning hours I have
spent here."
"They have been the happiest hours of my life," said Sprague earnestly
in a low voice, "and now they are nearly gone----forever."
Agnes started slightly, blushed, and riveted her gaze upon the dainty
white hands which lay clasped together in her lap. Her bosom rose and
fell in quickened undulations.
"Why forever, Mr. Sprague?" she asked softly; "do you think of leaving
New York?"
"No," he replied quickly; "it is you who are about to desert this
studio, which for a short time has been brightened by your presence----"
"Well," interrupted Agnes, "since you are not going to leave New York,
I hope you will continue to call on us."
"I suppose I shall continue to call on your reception days, if that is
what you mean," said Sprague somewhat disconsolately.
"Now that," laughed Agnes, "is not in line with the polite things you
have been saying."
"I did not mean to say anything rude, Miss Murdock, but a call on your
reception day is a call on your guests. Surrounded as you are on such
occasions, one has barely a chance to catch a glimpse of you, much less
to speak with you."
"We are always glad to see our friends at other times than on our
reception days."
"Do you really mean it?" asked the artist eagerly. "May I call on you
sometimes when the crowd is not there?"
"We shall be happy to have you call at any time, Mr. Sprague."
Sprague thought he detected a slight emphasis on the pronoun.
"But it is not _we_ I wish to call on. It is _you_, Miss Murdock."
Once more the young girl's expressive eyes fixed their gaze upon
the delicate hands in her lap, and once more there was a scarcely
perceptible flutter beneath the lace which lay upon her white throat.
The artist sat with intent eyes fixed upon her.
"Of course I shall be pleased to have you call at any time, Mr.
Sprague," she said after a brief instant.
What more could any sane man expect a modest girl to say? It is not so
much the words spoken as the manner of their utterance that conveys
meaning. But it is a truism that a lover is not a sane man. Sprague was
not yet satisfied. He was about to speak again, when a knock sounded
upon the door.
It was the hall-boy with a letter.
"Miss Murdock?" he inquired, glancing in the direction of the young
girl.
"For me?" exclaimed Agnes, surprised.
"Yes, Miss; a gentleman left it for you."
Agnes took the letter, inspected it curiously for an instant; then,
excusing herself, she tore open the envelope and unfolded the note
which it contained.
At once a deep flush suffused her face, and an expression of annoyance
passed over her features. She glanced up hastily at Sprague, who was
apparently hard at work upon the background of the picture.
The hall-boy was waiting expectantly.
"There is no answer," said Agnes quietly.
And as the stern mandates of fashion either forbid a woman to wear a
pocket, or else decree that it shall be located in some practically
inaccessible position, the young girl dropped the letter and its
envelope into her lap and resumed the pose.
Sprague tried to renew the conversation where it had been interrupted;
but his efforts were in vain. Both he and Agnes were preoccupied during
the balance of the sitting.
When at last the time came for Miss Murdock to leave, Sprague
accompanied her to her carriage. After watching it until it disappeared
around the corner, he returned moodily to the studio.
As he entered the room, his eyes fixed in a vacant stare upon the
floor, he caught sight of something white--a sheet of paper--resting
there. Mechanically he pushed it to one side with his foot.
The sunshine seemed to have gone with Agnes Murdock. A gloom had fallen
upon the place and its occupant. The artist tried to work; but he was
restless and depressed. At length he threw down his brushes; and rising
from the easel, he put on his hat and coat and started out for a walk,
in the hope that exercise would drive away the blue devils whose grip
he felt tightening upon his heartstrings.
Meeting some friends in the course of his aimless wanderings, he was
persuaded to spend the rest of the day in their company, and returned
to his bachelor quarters late in the evening, tired enough physically
to obtain that healthful sleep which is the boon of strong youth.
CHAPTER IX.
THE KNICKERBOCKER BANK.
Richard Dunlap was a man who had never missed a train nor been late
in keeping an appointment. On the morning following Sprague's dinner
party, he walked briskly down Broadway from City Hall. It was New
Year's day; the great thoroughfare was deserted. As he turned into Wall
Street, the hands of the clock in Trinity steeple pointed to three
minutes of nine. The financier pulled out his chronometer, found that
the clock in the old belfry was right, and quickened his pace.
Wall Street slumbered peacefully and silently, like a battle-field
after the roar of the cannon has been hushed, after the victors and the
vanquished have disappeared, leaving behind them only the ghosts of the
slain. The deathlike stillness was oppressive.
At last, as Dunlap reached the Knickerbocker bank, the clock in the
belfry struck the hour. The reporter was not there. The banker uttered
an ejaculation of annoyance. He looked up and down the street. There
was no one in sight. He resolved to give Sturgis five minutes grace,
and began to pace back and forth before the entrance to the bank.
Then a thought struck him. There was another entrance on Exchange
Place--that generally used by the employés and officials. Perhaps the
reporter was waiting there. Dunlap walked around to Exchange Place and
glanced up the street. He saw a man standing in the gutter and bending
low over the curb. Dunlap advanced so as to obtain a front view of him
and recognized Sturgis. The reporter had not noticed his approach; he
held a magnifying glass in his hand and seemed deeply interested in a
minute examination of the smooth-worn curb.
"Good morning, Mr. Sturgis," said the banker, "have you lost something?"
The reporter looked up quietly.
"No, Mr. Dunlap; I have found something;--something which may possibly
prove to be a hyphen."
"A what?" asked the banker, perplexed.
"A hyphen connecting two parts of a very pretty little puzzle."
Dunlap stared curiously at the curb.
"I can see nothing there," said he.
Sturgis handed him the magnifying glass.
"Now look again."
He pointed out a particular portion of the curb. Dunlap looked in the
direction indicated.
"I see what looks like dried mud, dust particles, and a little dark
spot or stain."
"Yes," said Sturgis, "that dark spot is the hyphen. There were probably
others like it on the sidewalk yesterday afternoon, but they have been
obliterated by the pedestrians. Here, however, are some that have
remained."
As he spoke, he led Dunlap to the Exchange Place entrance of the bank,
and pointed out a number of similar spots on the stone steps.
"Fortunately," he said, as if speaking to himself, "fortunately the
detectives entered through the front door last night; so that they did
not interfere with this portion of the trail."
"But what are these spots?" asked the banker.
"They are blood-stains," replied the reporter. "I have every reason
to believe them to be human blood. But that question I can settle
positively as soon as we are in the bank, for I have brought a powerful
microscope. Let us enter now, if you like; I have seen all there is to
be seen outside. By the way, do you know this key?"
He held up a large steel key of complicated structure.
"Why," exclaimed Dunlap surprised, "that looks like the key to the
Exchange Place door. Where did you find it?"
"In the gutter, near the sewer opening at the corner."
"But how did it get there?" asked Dunlap anxiously.
"Perhaps I shall be able to answer that question presently," said
Sturgis. "Shall we go in now? No, not that way. Let us enter by the
Wall Street side, if you please."
A couple of minutes later, the outer door of the Knickerbocker bank was
unlocked.
"Excuse me if I pass in first," said Sturgis, entering. "I wish to see
something here."
He bent low over the tiled entrance, with the magnifying glass in his
hand.
"It is too bad," he muttered to himself presently. "They have trodden
all over the trail here. Ah! what is this?"
"What?" inquired Dunlap.
The reporter vouchsafed no reply to this question, but asked another.
"Is Thursday a general cleaning day at the bank?"
"Yes," answered the banker. "Every evening, after the closing hour, the
floors are swept, of course, and the desks are dusted; but Mondays and
Thursdays are reserved for washing the windows, scrubbing the floors,
and so forth."
"Then it is lucky that yesterday was Thursday," observed Sturgis. "Will
you please hand me the key to this gate, and that to the inner door."
Upon entering the bank, Sturgis requested his companion to seat himself
on a particular chair, which he designated. He then began a critical
examination of the premises. Inch by inch he scrutinized the walls, the
floor, and even the ceiling; sometimes with the naked eye, sometimes
through the magnifying glass. He also constantly brought into play a
tape measure; and several times he called upon Dunlap for assistance,
when the distances to be measured were longer than his reach.
The Wall Street entrance of the Knickerbocker bank led directly into
the space to which the public was admitted. This space was partitioned
off, as usual, from the bookkeepers' and cashier's departments. At
the farther end, a door led into a reception room communicating with
the president's office. This office itself opened into the cashier's
department on one side; and on the other, into a small room occupied
by the president's secretary and typewriter, and into the vestibule of
the Exchange Place entrance to the bank. On the right of the vestibule
was a large room in which the bank employés kept their street clothing,
and to which they could retire when they were off duty. A door from
the clerks' room led into the cashier's department; while another one
opened into the private secretary's room.
After he had finished his inspection of the space open to the public,
Sturgis, followed by Dunlap, passed into the president's reception
room, and thence in turn into the other rooms, and finally into the
cashier's and bookkeepers' departments.
Several times he stopped, retraced his footsteps to some particular
point, and then began his search anew. At times he crawled about on
his hands and knees; at others, he climbed upon the furniture, the
better to examine some spot upon the wall. In the president's office he
stopped to pick up a great number of tiny scraps of paper, which lay in
and around the waste-basket. These he carefully placed in an envelope
which he laid upon the president's table.
On one side of the room there stood a magnificent old-fashioned carved
mantel-piece. The artistic beauty of the structure did not seem to
strike Sturgis; but he appeared to derive a great deal of satisfaction
from an inspection of the large tiled hearth. Presently, removing his
coat and his cuffs, he plunged his hand into the grimy chimney and
removed a handful of soot, which he examined carefully and then threw
away. He repeated the operation again and again; until at last, with
evident satisfaction, he picked out a small object, which he deposited
in an envelope. Then, after washing his hands in the clerks' room, he
passed into the cashier's department. In a corner stood the telephone
closet, the door of which was open. The receiver of the instrument was
down. The reporter took it up and gazed at it long and earnestly.
Sturgis's examination of the bank must have lasted over two hours.
At first Richard Dunlap looked on with a mild curiosity, in which
amusement struggled with good-natured skepticism. But, as time wore on,
the banker began to show signs of impatience; and when at last Sturgis
returned to the private office and carefully deposited upon a sheet of
white paper a miscellaneous assortment of tiny scraps and shreds, the
banker could scarcely conceal his dissatisfaction.
"Well, Mr. Sturgis," he said, "I hope you have nearly completed your
investigation; for my leisure is not so abundant that I can afford to
waste it like this."
"I need one more witness at least," replied the reporter, "and I am
afraid I shall have to ask you to help me obtain it."
"But," he quickly added as he noted Dunlap's impatient gesture, "I
think I can promise you that the time you are regretting has not been
wasted."
The financier did not seem convinced by this assertion; but he
nevertheless consented with unwilling grace to assist the reporter to
the best of his ability.
"Well, then," said Sturgis, "tell me, first of all, whether you keep
any fire-arms in the bank."
"Yes," replied Dunlap; "the cashier has a small revolver which he
keeps in his desk, as a means of defence in case of a sudden attack by
a bank thief."
"Have you a key to the desk?"
"Yes," replied the banker.
"Will you kindly see if the revolver you mention is in its place?"
"It ought to be," said Dunlap, picking out the key on a bunch which he
took from his pocket, and walking towards the cashier's department with
Sturgis at his heels.
"Yes, here it is in its accustomed place."
He handed the weapon to the reporter, who examined it attentively.
"Exactly," said Sturgis, with satisfaction; "this is what I was looking
for."
"What do you mean?" asked Dunlap.
"I mean that this is the revolver which was fired twice last night
in the Knickerbocker bank. See for yourself; two of the cartridges
are empty, and the weapon has not been cleaned since these shots were
fired."
"But who can have fired the pistol, and at whom was it fired, and why?"
"Hold on! hold on!" exclaimed Sturgis, smiling; "one thing at a time.
We shall perhaps come to that soon. For the present, if you will come
back to your private office, I shall endeavor to piece together the
scraps of evidence which I have been able to collect. There, sit down
in your own armchair, if you will, while I fit these bits of paper
together; and in less than ten minutes I shall probably be ready to
proceed with my story."
Dunlap was still nervous and impatient; but all trace of amusement
and skepticism had vanished from his face, as he took the proffered
armchair and watched Sturgis patiently piece together the tiny
fragments of paper he had so carefully gathered. When this work was
accomplished, the reporter went to the typewriter and wrote a few lines
on a sheet of paper. He next proceeded to examine under the microscope
the minute fragments and particles which he had collected in his search.
When he had finished this operation, he leaned back in his chair and
looked up into space for what seemed to Dunlap an interminable length
of time. Then at last he glanced over at the banker, who could hardly
contain his growing impatience.
"I am ready to go on now," said Sturgis, reaching for a sheet of
paper, upon which he began to draw with ruler and pencil.
"At last!" sighed the banker.
"Yes; but my first, as the charades say, is a question."
"Another!" gasped Dunlap; "when is my turn to come?"
"Just a few more," replied Sturgis, "and then your turn will come for
good."
"Well, out with your questions then, if you must," said Dunlap,
settling himself resignedly in his chair.
CHAPTER X.
PIECING THE EVIDENCE.
Sturgis was still busy with his diagram. He spoke without looking up
from his work.
"Who besides yourself has a key to the drawer in which this revolver is
kept?"
"The cashier has one and the head bookkeeper has another."
"You mean the bookkeeper who sits at the desk at the extreme right in
the bookkeepers' department?"
"Yes," replied Dunlap, "that is Mr. Arbogast's desk. Do you know him?"
"No. What did you say the gentleman's name is?" The reporter looked up
and prepared to make a note of it.
"John W. Arbogast."
"A man something over fifty years of age, quite bald, with a fringe
of gray hair; wears a heavy moustache and side-whiskers; and had on
yesterday afternoon, when you last saw him, a pepper-and-salt business
suit," said Sturgis, writing down the name in his note book.
Dunlap stared at the reporter in amazement. Sturgis smiled slightly.
"I met the gentleman yesterday afternoon," he explained.
"Oh! that accounts for it," exclaimed the banker. "I see----but----but
then, how comes it that you did not know his name?"
"He did not tell me his name," said Sturgis gravely, "and I did not
know until just now that he was employed in the Knickerbocker bank. How
long has he been with you?"
"Nearly twenty years; but only for the last five years as head
bookkeeper."
"I suppose you have every confidence in his honesty?" asked the
reporter, looking critically at the diagram before him.
"Of course. Such a position is not given to a man unless his record is
excellent."
"And yet," observed the reporter reflectively, "opportunity sometimes
makes the thief."
"True; but the duty of a bank president is to reduce such opportunities
to a minimum," said Dunlap somewhat pompously.
"Quite so," assented Sturgis, "and this you accomplish by----"
"By having the books examined periodically," answered the banker,
rubbing his hands together with calm satisfaction.
"I see," said the reporter, who had now finished his sketch. "Do the
employés of the bank know when an examination of this kind is to be
made?"
"They do not even know that such examinations _are_ made. No one but
the accountant and myself are in the secret; for the overhauling of the
books is done entirely at night, after the bank is closed."
"Have the books been recently examined?" asked Sturgis carelessly.
"Yes; only last week."
"Well?"
"They were found to be all right as usual."
"May I ask by whom?"
"By Murray and Scott, the expert accountants."
"Was the examination conducted by Mr. Murray or by Mr. Scott?"
"By neither. For many years the work was done by one or the other of
the members of the firm; but since their business has grown to its
present proportions, Messrs. Murray and Scott are no longer able to
give personal attention to their customers. For the last two years they
have sent us a trusted employé, Mr. Chatham----Thomas Chatham."
"Yes," said Sturgis, who was apparently wool-gathering.
A silence of several minutes followed, during which the reporter
thoughtfully inspected his collection of microscopic odds and ends,
while Dunlap beat the devil's tattoo upon the desk.
Presently the reporter spoke again.
"Do you know a young man, about five feet eight inches tall, with fiery
red hair, who affects somewhat loud clothes?"
"Why, that is Thomas Chatham. You know him, then?"
"I? No; I never heard of him before."
"Then, how on earth do you know----?"
"He has been here recently."
"Yes; I told you he had been here last week; but----"
"No; I mean he was here yesterday afternoon," interrupted the reporter.
"Not to my knowledge," said Dunlap incredulously.
"I thought as much," Sturgis replied quietly; "but he was here, for all
that."
The banker looked perplexed.
"Now, another thing," continued Sturgis. "I notice in the bookkeepers'
department an announcement to the effect that on January second,--that
is to say, to-morrow,--a new system of bookkeeping will be adopted.
Would this be such as to bring to light any irregularities that might
exist in the books?"
"Yes; it involves the transfer of each bookkeeper every month to a
different set of books. But I fail to see the drift of your questions."
"You will see it presently. Have you examined the safes this morning?"
"Yes; one of the first things I did, after you allowed me to move at
all, was to examine the cash safe."
"Ah, yes; the cash safe. And you found its contents intact?"
"Perfectly," said the banker triumphantly.
"But there is also a safe in the bookkeepers' department."
"It contains nothing but the books, which of course would have no
value to any one but ourselves."
"You have not examined this safe?"
"Why, no; I----"
"If you have no objection, I should like to see the interior of that
safe. I suppose, of course, you know the combination of that as well as
that of the cash safe?"
"Oh, yes; the combinations are changed every Saturday, and of course I
am always informed of the new combination."
"Then may I examine the bookkeepers' safe?"
"I see no objection to your doing so, if you like."
Dunlap seemed surprised at the reporter's request; but he rose and
proceeded to the bookkeepers' department. Sturgis followed an instant
later.
When the reporter came within sight of the safe, Dunlap was closely
inspecting the lock. Presently he uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"What is it?" asked Sturgis.
"I don't understand it," said Dunlap. "I cannot open the safe. The lock
seems all right; but----"
"Perhaps the combination has been changed."
"Apparently it has," admitted the banker; "but how came it to be
changed on a week day, and without my knowledge?"
"That is rather significant, isn't it?" suggested the reporter.
"Significant? What do you mean?" exclaimed Dunlap excitedly.
"I mean that Arbogast was a defaulter. What his system of defrauding
the bank was, I do not yet know; but an examination of the books will
no doubt reveal this; and I should advise you, Mr. Dunlap, to lose no
time in having it made."
"But," argued Dunlap anxiously, "I tell you the books were examined
last week."
"Yes; by Arbogast's accomplice."
"What, Chatham his accomplice?" exclaimed Dunlap faintly.
"Chatham was in the plot beyond a doubt," answered Sturgis. "So long as
no one had access to his books except his accomplice Chatham, of course
Arbogast felt secure. But when, yesterday, the announcement was made
that after the beginning of the new year his books would pass to the
custody of another man, he saw that the game was up."
The men had returned to the president's office.
"Those are his very words," continued the reporter; "those he
telegraphed to Chatham yesterday, as you will see if you hold before
that mirror this sheet of blotting paper which I found on Arbogast's
desk."
Dunlap, with an unsteady hand, took the blotting paper; and, holding it
before the glass, studied the reflection intently.
"What do you make out?" asked Sturgis.
"Nothing whatever," replied the banker promptly.
"What?" exclaimed the reporter; "do you mean to say that you do not
distinguish any marks on the blotting paper?"
"I mean to say that I do not see anything to which I can attach any
semblance of a meaning. The blotting paper has been used, and, of
course, there are ink marks upon it; but, as far as I can see, these
are wholly disconnected. They are entirely void of sense to my eyes, at
any rate."
"Examine the blotter again carefully in this direction," said Sturgis,
drawing an imaginary line upon the mirror, "and pay no attention to any
other marks which seem to cross these lines. Now do you see anything?"
The banker examined the image in the mirror for some time before
replying.
"If I allow my imagination to enter into play, I can complete several
isolated letters."
"Will you dictate these while I note them here. Be careful to
distinguish between capital and lower-case letters. Also separate the
lines, and state whether letters come close together or are separated
by a space."
"Very well," agreed Dunlap, who then proceeded to read off the letters
he saw in the reflection of the blotter in the mirror.
When he had finished, Sturgis handed him the paper, upon which were
transcribed the letters he had dictated. They presented the appearance
shown below:
[Illustration: D 1 6
s Ch m
' y y
G e p t m t y
c r r th ll s s
r r y
J g t]
"Well," said the banker, "if you can make anything out of that
gibberish, your imagination is more active than mine."
"It is not a question of imagination," said Sturgis; "let us proceed
systematically. Here is a telegram blank detached from a pad I found
on Arbogast's desk. Compare its size with the outline of the marks on
the blotter, and you will see, in the first place, that the message
would just fit snugly on this sheet. Next, you will probably admit that
the first line of marks on the blotter probably contain a date; the
second, a name; the third, an address; the last, a signature, and the
intermediate lines a message."
"I am quite willing to concede so much; for no business man would be
likely to write a telegram differently."
"Very well. Now, then, let me hold this blank so that the reflection of
its vertical rulings may appear just above the image of the message.
These lines, remember, separate the words of the message. Extend them
mentally and note how they divide the letters of the blotter. Will you
hold these sheets while I transcribe the result?"
In a few minutes more the reporter had drawn several lines on his copy
of the reflection in the mirror.
"I don't see that you are any better off now than you were before,"
remarked Dunlap, examining the result.
"Wait a minute. These vertical lines, we say, divide the words of the
message. There are five words to the line; only two on the last line
before the signature; that is to say, twelve words in the message. Now,
consider the first word. Evidently the 'G' begins this word, since it
is a capital; and the flourish on the tail of the 'e' tells us plainly
enough where the word ends. Note the space between the 'G' and the
'e.' Have you ever taken the trouble to ascertain how constant in any
given handwriting is the space occupied by the different letters? Try
it some time. Count the characters which you have written in a number
of different lines, reckoning spaces and punctuation marks each as one
character, and observe how closely the results will tally. Basing my
conclusion on this fact, I may safely affirm that the first word of the
message is 'Game, 'Gave, 'Give, ' or some other word of four letters
beginning with 'G' and ending with 'e.' I shall proceed to fill up the
balance of the message as I read it between the letters."
Sturgis wrote slowly and carefully for a few minutes.
"There; behold the result."
The message had now assumed this form:
[Illustration:
_Dec., 31, 1896._
_Thomas Chatham_,
_----, B'way, City_.
_Game | up | Meet | me | to-day
corner | South | and | Wall | streets
four | thirty_
_J. W. Arbogast._
]
"Compare this with the reflection of the original and tell me if you do
not now detect various isolated marks and incomplete letters, all of
which tally with the text I have inserted here."
Dunlap made the comparison.
"I am obliged to admit that your conclusions now appear plausible," he
reluctantly admitted.
Sturgis shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, call them plausible and let us proceed. Chatham kept the
appointment yesterday; but for some reason Arbogast was delayed in
leaving the bank. Perhaps the necessary preparations for his flight
took longer than he expected."
"You think he intended to abscond?"
"Why should he have changed the combination of his safe, as he did,
if not to give himself as much time as possible to reach a place of
comparative safety before the books could be examined?" asked Sturgis.
"Chatham, becoming impatient, forgot the dictates of prudence and
started for the bank to ascertain the cause of his accomplice's delay.
He met Arbogast at the Wall Street door. The two men re-entered,
Arbogast setting down his satchel in the vestibule and leaving the
outer door ajar, as Quinlan found it a few minutes later, when he stole
the satchel. I have every reason to believe that it was at Chatham's
request that the men returned. He wished to use the telephone, and he
did so."
"Your story is connected, and it is certainly not lacking in details,"
said Dunlap incredulously; "in fact, the details are far too abundant
for the evidence thus far advanced."
"Every one of the details is based upon facts," replied Sturgis. "What
I have accomplished thus far has been simple enough, because luck has
favored us. Yesterday being cleaning day at the bank, the floors were
scrubbed some time during the afternoon, before Arbogast was ready to
leave and before Chatham had arrived. It thus happens that almost every
footstep of the two men has remained faintly but distinctly outlined
upon the wet floors, which have since dried, preserving the record.
The detectives last night obliterated a portion of this record; but
they have left traces enough for our purpose. If you care to crawl
around on all fours as I did you can readily distinguish these traces
for yourself."
"No, thank you," answered the banker. "I prefer to take your word for
this part of the evidence."
"Then I shall resume my story," said Sturgis. "The footprints show that
Arbogast stood at his desk while the scrubbing was going on. We may
safely say that it was after half-past four o'clock when he started to
leave the bank; for otherwise it is presumable that Chatham would have
waited for him at the corner of South and Wall Streets, as he was asked
to do in the bookkeeper's telegram. He first walked over to the safe
and closed it, changing the combination, so that the lock could not
be opened until he had had a fair start. Next he went to the clerks'
room for his hat and coat and for the satchel in which he had packed
just the few necessaries for immediate use in his flight. He started
to leave the building through the Exchange Place door; but probably
remembered that the Wall Street door was not locked, and went back to
lock it. As he was about to close the outer door, Chatham arrived on
the scene, and the two men re-entered, as we have already seen. The
footprints tell their story fully and absolutely, their chronological
order being established by the occasional obliteration of a footprint
in one trail by another in a subsequent trail. The two men walked back
into the room in which we now are. Their actions after this will be
clearer to you if you will follow on this diagram."
CHAPTER XI.
A RECONSTRUCTED DRAMA.
As he spoke, Sturgis handed Dunlap the sheet of paper upon which he had
traced a plan of the Knickerbocker bank.
"From this point on," he continued, "I have indicated the various
trails on the diagram. The dotted lines represent Arbogast's
footprints; the continuous lines show Chatham's trail."
"How can you distinguish between the two?" inquired Dunlap.
"There is no difficulty about that," replied Sturgis. "The differences
are very marked. I know Arbogast's foot because I have seen it; and I
know that the other one is Chatham's because you recognized the man
from the description I gave of him."
"Yes, I know. But how could you describe him so accurately when you
have never seen him?"
"I shall come to that presently," said Sturgis, smiling; "you must let
me tell my story in my own way, if I am to tell it connectedly."
"Very well," said the banker, resignedly. "Hold on, though," he
exclaimed; "you speak of two sets of trails; but what is this third set
of lines, marked by alternate dots and dashes?"
"They represent the traces of a third individual, who will appear
upon the scene later on. He has not yet received his cue. But, since
you mention him, we may put him down in the cast as 'X,' the unknown
quantity of the problem; for I do not yet know his name. Now, then; let
me see. Where was I? Your interruption has made me lose the thread. Oh,
yes; the men were in this room. Arbogast, nervous and excited, paced
back and forth, like a caged animal. Chatham was more collected. It
was warm in the bank, as compared with the intense cold outside; he
removed his overcoat and threw it over the back of that chair in the
corner. This fact is shown by the direction of the footsteps toward
the chair, and by a mark directly below the arm of the chair where the
garment trailed upon the wet floor. Chatham's carelessness was fraught
with serious consequences; for, as luck would have it, there was, in
one of the pockets of his coat, an important letter, which slipped out
and fell upon the floor superscription uppermost. Here is the envelope
itself, which I have pieced together. You will see that it is soiled
only upon the back, and here near the chair is the faint oblong mark
which it left upon the floor. Chatham went to the telephone in the
cashier's office. He probably did not see the letter fall. It caught
Arbogast's eye, however; and you may imagine his surprise when he saw
that it was addressed to his wife. What had his accomplice to write
to his wife? Arbogast evidently was not restrained by any feelings of
delicacy in the matter, or else he was already suspicious of Chatham;
for he picked up the envelope, tore it open, and read the letter which
lies before you, as I have pieced it together. It makes interesting
reading. I do not wonder that Arbogast lost his head when he saw it.
Read it for yourself."
"Why," exclaimed Dunlap, after reading the letter, "this announces his
intention of committing suicide."
"Precisely; and yet Arbogast did not commit suicide; probably never
had any intention of doing so; and, at any rate, did not write
that letter. You will observe that it is not signed; the name is
typewritten, like the rest of the letter, which, moreover, was not
written here, as the superscription would seem to indicate. I have
tried your typewriter, and although it is of the same make as the one
upon which this letter was written, there are several characteristic
differences in the alignment and in the imperfections of the type.
"Besides," continued Sturgis, thoughtfully, "the letter itself bears
evidence, on its face, that it could not have been written by Arbogast.
Your bookkeeper was of a weak, nervous, excitable temperament, as all
his actions plainly show. Before such a man is brought to the point
of taking his own life, he must have passed through a more or less
protracted period of agonizing nervous tension, of which you and I
can hardly form any adequate conception. Under the circumstances, if
he loved his wife, conscious that by his guilt he was about to plunge
her into the depths of grief and shame, he might have written her an
incoherent and hysterical letter, or a tender and repentant letter,
but never this frigid matter-of-fact statement of a supreme decision.
This letter is the work of a cold and calculating nature, incapable
of ordinary human feeling. The man who wrote it would not have written
to his wife at all, or would have written only to serve some selfish
purpose. From what I know of Arbogast, I do not believe he was capable
of composing these lines."
"You think, then, that the letter was written by Chatham," said Dunlap.
"But what object could Chatham have for writing such a letter?"
"No," answered Sturgis, "I do not think that Chatham wrote this letter.
That is the curious part of it. I cannot believe that if Chatham had
been aware of the important nature of its contents, he could have been
willing to leave it for an instant within Arbogast's reach."
"But who, then, could have been its author, and why should he have
intrusted the letter to Chatham?"
"To your second question, my answer is, probably because he wanted it
mailed from the main Post Office at about the time that Arbogast would
leave the bank. To the first, I cannot yet give any positive answer,
although, as you will presently see, there are some clues pointing to
our unknown quantity 'X' as the author of this letter. But let us not
anticipate. Suppose we return to our drama. When Arbogast read this
letter, he evidently thought, as I do, that somebody was playing him
false; that he was to be gotten rid of in some safer way than exile;
in short that, as somebody said of one of the Turkish sultans, he was
to be 'suicided.' He must have had strong reasons to suspect Chatham
of treachery; for he at once impulsively jumped to the conclusion that
his only chance of safety lay in striking before he could be struck.
At any rate, while the accountant was busy at the telephone, Arbogast
stood near this desk, mechanically tearing to pieces this letter,
while he planned the accountant's death. He had taken with him your
revolver. As the thought of it flashed upon his mind, his resolution
was instantly taken. He stealthily crept to the paying teller's wicket.
Through it he could see the telephone closet, the door of which stood
open. Chatham was in direct range, as Arbogast raised the pistol, and,
without a word of warning, fired. The accountant held the receiver of
the telephone to his ear. This saved his life; for the bullet entered
his left hand and remained embedded in his flesh. I shall show you the
blood-stained receiver in proof of this assertion. When the bullet
struck him, Chatham fell forward, striking his head against a corner
of the telephone box, and inflicting a slight scalp wound. I found a
few hairs of an intensely red hue, which are evidently his. I also
found shreds of his clothing which caught on a projecting nail as he
fell; and I infer from these his taste for loud dress. He recovered
himself before Arbogast was ready to fire a second time and ran into
the clerks' room, probably hoping to make his way to the street through
the Exchange Place door. But at the same time, Arbogast rushed through
the reception room and this office, reaching the vestibule in time to
head off Chatham, who then turned back and ran through the secretary's
room, with Arbogast in pursuit. In the meantime, 'X,' to whom I have
already alluded, was waiting in Exchange Place, where Chatham had
a cab. Upon hearing the pistol shot, he went to the accountant's
assistance. He passed into this office, which he probably reached in
time to see Chatham rush in from the secretary's room, closely followed
by Arbogast. 'X' seized that chair over there in the corner and sprang
between the hunted man and his pursuer as the latter raised his arm to
fire. Our anonymous friend is probably a man of great strength; for
with one blow of the chair, he broke the bookkeeper's wrist. The hammer
fell; but the weapon was deflected, and the bullet, instead of reaching
its intended victim, passed through the upper lobe of Arbogast's left
lung, and out at the back at an angle of about sixty degrees. The
bookkeeper was standing not far from the mantel-piece yonder. Do you
see that broad black line on the hearth? That was made by the bullet.
Its direction and the angle enabled me at once to see that it must have
ricochetted into the fire-place; and there, sure enough, I found it in
the soot in the bend of the chimney. Here it is."
Dunlap had listened to this narrative with evident interest. But now,
recovering from the spell of Sturgis's persuasive conviction, his
skepticism regained the ascendancy for a moment.
"Mr. Sturgis, you have missed your vocation," he said, laughing good
naturedly; "you ought to have been a playwright. You have a most
convincing way of presenting both your facts and your theories. While
you are speaking, one is ready to admit the plausibility of every
statement you make. But now that you have finished, I have become
a hard-headed banker once more, and I beg to submit one or two
facts--since we are seeking facts--which it seems to me are enough to
demolish all your elaborate structure."
"Go on," said Sturgis; "it goes without saying that any theory is
worthless unless it takes into account and explains every existing
fact. If there are any in this case which have escaped me--a
contingency which is quite possible, for I have no pretension to
infallibility--I shall be glad to hear about them; and naturally, if
my conclusions do not tally with the facts, the conclusions must be
altered, since facts are absolute."
"Well then," said Dunlap, "assuming, for the sake of the argument, that
these various marks which you have called trails were made by the feet
of three different people; admitting even that one of these individuals
was Arbogast, who often stays here after banking hours, I do not see
that you have established by any satisfactory evidence your assumption
that the other so-called trails are those of Chatham and a stranger.
For aught I know to the contrary, they may have been made by some of
the bank employés in the discharge of their regular duties. Chatham's
coat may have caught on a nail in the telephone closet last week,
while he was here in his legitimate capacity of expert accountant. The
change of the combination of the safe may be the result of an error;
for we have no direct proof whatever that Arbogast is a defaulter. And
then, when it comes to your interesting description of the alleged
shooting of Arbogast, it strikes me that you are entirely carried away
by your enthusiasm; for, in your minute description of the path of
the bullet, at a certain angle, of which you seem to know the measure
almost to the fraction of a second, you overlook several important
things. Two shots were fired yesterday in or near the Knickerbocker
bank. _In_, say you, because here is a revolver with two empty
cartridge shells; here is a black mark, which may have been produced
by the ricochet of a bullet, and here is a shapeless piece of lead,
which may be that bullet. As, however, one bullet cannot account for
two shots, you are forced at once to assume that Chatham has carried
away the second one in the palm of his hand. This is ingenious, very
ingenious, but----"
"His blood is on the telephone receiver," observed Sturgis quietly.
"Blood!" exclaimed Dunlap; "why, with the carnage that you have
imagined here, there should be oceans of blood. Here is a man, running
around with a wounded hand, who leaves a few drops of blood on the
telephone receiver, and nowhere else. And here is another man, shot
through the lungs,--excuse me, through the upper lobe of the left
lung,--who does not bleed at all. And where is he now? Such a wound as
you have given him must, I take it, be fatal, or, at any rate, serious.
Yet here is a dead or, at least, a dying man, calmly walking off as
if--as if the curtain had fallen at the end of your drama, and the
corpse had hurried off to his dressing-room."
"You have forgotten something else," suggested the reporter smiling.
Dunlap looked at him questioningly.
"Yes; you have forgotten the pistol replaced in the drawer after
Arbogast was shot, and the doors of the bank carefully locked."
"True. No, my dear sir; your elaborate theory will not bear an
instant's calm examination."
"And yet," rejoined Sturgis, "my conclusions, as far as they go, are
absolutely correct. Every objection which you raise is plausible
enough when considered by itself; but we have not to deal with a lot
of isolated facts, but with a series of connected events, each of which
depends upon and supports all the others. Let me finish my story, and I
think you will then be prepared to admit that what seems to you now a
flight of fancy on my part, is nothing but a sober exposition of plain
unvarnished facts."
Dunlap, with a deprecating gesture, settled back into his chair once
more.
"We left Arbogast shot through the left lung,--fatally wounded, as
you have just remarked. He probably fell like a log; while Chatham,
weak from shock, leaned against the door jamb yonder. He had probably
stanched his wound with his free hand as he ran; I have been unable
to find any trace of blood between the telephone and this spot. On
the door jamb, however, the blood left a stain which has not been
completely wiped out and which enabled me to judge of Chatham's
height. 'X' was the only one of the trio who knew what he was about
at this time. I have a genuine admiration for 'X'; he must be a man
of marvelous nerve. Instead of flying panic-stricken from the scene,
as any ordinary criminal would have done, he calmly proceeded to
protect his retreat and to systematically cover his trail. His first
step was to lock the Wall Street gate and the inside door. Quinlan
had doubtless pulled the outer door to as he ran away, so that 'X'
probably thought this also locked. He then, with Chatham's assistance,
helped Arbogast, who was not yet dead, and who perhaps by this time
had regained consciousness, into the cab which was waiting near by in
Exchange Place, where I found the blood-stains on the curb, as you
will remember. After starting off his two accomplices in the cab, he
returned to the bank, put away the pistol in its proper place, which,
by the way, he seems to have known, and washed up all or nearly all
the blood-stains. There is a sponge and bucket under the sink in the
clerks' room, which were used in this operation. After, as he thought,
completely obliterating all traces of the tragedy, he quietly walked
off by the Exchange Place entrance, locked the door and threw away the
key. All this, while policeman Flynn was chasing Quinlan. You will note
that 'X,' knowing nothing of the Quinlan episode, was quite justified
in believing that the shots had failed to attract any attention outside
of the bank. Very likely he was disturbed by the return of the
policeman and Quinlan; I cannot otherwise account for his having left
the gas burning. Had he had the time, I feel confident that, with his
customary thoroughness, he would have turned it out. As to my minute
description of Arbogast's wounds, there is nothing remarkable in that.
I know that the weapon used by 'X' was yonder chair, because I found
particles of the bookkeeper's epidermis upon one of the legs, which was
considerably loosened by the blow. But I know exactly what the wounds
were, because I have examined them. I told you that I had seen Arbogast
yesterday."
"What!" exclaimed Dunlap, "you mean after he was wounded?"
"Yes," replied Sturgis; "his body is at the morgue now. You might call
there this afternoon to identify it, if you choose; but, everything
considered, it might be as well not to make the identification public
until we are well on the track of Chatham and our friend 'X.'"
CHAPTER XII.
THE BOOKKEEPER'S CONFESSION.
Late that same evening, Sturgis returned to his lodgings, after a busy
day spent in working upon the Knickerbocker bank case. He was tired
and he was perplexed; for, with all his unflagging energy, his quick
intelligence and his plodding perseverance, he had come to a standstill
in his investigation. The _Evening Tempest_ had appeared with no
further mention of the Quinlan case, and with only a perfunctory report
of the Cab Mystery, no attempt having been made to connect the two, for
Sturgis would not consent to publish his evidence until he was sure of
complete success in his undertaking.
As he approached the house, the reporter saw a light in his window, and
inferred that a visitor was awaiting his coming. It was Mr. Dunlap,
who, pale and care-worn, was striding nervously back and forth in the
room, with his hands behind his back and his head bent forward upon
his breast.
"Ah, there you are at last!" exclaimed the banker eagerly; "I have been
waiting for you for over an hour."
"Has something new turned up?" asked Sturgis.
"Yes; read that."
At the same time Dunlap handed the reporter a letter.
"Let me tell you about it first. After leaving you this morning, I
went to the morgue and saw the body. You were right; it is Arbogast's.
I had been only half convinced by your evidence; but I now saw that
you were probably right in all your other inductions, and I became
anxious to learn something definite concerning the amount of Arbogast's
defalcation. As I could not reach the books for some time, I called
upon Mrs. Arbogast, thinking I might be able to learn something from
her. You had not been to see her, had you?"
"No," answered Sturgis gravely, "I did not think it likely she knew
as much about this matter as we do, and I shrank from the ordeal of
revealing to her the fact of her husband's crime and tragic death.
I wished, at any rate, to exhaust all other means of obtaining
information before resorting to this one."
"Of course, of course," said Dunlap somewhat impatiently; "the woman
is naturally to be pitied; but I could not allow any sentimental
consideration to stand in the way of the discharge of my duty to our
depositors."
"What did you learn from her?" asked the reporter.
"When I reached the house the maid told me that Mrs. Arbogast had
spent the previous evening at her sister's house in the country and
had not yet come back. I was about to leave, intending to return later
in the evening, when the lady herself arrived. Upon learning who I was
she seemed somewhat surprised but invited me in. As we passed into
the parlor the maid handed her mistress a letter, stating that it had
come by the morning's mail. Mrs. Arbogast glanced at the envelope
but did not open it. At my first cautious questions she seemed to
be very much surprised. Arbogast had announced to her by telegram
the previous day that he would be obliged to go out of town for a
few days on business. He allowed her to infer that he would soon
return, and that his business was connected with the affairs of the
bank. She could not understand how it happened that I knew nothing of
this trip. 'But,' said she, 'I have just received a letter from him,
which will, doubtless, explain matters.' She evidently knew nothing
of her husband's peculation. Thereupon, she opened the envelope and
took out this letter. I observed her closely. At the first words I
saw her cheeks blanch and a look of agony pass over her features as
she instinctively pressed her hand to her heart. I knew then that the
letter contained some important revelation, and I became anxious to
obtain possession of it. When she had done I could see that she was
laboring under a strong emotion; but she controlled herself, replaced
the letter in its envelope, and said merely: 'This does not tell me my
husband's whereabouts; but I shall doubtless have further news of him
in the course of a few days.' I saw that she was attempting to shield
him in the supposition that he was still alive. I therefore broke the
news of his death to her as gently as I could. The first shock seemed
to utterly unnerve her; but after awhile she became somewhat calmer.
'After all, it is better so,' she said, at last. Then she handed me
this letter. There was no further reason for withholding it. Read it
now."
"It is postmarked at the general post-office at five o'clock," said
Sturgis; "it was therefore mailed before or during Chatham's visit to
the bank. It may have been mailed by Arbogast before the scrubbing was
done, or perhaps by the chorewoman when she left the bank."
The reporter drew the letter from its envelope and read:
"THE KNICKERBOCKER BANK,
"NEW YORK, December 31, 1896.
"MY DARLING WIFE,
"When you receive this letter I shall be far away--a disgraced
criminal--and you will be worse than a widow.
"I dare not ask your forgiveness for the trouble I am bringing
upon you; for I realize all too clearly the extent of the wrong
I have done you. But I feel irresistibly impelled to lay before
you in all their nakedness, as I do before my own conscience, the
circumstances which have led to my downfall. A knowledge of these
may perhaps enable you to understand, in a measure, the temptation
to which I have succumbed; although I find it hard myself, now
that all is over, to realize how I came to yield to it.
"Perhaps you may remember the celebration of my fiftieth
anniversary. We were having a most enjoyable evening in the
company of the friends whom you had invited to participate in the
festivities, when a caller was announced. I was obliged to leave
our guests in order to receive him in the library. This man lost
no time in stating the nature of his business with me. His name
was Thomas Chatham; he was an expert accountant, who had been
employed at the Knickerbocker bank to examine the books, and he
coolly informed me that he had just discovered a serious error in
my books--one that had enabled a depositor to overdraw his account
by a large amount. At first I refused to believe him, although he
submitted copies from the books showing exactly how the blunder had
been made. When he intimated that it only rested with me whether
the error should be reported to the bank, I indignantly refused
to listen to him. He remained perfectly unruffled during our
interview and left me at last with the statement that he would wait
twenty-four hours before handing in his report to the president.
"My first step on reaching the bank the next day was to verify
Chatham's statements. Alas! they were only too true. There was the
terrible blunder staring me in the face. I could not understand
how I had come to make it; but there it was, and nothing could
explain it away. I had hoped against hope up to this time; now I
saw clearly that I was a ruined man.
"There was only one honorable course open to me--to frankly confess
my responsibility for the blunder and take the consequences,
whatever they might be. I hesitated, and I was lost.
"I hesitated because I felt that my position was at stake. Would
not my error appear inexcusable to the officers of the bank, since
I could find no palliation for it in my own eyes. I was fifty years
old. I shrank from the necessity of beginning again at the foot of
the ladder which I had so laboriously climbed after a lifetime of
conscientious plodding. It would be no easy matter for me to find
another position.
"The more I thought the matter over, the more I became convinced
that there might be another way out of my trouble. Was it not
probable that the depositor who had profited by my mistake, had
done so innocently? If so, would he not be willing to repay the
amount overdrawn? At the worst, if he should refuse to do this,
might it not be possible for me to scrape together and borrow
enough to make good the deficiency? In this way I could correct the
blunder and no one would be the wiser for it. But what of that man
Chatham? Would not his report betray me? I recalled his intimation
that the nature of his report depended upon myself. What did he
mean by that? Probably he would set a price upon his silence. This
would add considerably to the amount I should have to raise; but
would not this be better, after all, than the loss of my position.
At any rate, I should not be any the worse off for listening to his
proposal, whatever it might be.
"That afternoon, as soon as the bank had closed, I called at the
address Chatham had given me. He evidently expected me. With him
was a man whom he introduced as James Withers, the depositor in
whose favor my blunder had been made. Had I not been laboring under
great excitement, it is likely that my suspicions would have been
aroused by the strangeness of Withers' presence in Chatham's room.
The two men received me pleasantly, and the alleged Withers, even
before I could broach the subject, expressed his regret at hearing
of the error which had been committed, and assured me of his
willingness to re-imburse the bank; but----ah! there was an ominous
'but.' He was short of ready money just then; everything he had
was tied up in a promising enterprise which was bound to bring in
a magnificent profit in the course of a few days, if only he could
raise a few paltry hundreds to enable him to hold out a little
longer. If he failed to scrape together this small amount, all
would be lost. Insidiously and relentlessly they drove me toward
the trap they had prepared, and I was weak enough to fall into it.
Before the interview was over, I had consented to allow Withers to
still further overdraw his account, and I had received his solemn
promise to refund, before the end of the week, the entire amount he
owed the bank. Then Chatham suggested that it would be wiser to let
the second overdraft come from another account. Withers agreed with
him, and stated that the check could be made out in the name of
Henry Seymour, a relative of his, who had recently opened a small
account with the Knickerbocker bank. I strongly objected to sharing
the secret of my infamy with any others; but I finally allowed
myself to be overruled by the plausible scoundrels into whose
clutches I had fallen.
"The next day I took my first step in crime, by making such entries
as would insure the honoring of Seymour's check. After that I was
completely in the power of these two men. It was not long before
I discovered that I had been their dupe. Chatham's accomplice was
not the true Withers; for this man, a few days later, made a large
deposit, which more than covered his previous overdraft. The false
Withers was Henry Seymour himself.
"As soon as I had committed a felony, it became unnecessary for
Seymour to keep up any further pretense of a desire to refund the
money I had helped him steal. I was now in the meshes of crime as
deeply as my accomplices; and, from that time to this, they have
forced me to act as their catspaw. During this period of two years
the bank has been robbed in this way of over $250,000.00, every
cent of which has gone to Chatham and Seymour.
"You can perhaps imagine what a hell my life has been during that
time. With prison and disgrace staring me in the face; and with the
absolute conviction that exposure must inevitably come sooner or
later, I have suffered the tortures of the damned. At the bank, I
have been in a perpetual state of suspense. I have started at every
word spoken to me; I have seen suspicion in every glance which has
met mine; I have trembled and paled at every approach of one of the
officers of the bank. And yet I have not dared to absent myself
from my desk for an hour, lest an examination of my books during
my absence should reveal my crime. I have been the first to reach
the bank in the morning and the last to leave it at night; I have
not even taken the few minutes during the day which would have been
required to enable me to obtain a hurried meal. On one pretext or
another, during the last two years, I have had to forego my annual
vacation. I have dragged myself to my post when I was so ill that I
could hardly stand, because I could not afford to have any one take
charge of my books for even an hour. And all that time, with a full
realization of my degradation and infamy, I have been forced to
continue my frauds, knowing that each one brought me nearer to the
inevitable final exposure; but knowing equally well that a refusal
on my part to continue my stealings would result in an instant
betrayal by my accomplices.
"At last further concealment became impossible. A week ago the
yearly examination of the books took place. The expert accountant
employed was, as usual, Thomas Chatham, and of course, as usual,
his report was entirely satisfactory. It seemed, therefore, as
though discovery could be postponed a little longer; when suddenly,
this morning, we were informed that a change in the system of
bookkeeping would be adopted after the first of January. I saw at
once that all was over. The discovery of my crime is now a matter
of hours. I must be out of the way before the crash comes or I am
doomed. I can already see the felon's stripes upon my back; the
clang of the prison gates rings in my ears.
"I am too dazed to think; but I feel that my only escape is in
death. And yet I cling to life. I know that the happy days of the
past are gone forever; and yet I feel a sort of numb relief at the
thought that the worst is now certain to come, and to come at once.
"I have carefully prepared my flight, so that I shall have plenty
of time to reach a place of safety. Once there, I shall be free
from pursuit; but I shall be an exile, and I shall carry with me to
the grave the burden of my sin.
"The most bitter pang in my remorse is caused by the thought of
the great wrong I have done you, dear wife. You will now be forced
to face the world not only unprotected by the one whose duty and
whose desire it was to smooth the way for you; but, what is worse,
oppressed by the burden of his sin.
"What little money I have left in the savings bank I have
transferred to your name. You may use it all with a clear
conscience; for every dollar of it was honestly mine. I swear I
have never had a single cent of the money I have stolen. It has all
been drawn by Henry Seymour, and used I know not how.
"As soon as I am settled in the place to which I am going, I shall
try, as far as lies in my power, to redeem my past by a life of
honest labor; and I hope to be able to contribute to your support
in the near future.
"Oh! my wife! my darling wife! Would that the past could be blotted
out, and that I could once more place my hand in yours, an honest
man. Though you may find it hard to forgive me now, perhaps in
time you may be able to think gently of him who through all his
crime and degradation, has remained
"Your devoted husband,
"JOHN W. ARBOGAST.
"My safety depends upon your keeping the contents of this letter secret
for at least three days. After that time, please send to Mr. Dunlap,
president of the Knickerbocker bank, the inclosed papers, which will
reveal to him the full extent of my defalcations.
"I do not hesitate to betray Chatham and Seymour; they did not scruple
to ruin me. I have sent for Chatham, and I shall give him warning of
my intended flight. If he sees fit, he can take such steps as he may
choose to escape his own richly deserved punishment."
* * * * *
While Sturgis was reading Arbogast's letter, Dunlap, restlessly pacing
the room, had observed him furtively.
"Well?" he now inquired, stopping before the reporter; "what do you
think of that?"
"Poor woman!" exclaimed Sturgis feelingly; "it is terrible to think of
the suffering brought upon her by her husband's guilt. I ought to be
hardened to a situation like this; for it is the inevitable sequel of
almost every crime that is ever committed. But I am moved every time by
the pathetic expiation of the innocent for the guilty."
"Yes, yes; I know," said Dunlap indifferently; "that is not what I
meant. Did you note the amount which this scoundrel confesses he and
his accomplices have stolen from the bank?"
"Yes; it is a large sum."
"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Why, man, if that is true, it
is enough to cripple the bank----No, no; I don't mean that, of course;
the bank is rich and could stand the loss of four times that amount.
But a quarter of a million is a round sum, for all that. It does not
seem possible that, in spite of all our care, they can have succeeded
in making away with so much money. But they did. There can be no doubt
about that; for in the papers which Arbogast inclosed for me in his
letter to his wife he explains just how the thing was done. It is
simple enough when you know the trick; but it took fiendish cunning
to devise it. I never would have thought that rascally bookkeeper
intelligent enough to concoct such a scheme."
"If the scheme is a work of genius," said Sturgis, "you may rest
assured that 'X'--who may very well be Henry Seymour--was the author of
it."
"Well, at any rate," observed Dunlap, "there is one thing that must be
done at once; and that is to find both Chatham and Seymour. It is not
possible that in two years these men have spent a quarter of a million
dollars between them."
"It is at all events possible that they may not have done so," replied
Sturgis, "for my investigations show that both Arbogast and Chatham
have been men of regular and exemplary habits in their private lives.
They do not appear to have been living much, if at all, beyond their
means. There does not seem to have been, in the case of either man, any
room for a double existence, which might otherwise have explained the
situation. Neither was a spendthrift nor a gambler, and neither was
dissipated."
"Then you have not the faintest idea of the present whereabouts of
Chatham or of his mysterious accomplice?"
"Let me tell you exactly what I have done up to the present time;
and then you will be able to judge for yourself. And I, too, shall
see more clearly where we stand; for the necessity of putting one's
thoughts into words is an aid to clear thinking."
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LOST TRAIL.
So saying, Sturgis settled himself in his chair and began his narrative.
"After leaving you this morning, my first step was to gain admission to
the Tombs----"
"To the Tombs?" interrupted Dunlap.
"Yes; the cabman has been remanded to the Tombs to await trial for
complicity in the murder of the unknown man whose body was found in his
cab."
"Arbogast's?"
"Yes, Arbogast's. But of course the police do not yet know that."
"Were you allowed to see the cabman?"
"Yes. As reporter of _The Tempest_, I was able to obtain an interview
with him. When first arrested, the man, whose name, by the way, is
Reilly, was incapable of making a connected statement; the lawyer
assigned to defend him laughed in his face when he heard his story,
and advised him to leave the romancing to a trained lawyer as his
only chance of escaping the electric chair. Naturally, under the
circumstances, the poor fellow hesitated to unbosom himself to a
stranger. But I finally managed to gain his confidence by showing him
that I believed his story, and that I was trying to find the men whose
scapegoat he now is. It seems that yesterday afternoon, at about three
o'clock, he was stationed at the cab-stand in front of Madison Square,
when he was accosted by a man, answering Chatham's description, who
engaged him to drive him to the Fulton Street ferry. On reaching the
ferry, the man ordered Reilly to proceed to a low grogshop on South
Street. Here he entered, returning in a few minutes to invite the
cabman to take a drink with him. The men seated themselves at a table
upon which a bottle and two filled glasses were already placed. Chatham
handed one of these glasses to Reilly, who drank it and probably many
more. At all events, he remembers nothing further until he was rudely
shaken by Chatham, who led him out into the street. Here the cold air
revived him, and he remembers noticing several things to which he did
not pay much attention at the time, but which seem significant now as
he recalls them:
"Firstly,--It was now quite dark.
"Secondly,--The cab, which had been facing south when he entered the
barroom, was now facing north.
"Thirdly,--Chatham persistently carried his left hand in the bosom of
his coat; he was very pale and seemed weak and ill.
"He with difficulty climbed upon the box beside Reilly and ordered him
to drive uptown. Presently the cabman became drowsy again. The next
thing he remembers is coming to himself after the overturning of the
cab by the cable car. That the man was drugged there can be no doubt.
It is probable that while he sat apparently drunk in the barroom,
Chatham took the cab to the Knickerbocker bank, expecting to smuggle
Arbogast into it without Reilly's knowledge;--a deep move, since it
would effectually cover up the trail, if they wanted to make away with
the bookkeeper, as they evidently did. Seymour may have met him at the
bank by appointment; but I am more inclined to believe that he was
there unknown to Chatham, and possibly for the purpose of spying upon
the latter, to see that his instructions were carried out. He lent
his accomplice a hand in the nick of time; and then, like a prudent
general, he retired to a safe position, thence to direct further
operations. What I cannot yet understand is, why Chatham should have
taken the enormous risk he did in conveying Arbogast's body from the
bank, since Seymour's intention was plainly to make away with the
bookkeeper in any event. I can explain this only on the supposition
that Seymour thought he could conceal the body in some way and prevent
it from falling into the hands of the police. On the part of any
ordinary criminal this would have been rank folly; but the resources of
such a man as Seymour are such that I do not feel disposed to criticize
his generalship in this particular without first understanding his
ultimate object. From what I have seen of his work thus far, I have
derived a profound admiration for the man's genius and cunning
deviltry. Fortunately, fate was against him this time. Its instrument
was the cable car which overturned the cab, thus delivering Arbogast's
body into the hands of the police and furnishing the key without which,
it is quite likely, Seymour might have remained forever undiscovered."
"You think, then, that you will succeed in unearthing this villain?"
asked Dunlap eagerly.
"While there's life, there's hope," said Sturgis, with grim
determination; "but I must confess that the outlook at present is
not exactly brilliant. However, let me finish my report. During the
excitement that followed the overturning of the cab, Chatham managed to
escape, as you know, and he has thus far succeeded in avoiding arrest,
although the police have kept a sharp lookout for him. Every steamship
that sails, every train that leaves New York, is watched, but thus far
without result. For my part, I am convinced that Chatham has not yet
attempted to leave the city."
"Isn't it probable, on the contrary, that he fled from New York
immediately after running away from the overturned cab?" asked Dunlap.
"I do not think so," replied Sturgis; "with his wounded hand he is a
marked man; he would be easily recognized in a strange city. His safest
hiding-place is here in New York, where he doubtless has friends ready
to conceal him. Be that as it may, he remains for the present under
cover and the scent is lost. The police are groping in the dark just
now, and,----and so am I."
The banker looked sorely disappointed.
"And so that is all you have been able to discover? Not a trace of the
money? It does not seem possible that a quarter of a million dollars
can disappear so completely without leaving the slightest trace."
"If we can ever find Seymour," replied Sturgis, "I make no doubt we
shall be able to locate the lion's share of the money.
"Yes," he added, thoughtfully, "that is all I have been able to
discover up to the present time; or, at least, all that seems to be
of any immediate importance. Of course, I called on both Mr. Murray
and Mr. Scott; but, beyond the fact that Chatham, like Arbogast, was
a model employé, all I got from them was the address of Chatham's
boarding-house; there I was informed that the accountant had moved on
New Year's eve without leaving his new address. There is one other link
in the chain of evidence which I have investigated; but I cannot tell
yet whether it will lead to anything or not. It may be immaterial; but
who knows? Possibly it may prove to be the key to the entire problem."
"And what is this promising link?" asked Dunlap eagerly.
"There is not much to tell on this score," answered Sturgis. "You will
recall that according to the evidence which we have thus far collected,
Chatham was attacked by Arbogast while he was in the act of using the
telephone."
"Yes; I remember how minutely you reconstructed that scene."
"Well," continued the reporter, "I saw at once that the telephone
might possibly prove to be an important witness for the prosecution,
if I could only discover the name of the person with whom Chatham was
talking when he was shot. I therefore called at the Central Office to
make inquiries. As I was able to specify almost the exact minute at
which this call was sent, it was an easy matter to find the young woman
who had answered it; but the chances were that she would not remember
the number called for. She did, however, for it had been fixed in
her memory by some unusual circumstances. It seems that after giving
Chatham the connection he wanted, the operator rang him up. While she
was listening for a reply, she heard a sharp report, followed by a
scream; then a sound of confused voices, and presently another sharp
report. After that came complete silence, and she was unable to obtain
any reply to her repeated calls."
"You have here corroborative evidence of the scene between Chatham and
Arbogast," said Dunlap.
"Yes; but I did not need that. What I wished to know was the name of
the person with whom Chatham wanted to converse."
"Did you discover it?"
"The number of the telephone he gave is that of the Manhattan Chemical
Company."
"And what is the Manhattan Chemical Company?"
"That is the question I asked people connected with the commercial
agencies. They replied that they knew very little concerning this firm;
because, although it has been in existence for a couple of years, it
apparently never asks any one for credit, preferring to pay cash for
all the goods delivered to it. I called at the office of the Manhattan
Chemical Company to investigate on my own account. The office and store
occupy the basement of an old ramshackle building, whose upper stories
are rented out as business offices. The laboratory and manufacturing
department are down stairs in the cellar. The store contains only a
few chairs and a long counter behind which rise shelves containing
rows of bottles with brilliantly colored labels. A few painted signs
upon the walls vaunt the merits of Dr. Henderson's Cough Cure and Dr.
Henderson's Liver Specific. I did not expect to find any one in on New
Year's day. I was, therefore, surprised to see a solitary clerk sitting
with his feet upon a desk and apparently absorbed in the reading of a
newspaper,--a pale young man of the washed-out blond type, with watery
green-blue eyes and a scant moustache which fails to conceal a weak
mouth. He rose to greet me with an air of surprise which does not speak
well for the briskness of trade in the establishment. Indeed, if we
are to judge by the aspect of things in the office of the Manhattan
Chemical Company, business in patent medicines does not appear to be
flourishing just at present. By the way, did you ever hear of Dr.
Henderson's remedies?"
"No; I cannot say that I have," answered Dunlap.
"That is the curious part of it," said Sturgis. "I have been unable to
discover any advertisement published by this firm; and it is only by
profuse advertising that such a concern can live."
"Yes, of course," exclaimed Dunlap, somewhat impatiently; "but what has
all this to do with Chatham?"
"I don't know," replied Sturgis; "possibly nothing; perhaps a great
deal."
"I asked to see Dr. Henderson," he continued, "at which the sleepy
clerk stared at me in open-mouthed amazement. Dr. Henderson was not
in; it was quite uncertain when he would be in. Indeed, as far as I
was able to judge, Dr. Henderson appears to be a rather mysterious
personage. No one knows much about him. Even his clerk admits that he
has seen him only once or twice in the eighteen months during which he
has had charge of the office. The Doctor attends to the manufacturing
part of the business himself; his laboratory, which is down in the
cellar, is a most jealously guarded place. No one is ever admitted to
it under any pretext. He is evidently afraid that some one may discover
the secret of his valuable remedies."
"You say that as if your words were meant to convey some unexpressed
meaning," said Dunlap, studying the reporter's face.
"No," Sturgis answered, thoughtfully, "but I am trying to attach some
ulterior significance to the facts. There is certainly something
mysterious about Dr. Henderson and the Manhattan Chemical Company; but
whether the mystery is legitimate or not, and if not, whether it is in
any way connected with the Arbogast case, is more than I am at present
able to determine."
After a short pause he continued:
"When I found that there was no chance of seeing Dr. Henderson himself,
I inquired at a venture for the manager. For an instant a puzzled
look lent expression to the otherwise vacuous features of the young
man. Then a sudden inspiration seemed to come to him. 'Oh! ah! yes,'
he exclaimed, 'you mean Mr. Smith.' 'Yes,' said I, catching at the
straw. 'Well, but Mr. Smith is not in either.' I offered to wait
for Mr. Smith, and started toward the door of the private office in
the rear, because it bore in prominent letters the inscription, 'NO
ADMITTANCE.' I had turned the knob before the clerk could stop me; but
the door was locked. Mr. Smith, it seems, comes to the office only
once a week to receive the clerk's report and to pay him his salary. I
tried to make a special appointment to meet Mr. Smith, on the plea of
important business. I left a fictitious name and address so that Mr.
Smith's answer might be sent to me. That was all I was able to do for
the time being; but I thought it worth while to keep an eye open on
the Manhattan Chemical Company; so I have engaged private detectives
to watch it for me night and day until further notice. And there the
matter stands."
Dunlap rose wearily from his chair. He looked anxious and care-worn.
"Mr. Sturgis," he said, "if you can find any part of that two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, a good share of whatever you can recover
for the bank is yours."
The reporter flushed and bit his lip; but he answered quietly:
"You mistake me for a detective, Mr. Dunlap; I am only a reporter. I
shall be paid by the _Tempest_ for any work I may do on this case. You
would better offer your reward to the police."
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LETTER.
There is a magic in the refreshing sleep of youth, calculated to
exorcise the megrims. When Sprague, arising after a good night's rest,
found the world bathed in the sunshine of a crisp January day, he felt
the physical pleasure of living which comes from supple muscles, from
the coursing of a generous blood through the veins, from the cravings
of a healthy appetite.
He remembered the "blue devils" of the day before, and found it
difficult to account for them. He was in love, certainly. But that in
itself did not furnish a sufficient reason for despondency. It was
rumored that the object of his affections was on the eve of betrothal
to another. But what dependence can be placed upon a public rumor? As a
matter of fact, Miss Murdock wore no rings; in the absence of the badge
of the betrothed woman, was he not justified in believing her fancy
free?
In that case, there was a fair field and no favor. Why should not he
have as good a chance of winning the prize as another man? No man, of
course, was worthy of Agnes Murdock. That was the fundamental axiom.
But in love success does not perch only upon the banner of the worthy.
If it did, the human race would soon become extinct.
So the young man's thoughts ran on, while hope once more found a
resting place in his heart.
Miss Murdock was not to pose again, but Sprague was eager to work on
the portrait. He was about to step into the studio after breakfast,
when the housekeeper announced a call from his lawyer, who wished to
consult him about some important matters. The entire morning was thus
consumed in necessary but tedious business, and it was not until after
luncheon that the artist was at last free to set to work.
Uncovering the portrait, he stood off to examine it. As he did so,
something white upon the floor caught his eye. He stooped to pick
it up. It was a letter in a beautifully regular masculine hand.
Mechanically he turned it over and unfolded it. His eyes carelessly
swept the written page; then in a flash he realized what it was, and
he flung it violently from him.
Only a few words had left their impress upon his retina--a few
scattered words and a signature. But these were branded deep upon his
brain for all time, in letters of fire which burned their way to his
very soul. For he had recognized the letter which had been delivered by
the messenger to Miss Murdock the day before, and he had seen enough to
know that it was couched in words of passionate love. In that instant
was quenched the last ray of hope which had lurked within his heart.
Overwhelmed with a sense of utter desolation, he sank back upon a
divan; and for a long time remained lost in bitter reflections.
But Sprague, in spite of his dilettanteism, was a man of grit when
occasion called for it. Summoning at length his fortitude and his
pride, he proceeded to carry out what he conceived to be the duty of a
gentleman under the circumstances.
Picking up the letter again, he placed it unread in an envelope, into
which he slipped his card, with a brief explanation of the finding of
the paper. Then, after addressing the envelope, he started out to mail
it himself.
"Thomas Chatham!" he mused, as he went down the stairs; "Thomas
Chatham! Why, he is the man who took such pains to inform me that
Miss Murdock was betrothed, or on the point of being betrothed,--the
flashily dressed young man with red hair who is so regular an attendant
at the Murdocks' informal receptions, and who never seems to be invited
on state occasions; an insignificant and conceited puppy. Poor girl,
what a pity that she should throw herself away upon such a man. But if
he marries her, he shall make her happy, or else----"
The balance of his thought was not put into words; but his face became
set in stern lines and his hands clenched in grim determination.
* * * * *
Sprague, with the letter for Miss Murdock in his hand, hurried to the
nearest letter-box, raised the lid of the drop, inserted the letter in
the slot and then tightened his grasp of it and began to think.
The letter, if mailed, might perhaps not reach its destination until
the following morning. It might be of importance, since it had been
sent by messenger and to the studio instead of to Miss Murdock's house.
Besides, Miss Murdock would probably be worried when she discovered
that she had lost it. It ought therefore to be returned to her at once.
The letter, by this time, had been withdrawn from the slot of the
letter-box.
Yes, it ought to be returned by messenger instead of by mail. By
messenger? It was about half a mile to the nearest district-messenger
office. The Murdocks' house was not much further. Why not deliver the
letter himself?
Why not, indeed? The human heart has unfathomable depths. Why should a
hopeless lover pine for a mere sight of the woman whose presence only
adds to his misery? Explain that who can.
Sprague carefully placed the letter in his breast pocket and started
off again, this time directing his steps toward the Murdocks' home.
CHAPTER XV.
TWO LOVERS.
Miss Murdock was seated at the piano in the drawing-room, her shapely
fingers wandering dreamily over the keys, when a servant knocked at the
door.
"A gintleman to see yer, Miss," said the maid.
"A caller!" exclaimed Agnes in surprise. "At this time of day? Did he
give you his card?"
"No, miss. Nor his name nayther."
"Well then, Mary," said Agnes, with a mixture of amusement and
severity, "why do you announce him? I think you would better keep an
eye on the hat-rack."
"He aint no thafe, Miss," said the maid, positively; "he do be dressed
up too foine fur that. Besoides, Oi've sane him here before. A hansum
young feller wid rid hair----Mister----Mister----Cha----Chapman."
"Chatham!" suggested Agnes, with sudden seriousness.
"Yis, Miss; it do be the same."
"I cannot receive him," said Miss Murdock in frigid tones. "I am
surprised that John should have admitted him, after the explicit
instructions I gave him yesterday. Hereafter I am never at home to Mr.
Chatham."
"Your butler is not at fault in this instance," said a voice from
the hallway, and before either of the women could recover from her
surprise, a flashily dressed young man with intensely red hair entered
the room. He carried his left arm in a sling. His face was pale; his
eyes glittered with a feverish light; his voice quivered with repressed
excitement.
"I was waiting for your father in his office, when I heard your maid go
by, and I asked her to announce me. I hoped for, but I can hardly say I
expected, a more hospitable reception."
Miss Murdock, after the first shock of surprise, had drawn up her
graceful figure to its full height, and stood looking at the young man
with undisguised contempt in her flashing eyes.
Chatham paused as if expecting a reply; and then:
"Shall I explain the object of my visit before your servant?" he asked
bitterly.
"You may leave, Mary, until I ring for you," said the young girl,
turning to the maid.
The woman reluctantly left the room, casting curious glances upon her
young mistress and her unwelcome guest as she went.
Chatham made a motion as if to take a chair; but Agnes remained
significantly standing.
"Perhaps," she said coldly, "you will be good enough to explain as
briefly as possible your object in forcing your presence upon me in
this ungentlemanly way?"
"I suppose my conduct does strike you as ungentlemanly," said the young
man piteously; "but what could I do? I love you devotedly, madly, and
you will not allow me even to tell you so. You instruct your servants
to turn me away from the door like a beggar. Is it a crime to love you?"
"No, Mr. Chatham," said the girl more gently, "it is not a crime to
love a woman; but it is at least a serious blunder to adopt the method
you have selected of showing your affection, and it is certainly not
generous to force it upon her as you are doing."
"What else can I do?" he repeated doggedly. "Here am I suddenly obliged
to leave New York for a long time,--perhaps for ever,--and unable to
get a single word with you. I called yesterday morning and was informed
that you were at that artist fellow's studio. Then I wrote you a letter
asking for an interview and I left it there for you myself. The only
notice you took of it was to give instructions to your butler not to
admit me if I called again. I cannot go away like that, without a ray
of hope to lighten my exile, and leave you here surrounded by a lot of
men who are anxious to marry you."
The tender-hearted girl felt a growing pity for the awkward and vulgar
young man in whom she began vaguely to discern a genuine suffering.
"I am sorry, Mr. Chatham," she said, "more sorry than I can say. But
what can I do? I do not care for you in the way you wish, and affection
is not to be coerced. I have done the best I could to discourage you,
because----"
"I know you have," interrupted Chatham; "you have avoided me, and
snubbed me, and taken every way you could to show that you do not like
me."
"It would have been mistaken kindness to do otherwise," said Agnes
gently.
"No, it wouldn't," exclaimed the accountant; "I don't ask you to love
me; not at once, at any rate. But give me a show; give me time; give me
a little hope----"
"I cannot do that," said the girl in a low tone.
"Why can't you?" urged the young man excitedly. "I have sacrificed
everything for you; I have given up all I had; I have lost my position;
I have risked my life----"
"I don't understand you," said Miss Murdock, looking at him in
astonishment.
"Your father would," he replied huskily; "it was he egged me on to
this; he promised me that you would have me----"
"My father promised----"
"Yes, your father; and by G----"
Chatham, who was growing more and more excited, brought down his
clenched fist upon a table near which he stood, and with an evident
effort repressed the oath which rose to his lips. Miss Murdock,
startled and bewildered, observed him in speechless amazement.
After a momentary struggle, the accountant suddenly broke forth in
piteous pleading:
"I don't ask much now. Tell me only one thing and I shall go away
content for the present. Say that no other man has any better chance
with you than I have. Say that you do not love any one else."
The young girl tried to avoid his ardent gaze.
"Say it!" he commanded in sudden sternness.
Agnes drew herself up proudly then.
"I don't know by what right you presume to catechize or to command me,"
she said coldly, at the same time making a motion as if to touch the
button of the electric bell.
Chatham saw the motion and sprang before her to intercept it.
"Ah! that is the way of it, is it?" he exclaimed with passionate
jealousy. "You are----in love--with another man!"
The words seemed to choke him in the utterance. The blood rushed to
his head; the veins on his temples stood out in purple vividness, and,
as he clutched spasmodically at his collar, a wild light came into his
eyes.
Agnes caught their mad glitter and shrank back in sudden terror.
"I have been duped!" he shouted frantically. "I have been a catspaw,
and now that I have done all that was wanted of me, I am to be turned
off like a dog, with a kick. The dirty work is done, is it? We'll see
about that; we'll see what your father has to say. But, at any rate,
you can be sure of one thing."
His voice sank to a hoarse whisper, and the words fell with impressive
distinctness:
"If I don't marry you, no one ever shall!"
As he spoke he leaned forward upon the table which stood near him, and
his fingers closed nervously upon the handle of a jeweled paper knife.
There was murder in his eye at that moment, and the frightened girl
quailed before it.
Suddenly her ear caught the sound of footsteps in the hallway. She
opened her lips to call for help, but before she could utter a sound
the door opened, revealing the anxious face of the housemaid, who had
heard enough to realize that it was time to interrupt the tête-à-tête
without further ceremony.
"Mister Sprague, Miss," she announced, with a comforting nod at her
young mistress, whose pale face and frightened eyes had not escaped her
attention.
Sprague stood on the threshold in evident embarrassment, looking from
Agnes to Chatham, and uncertain how to act.
"I fear I am intruding, Miss Murdock," he said at last; "your maid told
me she thought you could receive me. Perhaps I would better call again."
"No, no, Mr. Sprague," replied the young girl effusively, coming toward
him with outstretched hands; "I am so glad to see you."
And then, observing his inquiring glance toward Chatham,
"I think," she added coldly, "that this gentleman has said all that he
has to say to me."
Chatham's excitement had subsided; in the reaction, he seemed ill and
weak as he nervously clenched his tremulous right hand.
"I will wait to see Doctor Murdock," he said doggedly in a low voice.
"As you please," replied Agnes after a slight hesitation. "Mary, show
Mr. Chatham to the Doctor's study."
As the accountant followed the servant from the room, blank despair was
stamped in every feature, and it seemed to Sprague, as the door closed,
that he heard something like a convulsive sob.
Unconsciously Agnes had clung to Sprague's hand. Now, as the sense of
danger disappeared, she became aware of what she was doing; and, in
sudden embarrassment, she withdrew her hand from his reassuring clasp.
The artist, recalling the object of his visit, at once became grave and
formal.
"I am sorry to intrude upon you at this unconventional hour, Miss
Murdock, but I found this letter in my studio to-day. It was evidently
dropped by you yesterday; and, thinking it might be important, I----"
"A letter? What letter?" asked Agnes, puzzled.
Sprague held out the sealed envelope. The young girl tore it open and
cast a hurried glance at its contents. Then suddenly understanding, she
tore the paper to shreds, and threw these angrily into the fire which
burned brightly in the large open fire-place.
"Oh, that!" she exclaimed contemptuously. And then after a pause:
"Do you mean to say you thought----?"
She stopped short, seized by a sudden shyness.
"What else could I think?" said Sprague softly.
He was watching the fragments of paper as they flared upon the hearth.
The flame which consumed them seemed to shed a radiant glow upon his
heart.
"Then," he added presently and still more softly, "if there is
nothing between you and--and him--perhaps--perhaps I may hope--Miss
Murdock--Agnes----"
His hand sought hers and found it.
But the reaction had come at last, and the brave girl who had been able
to control herself in the presence of a threatening madman now gave way
to a fit of hysterical weeping.
Sprague, not being a medical man, could hardly have known what remedies
to employ in an emergency of this kind. All he did was to whisper
soothing words in the young girl's ear and to kiss the tears from her
eyes. But apparently that was enough. Evidently for a layman he must
have possessed considerable medical intuition; for, after sobbing a
while upon his shoulder, Agnes quieted down gradually and remained
contentedly nestling in his arms, while the artist, doubtless fearful
of a relapse, continued, for perhaps an unnecessarily long time, to ply
the treatment whose effect had produced upon his patient so marked, so
rapid, and so satisfactory a result.
The attention of the medical profession is respectfully called to
a treatment which, though empirical, may possibly possess specific
virtues.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE ROENTGEN RAYS.
"I tell you, Sturgis, it is a wonderful discovery. I don't know what
applications may ultimately be made of it in other branches of science;
but I am convinced that it is bound to cause a revolution in surgical
diagnosis," said Doctor Thurston enthusiastically.
"Yes," replied Sturgis, "I have no doubt that Roentgen's rays will be
of great assistance to the surgeon in the examination of fractures and
in the location of foreign bodies which cannot be reached by the probe."
"As a proof of that, I must show you a beautiful photograph which I
have just made. After leaving you on New Year's morning, I found a
patient asleep in my office. He had been waiting several hours. It was
the usual case of a pistol in the hands of a fool friend, who did not
know it was loaded; and of course with the usual result--a bullet wound
in my patient."
Sturgis was listening in an absent-minded way while his friend spoke.
"The wound was not severe; no bones broken. The bullet had entered the
palm of the left hand and had passed up into the forearm."
A sudden light came into the reporter's eyes; but he maintained his
listless attitude.
"Well, sir, probe as I would, I was unable to locate that bullet. At
last I concluded to try the Roentgen rays, and here is the result. It
is as pretty a shadow photograph as I have yet seen."
So saying, Doctor Thurston handed the reporter a photograph, which the
latter studied carefully in silence.
"Notice how clearly you can see the peculiar shape into which the
bullet has been flattened," said the physician.
"Yes," replied Sturgis, "I was observing that. Have you a duplicate of
this that you can spare?"
"Yes; keep that one if you wish."
"Thank you; I am very glad to have it. Did you succeed in extracting
the bullet?"
"I have not tried yet. I had to develop the photograph first."
"Of course. When do you expect the red-haired young man to return?"
"He promised to come back yesterday, but he failed to do so," replied
Doctor Thurston. Then suddenly:
"But who said anything about his being young or red-haired?"
"Not you certainly, old man," replied Sturgis, smiling. "Don't worry;
you have not voluntarily betrayed any professional secret. But, for all
that, your patient is wanted by the police. He was bound to fall into
their hands before long. The only effect of this discovery will be to
hasten the dénouement. I had traced him to your house, and I knew how
he was wounded; so that I recognized him as soon as you mentioned his
case."
"Who is he?" asked Thurston. "I am sure I have seen him somewhere
before; but I cannot remember where."
Whereupon the reporter related the story of Chatham's connection with
the Knickerbocker bank case.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE QUARRY.
Half an hour later, Sturgis was walking briskly down Broadway, with
his usual air of absent-minded concentration. Presently he turned into
a side street and at once slackened his pace. He now sauntered along
like a lounger at a loss how to kill a long idle day. The show window
of a bric-à-brac shop arrested his attention. He stopped to examine its
contents.
A little farther up the street was a liquor saloon, outside of which
stood a group of boisterous young rowdies. An older man, evidently
in his cups, was seated on an adjoining stoop, where, with maudlin
gravity, he seemed to be communing with himself.
On the opposite side of the way stood a low, dilapidated brick house.
A painted sign over the windows of the ground floor bore the name,
"MANHATTAN CHEMICAL CO."
The drunken man rose unsteadily to his feet and approached Sturgis with
outstretched hand.
"Say, Jimmy, get on ter his nibs strikin' de bloke fur a nickel ter git
med'cine fur his sick mudder," exclaimed one of the young ruffians.
The wretched-looking individual thus designated seemed hardly able to
stand as he steadied himself against an iron railing; but the eyes he
turned upon Sturgis were bright with intelligence, and the words he
spoke were uttered in a low, firm voice.
"He's been here--been here twice."
"Twice?" echoed Sturgis, surprised. "Where is he now?"
"I don't know----"
"You don't know?"
"No, sir; but I guess Conklin does. This is how it is: It was my watch
yesterday afternoon when Chatham came the first time. He went into
the Manhattan Company's place through the basement at a quarter after
five. So I just settled myself out here and waited. Well, I waited
and waited, but there wasn't any sign of Chatham, and when Flagler
came along to relieve me at ten o'clock Chatham hadn't come out yet.
Flagler he spotted the place until six this morning, and then Conklin
took his turn again until two o'clock, when I came on for my watch.
Just as Conklin was telling me how things stood, who should come down
the street but Chatham himself, large as life."
"Down the street?" exclaimed Sturgis.
"Yes, sir. And up he goes, as if nothing had happened, and into the
Manhattan Chemical Company's place again."
"He had put up the back-door game on you," said the reporter.
"Yes, sir; just what I said to Conklin. So, quick as a wink, I sent him
around the block to keep his eye peeled on the next street and I waited
here. And here I've been ever since. If Conklin isn't on the block
above, it must be because Chatham has made tracks again, and he after
him."
"I'll go and find out," said Sturgis. "Has any one else called at the
Manhattan Chemical Company's office since you have been on watch?"
"No, sir; but a couple of hours ago an express wagon came along
and delivered a long wooden box; might have been chemicals for the
wholesale department, for it was lowered to the cellar by the hoist in
the areaway. The blond young man receipted for the box."
"Very well, Shrady. Hang on a little while longer, and I shall have you
relieved just as soon as I possibly can."
So saying, the reporter, who had been pretending to look through
his pockets for a coin, ostentatiously slipped a nickel into the
outstretched palm before him. The light seemed to die out of the sharp
eyes of the detective, and it was the miserable drunkard who staggered
back to his place on the stoop next to the saloon, unmindful of the
gibes of the young rowdies congregated there.
Sturgis walked up to the next street, where he found a second detective
on duty.
"Anything new, Conklin?" he asked.
"No, sir; he's been lying low; looks like he knew he was spotted this
time."
"Good. Stay here until I can notify the police that we have run down
the quarry. It will be necessary to obtain a search warrant for the
Manhattan Chemical Company's place. In the meantime, if Chatham should
attempt to make tracks, hang on to him like his shadow and send back
word here as soon as you can."
"All right, sir."
Sturgis, after leaving Conklin, walked along the street which the
detective was watching and carefully inspected every house on the
block. Almost all were huge office buildings; but here and there an
old-fashioned brown-stone front stood out conspicuously against the
broad expanse of brick walls and iron columns. Half way down the street
one of these old houses stood well back from the street line behind a
small garden. The reporter stopped near this and read the numbers on
the adjoining buildings.
"This is directly back of the Manhattan Chemical Company's office,"
he mused. "I wonder who lives here. It looks like a respectable place
enough. One could obtain a good view of the rear of the Manhattan
Chemical Company's office from the back windows. H'm----"
He stood thoughtfully considering what pretext he could use to gain
admission to the house, when suddenly he became aware of the presence
of a man who had approached with noiseless steps.
"Ah, is that you, Mr. Sturgis?" said the calm, sardonical voice of
Doctor Murdock.
The reporter started inwardly but gave no outward sign of surprise.
"Were you about to do me the honor of calling?" continued the chemist.
"Yes," said Sturgis, deliberately; "I was about to seek an interview
with you. Can you spare a few minutes?"
"Who is it that asks for the interview?" inquired Murdock, with quiet
sarcasm. "Is it Mr. Sturgis, gentleman, Mr. Sturgis, reporter, or----"
Sturgis met a cold gleam from Murdock's inscrutable eyes.
"Or Mr. Sturgis, the famous detective?" continued the chemist with an
imperceptible sneer.
"I represent the _Tempest_," replied the reporter quietly.
Murdock glanced carelessly up and down the street. There was no one in
sight.
"Oh! very well," he said, taking out his latch-key and leading the way
to the house; "come into my study and let me hear what I can do for the
_Tempest_."
On entering the house, Murdock motioned Sturgis to the door leading
from the hall into the drawing-room.
"If you will step into the parlor for a few minutes, I shall be with
you directly," said he.
Sturgis nodded acquiescence, and, while Murdock walked toward his
study, which was at the extreme rear of the hall, the reporter opened
the drawing-room door. He did not open it very wide, however, neither
did he enter; for although the room was rather dark, his quick eye
caught a passing glimpse of a feminine head cosily nestled upon
a distinctly masculine shoulder, the owner of which had his back
turned to him. Bachelor cynic though he was, Sturgis had not the
heart to interrupt so interesting a situation; and, as the couple
were so absorbed that they had not noticed the intrusion upon their
tête-à-tête, he discreetly retreated and softly closed the door.
By this time Murdock had passed into his study, so that Sturgis found
himself alone in the hall. He was glad of a short respite during which
he might collect his thoughts; for, having been taken by surprise, he
had not had time to select a plausible topic for the interview which he
had solicited from Murdock. Not knowing that the house was that of the
chemist, his sole object had been to gain admittance, so that he might
be able to observe the Manhattan Chemical Company's offices from the
rear, and if possible to ascertain how Chatham had managed to give the
detectives the slip the first time he appeared to them.
Now that he was in the house the reporter was confronted with the
necessity of explaining his presence there without betraying his true
purpose. This would not have been a difficult matter had the inmates
of the house been total strangers; but he felt that it would be by no
means so easy to offer an explanation which would be satisfactory to
a man of Murdock's keen perception. And Murdock was the last person
to whom he would have confided the true reason of his visit; not only
because the chemist, as his opponent in the wager concerning the
Knickerbocker Bank Mystery, was interested in thwarting rather than
in aiding his investigation, but chiefly because he felt a strong
instinctive distrust of the man.
As these thoughts were passing through the reporter's mind, he slowly
paced the long hall, back and forth, with his hands behind his back. In
so doing, he passed a door which was slightly ajar and caught a glimpse
of long rows of book-shelves loaded with beautifully bound editions.
The place was evidently the library. It occurred to him that a library
is a public room and that he would be more comfortable in there than in
the hall.
He pushed open the door and looked in. The room was empty. He entered.
The library occupied a space between the parlor and the rear room into
which Murdock had entered, and it was separated from each of these
rooms by folding-doors over which hung heavy portières.
Sturgis was a lover of books; his interest was at once aroused in the
collection before him. It was admirably selected from the standpoint
of a philosopher and a man of science. Every department of history, of
philosophy and of science had its section, in which the volumes were
classified and arranged with intelligent care. But curiously enough,
poetry and art were but meagerly represented.
One section especially attracted Sturgis's attention. It was devoted
entirely to the history of crime in all its phases and in all ages.
Criminal statistics, criminal jurisprudence and the psychology of
crime, as well as the biographies of all the noted criminals of ancient
and modern times, were completely represented. Almost the only works
of fiction in the collection were in this section, and included every
book imaginable concerning criminals and their deeds. Many rare and
curious volumes were there--some of them so rare that they could be
found in only a few of the great libraries of the world.
Here Sturgis was in his element. He had himself collected a valuable
library on the subjects kindred to his profession; but here were books
many of which none but a Crœsus could ever hope to own. He was soon
absorbed in an examination of some rare volumes which he had often
longed to possess.
While thus engaged, he became aware of the murmur of voices from the
rear room. As the words spoken could not be distinguished, he paid no
special attention to them; but, instinctively, he noted that one of the
voices flowed in the calm, even tones so characteristic of Murdock's
speech, while the other, whose timbre and modulations were unknown to
him, betrayed the repressed excitement of the speaker.
It soon became evident that Murdock's interlocutor was fast losing
control of himself; for he gradually pitched his voice in a higher
key, until occasional words began to reach Sturgis's ears. The
reporter was not the man to wantonly play the part of eavesdropper;
therefore, although the isolated words which reached him brought no
connected sense, he judged that it was time to move out of earshot of
the conversation to which he was becoming an involuntary listener.
Replacing upon its shelf the book which he had been examining, he
started toward the hall door. As he did so, he heard the now thoroughly
excited individual exclaim in loud tones:
"I don't care a damn for the money. I only went into the scheme because
you promised she'd have me; and, by God, if I don't get her, I'll give
the whole cursed thing away."
Sturgis, who had reached the hall door, pricked up his detective's
ears at these words. But in another second he heard the knobs of the
folding-doors rattle, as though some one had placed his hands upon them.
Quick as thought, he opened the door and glided out into the hallway.
He had not time to pull the door quite to behind him when the
folding-doors opened and he heard Murdock say in his calm, frigid
tones:
"Perhaps you have done that already with your dulcet voice."
Had Murdock seen him? The reporter asked himself the question. Probably
not; for he heard the folding-doors close once more.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE EXTENSION.
A few minutes later, Sturgis, apparently absorbed in the contemplation
of the paintings which hung in the hall, heard the door of Murdock's
study open softly. Although the reporter did not turn his head, he at
once became conscious that the chemist's piercing eyes were fixed upon
him. The observation lasted so long that Sturgis, self-possessed as was
his wont, was beginning to feel a trifle nervous, when at last Doctor
Murdock broke the silence.
"I have to apologize for leaving you standing in the hall, Mr. Sturgis.
I was under the impression that I had invited you to step into the
parlor."
The words, courteous in themselves, conveyed to the hearer an
impression of biting sarcasm.
"I found the parlor already occupied; I hesitated to disturb a
tête-à-tête," replied Sturgis quietly.
Murdock eyed him narrowly for a moment, and then invited him into the
study.
The chemist's study was a spacious room, plainly but luxuriously
furnished, and containing every convenience and comfort calculated to
lighten the labor of a busy man. The table, littered with books and
papers, stood near a small safe and almost directly opposite the hall
door. Speaking-tubes and electric call buttons were within reach of the
occupant of the easy chair, and probably placed him in communication
with the various portions of the household; while a telephone on one
side and a typewriter on the other showed that the chemist kept in
touch also with the outside world.
Murdock's interlocutor, whoever he had been, had disappeared. But how?
The question interested Sturgis, and his mind at once began to seek an
answer to it.
There were three doors leading from the study. One of these was the one
by which Murdock and Sturgis had just entered from the hall. No one
could have passed out that way without meeting them.
Then there were the folding-doors leading into the library; but, as the
door leading from the library to the hall had remained slightly ajar,
Sturgis felt sure that he would have heard the man had he gone out by
that way.
The third door led to a small extension.
"He must have gone into the extension," thought Sturgis.
The only alternative was an exit through the windows. This in itself
would not have presented any special difficulty; for the distance to
the flagging below was hardly more than twelve or thirteen feet. But
the yard, which was of diminutive size on account of the space allotted
to the garden on the street, was inclosed by an unusually high fence
protected by a row of sharp and closely set spikes. These looked so
formidable that the thought of any one attempting to scale the fence
instantly suggested visions of impaled wretches writhing in Oriental
tortures. The only possible exit from the yard, therefore, seemed to
be through the basement; that is to say, past the kitchen and the
servants' department.
All these thoughts flashed through the reporter's brain in a small
fraction of the time which is required to record them. They occurred
to him unbidden, while his conscious efforts were centered upon
discovering how Chatham had managed to escape from the rear of the
Manhattan Chemical Company's building.
This Sturgis recognized without much difficulty. It was directly in
line with the house in which he now was, and its yard did not differ
from the neighboring ones, the fences of which could be scaled without
much trouble. Chatham evidently might have passed into any one of
several buildings which lacked the protection of the formidable spikes
that so effectually guarded the approach to Murdock's house from the
rear.
One point, however, was puzzling. Why should Chatham take the trouble
and the risk of scaling fences in broad daylight, only to return a few
hours later by the street door under the very noses of the detectives
from whom he had presumably wished to escape? There seemed to be no
plausible answer to this question.
But Sturgis was not given much time in which to consider it; for
Murdock, who had waited for him to broach the subject of his interview,
now coldly remarked:
"Perhaps, Mr. Sturgis, you will be good enough to inform me to what I
owe the honor of this visit?"
Sturgis took as a pretext the first subject which came into his mind.
"Doctor," said he, "I have been told that you were engaged in a series
of brilliant chemical researches; that you had proved, or were on the
point of proving, that several, at least, of the so-called elementary
metals are compounds; thus ushering in the realization of the dream of
the alchemists--the transmutation of metals----"
"You have not come here to interview me on the subject of my chemical
researches?" laughed Murdock.
"Why not?"
"Because I gave you credit for possessing the scientific spirit. A
man spends years in making a series of exhaustive experiments, and
refrains from advancing any theory until he has built up an elaborate
monument of cold facts; and you ask him to make a premature report to
be spread broadcast in a sensational sheet, with all the embellishments
which an unbridled reportorial imagination can add to it. No sir, my
report, when it is ready, will be made through the proper channels. I
am surprised that one who passes for a man of science should be willing
to make such a request."
If Murdock intended to gall the reporter, he succeeded; for, modest as
he was, Sturgis prided himself above all things upon the scientific
value of his work in all its aspects. He manifested no external sign of
annoyance, however, as he answered with a smile:
"I am not a man of science now, but only a reporter."
"In that case," replied Murdock, "let us talk of something else. I
should be pleased to discuss my chemical researches with Mr. Sturgis,
the scientist; but with Mr. Sturgis, the reporter, I should prefer to
talk about something in his line of knowledge; let me see, shall we say
the Knickerbocker Bank Mystery, for instance?"
The reporter's ear detected the venomous sarcasm to which he was now
accustomed from this strange man. He raised his eyes to those of the
chemist, and for the space of a few seconds the two men looked steadily
into each other's souls.
Then a sudden light flashed across Sturgis's brain, and he started
perceptibly. At the same time, he thought he saw a shadow cross
Murdock's impassive features; but in this he might have been mistaken,
for when he looked again, the chemist was regarding him with an air of
mild curiosity.
"Is anything the matter, Mr. Sturgis?" he asked.
"Only a sudden thought," carelessly replied Sturgis, who, to all
appearances, had completely recovered from the momentary shock produced
by the suddenness of the suspicion which had crossed his mind. "Your
mention of the Knickerbocker Bank Mystery reminded me of something,
that is all."
"Ever since Sprague's dinner," said Murdock, "I have been devoting all
my spare time to the reading of the _Tempest_, in the hope of finding
there a sensational account, with glaring headlines, of the brilliant
work of our 'distinguished reporter, Mr. Sturgis.'"
Sturgis made no reply. His eyes were fixed upon the typewriter which
stood near Murdock's desk.
"Up to the present time," continued Murdock, "I have not seen anything
to cause me to worry about my stakes."
"I have still twenty-eight days in which to complete my case," said
Sturgis.
"True," replied Murdock. "Well, I wish you luck. If I can render you
any assistance in your investigations, I hope you will call upon me.
In the cause of science I would willingly jeopardize my stakes. For
instance, if you need to consult any works of reference, my library is
at your disposal. I am told that, at least on the subjects in which you
are interested, it is quite complete."
He observed the reporter narrowly, as if to mark the effect of his
words.
"It is," replied Sturgis, after an almost imperceptible hesitation; "I
have already admired it."
"Indeed?" said Murdock, arching his brows in mild surprise.
"Yes; I stepped into the library for a few minutes while I was waiting
for you."
"Ah! yes; I see."
Murdock gave the reporter another searching look. Then he leant back in
his easy chair with half-closed eyes and silently puffed away at his
cigar for a few minutes.
Had Sturgis been able to read the sinister thoughts which were passing
through the mind of this impassive man as he sat apparently in lazy
enjoyment of his fragrant Havana, it is probable that he might have
lost some of the interest which he seemed suddenly to have developed
in the typewriter. But he was busy with his own train of thought and
therefore was not paying any particular attention to Murdock.
Presently the chemist spoke again.
"On second thoughts, Mr. Sturgis, if you will step into my laboratory,
I shall be pleased to show you those of the results of my recent
researches which are ready for publication."
The reporter was surprised at this sudden change of front, and perhaps
a trifle suspicious, for he was beginning to weld together many
hitherto isolated facts into a strong chain which was leading him from
the Knickerbocker bank and Chatham, through the Manhattan Chemical
Company, to the emotionless man in whose presence he now stood. Some
important links were missing, however, and Sturgis could not afford to
lose any chance of making the chain complete.
He therefore accepted Murdock's invitation, in the hope of making some
discovery which would throw positive light upon the somewhat hazy
situation.
"Very well," said Murdock; "wait for me just one minute while I open
the ventilators of the laboratory. It becomes pretty close in there
when the place has been shut up for some time."
So saying, Murdock turned a crank which projected from the wall. A
grating sound was heard, as of the rasping of metal upon metal. Then he
returned to his desk, where he busied himself for a few minutes under
pretext of looking for some notes of his experiments. When apparently
he had found what he was seeking, he went toward the door of the
extension. This was of massive hard wood. Before turning the knob,
the chemist stooped as though to examine the lower hinge. Sturgis was
not consciously following Murdock's movements. His mind was bent upon
accomplishing a certain object; and, with that end in view, he was
gradually drawing nearer to the typewriter. But so accustomed was he to
receiving detailed impressions of all that occurred before his eyes,
that the chemist's actions, unimportant as they seemed at the time,
were unconsciously recorded upon the reporter's brain.
Murdock opened the door of the extension and passed out of the room.
Sturgis, watching his chance, snatched up a sheet of paper from the
table, inserted it in the typewriter, and rattled off something as fast
as he could. Looking up when he had finished, he saw that Murdock had
returned and was observing him with a sardonic grin.
"More happy thoughts?" he inquired.
"Yes," answered Sturgis, calmly folding the paper and slipping it into
the pocket of his coat.
Murdock chuckled to himself, as if enjoying a quiet joke.
"Well," said he, "if you will do me the honor, we can step down into
the laboratory."
Sturgis nodded and went toward the door which Murdock held open. As he
passed the chemist, the reporter caught his eye, and, in a flash, read
there some sinister purpose, which caused him to hesitate, on his guard.
At that moment there came a knock upon the hall door.
"Pshaw!" exclaimed Murdock, "here comes an interruption, I suppose.
Please step down stairs; I shall be with you directly."
With these words, he quietly but firmly shoved the reporter into the
extension, and, with a rapid motion, pushed forward the door.
Sturgis almost lost his balance, but instinctively put out his foot
between the door and the jamb. He felt a strong pressure from the
outside; but he knew he was master of the situation and patiently bided
his time. Presently the pressure ceased, and he was able to open the
door.
Murdock wore an air of pained surprise.
"What is it?" he inquired.
"I have just remembered an important engagement," said Sturgis
unruffled. "I fear, after all, that I shall be unable to visit your
laboratory at present. I hope, however, that the pleasure is only
postponed for a short time."
"I hope so," replied Murdock, calmly meeting his steady gaze.
All this had happened in the space of a few seconds. Meanwhile the
knocking at the door was renewed.
"Come in," said Murdock, moving toward his easy chair.
The door opened and a servant appeared.
"Plaze, sur, Miss Agnes wud loike ter know kin yer resave her sum toime
this afthernoon?"
"Yes, Mary; tell Miss Agnes I shall be in all the rest of the
afternoon, and that I shall be at her disposal at any time."
Sturgis, picking up his hat and coat, hurried from the house.
"Why did he want to shut me in the extension?" he asked himself over
and over, and he could find no satisfactory answer to the question.
Then he took from his pocket the lines he had written on Murdock's
typewriter, and compared them carefully with those on the sheet which
he had laboriously pieced together in the Knickerbocker bank on the
previous day.
The result of the examination was apparently satisfactory; for, when
Sturgis returned the papers to his pocket, his face wore an expression
of calm but unmistakable triumph.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE UNDERGROUND PASSAGE.
As he reached the corner, Sturgis came upon Sprague, who was waiting
for a car.
"Oh! I say, old man," exclaimed the artist, hardly able to conceal his
elation, "I am glad to see you. I have news to tell you."
"So have I. But I am in a hurry now. Come along with me; we can
exchange confidences on the way."
"Very well; whither are you bound?"
"I am on the track of big game. Can you spare a couple of hours? I
think I can promise you an interesting afternoon."
"What is it? The Knickerbocker bank case?"
"Yes."
Sprague readily consented to accompany his friend.
"By the way," inquired Sturgis, "have you any weapons?"
"Any quantity of them among the properties of the studio," replied
Sprague surprised; "but I do not go about armed in broad daylight."
"You would better have a revolver," said the reporter. "You will
probably have no occasion to use it," he added in answer to his
friend's glance, "but it is best to be on the safe side."
"Very well; I shall go home for one. Where am I to meet you?"
"At police headquarters in about half an hour. Let me see; it is now
nearly five o'clock. Say at half-past five. It will be necessary to
obtain a couple of warrants and the help of the police before we start."
After Sprague had left him, Sturgis approached Detective Conklin, who
was still at his post.
"Has Chatham shown up while I was in there?" he asked, indicating
Murdock's house.
"No, sir."
"Did you notice the man with whom I went in?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, let Chatham go for the present and stick close to that man if he
stirs from the house. I shall be back in less than an hour."
"All right, sir."
When Sprague reached police headquarters, he found the reporter ready
to start with four detectives. He had not, therefore, any opportunity
for conversation with his friend until the party reached its
destination. There two of the detectives relieved the men previously on
duty, while the others accompanied Sturgis and Sprague to the office of
the Manhattan Chemical Company.
It was after six o'clock. The place was closed for the night and seemed
quite deserted. One of the men rang the bell. The tinkling echoes died
away, but no sign of life manifested itself from within. Then he seized
the pull and plied it again repeatedly and vigorously.
"That will do," observed Sturgis presently; "the old woman is coming as
fast as she can."
"What old woman?" asked the detective.
"I don't know. Perhaps I ought to have said an old woman. I hear her
hobbling on the stairs."
The detective placed his ear to the keyhole. After listening
attentively, he turned to the reporter with an incredulous smile.
"Well, Mr. Sturgis," said he, "if you can hear anything in there, your
ears are sharper than mine. That's all I can say."
"She is on the second flight," replied the reporter quietly. "Now she
is in the second-story hall,--and now you can surely hear her coming
down the last flight."
By this time, sure enough, the sound of footsteps began to be audible
to the other three men; and presently the door opened and disclosed the
scared face of an old Irish woman.
"And phwat might yez be wantin', gintlemin, to be after scarin' an ould
woman most to death wid yer ringin'?" she asked, somewhat aggressively.
"We want to see Mr. Chatham," replied one of the detectives.
"Mister who, is it?"
"Thomas Chatham. Show me the way to his room. I'll go right up, and my
friends will wait for me here."
"Mister Thomuz Chathum, is it?" said the old woman; "well, ye've come
to the wrong house to see him, I do be thinkin', fer he don't live
here."
"Come, that won't do," said the detective sharply; "we belong to the
police, and we saw Chatham enter this house."
At the mention of the police, the old hag's parchment face became a
shade yellower and her eyes glistened.
"Sure, thin, if he do be hidin' here, it's mesilf as 'ud know it," she
said after a short interval; "but yez can foind 'um, if yez loike; yez
can foind 'um."
Whereupon she turned and hobbled off, leaving the intruders to their
own resources.
They found themselves in a narrow hallway. On the right was a rickety
staircase leading to business offices in the upper part of the
building; on the left, a door opening into the office of the Manhattan
Chemical Company, and at the end of the hall another door, marked,
PRIVATE OFFICE
NO ADMITTANCE.
One of the detectives tried this door and found it locked. Whereupon he
placed his shoulder to it and prepared to force it in.
"Wait a minute," said Sturgis; "let me see if I cannot open it."
The detective stepped aside with a quizzical expression upon his face.
"I guess you will find it pretty solid for your weight," said he.
The reporter took from his pocket a piece of bent wire, and, with a
few dexterous turns of the wrist, he shot the bolt of the lock.
"You would make an expert cracksman," said the detective. "I didn't
know you possessed that accomplishment in addition to all your other
ones."
The four men entered the private office. The room was quite dark,
the shutters being closed and the blinds drawn. As their eyes became
accustomed to the obscurity they were able to distinguish the outlines
of a desk, a table, and a few chairs.
Sturgis went at once to a door in the corner. With the aid of his
skeleton key he had soon thrown this open. After peering for an instant
into the darkness, he took from his pocket a candle, which he lighted.
Then, beckoning to his companions, he started cautiously to descend.
The other men followed him and soon found themselves in the cellar,
which they proceeded to search.
On the street side there was a recess extending for a few feet under
the area in front of the house. The opening above was covered by an
iron grating, over which was a wooden cover securely fastened on the
inside by a chain and padlock. A number of carboys were carefully
piled along the east wall to within a few feet from the rear of the
building. Here, in the northeast corner, rose narrow shelving, on which
were arranged a collection of bottles containing a varied assortment of
chemicals.
The detectives searched the cellar.
"Our man is not here, at any rate," said the leader, when at last he
had returned to the foot of the stairs; "perhaps he'll try to give us
the slip by way of the roof. Come along, Jim; let's go upstairs now.
Hello! what are you doing there, Mr. Sturgis? Think you'll find him in
one of those bottles?"
The reporter appeared to be closely inspecting the chemicals on the
narrow shelves.
"Who knows?" he replied coolly, continuing his examination.
The detective bit his lip and looked the unpleasant things he thought
it best not to say.
"Well, Jim and I will take a look upstairs while you are busy here."
And the two men went up the dark stairway, Sprague remaining behind
with the reporter.
"None so blind as those that won't see," said the latter,
sententiously.
At the same time he placed his hand upon one of the shelves and gave it
a lateral push. It responded slightly, and the entire shelving, with
the door which it concealed, opened outward.
"I thought so," continued the reporter; "this looks as if it might lead
somewhere. Will you come, Sprague?"
"How did you find the combination so quickly?" asked the artist,
preparing to follow his friend.
"It is not a combination--only a concealed bolt. Our friends of the
detective force might have discovered it themselves if they had taken
the trouble. The first thing I noticed was that a truck had recently
been wheeled through the cellar in the direction of this door, from
under the grating on the street side. And this truck was not here;
neither was a large case which we know was delivered here to-day.
The trail extended clear up to the wall below the shelving; and yet
no truck, even unloaded, could pass below that lowest shelf. The
conclusion was evident. I sounded the back of the shelving and found
that it covered an opening of some kind. After that, all that remained
was to notice that one of the shelves was slightly soiled in just one
spot, as though by the repeated contact of a hand. From this, I argued
that the bolt must be attached to this board. And it was. That is all."
As he spoke, the reporter entered a dark and narrow passage.
"Don't shut the door," said he to his companion, who followed him.
At that moment, however, the artist stumbled: and, instinctively
holding out his hands to save himself from falling, he released his
hold of the door, which closed with a slam.
"That is unfortunate," said Sturgis; "we may have to lose some time
in learning how to work the bolt from this side. Hold on; it will
be prudent to keep open a line of retreat, in case of unforeseen
emergencies. Hello! we are in luck. Nothing concealed on this side;
the bolt in plain sight; works easily. All's well. Then let us go on;
unless I am greatly mistaken, we shall find another exit on the other
side."
After following the underground passage for some distance, the men
climbed some steps and reached a square chamber, on one side of which
rose a stairway leading to a door above. The room was surmounted by a
skylight, which was wide open, admitting a draught of cold air from the
outside.
Sturgis set down his lighted candle and proceeded to examine his
surroundings. In the middle of the room stood a truck, upon which lay
a long pine box. A table and a chair constituted the only furniture
of the place. At one side, there was a long, low, lead-lined tank,
filled to the depth of about two feet with a dark viscous liquid. Near
it lay a few empty carboys. In the floor there was what seemed to be
a hot-air register, of large size and of peculiar construction. The
walls were bare, unbroken, save by the projection of the mouthpiece of
a speaking-tube, and by a set of shelves filled with flasks, crucibles,
alembics and the other paraphernalia of a chemist's laboratory.
After the reporter had finished reconnoitering, he sat down upon the
long box in deep thought. Sprague observed him with silent curiosity
for a while; and then, with growing impatience,
"I say, old man," he ventured at last to ask, "did you bring me here,
armed to the teeth, to see you go off into a trance?"
Sturgis started like a man suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.
"Eh? What?--Oh, yes--those confidences. Well, you start in with yours.
I am trying to find the dénouement of my story. I feel that it is just
within my grasp; and yet I cannot seem to see it yet. But I can listen
to you while I am thinking. Go on."
"I have not any story to tell," said Sprague, somewhat offended at his
friend's apparent indifference to what he had to say.
"Oh, yes, you have," retorted Sturgis, with a conciliatory smile; "you
said you had news to tell me. Well, tell away. I am listening most
respectfully in spite of my apparent absorption."
"What a strange fellow you are, Sturgis," laughed Sprague good
naturedly. "All I wanted to tell you--and you are the first to hear
of it,--is the, to me, rather important fact that I am engaged to be
married."
"You are?" exclaimed Sturgis with genuine pleasure. "I congratulate
you, old fellow, from the bottom of my heart."
He seized the artist's hand and shook it in his hearty grasp.
"To the original of the picture you wanted to show me yesterday?" he
asked.
"Yes."
"Then she was not betrothed to the other fellow, after all?"
"No; that seems to have been a mistake."
"I am glad of that, very glad," said the reporter. "By the way, you
have not yet told me the young lady's name."
"I thought I had mentioned it yesterday morning. Didn't I? No? My
fiancée is Miss Murdock."
At the sound of this name Sturgis started visibly, and a shadow crossed
his features.
"Miss Murdock?" he echoed.
"Yes," said Sprague. "What is it? You do not seem pleased."
Then, as a sudden thought struck him:
"I hope I am not treading on your toes, old fellow," he said, putting
his hand gently upon his friend's shoulder, and trying to read his
thought in his clear gray eyes. "But how absurd! Of course you cannot
be a rival for Miss Murdock's affections, since you do not even know
her----"
"No," laughed Sturgis, regaining his composure, "I am not your rival.
As to the other point, while I can hardly claim an acquaintance with
the young lady, I think I saw her not more than a couple of hours ago."
"A couple of hours ago!" exclaimed Sprague; "why, I was with her myself
then."
"I know that now, although I was not aware of it at the time."
"What, were you at the Murdocks' at the same time as I was?" asked
Sprague, surprised.
"I had just come from there when I met you. I was in Murdock's study
while you were--er--busy in the parlor."
"In Murdock's study? How long were you there?"
"About half an hour, I should judge," replied Sturgis, "and perhaps
fifteen minutes more in the hall, while Murdock was engaged."
"I suppose Chatham was still with him," mused Sprague.
Sturgis started at the name.
"Chatham!" he ejaculated; "what do you know about Chatham?"
"What, are you interested in Chatham?" asked the artist, curiously.
"I know very little about him, only that he is one of my disappointed
rivals."
And he thereupon related to the reporter what he knew of Chatham's suit.
Sturgis listened with deep attention to his friend's narrative, and
ruminated in silence long after the artist had ceased speaking.
At last he started up with a sudden exclamation, and walking over to
the side of the tank, he looked into the depths of its oily contents,
as if fascinated by some horrible thing he saw there.
Sprague came and stood beside him and gazed curiously into the viscous
liquid. There was nothing there that he could see.
"What is it?" he asked.
Without replying, Sturgis took from his pocket a bone-handled knife and
carefully dipped one end of the handle into the fluid in the leaden
tank. At once the liquid began to seethe and boil, giving out dark
pungent fumes.
"I thought so," muttered the reporter, under his breath; "that man is
truly a genius--the genius of evil."
"Who?" asked Sprague.
Sturgis made no reply. His eyes were wandering about the room, as if in
search of something.
"Hand me a couple of those long glass tubes from that shelf yonder," he
said, earnestly.
The artist complied with the request. Dipping these tubes into the
oily liquid, Sturgis, after considerable difficulty, managed to seize
with them a small dark object which lay at the bottom of the tank.
With infinite precaution, he brought it to the surface. It had the
appearance of a flattened leaden bullet.
"What is it?" inquired Sprague.
"Sit down," answered Sturgis, in a low, tense voice. "I have just found
the last link which completes my chain of evidence; I am now prepared
to tell you such a story as you will scarcely credit, even with the
absolute proofs before your eyes."
CHAPTER XX.
THE LEAD-LINED VAT.
Sprague seated himself upon the long pine box; and Sturgis, dropping
into the only chair, began his narrative. As he talked, he carelessly
whittled the cover of the wooden box with the knife which he still
held in his hand. He began with an account of his investigation at the
Knickerbocker bank, and explained the result of his observations and
inferences down to the time of his visit to Murdock's house, omitting,
however, to mention any of the names of the actors in the reconstructed
drama.
"So you see," he concluded, "we have established the identity of the
body in the cab, and of the young man who disappeared after the cab
was upset. But one of the most salient features of the case, from the
start, was the fact that neither of these two men had derived much,
if any, pecuniary profit from his crime. The bookkeeper, as we have
seen, was a mere catspaw in the control of the accountant, and his
posthumous confession has given us the explanation of the power exerted
over him by his accomplice. It was not so easy to establish the motive
which controlled the actions of the accountant, who was himself only a
tool in the hands of a higher intelligence. The _deus ex machinâ_ of
this crime is a man of genius who has hardly appeared upon the scene
at all, but whose traces I have found at every turn. He was the brains
of the whole scheme; the other men in his hands were mere puppets.
Through the accountant, this master spirit managed the bookkeeper;
and the accountant himself was controlled by him more directly, but
no less surely. If he held the former through his fear of exposure
and consequent ruin, he influenced the latter through even more
potent motives. He is the father of a beautiful girl, whom he did not
scruple to use as a decoy. The price agreed upon for the accountant's
assistance was the hand of this daughter, for whom the young man had
doubtless conceived a passionate love. Whether or not the leader would
have had the power to carry out his part of the contract matters
little; for it is highly probable that he never had the slightest
intention of so doing. He evidently realized very early in the game
that the bookkeeper could not long escape the clutches of the law. But
as he had taken every precaution to prevent him from knowing anything
of his very existence, the fate of the unfortunate bookkeeper would
have mattered little to this heartless villain, had not the probability
remained that, when brought to bay, the bookkeeper would denounce
the accountant's connection with the crime. This would have been
extremely awkward, since the accountant was very likely in possession
of some dangerous secrets. The safest way out of the difficulty was
to quietly suppress the now useless bookkeeper. This plan was decided
upon, and would doubtless have been carried into execution, had not
fate otherwise decreed. After the bookkeeper's death, under the
circumstances which I have related, it became quite probable that
the accountant's connection with the case would be discovered; for
luck had been against him from the start, and he became more and more
entangled in the chain of circumstantial evidence of whose existence
his leader was soon fully aware. In the first place, the accountant was
wounded; and thus not only partially disabled, but also,--what is far
worse,--conspicuously marked. A man who carries his arm in a sling can
hardly fail to attract attention, especially when this distinguishing
mark is accompanied by another equally glaring one in the form of a
head of brilliant red hair----"
"Hold on, Sturgis!" interrupted Sprague, who had been listening with
growing interest; "don't you know the accountant's name?"
"Yes," replied the reporter; "his name is Thomas Chatham."
"Thomas Chatham!" exclaimed Sprague, as the image of the miserable
young man came to his mind.
"Yes," replied Sturgis, answering his thought, "the man you met only a
few hours ago."
There was a brief silence, broken at last by Sprague, who asked:
"Has he escaped?"
Sturgis hesitated.
"That depends upon how we look at it," he said gravely at length; "he
has paid the penalty of his crimes."
"What do you mean?"
"He is dead," answered the reporter.
"Dead? But I tell you I saw him----"
"I know; but he has died since."
"Suicide?"
"No;" the reporter's voice sank to a whisper; "murder!"
"Murder?" repeated the artist, startled. "But how do you know that?"
"This lump of lead tells the story," said Sturgis, holding up the
shapeless piece of metal which he had taken out of the vat.
"What is it? A bullet?"
"Yes; the bullet which Chatham carried in his arm from the time that
he was wounded by Arbogast, the bullet which has enabled me to trace
him step by step, from his flight from the overturned cab, to Doctor
Thurston's, and finally to his death in this very room; the bullet
whose peculiar shape is recorded in this shadow picture taken by
Thurston by means of the Roentgen rays."
So saying, he handed Sprague the photograph. But the artist had ceased
to listen.
"In this very room?" he mused aloud, looking about him with awe.
"Yes. The story is simple enough. The man whose instrument Chatham was,
is not one who would care to be lumbered up with tools, which become
positively dangerous as soon as they cease to be useful. This man,
totally unhampered by pity, gratitude or fear, determined to destroy
the accountant, whose discovery might have imperilled his own welfare.
What mattered a human life or two, when weighed against the possible
loss of his own life or liberty, or of his high social standing and his
enormous wealth; for this man is both renowned and rich, and he appears
to have brought wholesale murder to a science."
"Do you mean to say that wholesale murder can be indulged in with
impunity in a city like New York, at the end of the nineteenth
century?" asked Sprague aghast.
"Yes; when it is done in the systematic and scientific manner that
has been employed here. For this murderer is the most remarkable
criminal of modern times. He has not been satisfied with killing his
victims; he has succeeded in completely wiping them out of existence.
Criminals have often attempted to destroy the bodies of their victims,
but they have never before succeeded as this man has. He is a chemist
of remarkable talent, and he has discovered a compound in which bone
as well as human tissue is rapidly and totally dissolved. There it is
in yonder tank. See how completely the liquid has destroyed the bone
handle of this knife."
Sturgis, after showing the damaged knife to his companion, resumed his
whittling upon the cover of the box on which the artist was seated.
"Chatham's body has been dissolved in that tank within a very short
time. It has entirely disappeared; this flattened bullet alone is left,
lead being one of the few substances which are not soluble in the
contents of that tank. Fortunately he overlooked that fact. Genius has
its lapses."
Presently Sprague ventured to say:
"If numerous crimes have been committed here, as you intimate, I do
not understand how it is that suspicion has never rested on this house
before."
"The author of these crimes has taken every precaution to render the
chance of discovery quite remote. His dwelling-house on one street, and
the bogus Chemical Company on the other, are in communication through
this underground passage, while apparently having no connection with
each other. Moreover, he is too shrewd to make frequent use of this
death chamber. That does well enough as a last resort, when he is
obliged to commit the murders with his own hands; but I suspect that
this man has other agents like Chatham, who do the dirty work for him
and then quietly ship the bodies here for annihilation, as it was
intended should be done with Arbogast's. Ah! yes; I thought so. You are
sitting upon one of these bodies now."
Sprague started to his feet; and, following the direction in which
Sturgis was pointing with his open knife, he vaguely discerned, through
the opening which the reporter had whittled, a small surface of what
had once been the features of a human being.
After gazing for some minutes in horror-stricken silence at the
distorted face, the artist asked in a low voice:
"How did Chatham meet his death?"
"I don't know yet," answered Sturgis gravely; "this man is no ordinary
criminal. His work is clean and leaves no blood-stains and no disorder
to tell of its accomplishment. He takes life with his own hands only
when he is forced to do so; but, when he does, his method is masterly.
It was easier to make away with Chatham than to pay him the price
agreed upon for his complicity in the Knickerbocker bank embezzlement;
and so his life was taken. I hope to discover how before I leave here."
Sprague started as the reporter ceased speaking.
"The price of his complicity?" he exclaimed, laying his hand upon
Sturgis's arm, and looking earnestly into his eyes.
"Yes," replied the reporter, steadily meeting his friend's gaze, "his
daughter's hand."
Sprague looked away from the honest eyes of the reporter, as if he
dreaded to read in them the answer to his next question.
"Who is this fiend incarnate, who is willing to traffic in his own
flesh and blood, and with whom murder is a science?"
"The man who is capable of these crimes, and of any others which might
serve to remove an obstacle from his way, is----"
The reporter did not finish his sentence. He suddenly grasped his
companion by the arm and stood transfixed, his eyes dilated, his neck
craned in a listening attitude, every muscle tense like those of a wild
animal in ambush, about to spring upon its approaching prey.
Presently a click was heard as though a bolt had been shot from its
socket.
"Draw your revolver!" Sturgis whispered hoarsely to his companion.
"Quick!----Look there!"
At the same time he drew his own weapon and pointed in the direction of
the door at the head of the stairs. The door opened, and a man entered,
quietly smoking a cigar.
"Doctor Murdock!" exclaimed Sprague with horror.
Murdock, still holding the door ajar, eyed the two men for an instant,
his impassive face betraying not the slightest sign of emotion; Then,
taking his cigar from his lips:
"Ah, gentlemen," he drawled in his ironical way, "I am delighted to
see you. I trust you will make yourselves perfectly at home for a few
minutes. I shall return directly. You can continue to work out your
little problem in the meantime, Mr. Sturgis."
With these words he calmly turned to leave the room.
"Stop!" shouted Sturgis, levelling his revolver at Murdock's head;
"stand where you are or I fire!"
The reporter's shot rang out almost before he had finished his
sentence; but Murdock, unscathed, passed out of the room, closing the
door behind him.
Sprague, dazed by the rapidity with which this scene had been acted,
stood rooted to the spot, without having made any attempt to use the
revolver which he had drawn at Sturgis's bidding.
The reporter sprang up the stairs and threw his weight against the
door. But it was doubtless intended to withstand great shocks, for it
remained unshaken.
"Check!" came the sound of a mocking voice from the other side of the
door.
Then, rushing down the stairs again, Sturgis shouted to his companion:
"Come quick! We must get out of here!"
And he led the way through the subterranean passage toward the cellar
of the Manhattan Chemical Company.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE DEATH CHAMBER.
Before the men had gone many steps a grating sound reached their ears
from the direction of the skylight. They looked up and saw sliding
steel shutters slowly and ponderously close, like grim jaws; and
suddenly they felt themselves cut off from the outside world.
Sturgis, taking up his lighted candle, made his way to the door of the
subterranean passage and tried in vain to open it; the heavy iron bolt
remained immovable in its socket. Inch by inch he scrutinized the door
with growing anxiety. At last he abandoned the search, and returned in
the direction of the square chamber.
"That explains why he wanted to shut me in here when I was in his
office," he muttered under his breath.
"What is the matter?" asked Sprague.
"We are caught like rats in a trap," replied Sturgis. Then with
feeling he added: "I do not know how this will end, old man. I have
bungled and I fear the game is lost. If our lives are the forfeit, you
will owe your death to my stupidity."
Sprague looked at his friend, as if surprised to hear him apparently
abandon the fight.
"Don't worry about me," he said kindly; "I came here of my own free
will. But," he added, as a vision of Agnes Murdock flashed upon his
mind, "I have no intention to die just yet, if I can help it. Are we
not both able-bodied men and armed? What can one man do against two?"
"It is not an open fight," said Sturgis, "but I am glad to see your
spirit. I do not give up; but I want you to realize that we are in a
critical situation, with the odds enormously against us."
"Why, what can Murdock do?"
"Perhaps what he did to Chatham. It will probably not be long before we
discover what that was."
"But there must be some way of opening that door from the inside," said
Sprague.
"There evidently is none," replied Sturgis; "he probably controls these
doors from the outside by electrical connection."
The men were back in the square chamber. Sturgis's eyes were roving
restlessly over the walls, ceiling and floor in search of a loophole of
escape.
"There is no chance to reach the skylight without a ladder; and even
if we could reach it, we should be no further advanced, as it would be
impossible to make any impression on the steel shutters. That leaves
the register and the speaking-tube. While I examine the register,
suppose you try the tube. If it connects with the Manhattan Chemical
Company's office, there is a bare chance that we may attract the
attention of the detectives whom we left there."
"As we were saying, Mr. Sturgis----"
The words came in Murdock's mocking tones.
Sturgis quickly held the lighted candle above his head and peered in
the direction whence came the sound. A panel of the door at the head of
the stairs had been pushed up, revealing a small opening covered by a
strong and closely woven wire netting.
"As we were saying, 'murder will out!' Nevertheless, it is sometimes
easier to weld a chain, even of circumstantial evidence, than it is to
predict who will be bound in it."
Sturgis and Sprague stood in the glimmering light of the candle,
silently watching the glowing eyes behind the screen.
"Mr. Sturgis, you are a clever man," continued Murdock, "an uncommonly
clever man. I frankly admit that I had underrated your ability. But
then we are all fallible, after all. I made my share of blunders, as
you seem to have discovered; but you will doubtless now concede that
your own course has not been entirely free from errors. And now that
we have reached the conclusion of this interesting game, I have the
honor to announce, 'mate in one move!' Perhaps you are surprised that
I should take the trouble to explain the situation to you so clearly.
I do so in recognition of your superior intelligence. I see in you a
peer. If matters could have been so arranged, I should have been proud
to work in harmony with such a man as you; and indeed, when, a short
time ago, I invited you to my laboratory, it was my intention to offer
you a compromise which I hoped I might be able to persuade you to
accept. I felt that you would prove an ally who could be trusted. But,
alas, that is impossible now, on account of your friend's presence.
With all due respect to Mr. Sprague, as an amiable man of the world
and a prince of good fellows, it may be said that he is not one of us.
Much to my sorrow, therefore, I am left no alternative to the course I
am about to adopt. The fault, if anybody's, is your own, after all, Mr.
Sprague. There is a homely but expressive adage concerning the danger
of 'monkeying' with a buzz saw. Why, my dear friend, did you 'monkey'
with Mr. Sturgis's buzz saw, instead of sticking to your palette and
maulstick.
"But I fear I am growing garrulous, gentlemen. If I had time, I
should like to explain to Mr. Sturgis the details of some of the more
important, and, in my humble opinion, more brilliant schemes of which I
have been the----ah----the promoter; for I dislike to be judged by the
bungling operations which have so nearly caused me to lose this latest
little game. But this cannot be. I shall have to continue to confide
to the pages of my journal, as I have done for years, the interesting
events of, if I may say so, a somewhat remarkable career, which I
hope will some day, after my death, find their way in print to public
favor. My dream has always been that some such man as Mr. Sturgis might
ultimately edit these memoirs; but, alas, the fondest of human dreams
are seldom destined to be realized.
"Now then, gentlemen, before finally parting with you, I wish to
honorably carry out the terms of my wager with Mr. Sturgis. I concede
the fact that, to all intents and purposes, he has won the bet, and
I authorize you, Mr. Sprague, as stakeholder, to pay him the amount
I deposited with you. As I have already suggested, he has made some
perhaps excusable mistakes; but then, as he himself stated the other
night, 'a detective has a lifetime in which to correct a blunder.' A
lifetime! It is not in accordance with Mr. Sturgis's usual practice to
use so vague a term. A lifetime is not necessarily a very long time,
Mr. Sturgis."
During this tirade Sturgis and Sprague had remained standing with their
eyes fixed upon the gleaming carbuncles which peered at them from
behind the grated peephole at the top of the stairs. The artist seemed
to realize that the fight was lost. His attitude was that of a brave
man accepting, with calm despair, an unpleasant but inevitable doom.
The reporter had drawn his revolver at the first sound of Murdock's
voice, but had immediately returned it to his pocket upon realizing
that the chemist was protected by a bullet-proof grating. Now, pale and
collected, he remained inscrutable. It was impossible, even for the
sharp eyes of Murdock, to determine whether he was at last resigned
to his fate, or whether his active mind was still on the alert for a
loophole of escape.
The bit of candle which he held in his hand had burned so low that at
last he was unable to hold it without risk of burning his fingers.
Whereupon he coolly set it down upon the stone floor, where presently
the wick fell over into a pool of molten paraffine, and the flame
spluttered noisily, sending fitful gleams through the darkness.
"Well," continued Murdock's voice, "it is at any rate a great
satisfaction to play a game with an adversary worthy of one's steel.
You have played well, Mr. Sturgis. I think you would have won modestly;
and you are losing as I would myself have lost, had our positions been
reversed. Good-bye."
The gleaming eyes disappeared from the grating, and the sliding panel
closed with a metallic click.
"Now then," said Sturgis to his companion, "the last chance lies in
the speaking-tube. But first help me move this box."
"What do you want to do with the box?" asked Sprague, who, however, did
as he was bid.
"It may help us to gain a little time. Put it down here."
Sturgis struck a match and pointed out the spot.
"On the hot-air register?"
"On what looks like a hot-air register. Did you ever see a hot-air
register with no apparent means of shutting off the heat?"
Sprague, who stood almost over the register, suddenly threw back his
head and gasped for breath.
"You have discovered the secret of this death trap," said Sturgis,
observing him.
"Gas!" spluttered the artist.
"Yes, he is going to asphyxiate us. Now, quick, to the speaking-tube!
The box will somewhat retard the rush of gas; but, at the best, it is
only a question of minutes before the air becomes so charged as to
render respiration impossible."
Sprague rushed to the speaking-tube and whistled long and loud, after
which he placed his ear to the mouthpiece.
"I hear some one walking," he suddenly exclaimed.
The two men listened in breathless silence for an answering call.
"Well, gentlemen; what can I do for you?"
The words came in Murdock's voice.
Sprague's eyes met those of the reporter and saw that the last faint
glimmer of hope was gone. In that swift and silent interchange of
thought there was resignation to the inevitable doom and the final
farewell of two brave hearts.
The spluttering candle gave its last flicker and went out, leaving the
prisoners in utter darkness.
The room was rapidly filling with gas, and they were beginning to feel
its effects.
"We can at least complete our task before we die," said Sturgis with
grim determination.
"Our task!"
"Yes, and insure Murdock's conviction for our murder."
"What chance is there that any one will ever discover our bodies, since
they are destined for Murdock's oblivion tank?"
"Give me your hand," Sturgis replied; "there is a box of matches. I
place it here, between us, within easy reach. I want to write a few
words to the superintendent of police to explain matters. By that time
there will be enough gas in the room to produce a terrific explosion,
when we strike a match. We can thus succeed in wrecking this place and
calling attention to it. If I should succumb before you do, do not fail
to light the match."
While he was speaking, the reporter had taken from his pocket a pad and
a pencil, and had begun to write as rapidly as he could in the darkness.
Sprague's head was beginning to swim and his ears were ringing, but the
thought of Agnes Murdock was uppermost in his mind.
"An explosion!" he exclaimed; "no, no; that must not be. What of Agnes?
She may be hurt?"
Sturgis continued writing.
"It is the only chance there is of bringing Murdock to justice," he
said, firmly.
"But Agnes is innocent of his crimes," urged the artist, in a thick
voice. His tongue clove to his palate; he felt his consciousness
ebbing. "Why should she suffer? I am going, old man----I cannot
hold out any longer----Promise me that you----that you will
not----strike----the match----"
He staggered and fell against the reporter, who caught him in his arms.
His own senses were reeling.
"Promise----" pleaded the half-unconscious man.
"I promise," answered Sturgis, after an instant's hesitation.
It struck a chill to his heart to see his friend dying in the prime of
youth, strength and happiness.
Suddenly a thought flashed upon him.
"Brace up, old fellow. All is not yet over. The speaking-tube leads to
fresh air. Here, put your lips to it, and breathe through your mouth."
The artist heard the words and made an effort to obey these directions.
With Sturgis's assistance he managed to place his lips to the
mouthpiece of the speaking-tube. A few whiffs of comparatively fresh
air sent the sluggish blood coursing through his veins, and gave him a
new hold on life. With renewed vigor came the animal instinct to fight
to the last for existence.
As the shadows of death which had been closing in upon him receded, he
became conscious of Sturgis's voice beating upon his ears in broken and
scarcely audible tones.
"It is----the last chance----Stick----to the tube----When he
comes----surprise him----your revolver----shoot----before----"
The reporter was clinging unsteadily to his friend's shoulder. Sprague
suddenly realized that Sturgis in his turn was succumbing to the
effects of the gas. He sprang back in time to catch the staggering man
in his arms.
"Selfish brute that I am!" he exclaimed. "Here; it is your turn to
breathe!" And he pushed the reporter toward the tube.
"No, no," said Sturgis, struggling faintly; "it cannot be both----and
you----have----everything----to live for."
But the artist was now the stronger, and he succeeded in forcing
his friend to inhale enough fresh air to restore his departing
consciousness.
At length Sturgis, with returning strength, was about to renew the
generous struggle with Sprague, when suddenly the place was ablaze with
the glare of an electric light.
"He wants to see if his work is done," whispered Sturgis to his
companion.
Then, observing that Sprague was again on the verge of asphyxiation, he
continued hurriedly:
"Fill your lungs with air, quick!----quick, I tell you. Now drop and
feign death. Do as I do."
Suiting the action to the word, Sturgis threw himself upon the stone
floor, face downward, and lay motionless, his right hand grasping a
revolver concealed beneath his body. Sprague, after a short breathing
spell at the tube, followed his companion's example.
After a short interval there came a metallic click, which Sturgis
recognized as the sound made by the opening of the slide in the panel
of the door at the head of the stairs.
A moment--which seemed an eternity of suspense--followed, during which
the prisoners felt, without being able to see, the cold gleam of the
steely eyes of Murdock at the grating.
Would he enter? Would he suspect the ruse? Would the two men retain
their grasp of consciousness and their strength long enough to make a
last fight for life?
These thoughts crowded upon the reporter's brain as he lay simulating
death and making a desperate effort to control his reeling senses.
If Murdock were coming he would have to shut off the gas and to
ventilate the room. What was he waiting for?
"Come in!"
The words were Murdock's as he turned away from the grating and closed
the sliding panel.
"An interruption which probably means death to us," whispered Sturgis
to his companion; "take another breath of fresh air, old fellow; we
must hold out a little longer."
Sprague, however, lay motionless and unresponsive. The reporter shook
him violently and turned him over upon his back. The artist's body was
limp and inert; his eyes half closed; his face livid.
The reporter himself felt sick and faint. But, with a mighty effort,
he succeeded in raising his friend in his arms, and dragging him
toward the speaking-tube. There, of a sudden, his strength failed him.
His head swam; his muscles relaxed; he felt Sprague's limp form slip
from his grasp, tottered, reeled, threw his arms wildly about him
for support, and fell, as the last elusive ray of consciousness was
slipping away from him.
CHAPTER XXII.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
After Sprague had left her, Agnes, shaken by the conflicting emotions
of the day, had gone to her room to rest and to prepare for the
interview which she meant to have with her father on the subject of her
lover and of Chatham.
Having received word that Murdock would remain in his study during the
rest of the afternoon, she had taken time to reflect upon what she
meant to say, and how she meant to say it. Her visit was not prompted
by the desire of a daughter to confide the great happiness of her
life to the loving sympathy of an affectionate parent; but Agnes was
punctilious in the performance of what she considered to be her duties,
great and small, and she counted it among those duties to obtain, or at
any rate to seek, the paternal sanction of her choice of a husband.
Her knock at the door of Murdock's study was answered in the chemist's
quiet voice:
"Come in."
As she opened the door, Murdock advanced to meet her. He seemed to come
from the direction of the extension.
Miss Murdock sniffed the air.
"Isn't there a leak of gas?" she inquired.
"Yes," replied Murdock; "I have just stopped a leak in the laboratory.
Won't you take a chair, Agnes?"
She felt his calm searching glance upon her; and, in spite of her
preparation, she grew embarrassed, as was her wont, in her father's
presence.
"Did Mr. Chatham wait to see you this afternoon?" she asked, after a
momentary silence.
Murdock observed her narrowly.
"Yes; Chatham has been here to-day. I did not know that you had seen
him."
"I could not help seeing him; for he forced his way into the parlor, in
spite of all the servants could do to prevent him."
An almost imperceptible furrow appeared between the chemist's eyes.
"Has he been annoying you with his attentions?"
The words were spoken in Murdock's usual tones; but Agnes saw
something in her father's eyes and in the firm lines of his mouth which
sent a cold shiver down her spine, and caused her pity to go out to the
unfortunate young man who had offended her.
"Perhaps he is more to be pitied than blamed," she suggested gently.
"My interview with him was certainly not pleasant; but I bear him no
malice."
"Tell me about it," said Murdock slowly.
Agnes gave her version of the visit, in which, instinctively, she
softened, as much as possible, the passion and brutality displayed by
the accountant.
Murdock listened in silence until she had quite finished. Then Agnes
noticed that his right hand was clenched upon the arm of his chair with
a force which caused the muscles to stand out in hard knots. She looked
up into his face in sudden surprise.
His features gave no indication of what his feelings might be; and his
voice, as usual, was steady and deliberate.
"I am sorry all this should have happened, Agnes. As I told you
yesterday, I hoped to save you from this man's importunities. It
cannot be helped now. But I think I made it clear to the gentleman
that his attentions are as distasteful to me as they are to you. As he
seems to have told you, he has been obliged to leave the country--I
understand that he has done something or other which makes it safer for
him to undertake a long journey. At any rate, we are well rid of him
for some time to come, and I think you need have no fear of further
molestation."
"What did he mean by saying that he had had encouragement from you?"
asked the young girl.
"I am sure I do not know. That was of course a lie out of whole cloth.
He came to me with letters of recommendation from good friends of mine,
and I therefore occasionally invited him to the house; but that is all
the encouragement he ever got from me. We live in the United States
and at the close of the nineteenth century. The selection of a husband
is no longer performed by a stern parent, but is left entirely to the
young girl herself. That is certainly my way of looking at the matter.
When you find the man of your choice, my only function will be to give
my advice, if you seek it, and my best assistance in any event."
The turn of the conversation thus suddenly brought to the surface the
topic which occupied the young girl's mind, to the exclusion of all
others; and which, for that very reason, had been kept severely in the
background up to that point.
"That reminds me," said Agnes consciously, as a charming flush suffused
her beautiful face, "that I have not yet broached the principal object
of this interview----"
Murdock observed her closely and waited for her to proceed. But Agnes
was once more laboring under a strange embarrassment and could not find
words in which to frame the confidence she was so reluctant to offer.
Perhaps the chemist divined something of the nature of what she
was struggling to find expression for. At any rate, he noticed her
embarrassment and endeavored to come to her assistance with a few
encouraging words, spoken with unusual gentleness. Agnes, engrossed
with her own thoughts, did not notice it; but there was in his manner
as near an approach to tender wistfulness as his nature was capable of.
At last the young girl seemed to gather courage, and she was about to
speak, when there was a knock upon the door.
"Plaze, sur; there do be two gintlemin in the hall."
"Who are they, Mary?"
"Shure, thin, sir, I dunno, barrin' wan uv 'em do be a polacemun."
"Did they ask to see me?"
"They did not, sur; shure they asked if Mr. Chapman was in."
"Mr. Chatham?"
"Yis, sur. And I told 'em he wuz here this afthernoon, and I wud see
wuz he here now, fur I aint seen him go yit."
"Well, Mary, you see he has gone, since he is no longer here," said
Murdock quietly. "Take the gentlemen into the parlor, and tell them I
shall be with them in a minute."
"All right, sur."
After the maid had left the room, the chemist rose from his chair and
walked toward the door leading to the library.
"If you will excuse me for a few minutes, Agnes, I shall see what these
men want. Wait for me here, if you will. I shall be back directly."
So saying, he noiselessly opened the folding-doors and passed into the
library, closing the doors carefully behind him.
Freed from the presence of her father, Agnes almost instantly regained
her composure. She had not, however, had much time to collect her
thoughts, when she was suddenly startled by a loud shrill whistle,
which brought her to her feet in alarm.
It is a well-known fact that there is, in the ring of a door bell, a
complex range of expression, which differentiates to an observant ear
the characteristics of the ringer. No one is likely to mistake the
postman's ring for that of the beggar; and no young girl is liable to
confound her father's ring with that of her lover; but, to a careful
observer, the gradations of quality, of intensity, of duration, in
a ringing door bell, are almost as great as in the voices of the
ringers themselves. Perhaps the range of expression in the whistle of
a speaking-tube is less extended; but in the whistle which reached
Agnes Murdock's ears there was something that struck a chill of terror
to her heart, like a wild despairing cry of anguish, and which caused
her to spring without hesitation to the tube, the mouthpiece of which
protruded from the wall of Murdock's study.
"Well?"
She asked the question in anxious tones, as if realizing that life and
death were in the balance. Then she placed her ear to the mouthpiece.
At first, she could not make out the words spoken by her invisible
interlocutor. Then, gradually, they fell upon her ear with terrible
distinctness; and she stood spellbound, as in a horrible nightmare,
with sudden terror in her staring eyes, and with the fearful sense of
impotence in her trembling limbs.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SPEAKING-TUBE.
Nature has implanted in every one of its living creatures, from the
top to the bottom of the scale, the strongest of all instincts--that
of self-preservation. As Sturgis fell forward and clutched wildly at
the air, his hands struck the stone wall of the square chamber. No
conscious impression was made upon his brain by the contact; but,
automatically, his fingers tightened as they slipped over the smooth
surface. His right hand struck an obstacle and closed upon it, in the
convulsive grip of a dying man. Then a sudden gleam of consciousness
swept across his sluggish brain.
It was the speaking-tube!
He clung to it with the remnant of his strength and eagerly placed his
lips to the mouthpiece. For a few minutes he drank in with avidity the
revivifying draughts of air which gradually brought him back from the
brink of death.
With returning consciousness, the thought of his dying friend recurred
to him in all its vividness. He tried to go to his assistance; but he
was sick and faint, and his limbs were powerless to respond to his
will. Then, at last, he was seized with utter despair and gave up the
struggle.
He had sunk dejectedly upon the chair when a faint and indistinct
murmur, as of distant voices, beat upon his ears, whose natural acuity
seemed extraordinarily increased by the long nervous tension under
which he had been. The ruling passion is strong in death; without
knowing just why he did so, Sturgis found himself again at the
speaking-tube, endeavoring to hear the conversation, the sound of which
evidently came from Murdock's office.
He could barely distinguish a word here and there; but he recognized
the timbre of one of the voices. It was the chemist's, and his
interlocutor was a woman--perhaps his daughter. If only he could reach
Agnes Murdock with some word or signal.
In suspense, he held his ear to the mouthpiece, occasionally taking a
breath of fresh air to renew his strength.
Should he take the chances and shout in the hope of catching the young
girl's attention? If he whistled, Murdock would answer himself, and the
last chance would be lost. But would she hear a shout? And, if she did,
would not her father prevent her from rendering any assistance? Yet
what other chance was there? Poor Sprague was dying; perhaps already
dead. There was no time to lose.
He stood for a while irresolute, and had just made up his mind to risk
all on a bold move, when suddenly Murdock's voice became more distinct,
as if he were passing near the mouthpiece of the speaking-tube at the
other end.
"I shall be back directly."
He was going, then. Agnes, if it were she, would remain alone for at
least an instant; and in that instant lay possible salvation.
The reporter strained every nerve to catch some other word. None came.
But presently he heard a door close. Murdock had left the room. Now or
never was the chance to act. With all his might he blew repeatedly into
the tube.
"Well?"
The question came in the sweet tones of a woman's voice.
"Mr. Sprague is in great danger. You alone can save his life, if you do
at once as I say. Go to the door of the extension; press upward on the
lower hinge; then turn the knob! Quick, before your father returns!"
Sturgis evoked the image of Murdock performing these operations before
opening the door of the extension; and, with retrospective intuition,
divined their purpose.
There was no answer. Sturgis waited for none. In a bound he was at his
friend's side and was struggling to drag him toward the foot of the
stairs. As he reached this point, the door opened and revealed Agnes
Murdock, pale and frightened, on the landing at the top.
The first rush of gas caused her to start back; but in another instant
she had caught sight of her lover's inanimate form and had rushed to
his assistance.
Slowly and laboriously Sturgis and his fair assistant dragged the
unconscious man up the stairs. With every step the task became more
difficult, as the effect of the gas told upon the strength of the
toilers. It began to look as if it would be impossible to reach the top.
Suddenly a shadow fell across the threshold of the open door. Sturgis
looked up in quick apprehension.
It was Murdock.
He stood critically observing the scene, with all outward appearance of
calmness.
Agnes had not seen him. She was making desperate efforts to raise
Sprague's limp form; but felt herself succumbing to the effects of the
gas.
"My darling! my poor darling!" she exclaimed, and suddenly she
staggered and lurched forward.
Sturgis made an instinctive effort to support her; but before he could
reach her Murdock was at her side and had her in his arms. He bore
her gently up the stairs and into his study. Then, for an instant, he
seemed to hesitate. The reporter expected to see him close the door.
Instinctively his hand reached back to his hip pocket for his revolver.
But, in another moment, Murdock had returned to where he stood.
"Come!" he said.
At the same time he lifted the artist in his arms and carried him up
the stairs. Sturgis followed unsteadily and reached the study, only to
fall exhausted into a chair.
Having deposited his burden upon the floor, Murdock closed the door of
the death chamber; turned a valve which was near his desk; opened the
windows wide, and revolved a crank which projected from the wall near
the door of the extension.
"He is shutting off the gas and opening the steel shutters of the
skylight," thought Sturgis.
Then the chemist produced a flask and poured out a small quantity of
brandy, which he forced his daughter to swallow.
As soon as she was sufficiently revived, she rushed to the side of her
lover, whose head she gently raised to her lap. Murdock's eyes were
fastened upon her. She met his calm questioning gaze.
"Yes, I love him," she said simply.
Then this strange man, without another word, gently pushed his daughter
to one side, and, throwing off his coat, stooped over the prostrate
form of the man whose life he had tried to take, and industriously
worked over him, in an attempt to restore the failing respiration.
Slowly and steadily he worked for what seemed an eternity to the
anxious girl. At length he rose, calm and collected as usual, and drew
on his coat again.
"He is out of danger now," he said; "you can do the rest yourself."
And he handed his daughter the brandy flask.
A faint tinge of color had returned to the artist's face; his breast
heaved gently in an irregular respiration.
Sturgis, still unable to stir from the chair in which he had fallen,
was vaguely conscious of Murdock's movements. He saw the chemist open
the safe which stood near his table and take from it numerous bundles
of bank-notes, which he carefully packed into a valise; he saw him take
from the same safe a few richly bound note-books, which he proceeded to
do up in a neat bundle, securely tied and sealed.
This done, the chemist put on his hat and coat, and was preparing to
pass out into the hallway, when a knock sounded upon the door.
Murdock opened slightly--enough to show himself, without revealing the
presence of the other occupants of the room.
It was one of the housemaids.
"Plaze, sur," said the girl, in a frightened voice, "the polacemun says
he can't wait no longer; he must see yer right away."
"Are they in the parlor?"
"Only the polacemun, sur; the other man said he would wait outside."
Murdock took a minute for reflection.
"Wait in the hall until I call you," he said, at last. "If the
policeman becomes impatient, tell him I shall not be long; that I am
engaged on most important business."
No sooner had the girl gone than Murdock, seizing the valise and the
package, opened the door of the extension. His eyes rested for a
while upon his daughter, who, still absorbed in the tender care of
her inanimate lover, was oblivious of all else. There was in them an
unusual expression,--almost a tender light; but the impassive face was
otherwise emotionless.
The chemist seemed to hesitate for a brief instant whether to speak;
then, passing out into the extension, he softly closed the door behind
him.
Sturgis alone, weak and powerless, had seen him go.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHECKMATE!
The two detectives, after leaving Sprague and Sturgis in the cellar of
the Manhattan Chemical Company, proceeded to search the premises from
basement to roof. Then, somewhat discomfited, they returned to the
cellar, and were surprised to find that the reporter and his friend had
disappeared.
After questioning the man whom they had left on watch on the outside,
and ascertaining that neither Sprague nor Sturgis had yet left the
house, the detectives called loudly to the missing men, and receiving
no reply, at last became alarmed, and sent word of the mysterious
disappearance to headquarters. The chiefs answer came at once:
"Remain on watch where you are. We shall investigate from the other
side."
One of the detectives thereupon went up to the roof of the building,
whence he could keep watch upon the back yards, while his companion
remained in the front hall.
They had been waiting thus for some time, when the latter thought he
heard footsteps in the direction of the private office. He was on the
alert in an instant.
The door was cautiously opened and a man stepped out into the hallway.
He carried a valise and a package. He blinked like a man coming
suddenly from the darkness into the daylight.
"Who are you?" asked the detective brusquely.
The man looked in the direction of the voice; and, as his eyes became
accustomed to the light, returned the detective's surprised stare with
a calm and searching look.
"Checkmate!" he murmured quietly to himself at last.
Then, without seeming haste, he passed back into the private office,
before the astonished detective could make any attempt to stop him.
Recovering himself quickly, the detective followed the sounds of the
retreating footsteps to the cellar stairs. Then, fearful of an ambush,
he fired his revolver as a signal to his companion on the roof; and,
after striking a match, he cautiously descended, reaching the cellar
just in time to see Murdock disappear into the underground passage.
He rushed to the spot; and, unable to find the door, he pounded with
all his might upon the shelves, causing the bottles to dance and rattle.
"Come, now," he shouted, "the game's up! You may as well be reasonable.
You can't possibly escape, for you're surrounded."
No answer came from within.
The man tried his powerful strength upon the door without any
perceptible effect.
When the second detective arrived upon the scene, he found the first
one removing the bottles from the shelves by the light of a match held
in his left hand.
"Get a light and an axe, Jim. There's a secret door here which we'll
have to break in; I can't find any way of opening it."
A few minutes later, the detectives, after dealing upon the shelves
some telling blows with an axe, again called upon Murdock to surrender.
Receiving no answer to their summons, the men stood irresolute for a
few seconds. Then, with grim determination, they attacked the door;
raining the blows upon it fast and furiously, and filling the air with
a shower of splinters.
At length a final stroke sent the weakened hinges from their
fastenings, and the men rushed through the underground passage into the
murderer's laboratory.
A hasty, startled glance told them that Murdock was not there.
They started for the stairs and were met by a policeman who was just
entering from Murdock's office.
"Have you got him?" asked the detectives in chorus.
"No," replied the policeman surprised; "Mr. Sturgis says he went down
here about twenty minutes ago."
"We chased him in from the other end not ten minutes ago."
The policeman hurried down the stairs.
Murdock's valise and package stood conspicuous upon the long pine box.
But of Murdock there was no sign.
"Gone!" exclaimed one of the detectives deeply mortified at the thought
that his quarry had slipped through his fingers. "Gone! How? Where? He
cannot have escaped. He cannot----What is it, Mr. Sturgis?"
He had suddenly caught sight of the reporter, half way up the stairs.
Weak and ill, Sturgis, with blanched face, clung unsteadily, with one
hand, to the railing; while, with the other, he pointed toward the
lead-lined vat, whose dark viscous contents were bubbling like boiling
oil.
A pungent vapor rose in dense clouds from the surface of the liquid.
Through it the fascinated gaze of the horrified men vaguely discerned a
nameless thing, tossed in weird and grotesque contortions in a seething
vortex.
Murdock had escaped the justice of men.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE MURDER SYNDICATE.
"See here, Sturgis; this won't do. I forbade you to do a stroke of work
to-day, or even to leave your bed; and here you are scribbling away
just as though nothing had happened. I tell you when a man has had the
narrow squeak you have, there has been a tremendous strain upon his
heart, and it is positively dangerous----"
"Don't scold, old man; I have never in my life been better than I feel
to-day. And besides, this work could not be postponed----"
"Oh, pshaw! That is what nine out of every ten patients say to their
physician. They are modestly convinced that the world must needs come
to a standstill if they cannot accomplish their tiny mite of work. What
do you suppose the world would have done had you and Sprague remained
in Murdock's death chamber yesterday? I'll tell you. The _Tempest_
would have printed two eulogistic obituary notices; and then the world
would have hobbled on, just as though the greatest detective of the age
and the modern Raphael had not been snuffed out of existence."
Doctor Thurston, who had assumed his frown of professional severity,
proceeded to feel the reporter's pulse.
"Well, you are in luck; better than you deserve. Almost any other man
would have been laid up for a week by the experience you have been
through. And here you have the face to recover without the assistance
of the medical profession, and in spite of your insolent disregard of
my express orders to leave work alone for the present. Now, there is
Sprague----"
"Ah, what of Sprague?" asked the reporter, anxiously.
"Sprague has had a close call. But he is safe now. If tender and
intelligent nursing count for anything, he will probably be up in a day
or two."
"Miss Murdock?----"
"Yes. She has a professional nurse to help her; but she has insisted
on taking charge of the case herself. And an excellent nurse she is,
too, and a charming girl into the bargain,--and what is more, a noble
woman."
"Does she know of her father's death?"
"I broke the news to her as gently as possible. She took it much more
calmly than I supposed she would. There evidently was but little
sympathy between her and her father."
"On her side, at any rate."
"Yes. Her first act on learning of her father's crimes was to send for
a lawyer. She refuses to touch a cent of his money, and has instructed
her attorney to make such restitutions as may be possible and to turn
over the rest to charitable institutions. This leaves her almost
penniless; for the property she held in her own right from her mother's
estate amounts to very little. Fortunately, Sprague is rich enough for
both. What are you doing there, if I may ask?"
Doctor Thurston pointed to a bundle which lay upon the table.
"That is Murdock's autobiography--a legacy to me. The package was found
near his valise in the death chamber. He had addressed it to me at the
last minute."
"Did it help you in your account of the Knickerbocker bank case for the
_Tempest_?"
"A little; but naturally, Murdock's account of that crime was not
complete. The entire journal, however, is of absorbing interest. It is
a pity that it cannot be published."
"Why cannot it be published?"
"It would be dangerous to the welfare of society. Murdock was an
extraordinary genius in his line; there is marvelous originality and
ingenuity in his work. His crimes, numbered by the hundred, were all
of capital importance in their results; all deep-laid and skilfully
executed. It is hardly likely that such another consummate artist in
crime will exist once a century. To publish the details of his schemes
would be to put a formidable weapon in the hands of the vulgar herd of
ordinary criminals, who lack the imagination of this brilliant villain.
"I tell you, Thurston," continued Sturgis, with what seemed very like
enthusiastic conviction, "this man was the originator of almost every
unsolved mystery which has nonplussed the police during the last
fifteen years. He had his agents in every important center throughout
the country; agents working under potent incentives, and yet working
in the dark, for few of them have ever known who held the mysterious
power which directed their every move. Murder has been done wholesale:
and so quietly and mysteriously has the work been accomplished, that,
in all but this last case, the detectives have found no clue whatever
which might lead to an explanation of the sudden and unaccountable
disappearance of wealthy men, whose bodies, shipped to the Manhattan
Chemical Company by Murdock's agents, were quietly and systematically
made away with in the chemist's laboratory."
"He was the fiend incarnate!" exclaimed the physician.
"Well," said Sturgis, after a moment of thoughtful silence, "at any
rate, he was not wantonly cruel. He was heartless; he was pitiless;
but his cruelty was always a means to an end, however selfish and
illegitimate that end might be. His cruelty is that, in a measure, of
every human being destroying life that he may live and trampling upon
his fellow men that he may be comfortable. Between Murdock and the rest
of us there was a difference of degree, certainly, but was there a
difference of kind?"
"There is one thing which I cannot yet understand," said Thurston,
"and that is, why Murdock should have pushed his audacity to the point
of defying you to ferret out the mystery of this crime, when he might
perhaps have avoided all risk of detection by holding his tongue."
"No man is perfect," answered Sturgis, sententiously, "not even an
accomplished villain like Murdock, fortunately for the rest of mankind.
Every human being has his weak points. Murdock had two:--his vanity and
his love for his daughter. They were the only traits which connected
him with the human family. To them he owes his undoing." | null |
The Hound of the Baskervilles | Arthur Conan Doyle | 220 | ['Jack Stapleton'] | cover
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes
by A. Conan Doyle
My dear Robinson,
It was to your account of a West-Country legend that this tale owes its
inception. For this and for your help in the details all thanks.
Yours most truly,
A. Conan Doyle.
Hindhead,
Haslemere.
Contents
Chapter 1 Mr. Sherlock Holmes
Chapter 2 The Curse of the Baskervilles
Chapter 3 The Problem
Chapter 4 Sir Henry Baskerville
Chapter 5 Three Broken Threads
Chapter 6 Baskerville Hall
Chapter 7 The Stapletons of Merripit House
Chapter 8 First Report of Dr. Watson
Chapter 9 The Light upon the Moor [Second Report of Dr. Watson]
Chapter 10 Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson
Chapter 11 The Man on the Tor
Chapter 12 Death on the Moor
Chapter 13 Fixing the Nets
Chapter 14 The Hound of the Baskervilles
Chapter 15 A Retrospection
Chapter 1.
Mr. Sherlock Holmes
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings,
save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all
night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the
hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left
behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood,
bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “Penang lawyer.”
Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch
across. “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the
C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just
such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to
carry—dignified, solid, and reassuring.
“Well, Watson, what do you make of it?”
Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no
sign of my occupation.
“How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in
the back of your head.”
“I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in
front of me,” said he. “But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of
our visitor’s stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss
him and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir
becomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an
examination of it.”
“I think,” said I, following as far as I could the methods of my
companion, “that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical
man, well-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of
their appreciation.”
“Good!” said Holmes. “Excellent!”
“I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a
country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on
foot.”
“Why so?”
“Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one has
been so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town
practitioner carrying it. The thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so
it is evident that he has done a great amount of walking with
it.”
“Perfectly sound!” said Holmes.
“And then again, there is the ‘friends of the C.C.H.’ I should
guess that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose
members he has possibly given some surgical assistance, and which
has made him a small presentation in return.”
“Really, Watson, you excel yourself,” said Holmes, pushing back
his chair and lighting a cigarette. “I am bound to say that in
all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own
small achievements you have habitually underrated your own
abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you
are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius
have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear
fellow, that I am very much in your debt.”
He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words
gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his
indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had
made to give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think
that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way
which earned his approval. He now took the stick from my hands
and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then with
an expression of interest he laid down his cigarette, and
carrying the cane to the window, he looked over it again with a
convex lens.
“Interesting, though elementary,” said he as he returned to his
favourite corner of the settee. “There are certainly one or two
indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several
deductions.”
“Has anything escaped me?” I asked with some self-importance. “I
trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have
overlooked?”
“I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were
erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be
frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided
towards the truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this
instance. The man is certainly a country practitioner. And he
walks a good deal.”
“Then I was right.”
“To that extent.”
“But that was all.”
“No, no, my dear Watson, not all—by no means all. I would
suggest, for example, that a presentation to a doctor is more
likely to come from a hospital than from a hunt, and that when
the initials ‘C.C.’ are placed before that hospital the words
‘Charing Cross’ very naturally suggest themselves.”
“You may be right.”
“The probability lies in that direction. And if we take this as a
working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start our
construction of this unknown visitor.”
“Well, then, supposing that ‘C.C.H.’ does stand for ‘Charing
Cross Hospital,’ what further inferences may we draw?”
“Do none suggest themselves? You know my methods. Apply them!”
“I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has
practised in town before going to the country.”
“I think that we might venture a little farther than this. Look
at it in this light. On what occasion would it be most probable
that such a presentation would be made? When would his friends
unite to give him a pledge of their good will? Obviously at the
moment when Dr. Mortimer withdrew from the service of the
hospital in order to start a practice for himself. We know there
has been a presentation. We believe there has been a change from
a town hospital to a country practice. Is it, then, stretching
our inference too far to say that the presentation was on the
occasion of the change?”
“It certainly seems probable.”
“Now, you will observe that he could not have been on the _staff_
of the hospital, since only a man well-established in a London
practice could hold such a position, and such a one would not
drift into the country. What was he, then? If he was in the
hospital and yet not on the staff he could only have been a
house-surgeon or a house-physician—little more than a senior
student. And he left five years ago—the date is on the stick. So
your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into thin
air, my dear Watson, and there emerges a young fellow under
thirty, amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor of
a favourite dog, which I should describe roughly as being larger
than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff.”
I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his
settee and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling.
“As to the latter part, I have no means of checking you,” said I,
“but at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars
about the man’s age and professional career.” From my small
medical shelf I took down the Medical Directory and turned up the
name. There were several Mortimers, but only one who could be our
visitor. I read his record aloud.
“Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen, Dartmoor, Devon.
House-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital.
Winner of the Jackson prize for Comparative Pathology, with
essay entitled ‘Is Disease a Reversion?’ Corresponding member
of the Swedish Pathological Society. Author of ‘Some Freaks of
Atavism’ (_Lancet_ 1882). ‘Do We Progress?’ (_Journal of
Psychology_, March, 1883). Medical Officer for the parishes of
Grimpen, Thorsley, and High Barrow.”
“No mention of that local hunt, Watson,” said Holmes with a
mischievous smile, “but a country doctor, as you very astutely
observed. I think that I am fairly justified in my inferences. As
to the adjectives, I said, if I remember right, amiable,
unambitious, and absent-minded. It is my experience that it is
only an amiable man in this world who receives testimonials, only
an unambitious one who abandons a London career for the country,
and only an absent-minded one who leaves his stick and not his
visiting-card after waiting an hour in your room.”
“And the dog?”
“Has been in the habit of carrying this stick behind his master.
Being a heavy stick the dog has held it tightly by the middle,
and the marks of his teeth are very plainly visible. The dog’s
jaw, as shown in the space between these marks, is too broad in
my opinion for a terrier and not broad enough for a mastiff. It
may have been—yes, by Jove, it _is_ a curly-haired spaniel.”
He had risen and paced the room as he spoke. Now he halted in the
recess of the window. There was such a ring of conviction in his
voice that I glanced up in surprise.
“My dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of that?”
“For the very simple reason that I see the dog himself on our
very door-step, and there is the ring of its owner. Don’t move, I
beg you, Watson. He is a professional brother of yours, and your
presence may be of assistance to me. Now is the dramatic moment
of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is
walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.
What does Dr. James Mortimer, the man of science, ask of Sherlock
Holmes, the specialist in crime? Come in!”
The appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me, since I had
expected a typical country practitioner. He was a very tall, thin
man, with a long nose like a beak, which jutted out between two
keen, grey eyes, set closely together and sparkling brightly from
behind a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He was clad in a
professional but rather slovenly fashion, for his frock-coat was
dingy and his trousers frayed. Though young, his long back was
already bowed, and he walked with a forward thrust of his head
and a general air of peering benevolence. As he entered his eyes
fell upon the stick in Holmes’s hand, and he ran towards it with
an exclamation of joy. “I am so very glad,” said he. “I was not
sure whether I had left it here or in the Shipping Office. I
would not lose that stick for the world.”
“A presentation, I see,” said Holmes.
“Yes, sir.”
“From Charing Cross Hospital?”
“From one or two friends there on the occasion of my marriage.”
“Dear, dear, that’s bad!” said Holmes, shaking his head.
Dr. Mortimer blinked through his glasses in mild astonishment.
“Why was it bad?”
“Only that you have disarranged our little deductions. Your
marriage, you say?”
“Yes, sir. I married, and so left the hospital, and with it all
hopes of a consulting practice. It was necessary to make a home
of my own.”
“Come, come, we are not so far wrong, after all,” said Holmes.
“And now, Dr. James Mortimer—”
“Mister, sir, Mister—a humble M.R.C.S.”
“And a man of precise mind, evidently.”
“A dabbler in science, Mr. Holmes, a picker up of shells on the
shores of the great unknown ocean. I presume that it is Mr.
Sherlock Holmes whom I am addressing and not—”
“No, this is my friend Dr. Watson.”
“Glad to meet you, sir. I have heard your name mentioned in
connection with that of your friend. You interest me very much,
Mr. Holmes. I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or
such well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any
objection to my running my finger along your parietal fissure? A
cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would
be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my
intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.”
Sherlock Holmes waved our strange visitor into a chair. “You are
an enthusiast in your line of thought, I perceive, sir, as I am
in mine,” said he. “I observe from your forefinger that you make
your own cigarettes. Have no hesitation in lighting one.”
The man drew out paper and tobacco and twirled the one up in the
other with surprising dexterity. He had long, quivering fingers
as agile and restless as the antennæ of an insect.
Holmes was silent, but his little darting glances showed me the
interest which he took in our curious companion. “I presume,
sir,” said he at last, “that it was not merely for the purpose of
examining my skull that you have done me the honour to call here
last night and again today?”
“No, sir, no; though I am happy to have had the opportunity of
doing that as well. I came to you, Mr. Holmes, because I
recognized that I am myself an unpractical man and because I am
suddenly confronted with a most serious and extraordinary
problem. Recognizing, as I do, that you are the second highest
expert in Europe—”
“Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?”
asked Holmes with some asperity.
“To the man of precisely scientific mind the work of Monsieur
Bertillon must always appeal strongly.”
“Then had you not better consult him?”
“I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. But as a
practical man of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone.
I trust, sir, that I have not inadvertently—”
“Just a little,” said Holmes. “I think, Dr. Mortimer, you would
do wisely if without more ado you would kindly tell me plainly
what the exact nature of the problem is in which you demand my
assistance.”
Chapter 2.
The Curse of the Baskervilles
“I have in my pocket a manuscript,” said Dr. James Mortimer.
“I observed it as you entered the room,” said Holmes.
“It is an old manuscript.”
“Early eighteenth century, unless it is a forgery.”
“How can you say that, sir?”
“You have presented an inch or two of it to my examination all
the time that you have been talking. It would be a poor expert
who could not give the date of a document within a decade or so.
You may possibly have read my little monograph upon the subject.
I put that at 1730.”
“The exact date is 1742.” Dr. Mortimer drew it from his
breast-pocket. “This family paper was committed to my care by Sir
Charles Baskerville, whose sudden and tragic death some three
months ago created so much excitement in Devonshire. I may say
that I was his personal friend as well as his medical attendant.
He was a strong-minded man, sir, shrewd, practical, and as
unimaginative as I am myself. Yet he took this document very
seriously, and his mind was prepared for just such an end as did
eventually overtake him.”
Holmes stretched out his hand for the manuscript and flattened it
upon his knee. “You will observe, Watson, the alternative use of
the long _s_ and the short. It is one of several indications
which enabled me to fix the date.”
I looked over his shoulder at the yellow paper and the faded
script. At the head was written: “Baskerville Hall,” and below in
large, scrawling figures: “1742.”
“It appears to be a statement of some sort.”
“Yes, it is a statement of a certain legend which runs in the
Baskerville family.”
“But I understand that it is something more modern and practical
upon which you wish to consult me?”
“Most modern. A most practical, pressing matter, which must be
decided within twenty-four hours. But the manuscript is short and
is intimately connected with the affair. With your permission I
will read it to you.”
Holmes leaned back in his chair, placed his finger-tips together,
and closed his eyes, with an air of resignation. Dr. Mortimer
turned the manuscript to the light and read in a high, cracking
voice the following curious, old-world narrative:
“Of the origin of the Hound of the Baskervilles there have been
many statements, yet as I come in a direct line from Hugo
Baskerville, and as I had the story from my father, who also
had it from his, I have set it down with all belief that it
occurred even as is here set forth. And I would have you
believe, my sons, that the same Justice which punishes sin may
also most graciously forgive it, and that no ban is so heavy
but that by prayer and repentance it may be removed. Learn
then from this story not to fear the fruits of the past, but
rather to be circumspect in the future, that those foul
passions whereby our family has suffered so grievously may not
again be loosed to our undoing.
“Know then that in the time of the Great Rebellion (the
history of which by the learned Lord Clarendon I most
earnestly commend to your attention) this Manor of
Baskerville was held by Hugo of that name, nor can it be
gainsaid that he was a most wild, profane, and godless man.
This, in truth, his neighbours might have pardoned, seeing
that saints have never flourished in those parts, but there
was in him a certain wanton and cruel humour which made his
name a by-word through the West. It chanced that this Hugo
came to love (if, indeed, so dark a passion may be known
under so bright a name) the daughter of a yeoman who held
lands near the Baskerville estate. But the young maiden,
being discreet and of good repute, would ever avoid him,
for she feared his evil name. So it came to pass that one
Michaelmas this Hugo, with five or six of his idle and
wicked companions, stole down upon the farm and carried off
the maiden, her father and brothers being from home, as he
well knew. When they had brought her to the Hall the
maiden was placed in an upper chamber, while Hugo and his
friends sat down to a long carouse, as was their nightly
custom. Now, the poor lass upstairs was like to have her
wits turned at the singing and shouting and terrible oaths
which came up to her from below, for they say that the
words used by Hugo Baskerville, when he was in wine, were
such as might blast the man who said them. At last in the
stress of her fear she did that which might have daunted
the bravest or most active man, for by the aid of the
growth of ivy which covered (and still covers) the south
wall she came down from under the eaves, and so homeward
across the moor, there being three leagues betwixt the Hall
and her father’s farm.
“It chanced that some little time later Hugo left his
guests to carry food and drink—with other worse things,
perchance—to his captive, and so found the cage empty and
the bird escaped. Then, as it would seem, he became as one
that hath a devil, for, rushing down the stairs into the
dining-hall, he sprang upon the great table, flagons and
trenchers flying before him, and he cried aloud before all
the company that he would that very night render his body
and soul to the Powers of Evil if he might but overtake the
wench. And while the revellers stood aghast at the fury of
the man, one more wicked or, it may be, more drunken than
the rest, cried out that they should put the hounds upon
her. Whereat Hugo ran from the house, crying to his grooms
that they should saddle his mare and unkennel the pack, and
giving the hounds a kerchief of the maid’s, he swung them
to the line, and so off full cry in the moonlight over the
moor.
“Now, for some space the revellers stood agape, unable to
understand all that had been done in such haste. But anon
their bemused wits awoke to the nature of the deed which
was like to be done upon the moorlands. Everything was now
in an uproar, some calling for their pistols, some for
their horses, and some for another flask of wine. But at
length some sense came back to their crazed minds, and the
whole of them, thirteen in number, took horse and started
in pursuit. The moon shone clear above them, and they rode
swiftly abreast, taking that course which the maid must
needs have taken if she were to reach her own home.
“They had gone a mile or two when they passed one of the
night shepherds upon the moorlands, and they cried to him
to know if he had seen the hunt. And the man, as the story
goes, was so crazed with fear that he could scarce speak,
but at last he said that he had indeed seen the unhappy
maiden, with the hounds upon her track. ‘But I have seen
more than that,’ said he, ‘for Hugo Baskerville passed me
upon his black mare, and there ran mute behind him such a
hound of hell as God forbid should ever be at my heels.’
So the drunken squires cursed the shepherd and rode onward.
But soon their skins turned cold, for there came a
galloping across the moor, and the black mare, dabbled with
white froth, went past with trailing bridle and empty
saddle. Then the revellers rode close together, for a
great fear was on them, but they still followed over the
moor, though each, had he been alone, would have been right
glad to have turned his horse’s head. Riding slowly in
this fashion they came at last upon the hounds. These,
though known for their valour and their breed, were
whimpering in a cluster at the head of a deep dip or goyal,
as we call it, upon the moor, some slinking away and some,
with starting hackles and staring eyes, gazing down the
narrow valley before them.
“The company had come to a halt, more sober men, as you may
guess, than when they started. The most of them would by
no means advance, but three of them, the boldest, or it may
be the most drunken, rode forward down the goyal. Now, it
opened into a broad space in which stood two of those great
stones, still to be seen there, which were set by certain
forgotten peoples in the days of old. The moon was shining
bright upon the clearing, and there in the centre lay the
unhappy maid where she had fallen, dead of fear and of
fatigue. But it was not the sight of her body, nor yet was
it that of the body of Hugo Baskerville lying near her,
which raised the hair upon the heads of these three
dare-devil roysterers, but it was that, standing over Hugo,
and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing, a
great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than
any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon. And even
as they looked the thing tore the throat out of Hugo
Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and
dripping jaws upon them, the three shrieked with fear and
rode for dear life, still screaming, across the moor. One,
it is said, died that very night of what he had seen, and
the other twain were but broken men for the rest of their
days.
“Such is the tale, my sons, of the coming of the hound
which is said to have plagued the family so sorely ever
since. If I have set it down it is because that which is
clearly known hath less terror than that which is but
hinted at and guessed. Nor can it be denied that many of
the family have been unhappy in their deaths, which have
been sudden, bloody, and mysterious. Yet may we shelter
ourselves in the infinite goodness of Providence, which
would not forever punish the innocent beyond that third or
fourth generation which is threatened in Holy Writ. To
that Providence, my sons, I hereby commend you, and I
counsel you by way of caution to forbear from crossing the
moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are
exalted.
“[This from Hugo Baskerville to his sons Rodger and John,
with instructions that they say nothing thereof to their
sister Elizabeth.]”
When Dr. Mortimer had finished reading this singular narrative he
pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and stared across at Mr.
Sherlock Holmes. The latter yawned and tossed the end of his
cigarette into the fire.
“Well?” said he.
“Do you not find it interesting?”
“To a collector of fairy tales.”
Dr. Mortimer drew a folded newspaper out of his pocket.
“Now, Mr. Holmes, we will give you something a little more
recent. This is the _Devon County Chronicle_ of May 14th of this
year. It is a short account of the facts elicited at the death of
Sir Charles Baskerville which occurred a few days before that
date.”
My friend leaned a little forward and his expression became
intent. Our visitor readjusted his glasses and began:
“The recent sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville, whose name
has been mentioned as the probable Liberal candidate for
Mid-Devon at the next election, has cast a gloom over the
county. Though Sir Charles had resided at Baskerville Hall for
a comparatively short period his amiability of character and
extreme generosity had won the affection and respect of all who
had been brought into contact with him. In these days of
_nouveaux riches_ it is refreshing to find a case where the
scion of an old county family which has fallen upon evil days
is able to make his own fortune and to bring it back with him
to restore the fallen grandeur of his line. Sir Charles, as is
well known, made large sums of money in South African
speculation. More wise than those who go on until the wheel
turns against them, he realised his gains and returned to
England with them. It is only two years since he took up his
residence at Baskerville Hall, and it is common talk how large
were those schemes of reconstruction and improvement which have
been interrupted by his death. Being himself childless, it was
his openly expressed desire that the whole countryside should,
within his own lifetime, profit by his good fortune, and many
will have personal reasons for bewailing his untimely end. His
generous donations to local and county charities have been
frequently chronicled in these columns.
“The circumstances connected with the death of Sir Charles
cannot be said to have been entirely cleared up by the
inquest, but at least enough has been done to dispose of
those rumours to which local superstition has given rise.
There is no reason whatever to suspect foul play, or to
imagine that death could be from any but natural causes.
Sir Charles was a widower, and a man who may be said to
have been in some ways of an eccentric habit of mind. In
spite of his considerable wealth he was simple in his
personal tastes, and his indoor servants at Baskerville
Hall consisted of a married couple named Barrymore, the
husband acting as butler and the wife as housekeeper. Their
evidence, corroborated by that of several friends, tends to
show that Sir Charles’s health has for some time been
impaired, and points especially to some affection of the
heart, manifesting itself in changes of colour,
breathlessness, and acute attacks of nervous depression.
Dr. James Mortimer, the friend and medical attendant of the
deceased, has given evidence to the same effect.
“The facts of the case are simple. Sir Charles Baskerville
was in the habit every night before going to bed of walking
down the famous yew alley of Baskerville Hall. The
evidence of the Barrymores shows that this had been his
custom. On the fourth of May Sir Charles had declared his
intention of starting next day for London, and had ordered
Barrymore to prepare his luggage. That night he went out
as usual for his nocturnal walk, in the course of which he
was in the habit of smoking a cigar. He never returned.
At twelve o’clock Barrymore, finding the hall door still
open, became alarmed, and, lighting a lantern, went in
search of his master. The day had been wet, and Sir
Charles’s footmarks were easily traced down the alley.
Halfway down this walk there is a gate which leads out on
to the moor. There were indications that Sir Charles had
stood for some little time here. He then proceeded down
the alley, and it was at the far end of it that his body
was discovered. One fact which has not been explained is
the statement of Barrymore that his master’s footprints
altered their character from the time that he passed the
moor-gate, and that he appeared from thence onward to have
been walking upon his toes. One Murphy, a gipsy
horse-dealer, was on the moor at no great distance at the
time, but he appears by his own confession to have been the
worse for drink. He declares that he heard cries but is
unable to state from what direction they came. No signs of
violence were to be discovered upon Sir Charles’s person,
and though the doctor’s evidence pointed to an almost
incredible facial distortion—so great that Dr. Mortimer
refused at first to believe that it was indeed his friend
and patient who lay before him—it was explained that that
is a symptom which is not unusual in cases of dyspnœa and
death from cardiac exhaustion. This explanation was borne
out by the post-mortem examination, which showed
long-standing organic disease, and the coroner’s jury
returned a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence.
It is well that this is so, for it is obviously of the
utmost importance that Sir Charles’s heir should settle at
the Hall and continue the good work which has been so sadly
interrupted. Had the prosaic finding of the coroner not
finally put an end to the romantic stories which have been
whispered in connection with the affair, it might have been
difficult to find a tenant for Baskerville Hall. It is
understood that the next of kin is Mr. Henry Baskerville,
if he be still alive, the son of Sir Charles Baskerville’s
younger brother. The young man when last heard of was in
America, and inquiries are being instituted with a view to
informing him of his good fortune.”
Dr. Mortimer refolded his paper and replaced it in his pocket.
“Those are the public facts, Mr. Holmes, in connection with the
death of Sir Charles Baskerville.”
“I must thank you,” said Sherlock Holmes, “for calling my
attention to a case which certainly presents some features of
interest. I had observed some newspaper comment at the time, but
I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the
Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch
with several interesting English cases. This article, you say,
contains all the public facts?”
“It does.”
“Then let me have the private ones.” He leaned back, put his
finger-tips together, and assumed his most impassive and judicial
expression.
“In doing so,” said Dr. Mortimer, who had begun to show signs of
some strong emotion, “I am telling that which I have not confided
to anyone. My motive for withholding it from the coroner’s
inquiry is that a man of science shrinks from placing himself in
the public position of seeming to indorse a popular superstition.
I had the further motive that Baskerville Hall, as the paper
says, would certainly remain untenanted if anything were done to
increase its already rather grim reputation. For both these
reasons I thought that I was justified in telling rather less
than I knew, since no practical good could result from it, but
with you there is no reason why I should not be perfectly frank.
“The moor is very sparsely inhabited, and those who live near
each other are thrown very much together. For this reason I saw a
good deal of Sir Charles Baskerville. With the exception of Mr.
Frankland, of Lafter Hall, and Mr. Stapleton, the naturalist,
there are no other men of education within many miles. Sir
Charles was a retiring man, but the chance of his illness brought
us together, and a community of interests in science kept us so.
He had brought back much scientific information from South
Africa, and many a charming evening we have spent together
discussing the comparative anatomy of the Bushman and the
Hottentot.
“Within the last few months it became increasingly plain to me
that Sir Charles’s nervous system was strained to the breaking
point. He had taken this legend which I have read you exceedingly
to heart—so much so that, although he would walk in his own
grounds, nothing would induce him to go out upon the moor at
night. Incredible as it may appear to you, Mr. Holmes, he was
honestly convinced that a dreadful fate overhung his family, and
certainly the records which he was able to give of his ancestors
were not encouraging. The idea of some ghastly presence
constantly haunted him, and on more than one occasion he has
asked me whether I had on my medical journeys at night ever seen
any strange creature or heard the baying of a hound. The latter
question he put to me several times, and always with a voice
which vibrated with excitement.
“I can well remember driving up to his house in the evening some
three weeks before the fatal event. He chanced to be at his hall
door. I had descended from my gig and was standing in front of
him, when I saw his eyes fix themselves over my shoulder and
stare past me with an expression of the most dreadful horror. I
whisked round and had just time to catch a glimpse of something
which I took to be a large black calf passing at the head of the
drive. So excited and alarmed was he that I was compelled to go
down to the spot where the animal had been and look around for
it. It was gone, however, and the incident appeared to make the
worst impression upon his mind. I stayed with him all the
evening, and it was on that occasion, to explain the emotion
which he had shown, that he confided to my keeping that narrative
which I read to you when first I came. I mention this small
episode because it assumes some importance in view of the tragedy
which followed, but I was convinced at the time that the matter
was entirely trivial and that his excitement had no
justification.
“It was at my advice that Sir Charles was about to go to London.
His heart was, I knew, affected, and the constant anxiety in
which he lived, however chimerical the cause of it might be, was
evidently having a serious effect upon his health. I thought that
a few months among the distractions of town would send him back a
new man. Mr. Stapleton, a mutual friend who was much concerned at
his state of health, was of the same opinion. At the last instant
came this terrible catastrophe.
“On the night of Sir Charles’s death Barrymore the butler, who
made the discovery, sent Perkins the groom on horseback to me,
and as I was sitting up late I was able to reach Baskerville Hall
within an hour of the event. I checked and corroborated all the
facts which were mentioned at the inquest. I followed the
footsteps down the yew alley, I saw the spot at the moor-gate
where he seemed to have waited, I remarked the change in the
shape of the prints after that point, I noted that there were no
other footsteps save those of Barrymore on the soft gravel, and
finally I carefully examined the body, which had not been touched
until my arrival. Sir Charles lay on his face, his arms out, his
fingers dug into the ground, and his features convulsed with some
strong emotion to such an extent that I could hardly have sworn
to his identity. There was certainly no physical injury of any
kind. But one false statement was made by Barrymore at the
inquest. He said that there were no traces upon the ground round
the body. He did not observe any. But I did—some little distance
off, but fresh and clear.”
“Footprints?”
“Footprints.”
“A man’s or a woman’s?”
Dr. Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice
sank almost to a whisper as he answered.
“Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”
Chapter 3.
The Problem
I confess at these words a shudder passed through me. There was a
thrill in the doctor’s voice which showed that he was himself
deeply moved by that which he told us. Holmes leaned forward in
his excitement and his eyes had the hard, dry glitter which shot
from them when he was keenly interested.
“You saw this?”
“As clearly as I see you.”
“And you said nothing?”
“What was the use?”
“How was it that no one else saw it?”
“The marks were some twenty yards from the body and no one gave
them a thought. I don’t suppose I should have done so had I not
known this legend.”
“There are many sheep-dogs on the moor?”
“No doubt, but this was no sheep-dog.”
“You say it was large?”
“Enormous.”
“But it had not approached the body?”
“No.”
“What sort of night was it?’
“Damp and raw.”
“But not actually raining?”
“No.”
“What is the alley like?”
“There are two lines of old yew hedge, twelve feet high and
impenetrable. The walk in the centre is about eight feet across.”
“Is there anything between the hedges and the walk?”
“Yes, there is a strip of grass about six feet broad on either
side.”
“I understand that the yew hedge is penetrated at one point by a
gate?”
“Yes, the wicket-gate which leads on to the moor.”
“Is there any other opening?”
“None.”
“So that to reach the yew alley one either has to come down it
from the house or else to enter it by the moor-gate?”
“There is an exit through a summer-house at the far end.”
“Had Sir Charles reached this?”
“No; he lay about fifty yards from it.”
“Now, tell me, Dr. Mortimer—and this is important—the marks which
you saw were on the path and not on the grass?”
“No marks could show on the grass.”
“Were they on the same side of the path as the moor-gate?”
“Yes; they were on the edge of the path on the same side as the
moor-gate.”
“You interest me exceedingly. Another point. Was the wicket-gate
closed?”
“Closed and padlocked.”
“How high was it?”
“About four feet high.”
“Then anyone could have got over it?”
“Yes.”
“And what marks did you see by the wicket-gate?”
“None in particular.”
“Good heaven! Did no one examine?”
“Yes, I examined, myself.”
“And found nothing?”
“It was all very confused. Sir Charles had evidently stood there
for five or ten minutes.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the ash had twice dropped from his cigar.”
“Excellent! This is a colleague, Watson, after our own heart. But
the marks?”
“He had left his own marks all over that small patch of gravel. I
could discern no others.”
Sherlock Holmes struck his hand against his knee with an
impatient gesture.
“If I had only been there!” he cried. “It is evidently a case of
extraordinary interest, and one which presented immense
opportunities to the scientific expert. That gravel page upon
which I might have read so much has been long ere this smudged by
the rain and defaced by the clogs of curious peasants. Oh, Dr.
Mortimer, Dr. Mortimer, to think that you should not have called
me in! You have indeed much to answer for.”
“I could not call you in, Mr. Holmes, without disclosing these
facts to the world, and I have already given my reasons for not
wishing to do so. Besides, besides—”
“Why do you hesitate?”
“There is a realm in which the most acute and most experienced of
detectives is helpless.”
“You mean that the thing is supernatural?”
“I did not positively say so.”
“No, but you evidently think it.”
“Since the tragedy, Mr. Holmes, there have come to my ears
several incidents which are hard to reconcile with the settled
order of Nature.”
“For example?”
“I find that before the terrible event occurred several people
had seen a creature upon the moor which corresponds with this
Baskerville demon, and which could not possibly be any animal
known to science. They all agreed that it was a huge creature,
luminous, ghastly, and spectral. I have cross-examined these men,
one of them a hard-headed countryman, one a farrier, and one a
moorland farmer, who all tell the same story of this dreadful
apparition, exactly corresponding to the hell-hound of the
legend. I assure you that there is a reign of terror in the
district, and that it is a hardy man who will cross the moor at
night.”
“And you, a trained man of science, believe it to be
supernatural?”
“I do not know what to believe.”
Holmes shrugged his shoulders. “I have hitherto confined my
investigations to this world,” said he. “In a modest way I have
combated evil, but to take on the Father of Evil himself would,
perhaps, be too ambitious a task. Yet you must admit that the
footmark is material.”
“The original hound was material enough to tug a man’s throat
out, and yet he was diabolical as well.”
“I see that you have quite gone over to the supernaturalists. But
now, Dr. Mortimer, tell me this. If you hold these views, why
have you come to consult me at all? You tell me in the same
breath that it is useless to investigate Sir Charles’s death, and
that you desire me to do it.”
“I did not say that I desired you to do it.”
“Then, how can I assist you?”
“By advising me as to what I should do with Sir Henry
Baskerville, who arrives at Waterloo Station”—Dr. Mortimer looked
at his watch—“in exactly one hour and a quarter.”
“He being the heir?”
“Yes. On the death of Sir Charles we inquired for this young
gentleman and found that he had been farming in Canada. From the
accounts which have reached us he is an excellent fellow in every
way. I speak now not as a medical man but as a trustee and
executor of Sir Charles’s will.”
“There is no other claimant, I presume?”
“None. The only other kinsman whom we have been able to trace was
Rodger Baskerville, the youngest of three brothers of whom poor
Sir Charles was the elder. The second brother, who died young, is
the father of this lad Henry. The third, Rodger, was the black
sheep of the family. He came of the old masterful Baskerville
strain and was the very image, they tell me, of the family
picture of old Hugo. He made England too hot to hold him, fled to
Central America, and died there in 1876 of yellow fever. Henry is
the last of the Baskervilles. In one hour and five minutes I meet
him at Waterloo Station. I have had a wire that he arrived at
Southampton this morning. Now, Mr. Holmes, what would you advise
me to do with him?”
“Why should he not go to the home of his fathers?”
“It seems natural, does it not? And yet, consider that every
Baskerville who goes there meets with an evil fate. I feel sure
that if Sir Charles could have spoken with me before his death he
would have warned me against bringing this, the last of the old
race, and the heir to great wealth, to that deadly place. And yet
it cannot be denied that the prosperity of the whole poor, bleak
countryside depends upon his presence. All the good work which
has been done by Sir Charles will crash to the ground if there is
no tenant of the Hall. I fear lest I should be swayed too much by
my own obvious interest in the matter, and that is why I bring
the case before you and ask for your advice.”
Holmes considered for a little time.
“Put into plain words, the matter is this,” said he. “In your
opinion there is a diabolical agency which makes Dartmoor an
unsafe abode for a Baskerville—that is your opinion?”
“At least I might go the length of saying that there is some
evidence that this may be so.”
“Exactly. But surely, if your supernatural theory be correct, it
could work the young man evil in London as easily as in
Devonshire. A devil with merely local powers like a parish vestry
would be too inconceivable a thing.”
“You put the matter more flippantly, Mr. Holmes, than you would
probably do if you were brought into personal contact with these
things. Your advice, then, as I understand it, is that the young
man will be as safe in Devonshire as in London. He comes in fifty
minutes. What would you recommend?”
“I recommend, sir, that you take a cab, call off your spaniel who
is scratching at my front door, and proceed to Waterloo to meet
Sir Henry Baskerville.”
“And then?”
“And then you will say nothing to him at all until I have made up
my mind about the matter.”
“How long will it take you to make up your mind?”
“Twenty-four hours. At ten o’clock tomorrow, Dr. Mortimer, I will
be much obliged to you if you will call upon me here, and it will
be of help to me in my plans for the future if you will bring Sir
Henry Baskerville with you.”
“I will do so, Mr. Holmes.” He scribbled the appointment on his
shirt-cuff and hurried off in his strange, peering, absent-minded
fashion. Holmes stopped him at the head of the stair.
“Only one more question, Dr. Mortimer. You say that before Sir
Charles Baskerville’s death several people saw this apparition
upon the moor?”
“Three people did.”
“Did any see it after?”
“I have not heard of any.”
“Thank you. Good-morning.”
Holmes returned to his seat with that quiet look of inward
satisfaction which meant that he had a congenial task before him.
“Going out, Watson?”
“Unless I can help you.”
“No, my dear fellow, it is at the hour of action that I turn to
you for aid. But this is splendid, really unique from some points
of view. When you pass Bradley’s, would you ask him to send up a
pound of the strongest shag tobacco? Thank you. It would be as
well if you could make it convenient not to return before
evening. Then I should be very glad to compare impressions as to
this most interesting problem which has been submitted to us this
morning.”
I knew that seclusion and solitude were very necessary for my
friend in those hours of intense mental concentration during
which he weighed every particle of evidence, constructed
alternative theories, balanced one against the other, and made up
his mind as to which points were essential and which immaterial.
I therefore spent the day at my club and did not return to Baker
Street until evening. It was nearly nine o’clock when I found
myself in the sitting-room once more.
My first impression as I opened the door was that a fire had
broken out, for the room was so filled with smoke that the light
of the lamp upon the table was blurred by it. As I entered,
however, my fears were set at rest, for it was the acrid fumes of
strong coarse tobacco which took me by the throat and set me
coughing. Through the haze I had a vague vision of Holmes in his
dressing-gown coiled up in an armchair with his black clay pipe
between his lips. Several rolls of paper lay around him.
“Caught cold, Watson?” said he.
“No, it’s this poisonous atmosphere.”
“I suppose it _is_ pretty thick, now that you mention it.”
“Thick! It is intolerable.”
“Open the window, then! You have been at your club all day, I
perceive.”
“My dear Holmes!”
“Am I right?”
“Certainly, but how?”
He laughed at my bewildered expression. “There is a delightful
freshness about you, Watson, which makes it a pleasure to
exercise any small powers which I possess at your expense. A
gentleman goes forth on a showery and miry day. He returns
immaculate in the evening with the gloss still on his hat and his
boots. He has been a fixture therefore all day. He is not a man
with intimate friends. Where, then, could he have been? Is it not
obvious?”
“Well, it is rather obvious.”
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance
ever observes. Where do you think that I have been?”
“A fixture also.”
“On the contrary, I have been to Devonshire.”
“In spirit?”
“Exactly. My body has remained in this armchair and has, I regret
to observe, consumed in my absence two large pots of coffee and
an incredible amount of tobacco. After you left I sent down to
Stamford’s for the Ordnance map of this portion of the moor, and
my spirit has hovered over it all day. I flatter myself that I
could find my way about.”
“A large-scale map, I presume?”
“Very large.”
He unrolled one section and held it over his knee. “Here you have
the particular district which concerns us. That is Baskerville
Hall in the middle.”
“With a wood round it?”
“Exactly. I fancy the yew alley, though not marked under that
name, must stretch along this line, with the moor, as you
perceive, upon the right of it. This small clump of buildings
here is the hamlet of Grimpen, where our friend Dr. Mortimer has
his headquarters. Within a radius of five miles there are, as you
see, only a very few scattered dwellings. Here is Lafter Hall,
which was mentioned in the narrative. There is a house indicated
here which may be the residence of the naturalist—Stapleton, if I
remember right, was his name. Here are two moorland farmhouses,
High Tor and Foulmire. Then fourteen miles away the great convict
prison of Princetown. Between and around these scattered points
extends the desolate, lifeless moor. This, then, is the stage
upon which tragedy has been played, and upon which we may help to
play it again.”
“It must be a wild place.”
“Yes, the setting is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to
have a hand in the affairs of men—”
“Then you are yourself inclining to the supernatural
explanation.”
“The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?
There are two questions waiting for us at the outset. The one is
whether any crime has been committed at all; the second is, what
is the crime and how was it committed? Of course, if Dr.
Mortimer’s surmise should be correct, and we are dealing with
forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of
our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other
hypotheses before falling back upon this one. I think we’ll shut
that window again, if you don’t mind. It is a singular thing, but
I find that a concentrated atmosphere helps a concentration of
thought. I have not pushed it to the length of getting into a box
to think, but that is the logical outcome of my convictions. Have
you turned the case over in your mind?”
“Yes, I have thought a good deal of it in the course of the day.”
“What do you make of it?”
“It is very bewildering.”
“It has certainly a character of its own. There are points of
distinction about it. That change in the footprints, for example.
What do you make of that?”
“Mortimer said that the man had walked on tiptoe down that
portion of the alley.”
“He only repeated what some fool had said at the inquest. Why
should a man walk on tiptoe down the alley?”
“What then?”
“He was running, Watson—running desperately, running for his
life, running until he burst his heart—and fell dead upon his
face.”
“Running from what?”
“There lies our problem. There are indications that the man was
crazed with fear before ever he began to run.”
“How can you say that?”
“I am presuming that the cause of his fears came to him across
the moor. If that were so, and it seems most probable, only a man
who had lost his wits would have run _from_ the house instead of
towards it. If the gipsy’s evidence may be taken as true, he ran
with cries for help in the direction where help was least likely
to be. Then, again, whom was he waiting for that night, and why
was he waiting for him in the yew alley rather than in his own
house?”
“You think that he was waiting for someone?”
“The man was elderly and infirm. We can understand his taking an
evening stroll, but the ground was damp and the night inclement.
Is it natural that he should stand for five or ten minutes, as
Dr. Mortimer, with more practical sense than I should have given
him credit for, deduced from the cigar ash?”
“But he went out every evening.”
“I think it unlikely that he waited at the moor-gate every
evening. On the contrary, the evidence is that he avoided the
moor. That night he waited there. It was the night before he made
his departure for London. The thing takes shape, Watson. It
becomes coherent. Might I ask you to hand me my violin, and we
will postpone all further thought upon this business until we
have had the advantage of meeting Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry
Baskerville in the morning.”
Chapter 4.
Sir Henry Baskerville
Our breakfast table was cleared early, and Holmes waited in his
dressing-gown for the promised interview. Our clients were
punctual to their appointment, for the clock had just struck ten
when Dr. Mortimer was shown up, followed by the young baronet.
The latter was a small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years
of age, very sturdily built, with thick black eyebrows and a
strong, pugnacious face. He wore a ruddy-tinted tweed suit and
had the weather-beaten appearance of one who has spent most of
his time in the open air, and yet there was something in his
steady eye and the quiet assurance of his bearing which indicated
the gentleman.
“This is Sir Henry Baskerville,” said Dr. Mortimer.
“Why, yes,” said he, “and the strange thing is, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes, that if my friend here had not proposed coming round to
you this morning I should have come on my own account. I
understand that you think out little puzzles, and I’ve had one
this morning which wants more thinking out than I am able to give
it.”
“Pray take a seat, Sir Henry. Do I understand you to say that you
have yourself had some remarkable experience since you arrived in
London?”
“Nothing of much importance, Mr. Holmes. Only a joke, as like as
not. It was this letter, if you can call it a letter, which
reached me this morning.”
He laid an envelope upon the table, and we all bent over it. It
was of common quality, greyish in colour. The address, “Sir Henry
Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel,” was printed in rough
characters; the post-mark “Charing Cross,” and the date of
posting the preceding evening.
“Who knew that you were going to the Northumberland Hotel?” asked
Holmes, glancing keenly across at our visitor.
“No one could have known. We only decided after I met Dr.
Mortimer.”
“But Dr. Mortimer was no doubt already stopping there?”
“No, I had been staying with a friend,” said the doctor.
“There was no possible indication that we intended to go to this
hotel.”
“Hum! Someone seems to be very deeply interested in your
movements.” Out of the envelope he took a half-sheet of foolscap
paper folded into four. This he opened and spread flat upon the
table. Across the middle of it a single sentence had been formed
by the expedient of pasting printed words upon it. It ran:
As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor.
The word “moor” only was printed in ink.
“Now,” said Sir Henry Baskerville, “perhaps you will tell me, Mr.
Holmes, what in thunder is the meaning of that, and who it is
that takes so much interest in my affairs?”
“What do you make of it, Dr. Mortimer? You must allow that there
is nothing supernatural about this, at any rate?”
“No, sir, but it might very well come from someone who was
convinced that the business is supernatural.”
“What business?” asked Sir Henry sharply. “It seems to me that
all you gentlemen know a great deal more than I do about my own
affairs.”
“You shall share our knowledge before you leave this room, Sir
Henry. I promise you that,” said Sherlock Holmes. “We will
confine ourselves for the present with your permission to this
very interesting document, which must have been put together and
posted yesterday evening. Have you yesterday’s _Times_, Watson?”
“It is here in the corner.”
“Might I trouble you for it—the inside page, please, with the
leading articles?” He glanced swiftly over it, running his eyes
up and down the columns. “Capital article this on free trade.
Permit me to give you an extract from it.
‘You may be cajoled into imagining that your own special trade or
your own industry will be encouraged by a protective tariff, but
it stands to reason that such legislation must in the long run
keep away wealth from the country, diminish the value of our
imports, and lower the general conditions of life in this island.’
“What do you think of that, Watson?” cried Holmes in high glee,
rubbing his hands together with satisfaction. “Don’t you think
that is an admirable sentiment?”
Dr. Mortimer looked at Holmes with an air of professional
interest, and Sir Henry Baskerville turned a pair of puzzled dark
eyes upon me.
“I don’t know much about the tariff and things of that kind,”
said he, “but it seems to me we’ve got a bit off the trail so far
as that note is concerned.”
“On the contrary, I think we are particularly hot upon the trail,
Sir Henry. Watson here knows more about my methods than you do,
but I fear that even he has not quite grasped the significance of
this sentence.”
“No, I confess that I see no connection.”
“And yet, my dear Watson, there is so very close a connection
that the one is extracted out of the other. ‘You,’ ‘your,’
‘your,’ ‘life,’ ‘reason,’ ‘value,’ ‘keep away,’ ‘from the.’ Don’t
you see now whence these words have been taken?”
“By thunder, you’re right! Well, if that isn’t smart!” cried Sir
Henry.
“If any possible doubt remained it is settled by the fact that
‘keep away’ and ‘from the’ are cut out in one piece.”
“Well, now—so it is!”
“Really, Mr. Holmes, this exceeds anything which I could have
imagined,” said Dr. Mortimer, gazing at my friend in amazement.
“I could understand anyone saying that the words were from a
newspaper; but that you should name which, and add that it came
from the leading article, is really one of the most remarkable
things which I have ever known. How did you do it?”
“I presume, Doctor, that you could tell the skull of a negro from
that of an Esquimau?”
“Most certainly.”
“But how?”
“Because that is my special hobby. The differences are obvious.
The supra-orbital crest, the facial angle, the maxillary curve,
the—”
“But this is my special hobby, and the differences are equally
obvious. There is as much difference to my eyes between the
leaded bourgeois type of a _Times_ article and the slovenly print
of an evening half-penny paper as there could be between your
negro and your Esquimau. The detection of types is one of the
most elementary branches of knowledge to the special expert in
crime, though I confess that once when I was very young I
confused the _Leeds Mercury_ with the _Western Morning News_. But
a _Times_ leader is entirely distinctive, and these words could
have been taken from nothing else. As it was done yesterday the
strong probability was that we should find the words in
yesterday’s issue.”
“So far as I can follow you, then, Mr. Holmes,” said Sir Henry
Baskerville, “someone cut out this message with a scissors—”
“Nail-scissors,” said Holmes. “You can see that it was a very
short-bladed scissors, since the cutter had to take two snips
over ‘keep away.’”
“That is so. Someone, then, cut out the message with a pair of
short-bladed scissors, pasted it with paste—”
“Gum,” said Holmes.
“With gum on to the paper. But I want to know why the word ‘moor’
should have been written?”
“Because he could not find it in print. The other words were all
simple and might be found in any issue, but ‘moor’ would be less
common.”
“Why, of course, that would explain it. Have you read anything
else in this message, Mr. Holmes?”
“There are one or two indications, and yet the utmost pains have
been taken to remove all clues. The address, you observe is
printed in rough characters. But the _Times_ is a paper which is
seldom found in any hands but those of the highly educated. We
may take it, therefore, that the letter was composed by an
educated man who wished to pose as an uneducated one, and his
effort to conceal his own writing suggests that that writing
might be known, or come to be known, by you. Again, you will
observe that the words are not gummed on in an accurate line, but
that some are much higher than others. ‘Life,’ for example is
quite out of its proper place. That may point to carelessness or
it may point to agitation and hurry upon the part of the cutter.
On the whole I incline to the latter view, since the matter was
evidently important, and it is unlikely that the composer of such
a letter would be careless. If he were in a hurry it opens up the
interesting question why he should be in a hurry, since any
letter posted up to early morning would reach Sir Henry before he
would leave his hotel. Did the composer fear an interruption—and
from whom?”
“We are coming now rather into the region of guesswork,” said Dr.
Mortimer.
“Say, rather, into the region where we balance probabilities and
choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the
imagination, but we have always some material basis on which to
start our speculation. Now, you would call it a guess, no doubt,
but I am almost certain that this address has been written in a
hotel.”
“How in the world can you say that?”
“If you examine it carefully you will see that both the pen and
the ink have given the writer trouble. The pen has spluttered
twice in a single word and has run dry three times in a short
address, showing that there was very little ink in the bottle.
Now, a private pen or ink-bottle is seldom allowed to be in such
a state, and the combination of the two must be quite rare. But
you know the hotel ink and the hotel pen, where it is rare to get
anything else. Yes, I have very little hesitation in saying that
could we examine the waste-paper baskets of the hotels around
Charing Cross until we found the remains of the mutilated _Times_
leader we could lay our hands straight upon the person who sent
this singular message. Halloa! Halloa! What’s this?”
He was carefully examining the foolscap, upon which the words
were pasted, holding it only an inch or two from his eyes.
“Well?”
“Nothing,” said he, throwing it down. “It is a blank half-sheet
of paper, without even a water-mark upon it. I think we have
drawn as much as we can from this curious letter; and now, Sir
Henry, has anything else of interest happened to you since you
have been in London?”
“Why, no, Mr. Holmes. I think not.”
“You have not observed anyone follow or watch you?”
“I seem to have walked right into the thick of a dime novel,”
said our visitor. “Why in thunder should anyone follow or watch
me?”
“We are coming to that. You have nothing else to report to us
before we go into this matter?”
“Well, it depends upon what you think worth reporting.”
“I think anything out of the ordinary routine of life well worth
reporting.”
Sir Henry smiled. “I don’t know much of British life yet, for I
have spent nearly all my time in the States and in Canada. But I
hope that to lose one of your boots is not part of the ordinary
routine of life over here.”
“You have lost one of your boots?”
“My dear sir,” cried Dr. Mortimer, “it is only mislaid. You will
find it when you return to the hotel. What is the use of
troubling Mr. Holmes with trifles of this kind?”
“Well, he asked me for anything outside the ordinary routine.”
“Exactly,” said Holmes, “however foolish the incident may seem.
You have lost one of your boots, you say?”
“Well, mislaid it, anyhow. I put them both outside my door last
night, and there was only one in the morning. I could get no
sense out of the chap who cleans them. The worst of it is that I
only bought the pair last night in the Strand, and I have never
had them on.”
“If you have never worn them, why did you put them out to be
cleaned?”
“They were tan boots and had never been varnished. That was why I
put them out.”
“Then I understand that on your arrival in London yesterday you
went out at once and bought a pair of boots?”
“I did a good deal of shopping. Dr. Mortimer here went round with
me. You see, if I am to be squire down there I must dress the
part, and it may be that I have got a little careless in my ways
out West. Among other things I bought these brown boots—gave six
dollars for them—and had one stolen before ever I had them on my
feet.”
“It seems a singularly useless thing to steal,” said Sherlock
Holmes. “I confess that I share Dr. Mortimer’s belief that it
will not be long before the missing boot is found.”
“And, now, gentlemen,” said the baronet with decision, “it seems
to me that I have spoken quite enough about the little that I
know. It is time that you kept your promise and gave me a full
account of what we are all driving at.”
“Your request is a very reasonable one,” Holmes answered. “Dr.
Mortimer, I think you could not do better than to tell your story
as you told it to us.”
Thus encouraged, our scientific friend drew his papers from his
pocket and presented the whole case as he had done upon the
morning before. Sir Henry Baskerville listened with the deepest
attention and with an occasional exclamation of surprise.
“Well, I seem to have come into an inheritance with a vengeance,”
said he when the long narrative was finished. “Of course, I’ve
heard of the hound ever since I was in the nursery. It’s the pet
story of the family, though I never thought of taking it
seriously before. But as to my uncle’s death—well, it all seems
boiling up in my head, and I can’t get it clear yet. You don’t
seem quite to have made up your mind whether it’s a case for a
policeman or a clergyman.”
“Precisely.”
“And now there’s this affair of the letter to me at the hotel. I
suppose that fits into its place.”
“It seems to show that someone knows more than we do about what
goes on upon the moor,” said Dr. Mortimer.
“And also,” said Holmes, “that someone is not ill-disposed
towards you, since they warn you of danger.”
“Or it may be that they wish, for their own purposes, to scare me
away.”
“Well, of course, that is possible also. I am very much indebted
to you, Dr. Mortimer, for introducing me to a problem which
presents several interesting alternatives. But the practical
point which we now have to decide, Sir Henry, is whether it is or
is not advisable for you to go to Baskerville Hall.”
“Why should I not go?”
“There seems to be danger.”
“Do you mean danger from this family fiend or do you mean danger
from human beings?”
“Well, that is what we have to find out.”
“Whichever it is, my answer is fixed. There is no devil in hell,
Mr. Holmes, and there is no man upon earth who can prevent me
from going to the home of my own people, and you may take that to
be my final answer.” His dark brows knitted and his face flushed
to a dusky red as he spoke. It was evident that the fiery temper
of the Baskervilles was not extinct in this their last
representative. “Meanwhile,” said he, “I have hardly had time to
think over all that you have told me. It’s a big thing for a man
to have to understand and to decide at one sitting. I should like
to have a quiet hour by myself to make up my mind. Now, look
here, Mr. Holmes, it’s half-past eleven now and I am going back
right away to my hotel. Suppose you and your friend, Dr. Watson,
come round and lunch with us at two. I’ll be able to tell you
more clearly then how this thing strikes me.”
“Is that convenient to you, Watson?”
“Perfectly.”
“Then you may expect us. Shall I have a cab called?”
“I’d prefer to walk, for this affair has flurried me rather.”
“I’ll join you in a walk, with pleasure,” said his companion.
“Then we meet again at two o’clock. Au revoir, and good-morning!”
We heard the steps of our visitors descend the stair and the bang
of the front door. In an instant Holmes had changed from the
languid dreamer to the man of action.
“Your hat and boots, Watson, quick! Not a moment to lose!” He
rushed into his room in his dressing-gown and was back again in a
few seconds in a frock-coat. We hurried together down the stairs
and into the street. Dr. Mortimer and Baskerville were still
visible about two hundred yards ahead of us in the direction of
Oxford Street.
“Shall I run on and stop them?”
“Not for the world, my dear Watson. I am perfectly satisfied with
your company if you will tolerate mine. Our friends are wise, for
it is certainly a very fine morning for a walk.”
He quickened his pace until we had decreased the distance which
divided us by about half. Then, still keeping a hundred yards
behind, we followed into Oxford Street and so down Regent Street.
Once our friends stopped and stared into a shop window, upon
which Holmes did the same. An instant afterwards he gave a little
cry of satisfaction, and, following the direction of his eager
eyes, I saw that a hansom cab with a man inside which had halted
on the other side of the street was now proceeding slowly onward
again.
“There’s our man, Watson! Come along! We’ll have a good look at
him, if we can do no more.”
At that instant I was aware of a bushy black beard and a pair of
piercing eyes turned upon us through the side window of the cab.
Instantly the trapdoor at the top flew up, something was screamed
to the driver, and the cab flew madly off down Regent Street.
Holmes looked eagerly round for another, but no empty one was in
sight. Then he dashed in wild pursuit amid the stream of the
traffic, but the start was too great, and already the cab was out
of sight.
“There now!” said Holmes bitterly as he emerged panting and white
with vexation from the tide of vehicles. “Was ever such bad luck
and such bad management, too? Watson, Watson, if you are an
honest man you will record this also and set it against my
successes!”
“Who was the man?”
“I have not an idea.”
“A spy?”
“Well, it was evident from what we have heard that Baskerville
has been very closely shadowed by someone since he has been in
town. How else could it be known so quickly that it was the
Northumberland Hotel which he had chosen? If they had followed
him the first day I argued that they would follow him also the
second. You may have observed that I twice strolled over to the
window while Dr. Mortimer was reading his legend.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“I was looking out for loiterers in the street, but I saw none.
We are dealing with a clever man, Watson. This matter cuts very
deep, and though I have not finally made up my mind whether it is
a benevolent or a malevolent agency which is in touch with us, I
am conscious always of power and design. When our friends left I
at once followed them in the hopes of marking down their
invisible attendant. So wily was he that he had not trusted
himself upon foot, but he had availed himself of a cab so that he
could loiter behind or dash past them and so escape their notice.
His method had the additional advantage that if they were to take
a cab he was all ready to follow them. It has, however, one
obvious disadvantage.”
“It puts him in the power of the cabman.”
“Exactly.”
“What a pity we did not get the number!”
“My dear Watson, clumsy as I have been, you surely do not
seriously imagine that I neglected to get the number? No. 2704 is
our man. But that is no use to us for the moment.”
“I fail to see how you could have done more.”
“On observing the cab I should have instantly turned and walked
in the other direction. I should then at my leisure have hired a
second cab and followed the first at a respectful distance, or,
better still, have driven to the Northumberland Hotel and waited
there. When our unknown had followed Baskerville home we should
have had the opportunity of playing his own game upon himself and
seeing where he made for. As it is, by an indiscreet eagerness,
which was taken advantage of with extraordinary quickness and
energy by our opponent, we have betrayed ourselves and lost our
man.”
We had been sauntering slowly down Regent Street during this
conversation, and Dr. Mortimer, with his companion, had long
vanished in front of us.
“There is no object in our following them,” said Holmes. “The
shadow has departed and will not return. We must see what further
cards we have in our hands and play them with decision. Could you
swear to that man’s face within the cab?”
“I could swear only to the beard.”
“And so could I—from which I gather that in all probability it
was a false one. A clever man upon so delicate an errand has no
use for a beard save to conceal his features. Come in here,
Watson!”
He turned into one of the district messenger offices, where he
was warmly greeted by the manager.
“Ah, Wilson, I see you have not forgotten the little case in
which I had the good fortune to help you?”
“No, sir, indeed I have not. You saved my good name, and perhaps
my life.”
“My dear fellow, you exaggerate. I have some recollection,
Wilson, that you had among your boys a lad named Cartwright, who
showed some ability during the investigation.”
“Yes, sir, he is still with us.”
“Could you ring him up?—thank you! And I should be glad to have
change of this five-pound note.”
A lad of fourteen, with a bright, keen face, had obeyed the
summons of the manager. He stood now gazing with great reverence
at the famous detective.
“Let me have the Hotel Directory,” said Holmes. “Thank you! Now,
Cartwright, there are the names of twenty-three hotels here, all
in the immediate neighbourhood of Charing Cross. Do you see?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will visit each of these in turn.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will begin in each case by giving the outside porter one
shilling. Here are twenty-three shillings.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will tell him that you want to see the waste-paper of
yesterday. You will say that an important telegram has miscarried
and that you are looking for it. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But what you are really looking for is the centre page of the
_Times_ with some holes cut in it with scissors. Here is a copy
of the _Times_. It is this page. You could easily recognize it,
could you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In each case the outside porter will send for the hall porter,
to whom also you will give a shilling. Here are twenty-three
shillings. You will then learn in possibly twenty cases out of
the twenty-three that the waste of the day before has been burned
or removed. In the three other cases you will be shown a heap of
paper and you will look for this page of the _Times_ among it.
The odds are enormously against your finding it. There are ten
shillings over in case of emergencies. Let me have a report by
wire at Baker Street before evening. And now, Watson, it only
remains for us to find out by wire the identity of the cabman,
No. 2704, and then we will drop into one of the Bond Street
picture galleries and fill in the time until we are due at the
hotel.”
Chapter 5.
Three Broken Threads
Sherlock Holmes had, in a very remarkable degree, the power of
detaching his mind at will. For two hours the strange business in
which we had been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he was
entirely absorbed in the pictures of the modern Belgian masters.
He would talk of nothing but art, of which he had the crudest
ideas, from our leaving the gallery until we found ourselves at
the Northumberland Hotel.
“Sir Henry Baskerville is upstairs expecting you,” said the
clerk. “He asked me to show you up at once when you came.”
“Have you any objection to my looking at your register?” said
Holmes.
“Not in the least.”
The book showed that two names had been added after that of
Baskerville. One was Theophilus Johnson and family, of Newcastle;
the other Mrs. Oldmore and maid, of High Lodge, Alton.
“Surely that must be the same Johnson whom I used to know,” said
Holmes to the porter. “A lawyer, is he not, grey-headed, and
walks with a limp?”
“No, sir, this is Mr. Johnson, the coal-owner, a very active
gentleman, not older than yourself.”
“Surely you are mistaken about his trade?”
“No, sir! he has used this hotel for many years, and he is very
well known to us.”
“Ah, that settles it. Mrs. Oldmore, too; I seem to remember the
name. Excuse my curiosity, but often in calling upon one friend
one finds another.”
“She is an invalid lady, sir. Her husband was once mayor of
Gloucester. She always comes to us when she is in town.”
“Thank you; I am afraid I cannot claim her acquaintance. We have
established a most important fact by these questions, Watson,” he
continued in a low voice as we went upstairs together. “We know
now that the people who are so interested in our friend have not
settled down in his own hotel. That means that while they are, as
we have seen, very anxious to watch him, they are equally anxious
that he should not see them. Now, this is a most suggestive
fact.”
“What does it suggest?”
“It suggests—halloa, my dear fellow, what on earth is the
matter?”
As we came round the top of the stairs we had run up against Sir
Henry Baskerville himself. His face was flushed with anger, and
he held an old and dusty boot in one of his hands. So furious was
he that he was hardly articulate, and when he did speak it was in
a much broader and more Western dialect than any which we had
heard from him in the morning.
“Seems to me they are playing me for a sucker in this hotel,” he
cried. “They’ll find they’ve started in to monkey with the wrong
man unless they are careful. By thunder, if that chap can’t find
my missing boot there will be trouble. I can take a joke with the
best, Mr. Holmes, but they’ve got a bit over the mark this time.”
“Still looking for your boot?”
“Yes, sir, and mean to find it.”
“But, surely, you said that it was a new brown boot?”
“So it was, sir. And now it’s an old black one.”
“What! you don’t mean to say—?”
“That’s just what I do mean to say. I only had three pairs in the
world—the new brown, the old black, and the patent leathers,
which I am wearing. Last night they took one of my brown ones,
and today they have sneaked one of the black. Well, have you got
it? Speak out, man, and don’t stand staring!”
An agitated German waiter had appeared upon the scene.
“No, sir; I have made inquiry all over the hotel, but I can hear
no word of it.”
“Well, either that boot comes back before sundown or I’ll see the
manager and tell him that I go right straight out of this hotel.”
“It shall be found, sir—I promise you that if you will have a
little patience it will be found.”
“Mind it is, for it’s the last thing of mine that I’ll lose in
this den of thieves. Well, well, Mr. Holmes, you’ll excuse my
troubling you about such a trifle—”
“I think it’s well worth troubling about.”
“Why, you look very serious over it.”
“How do you explain it?”
“I just don’t attempt to explain it. It seems the very maddest,
queerest thing that ever happened to me.”
“The queerest perhaps—” said Holmes thoughtfully.
“What do you make of it yourself?”
“Well, I don’t profess to understand it yet. This case of yours
is very complex, Sir Henry. When taken in conjunction with your
uncle’s death I am not sure that of all the five hundred cases of
capital importance which I have handled there is one which cuts
so deep. But we hold several threads in our hands, and the odds
are that one or other of them guides us to the truth. We may
waste time in following the wrong one, but sooner or later we
must come upon the right.”
We had a pleasant luncheon in which little was said of the
business which had brought us together. It was in the private
sitting-room to which we afterwards repaired that Holmes asked
Baskerville what were his intentions.
“To go to Baskerville Hall.”
“And when?”
“At the end of the week.”
“On the whole,” said Holmes, “I think that your decision is a
wise one. I have ample evidence that you are being dogged in
London, and amid the millions of this great city it is difficult
to discover who these people are or what their object can be. If
their intentions are evil they might do you a mischief, and we
should be powerless to prevent it. You did not know, Dr.
Mortimer, that you were followed this morning from my house?”
Dr. Mortimer started violently. “Followed! By whom?”
“That, unfortunately, is what I cannot tell you. Have you among
your neighbours or acquaintances on Dartmoor any man with a
black, full beard?”
“No—or, let me see—why, yes. Barrymore, Sir Charles’s butler, is
a man with a full, black beard.”
“Ha! Where is Barrymore?”
“He is in charge of the Hall.”
“We had best ascertain if he is really there, or if by any
possibility he might be in London.”
“How can you do that?”
“Give me a telegraph form. ‘Is all ready for Sir Henry?’ That
will do. Address to Mr. Barrymore, Baskerville Hall. What is the
nearest telegraph-office? Grimpen. Very good, we will send a
second wire to the postmaster, Grimpen: ‘Telegram to Mr.
Barrymore to be delivered into his own hand. If absent, please
return wire to Sir Henry Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel.’ That
should let us know before evening whether Barrymore is at his
post in Devonshire or not.”
“That’s so,” said Baskerville. “By the way, Dr. Mortimer, who is
this Barrymore, anyhow?”
“He is the son of the old caretaker, who is dead. They have
looked after the Hall for four generations now. So far as I know,
he and his wife are as respectable a couple as any in the
county.”
“At the same time,” said Baskerville, “it’s clear enough that so
long as there are none of the family at the Hall these people
have a mighty fine home and nothing to do.”
“That is true.”
“Did Barrymore profit at all by Sir Charles’s will?” asked
Holmes.
“He and his wife had five hundred pounds each.”
“Ha! Did they know that they would receive this?”
“Yes; Sir Charles was very fond of talking about the provisions
of his will.”
“That is very interesting.”
“I hope,” said Dr. Mortimer, “that you do not look with
suspicious eyes upon everyone who received a legacy from Sir
Charles, for I also had a thousand pounds left to me.”
“Indeed! And anyone else?”
“There were many insignificant sums to individuals, and a large
number of public charities. The residue all went to Sir Henry.”
“And how much was the residue?”
“Seven hundred and forty thousand pounds.”
Holmes raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I had no idea that so
gigantic a sum was involved,” said he.
“Sir Charles had the reputation of being rich, but we did not
know how very rich he was until we came to examine his
securities. The total value of the estate was close on to a
million.”
“Dear me! It is a stake for which a man might well play a
desperate game. And one more question, Dr. Mortimer. Supposing
that anything happened to our young friend here—you will forgive
the unpleasant hypothesis!—who would inherit the estate?”
“Since Rodger Baskerville, Sir Charles’s younger brother died
unmarried, the estate would descend to the Desmonds, who are
distant cousins. James Desmond is an elderly clergyman in
Westmoreland.”
“Thank you. These details are all of great interest. Have you met
Mr. James Desmond?”
“Yes; he once came down to visit Sir Charles. He is a man of
venerable appearance and of saintly life. I remember that he
refused to accept any settlement from Sir Charles, though he
pressed it upon him.”
“And this man of simple tastes would be the heir to Sir Charles’s
thousands.”
“He would be the heir to the estate because that is entailed. He
would also be the heir to the money unless it were willed
otherwise by the present owner, who can, of course, do what he
likes with it.”
“And have you made your will, Sir Henry?”
“No, Mr. Holmes, I have not. I’ve had no time, for it was only
yesterday that I learned how matters stood. But in any case I
feel that the money should go with the title and estate. That was
my poor uncle’s idea. How is the owner going to restore the
glories of the Baskervilles if he has not money enough to keep up
the property? House, land, and dollars must go together.”
“Quite so. Well, Sir Henry, I am of one mind with you as to the
advisability of your going down to Devonshire without delay.
There is only one provision which I must make. You certainly must
not go alone.”
“Dr. Mortimer returns with me.”
“But Dr. Mortimer has his practice to attend to, and his house is
miles away from yours. With all the goodwill in the world he may
be unable to help you. No, Sir Henry, you must take with you
someone, a trusty man, who will be always by your side.”
“Is it possible that you could come yourself, Mr. Holmes?”
“If matters came to a crisis I should endeavour to be present in
person; but you can understand that, with my extensive consulting
practice and with the constant appeals which reach me from many
quarters, it is impossible for me to be absent from London for an
indefinite time. At the present instant one of the most revered
names in England is being besmirched by a blackmailer, and only I
can stop a disastrous scandal. You will see how impossible it is
for me to go to Dartmoor.”
“Whom would you recommend, then?”
Holmes laid his hand upon my arm. “If my friend would undertake
it there is no man who is better worth having at your side when
you are in a tight place. No one can say so more confidently than
I.”
The proposition took me completely by surprise, but before I had
time to answer, Baskerville seized me by the hand and wrung it
heartily.
“Well, now, that is real kind of you, Dr. Watson,” said he. “You
see how it is with me, and you know just as much about the matter
as I do. If you will come down to Baskerville Hall and see me
through I’ll never forget it.”
The promise of adventure had always a fascination for me, and I
was complimented by the words of Holmes and by the eagerness with
which the baronet hailed me as a companion.
“I will come, with pleasure,” said I. “I do not know how I could
employ my time better.”
“And you will report very carefully to me,” said Holmes. “When a
crisis comes, as it will do, I will direct how you shall act. I
suppose that by Saturday all might be ready?”
“Would that suit Dr. Watson?”
“Perfectly.”
“Then on Saturday, unless you hear to the contrary, we shall meet
at the ten-thirty train from Paddington.”
We had risen to depart when Baskerville gave a cry of triumph,
and diving into one of the corners of the room he drew a brown
boot from under a cabinet.
“My missing boot!” he cried.
“May all our difficulties vanish as easily!” said Sherlock
Holmes.
“But it is a very singular thing,” Dr. Mortimer remarked. “I
searched this room carefully before lunch.”
“And so did I,” said Baskerville. “Every inch of it.”
“There was certainly no boot in it then.”
“In that case the waiter must have placed it there while we were
lunching.”
The German was sent for but professed to know nothing of the
matter, nor could any inquiry clear it up. Another item had been
added to that constant and apparently purposeless series of small
mysteries which had succeeded each other so rapidly. Setting
aside the whole grim story of Sir Charles’s death, we had a line
of inexplicable incidents all within the limits of two days,
which included the receipt of the printed letter, the
black-bearded spy in the hansom, the loss of the new brown boot,
the loss of the old black boot, and now the return of the new
brown boot. Holmes sat in silence in the cab as we drove back to
Baker Street, and I knew from his drawn brows and keen face that
his mind, like my own, was busy in endeavouring to frame some
scheme into which all these strange and apparently disconnected
episodes could be fitted. All afternoon and late into the evening
he sat lost in tobacco and thought.
Just before dinner two telegrams were handed in. The first ran:
Have just heard that Barrymore is at the Hall. BASKERVILLE.
The second:
Visited twenty-three hotels as directed, but sorry to report
unable to trace cut sheet of _Times_. CARTWRIGHT.
“There go two of my threads, Watson. There is nothing more
stimulating than a case where everything goes against you. We
must cast round for another scent.”
“We have still the cabman who drove the spy.”
“Exactly. I have wired to get his name and address from the
Official Registry. I should not be surprised if this were an
answer to my question.”
The ring at the bell proved to be something even more
satisfactory than an answer, however, for the door opened and a
rough-looking fellow entered who was evidently the man himself.
“I got a message from the head office that a gent at this address
had been inquiring for No. 2704,” said he. “I’ve driven my cab
this seven years and never a word of complaint. I came here
straight from the Yard to ask you to your face what you had
against me.”
“I have nothing in the world against you, my good man,” said
Holmes. “On the contrary, I have half a sovereign for you if you
will give me a clear answer to my questions.”
“Well, I’ve had a good day and no mistake,” said the cabman with
a grin. “What was it you wanted to ask, sir?”
“First of all your name and address, in case I want you again.”
“John Clayton, 3 Turpey Street, the Borough. My cab is out of
Shipley’s Yard, near Waterloo Station.”
Sherlock Holmes made a note of it.
“Now, Clayton, tell me all about the fare who came and watched
this house at ten o’clock this morning and afterwards followed
the two gentlemen down Regent Street.”
The man looked surprised and a little embarrassed. “Why, there’s
no good my telling you things, for you seem to know as much as I
do already,” said he. “The truth is that the gentleman told me
that he was a detective and that I was to say nothing about him
to anyone.”
“My good fellow; this is a very serious business, and you may
find yourself in a pretty bad position if you try to hide
anything from me. You say that your fare told you that he was a
detective?”
“Yes, he did.”
“When did he say this?”
“When he left me.”
“Did he say anything more?”
“He mentioned his name.”
Holmes cast a swift glance of triumph at me. “Oh, he mentioned
his name, did he? That was imprudent. What was the name that he
mentioned?”
“His name,” said the cabman, “was Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”
Never have I seen my friend more completely taken aback than by
the cabman’s reply. For an instant he sat in silent amazement.
Then he burst into a hearty laugh.
“A touch, Watson—an undeniable touch!” said he. “I feel a foil as
quick and supple as my own. He got home upon me very prettily
that time. So his name was Sherlock Holmes, was it?”
“Yes, sir, that was the gentleman’s name.”
“Excellent! Tell me where you picked him up and all that
occurred.”
“He hailed me at half-past nine in Trafalgar Square. He said that
he was a detective, and he offered me two guineas if I would do
exactly what he wanted all day and ask no questions. I was glad
enough to agree. First we drove down to the Northumberland Hotel
and waited there until two gentlemen came out and took a cab from
the rank. We followed their cab until it pulled up somewhere near
here.”
“This very door,” said Holmes.
“Well, I couldn’t be sure of that, but I dare say my fare knew
all about it. We pulled up halfway down the street and waited an
hour and a half. Then the two gentlemen passed us, walking, and
we followed down Baker Street and along—”
“I know,” said Holmes.
“Until we got three-quarters down Regent Street. Then my
gentleman threw up the trap, and he cried that I should drive
right away to Waterloo Station as hard as I could go. I whipped
up the mare and we were there under the ten minutes. Then he paid
up his two guineas, like a good one, and away he went into the
station. Only just as he was leaving he turned round and he said:
‘It might interest you to know that you have been driving Mr.
Sherlock Holmes.’ That’s how I come to know the name.”
“I see. And you saw no more of him?”
“Not after he went into the station.”
“And how would you describe Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
The cabman scratched his head. “Well, he wasn’t altogether such
an easy gentleman to describe. I’d put him at forty years of age,
and he was of a middle height, two or three inches shorter than
you, sir. He was dressed like a toff, and he had a black beard,
cut square at the end, and a pale face. I don’t know as I could
say more than that.”
“Colour of his eyes?”
“No, I can’t say that.”
“Nothing more that you can remember?”
“No, sir; nothing.”
“Well, then, here is your half-sovereign. There’s another one
waiting for you if you can bring any more information.
Good-night!”
“Good-night, sir, and thank you!”
John Clayton departed chuckling, and Holmes turned to me with a
shrug of his shoulders and a rueful smile.
“Snap goes our third thread, and we end where we began,” said he.
“The cunning rascal! He knew our number, knew that Sir Henry
Baskerville had consulted me, spotted who I was in Regent Street,
conjectured that I had got the number of the cab and would lay my
hands on the driver, and so sent back this audacious message. I
tell you, Watson, this time we have got a foeman who is worthy of
our steel. I’ve been checkmated in London. I can only wish you
better luck in Devonshire. But I’m not easy in my mind about it.”
“About what?”
“About sending you. It’s an ugly business, Watson, an ugly
dangerous business, and the more I see of it the less I like it.
Yes, my dear fellow, you may laugh, but I give you my word that I
shall be very glad to have you back safe and sound in Baker
Street once more.”
Chapter 6.
Baskerville Hall
Sir Henry Baskerville and Dr. Mortimer were ready upon the
appointed day, and we started as arranged for Devonshire. Mr.
Sherlock Holmes drove with me to the station and gave me his last
parting injunctions and advice.
“I will not bias your mind by suggesting theories or suspicions,
Watson,” said he; “I wish you simply to report facts in the
fullest possible manner to me, and you can leave me to do the
theorizing.”
“What sort of facts?” I asked.
“Anything which may seem to have a bearing however indirect upon
the case, and especially the relations between young Baskerville
and his neighbours or any fresh particulars concerning the death
of Sir Charles. I have made some inquiries myself in the last few
days, but the results have, I fear, been negative. One thing only
appears to be certain, and that is that Mr. James Desmond, who is
the next heir, is an elderly gentleman of a very amiable
disposition, so that this persecution does not arise from him. I
really think that we may eliminate him entirely from our
calculations. There remain the people who will actually surround
Sir Henry Baskerville upon the moor.”
“Would it not be well in the first place to get rid of this
Barrymore couple?”
“By no means. You could not make a greater mistake. If they are
innocent it would be a cruel injustice, and if they are guilty we
should be giving up all chance of bringing it home to them. No,
no, we will preserve them upon our list of suspects. Then there
is a groom at the Hall, if I remember right. There are two
moorland farmers. There is our friend Dr. Mortimer, whom I
believe to be entirely honest, and there is his wife, of whom we
know nothing. There is this naturalist, Stapleton, and there is
his sister, who is said to be a young lady of attractions. There
is Mr. Frankland, of Lafter Hall, who is also an unknown factor,
and there are one or two other neighbours. These are the folk who
must be your very special study.”
“I will do my best.”
“You have arms, I suppose?”
“Yes, I thought it as well to take them.”
“Most certainly. Keep your revolver near you night and day, and
never relax your precautions.”
Our friends had already secured a first-class carriage and were
waiting for us upon the platform.
“No, we have no news of any kind,” said Dr. Mortimer in answer to
my friend’s questions. “I can swear to one thing, and that is
that we have not been shadowed during the last two days. We have
never gone out without keeping a sharp watch, and no one could
have escaped our notice.”
“You have always kept together, I presume?”
“Except yesterday afternoon. I usually give up one day to pure
amusement when I come to town, so I spent it at the Museum of the
College of Surgeons.”
“And I went to look at the folk in the park,” said Baskerville.
“But we had no trouble of any kind.”
“It was imprudent, all the same,” said Holmes, shaking his head
and looking very grave. “I beg, Sir Henry, that you will not go
about alone. Some great misfortune will befall you if you do. Did
you get your other boot?”
“No, sir, it is gone forever.”
“Indeed. That is very interesting. Well, good-bye,” he added as
the train began to glide down the platform. “Bear in mind, Sir
Henry, one of the phrases in that queer old legend which Dr.
Mortimer has read to us, and avoid the moor in those hours of
darkness when the powers of evil are exalted.”
I looked back at the platform when we had left it far behind and
saw the tall, austere figure of Holmes standing motionless and
gazing after us.
The journey was a swift and pleasant one, and I spent it in
making the more intimate acquaintance of my two companions and in
playing with Dr. Mortimer’s spaniel. In a very few hours the
brown earth had become ruddy, the brick had changed to granite,
and red cows grazed in well-hedged fields where the lush grasses
and more luxuriant vegetation spoke of a richer, if a damper,
climate. Young Baskerville stared eagerly out of the window and
cried aloud with delight as he recognized the familiar features
of the Devon scenery.
“I’ve been over a good part of the world since I left it, Dr.
Watson,” said he; “but I have never seen a place to compare with
it.”
“I never saw a Devonshire man who did not swear by his county,” I
remarked.
“It depends upon the breed of men quite as much as on the
county,” said Dr. Mortimer. “A glance at our friend here reveals
the rounded head of the Celt, which carries inside it the Celtic
enthusiasm and power of attachment. Poor Sir Charles’s head was
of a very rare type, half Gaelic, half Ivernian in its
characteristics. But you were very young when you last saw
Baskerville Hall, were you not?”
“I was a boy in my teens at the time of my father’s death and had
never seen the Hall, for he lived in a little cottage on the
South Coast. Thence I went straight to a friend in America. I
tell you it is all as new to me as it is to Dr. Watson, and I’m
as keen as possible to see the moor.”
“Are you? Then your wish is easily granted, for there is your
first sight of the moor,” said Dr. Mortimer, pointing out of the
carriage window.
Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood
there rose in the distance a grey, melancholy hill, with a
strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some
fantastic landscape in a dream. Baskerville sat for a long time,
his eyes fixed upon it, and I read upon his eager face how much
it meant to him, this first sight of that strange spot where the
men of his blood had held sway so long and left their mark so
deep. There he sat, with his tweed suit and his American accent,
in the corner of a prosaic railway-carriage, and yet as I looked
at his dark and expressive face I felt more than ever how true a
descendant he was of that long line of high-blooded, fiery, and
masterful men. There were pride, valour, and strength in his
thick brows, his sensitive nostrils, and his large hazel eyes. If
on that forbidding moor a difficult and dangerous quest should
lie before us, this was at least a comrade for whom one might
venture to take a risk with the certainty that he would bravely
share it.
The train pulled up at a small wayside station and we all
descended. Outside, beyond the low, white fence, a wagonette with
a pair of cobs was waiting. Our coming was evidently a great
event, for station-master and porters clustered round us to carry
out our luggage. It was a sweet, simple country spot, but I was
surprised to observe that by the gate there stood two soldierly
men in dark uniforms who leaned upon their short rifles and
glanced keenly at us as we passed. The coachman, a hard-faced,
gnarled little fellow, saluted Sir Henry Baskerville, and in a
few minutes we were flying swiftly down the broad, white road.
Rolling pasture lands curved upward on either side of us, and old
gabled houses peeped out from amid the thick green foliage, but
behind the peaceful and sunlit countryside there rose ever, dark
against the evening sky, the long, gloomy curve of the moor,
broken by the jagged and sinister hills.
The wagonette swung round into a side road, and we curved upward
through deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, high banks on
either side, heavy with dripping moss and fleshy hart’s-tongue
ferns. Bronzing bracken and mottled bramble gleamed in the light
of the sinking sun. Still steadily rising, we passed over a
narrow granite bridge and skirted a noisy stream which gushed
swiftly down, foaming and roaring amid the grey boulders. Both
road and stream wound up through a valley dense with scrub oak
and fir. At every turn Baskerville gave an exclamation of
delight, looking eagerly about him and asking countless
questions. To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of
melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the
mark of the waning year. Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and
fluttered down upon us as we passed. The rattle of our wheels
died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation—sad
gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the
carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.
“Halloa!” cried Dr. Mortimer, “what is this?”
A steep curve of heath-clad land, an outlying spur of the moor,
lay in front of us. On the summit, hard and clear like an
equestrian statue upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark
and stern, his rifle poised ready over his forearm. He was
watching the road along which we travelled.
“What is this, Perkins?” asked Dr. Mortimer.
Our driver half turned in his seat. “There’s a convict escaped
from Princetown, sir. He’s been out three days now, and the
warders watch every road and every station, but they’ve had no
sight of him yet. The farmers about here don’t like it, sir, and
that’s a fact.”
“Well, I understand that they get five pounds if they can give
information.”
“Yes, sir, but the chance of five pounds is but a poor thing
compared to the chance of having your throat cut. You see, it
isn’t like any ordinary convict. This is a man that would stick
at nothing.”
“Who is he, then?”
“It is Selden, the Notting Hill murderer.”
I remembered the case well, for it was one in which Holmes had
taken an interest on account of the peculiar ferocity of the
crime and the wanton brutality which had marked all the actions
of the assassin. The commutation of his death sentence had been
due to some doubts as to his complete sanity, so atrocious was
his conduct. Our wagonette had topped a rise and in front of us
rose the huge expanse of the moor, mottled with gnarled and
craggy cairns and tors. A cold wind swept down from it and set us
shivering. Somewhere there, on that desolate plain, was lurking
this fiendish man, hiding in a burrow like a wild beast, his
heart full of malignancy against the whole race which had cast
him out. It needed but this to complete the grim suggestiveness
of the barren waste, the chilling wind, and the darkling sky.
Even Baskerville fell silent and pulled his overcoat more closely
around him.
We had left the fertile country behind and beneath us. We looked
back on it now, the slanting rays of a low sun turning the
streams to threads of gold and glowing on the red earth new
turned by the plough and the broad tangle of the woodlands. The
road in front of us grew bleaker and wilder over huge russet and
olive slopes, sprinkled with giant boulders. Now and then we
passed a moorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone, with no
creeper to break its harsh outline. Suddenly we looked down into
a cuplike depression, patched with stunted oaks and firs which
had been twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm. Two
high, narrow towers rose over the trees. The driver pointed with
his whip.
“Baskerville Hall,” said he.
Its master had risen and was staring with flushed cheeks and
shining eyes. A few minutes later we had reached the lodge-gates,
a maze of fantastic tracery in wrought iron, with weather-bitten
pillars on either side, blotched with lichens, and surmounted by
the boars’ heads of the Baskervilles. The lodge was a ruin of
black granite and bared ribs of rafters, but facing it was a new
building, half constructed, the first fruit of Sir Charles’s
South African gold.
Through the gateway we passed into the avenue, where the wheels
were again hushed amid the leaves, and the old trees shot their
branches in a sombre tunnel over our heads. Baskerville shuddered
as he looked up the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered
like a ghost at the farther end.
“Was it here?” he asked in a low voice.
“No, no, the yew alley is on the other side.”
The young heir glanced round with a gloomy face.
“It’s no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in
such a place as this,” said he. “It’s enough to scare any man.
I’ll have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months,
and you won’t know it again, with a thousand candle-power Swan
and Edison right here in front of the hall door.”
The avenue opened into a broad expanse of turf, and the house lay
before us. In the fading light I could see that the centre was a
heavy block of building from which a porch projected. The whole
front was draped in ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there
where a window or a coat of arms broke through the dark veil.
From this central block rose the twin towers, ancient,
crenelated, and pierced with many loopholes. To right and left of
the turrets were more modern wings of black granite. A dull light
shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys
which rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single
black column of smoke.
“Welcome, Sir Henry! Welcome to Baskerville Hall!”
A tall man had stepped from the shadow of the porch to open the
door of the wagonette. The figure of a woman was silhouetted
against the yellow light of the hall. She came out and helped the
man to hand down our bags.
“You don’t mind my driving straight home, Sir Henry?” said Dr.
Mortimer. “My wife is expecting me.”
“Surely you will stay and have some dinner?”
“No, I must go. I shall probably find some work awaiting me. I
would stay to show you over the house, but Barrymore will be a
better guide than I. Good-bye, and never hesitate night or day to
send for me if I can be of service.”
The wheels died away down the drive while Sir Henry and I turned
into the hall, and the door clanged heavily behind us. It was a
fine apartment in which we found ourselves, large, lofty, and
heavily raftered with huge baulks of age-blackened oak. In the
great old-fashioned fireplace behind the high iron dogs a
log-fire crackled and snapped. Sir Henry and I held out our hands
to it, for we were numb from our long drive. Then we gazed round
us at the high, thin window of old stained glass, the oak
panelling, the stags’ heads, the coats of arms upon the walls,
all dim and sombre in the subdued light of the central lamp.
“It’s just as I imagined it,” said Sir Henry. “Is it not the very
picture of an old family home? To think that this should be the
same hall in which for five hundred years my people have lived.
It strikes me solemn to think of it.”
I saw his dark face lit up with a boyish enthusiasm as he gazed
about him. The light beat upon him where he stood, but long
shadows trailed down the walls and hung like a black canopy above
him. Barrymore had returned from taking our luggage to our rooms.
He stood in front of us now with the subdued manner of a
well-trained servant. He was a remarkable-looking man, tall,
handsome, with a square black beard and pale, distinguished
features.
“Would you wish dinner to be served at once, sir?”
“Is it ready?”
“In a very few minutes, sir. You will find hot water in your
rooms. My wife and I will be happy, Sir Henry, to stay with you
until you have made your fresh arrangements, but you will
understand that under the new conditions this house will require
a considerable staff.”
“What new conditions?”
“I only meant, sir, that Sir Charles led a very retired life, and
we were able to look after his wants. You would, naturally, wish
to have more company, and so you will need changes in your
household.”
“Do you mean that your wife and you wish to leave?”
“Only when it is quite convenient to you, sir.”
“But your family have been with us for several generations, have
they not? I should be sorry to begin my life here by breaking an
old family connection.”
I seemed to discern some signs of emotion upon the butler’s white
face.
“I feel that also, sir, and so does my wife. But to tell the
truth, sir, we were both very much attached to Sir Charles, and
his death gave us a shock and made these surroundings very
painful to us. I fear that we shall never again be easy in our
minds at Baskerville Hall.”
“But what do you intend to do?”
“I have no doubt, sir, that we shall succeed in establishing
ourselves in some business. Sir Charles’s generosity has given us
the means to do so. And now, sir, perhaps I had best show you to
your rooms.”
A square balustraded gallery ran round the top of the old hall,
approached by a double stair. From this central point two long
corridors extended the whole length of the building, from which
all the bedrooms opened. My own was in the same wing as
Baskerville’s and almost next door to it. These rooms appeared to
be much more modern than the central part of the house, and the
bright paper and numerous candles did something to remove the
sombre impression which our arrival had left upon my mind.
But the dining-room which opened out of the hall was a place of
shadow and gloom. It was a long chamber with a step separating
the dais where the family sat from the lower portion reserved for
their dependents. At one end a minstrel’s gallery overlooked it.
Black beams shot across above our heads, with a smoke-darkened
ceiling beyond them. With rows of flaring torches to light it up,
and the colour and rude hilarity of an old-time banquet, it might
have softened; but now, when two black-clothed gentlemen sat in
the little circle of light thrown by a shaded lamp, one’s voice
became hushed and one’s spirit subdued. A dim line of ancestors,
in every variety of dress, from the Elizabethan knight to the
buck of the Regency, stared down upon us and daunted us by their
silent company. We talked little, and I for one was glad when the
meal was over and we were able to retire into the modern
billiard-room and smoke a cigarette.
“My word, it isn’t a very cheerful place,” said Sir Henry. “I
suppose one can tone down to it, but I feel a bit out of the
picture at present. I don’t wonder that my uncle got a little
jumpy if he lived all alone in such a house as this. However, if
it suits you, we will retire early tonight, and perhaps things
may seem more cheerful in the morning.”
I drew aside my curtains before I went to bed and looked out from
my window. It opened upon the grassy space which lay in front of
the hall door. Beyond, two copses of trees moaned and swung in a
rising wind. A half moon broke through the rifts of racing
clouds. In its cold light I saw beyond the trees a broken fringe
of rocks, and the long, low curve of the melancholy moor. I
closed the curtain, feeling that my last impression was in
keeping with the rest.
And yet it was not quite the last. I found myself weary and yet
wakeful, tossing restlessly from side to side, seeking for the
sleep which would not come. Far away a chiming clock struck out
the quarters of the hours, but otherwise a deathly silence lay
upon the old house. And then suddenly, in the very dead of the
night, there came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and
unmistakable. It was the sob of a woman, the muffled, strangling
gasp of one who is torn by an uncontrollable sorrow. I sat up in
bed and listened intently. The noise could not have been far away
and was certainly in the house. For half an hour I waited with
every nerve on the alert, but there came no other sound save the
chiming clock and the rustle of the ivy on the wall.
Chapter 7.
The Stapletons of Merripit House
The fresh beauty of the following morning did something to efface
from our minds the grim and grey impression which had been left
upon both of us by our first experience of Baskerville Hall. As
Sir Henry and I sat at breakfast the sunlight flooded in through
the high mullioned windows, throwing watery patches of colour
from the coats of arms which covered them. The dark panelling
glowed like bronze in the golden rays, and it was hard to realise
that this was indeed the chamber which had struck such a gloom
into our souls upon the evening before.
“I guess it is ourselves and not the house that we have to
blame!” said the baronet. “We were tired with our journey and
chilled by our drive, so we took a grey view of the place. Now we
are fresh and well, so it is all cheerful once more.”
“And yet it was not entirely a question of imagination,” I
answered. “Did you, for example, happen to hear someone, a woman
I think, sobbing in the night?”
“That is curious, for I did when I was half asleep fancy that I
heard something of the sort. I waited quite a time, but there was
no more of it, so I concluded that it was all a dream.”
“I heard it distinctly, and I am sure that it was really the sob
of a woman.”
“We must ask about this right away.” He rang the bell and asked
Barrymore whether he could account for our experience. It seemed
to me that the pallid features of the butler turned a shade paler
still as he listened to his master’s question.
“There are only two women in the house, Sir Henry,” he answered.
“One is the scullery-maid, who sleeps in the other wing. The
other is my wife, and I can answer for it that the sound could
not have come from her.”
And yet he lied as he said it, for it chanced that after
breakfast I met Mrs. Barrymore in the long corridor with the sun
full upon her face. She was a large, impassive, heavy-featured
woman with a stern set expression of mouth. But her telltale eyes
were red and glanced at me from between swollen lids. It was she,
then, who wept in the night, and if she did so her husband must
know it. Yet he had taken the obvious risk of discovery in
declaring that it was not so. Why had he done this? And why did
she weep so bitterly? Already round this pale-faced, handsome,
black-bearded man there was gathering an atmosphere of mystery
and of gloom. It was he who had been the first to discover the
body of Sir Charles, and we had only his word for all the
circumstances which led up to the old man’s death. Was it
possible that it was Barrymore, after all, whom we had seen in
the cab in Regent Street? The beard might well have been the
same. The cabman had described a somewhat shorter man, but such
an impression might easily have been erroneous. How could I
settle the point forever? Obviously the first thing to do was to
see the Grimpen postmaster and find whether the test telegram had
really been placed in Barrymore’s own hands. Be the answer what
it might, I should at least have something to report to Sherlock
Holmes.
Sir Henry had numerous papers to examine after breakfast, so that
the time was propitious for my excursion. It was a pleasant walk
of four miles along the edge of the moor, leading me at last to a
small grey hamlet, in which two larger buildings, which proved to
be the inn and the house of Dr. Mortimer, stood high above the
rest. The postmaster, who was also the village grocer, had a
clear recollection of the telegram.
“Certainly, sir,” said he, “I had the telegram delivered to Mr.
Barrymore exactly as directed.”
“Who delivered it?”
“My boy here. James, you delivered that telegram to Mr. Barrymore
at the Hall last week, did you not?”
“Yes, father, I delivered it.”
“Into his own hands?” I asked.
“Well, he was up in the loft at the time, so that I could not put
it into his own hands, but I gave it into Mrs. Barrymore’s hands,
and she promised to deliver it at once.”
“Did you see Mr. Barrymore?”
“No, sir; I tell you he was in the loft.”
“If you didn’t see him, how do you know he was in the loft?”
“Well, surely his own wife ought to know where he is,” said the
postmaster testily. “Didn’t he get the telegram? If there is any
mistake it is for Mr. Barrymore himself to complain.”
It seemed hopeless to pursue the inquiry any farther, but it was
clear that in spite of Holmes’s ruse we had no proof that
Barrymore had not been in London all the time. Suppose that it
were so—suppose that the same man had been the last who had seen
Sir Charles alive, and the first to dog the new heir when he
returned to England. What then? Was he the agent of others or had
he some sinister design of his own? What interest could he have
in persecuting the Baskerville family? I thought of the strange
warning clipped out of the leading article of the _Times_. Was
that his work or was it possibly the doing of someone who was
bent upon counteracting his schemes? The only conceivable motive
was that which had been suggested by Sir Henry, that if the
family could be scared away a comfortable and permanent home
would be secured for the Barrymores. But surely such an
explanation as that would be quite inadequate to account for the
deep and subtle scheming which seemed to be weaving an invisible
net round the young baronet. Holmes himself had said that no more
complex case had come to him in all the long series of his
sensational investigations. I prayed, as I walked back along the
grey, lonely road, that my friend might soon be freed from his
preoccupations and able to come down to take this heavy burden of
responsibility from my shoulders.
Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of running
feet behind me and by a voice which called me by name. I turned,
expecting to see Dr. Mortimer, but to my surprise it was a
stranger who was pursuing me. He was a small, slim, clean-shaven,
prim-faced man, flaxen-haired and lean-jawed, between thirty and
forty years of age, dressed in a grey suit and wearing a straw
hat. A tin box for botanical specimens hung over his shoulder and
he carried a green butterfly-net in one of his hands.
“You will, I am sure, excuse my presumption, Dr. Watson,” said he
as he came panting up to where I stood. “Here on the moor we are
homely folk and do not wait for formal introductions. You may
possibly have heard my name from our mutual friend, Mortimer. I
am Stapleton, of Merripit House.”
“Your net and box would have told me as much,” said I, “for I
knew that Mr. Stapleton was a naturalist. But how did you know
me?”
“I have been calling on Mortimer, and he pointed you out to me
from the window of his surgery as you passed. As our road lay the
same way I thought that I would overtake you and introduce
myself. I trust that Sir Henry is none the worse for his
journey?”
“He is very well, thank you.”
“We were all rather afraid that after the sad death of Sir
Charles the new baronet might refuse to live here. It is asking
much of a wealthy man to come down and bury himself in a place of
this kind, but I need not tell you that it means a very great
deal to the countryside. Sir Henry has, I suppose, no
superstitious fears in the matter?”
“I do not think that it is likely.”
“Of course you know the legend of the fiend dog which haunts the
family?”
“I have heard it.”
“It is extraordinary how credulous the peasants are about here!
Any number of them are ready to swear that they have seen such a
creature upon the moor.” He spoke with a smile, but I seemed to
read in his eyes that he took the matter more seriously. “The
story took a great hold upon the imagination of Sir Charles, and
I have no doubt that it led to his tragic end.”
“But how?”
“His nerves were so worked up that the appearance of any dog
might have had a fatal effect upon his diseased heart. I fancy
that he really did see something of the kind upon that last night
in the yew alley. I feared that some disaster might occur, for I
was very fond of the old man, and I knew that his heart was
weak.”
“How did you know that?”
“My friend Mortimer told me.”
“You think, then, that some dog pursued Sir Charles, and that he
died of fright in consequence?”
“Have you any better explanation?”
“I have not come to any conclusion.”
“Has Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
The words took away my breath for an instant but a glance at the
placid face and steadfast eyes of my companion showed that no
surprise was intended.
“It is useless for us to pretend that we do not know you, Dr.
Watson,” said he. “The records of your detective have reached us
here, and you could not celebrate him without being known
yourself. When Mortimer told me your name he could not deny your
identity. If you are here, then it follows that Mr. Sherlock
Holmes is interesting himself in the matter, and I am naturally
curious to know what view he may take.”
“I am afraid that I cannot answer that question.”
“May I ask if he is going to honour us with a visit himself?”
“He cannot leave town at present. He has other cases which engage
his attention.”
“What a pity! He might throw some light on that which is so dark
to us. But as to your own researches, if there is any possible
way in which I can be of service to you I trust that you will
command me. If I had any indication of the nature of your
suspicions or how you propose to investigate the case, I might
perhaps even now give you some aid or advice.”
“I assure you that I am simply here upon a visit to my friend,
Sir Henry, and that I need no help of any kind.”
“Excellent!” said Stapleton. “You are perfectly right to be wary
and discreet. I am justly reproved for what I feel was an
unjustifiable intrusion, and I promise you that I will not
mention the matter again.”
We had come to a point where a narrow grassy path struck off from
the road and wound away across the moor. A steep,
boulder-sprinkled hill lay upon the right which had in bygone
days been cut into a granite quarry. The face which was turned
towards us formed a dark cliff, with ferns and brambles growing
in its niches. From over a distant rise there floated a grey
plume of smoke.
“A moderate walk along this moor-path brings us to Merripit
House,” said he. “Perhaps you will spare an hour that I may have
the pleasure of introducing you to my sister.”
My first thought was that I should be by Sir Henry’s side. But
then I remembered the pile of papers and bills with which his
study table was littered. It was certain that I could not help
with those. And Holmes had expressly said that I should study the
neighbours upon the moor. I accepted Stapleton’s invitation, and
we turned together down the path.
“It is a wonderful place, the moor,” said he, looking round over
the undulating downs, long green rollers, with crests of jagged
granite foaming up into fantastic surges. “You never tire of the
moor. You cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains.
It is so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious.”
“You know it well, then?”
“I have only been here two years. The residents would call me a
newcomer. We came shortly after Sir Charles settled. But my
tastes led me to explore every part of the country round, and I
should think that there are few men who know it better than I
do.”
“Is it hard to know?”
“Very hard. You see, for example, this great plain to the north
here with the queer hills breaking out of it. Do you observe
anything remarkable about that?”
“It would be a rare place for a gallop.”
“You would naturally think so and the thought has cost several
their lives before now. You notice those bright green spots
scattered thickly over it?”
“Yes, they seem more fertile than the rest.”
Stapleton laughed. “That is the great Grimpen Mire,” said he. “A
false step yonder means death to man or beast. Only yesterday I
saw one of the moor ponies wander into it. He never came out. I
saw his head for quite a long time craning out of the bog-hole,
but it sucked him down at last. Even in dry seasons it is a
danger to cross it, but after these autumn rains it is an awful
place. And yet I can find my way to the very heart of it and
return alive. By George, there is another of those miserable
ponies!”
Something brown was rolling and tossing among the green sedges.
Then a long, agonised, writhing neck shot upward and a dreadful
cry echoed over the moor. It turned me cold with horror, but my
companion’s nerves seemed to be stronger than mine.
“It’s gone!” said he. “The mire has him. Two in two days, and
many more, perhaps, for they get in the way of going there in the
dry weather and never know the difference until the mire has them
in its clutches. It’s a bad place, the great Grimpen Mire.”
“And you say you can penetrate it?”
“Yes, there are one or two paths which a very active man can
take. I have found them out.”
“But why should you wish to go into so horrible a place?”
“Well, you see the hills beyond? They are really islands cut off
on all sides by the impassable mire, which has crawled round them
in the course of years. That is where the rare plants and the
butterflies are, if you have the wit to reach them.”
“I shall try my luck some day.”
He looked at me with a surprised face. “For God’s sake put such
an idea out of your mind,” said he. “Your blood would be upon my
head. I assure you that there would not be the least chance of
your coming back alive. It is only by remembering certain complex
landmarks that I am able to do it.”
“Halloa!” I cried. “What is that?”
A long, low moan, indescribably sad, swept over the moor. It
filled the whole air, and yet it was impossible to say whence it
came. From a dull murmur it swelled into a deep roar, and then
sank back into a melancholy, throbbing murmur once again.
Stapleton looked at me with a curious expression in his face.
“Queer place, the moor!” said he.
“But what is it?”
“The peasants say it is the Hound of the Baskervilles calling for
its prey. I’ve heard it once or twice before, but never quite so
loud.”
I looked round, with a chill of fear in my heart, at the huge
swelling plain, mottled with the green patches of rushes. Nothing
stirred over the vast expanse save a pair of ravens, which
croaked loudly from a tor behind us.
“You are an educated man. You don’t believe such nonsense as
that?” said I. “What do you think is the cause of so strange a
sound?”
“Bogs make queer noises sometimes. It’s the mud settling, or the
water rising, or something.”
“No, no, that was a living voice.”
“Well, perhaps it was. Did you ever hear a bittern booming?”
“No, I never did.”
“It’s a very rare bird—practically extinct—in England now, but
all things are possible upon the moor. Yes, I should not be
surprised to learn that what we have heard is the cry of the last
of the bitterns.”
“It’s the weirdest, strangest thing that ever I heard in my
life.”
“Yes, it’s rather an uncanny place altogether. Look at the
hillside yonder. What do you make of those?”
The whole steep slope was covered with grey circular rings of
stone, a score of them at least.
“What are they? Sheep-pens?”
“No, they are the homes of our worthy ancestors. Prehistoric man
lived thickly on the moor, and as no one in particular has lived
there since, we find all his little arrangements exactly as he
left them. These are his wigwams with the roofs off. You can even
see his hearth and his couch if you have the curiosity to go
inside.
“But it is quite a town. When was it inhabited?”
“Neolithic man—no date.”
“What did he do?”
“He grazed his cattle on these slopes, and he learned to dig for
tin when the bronze sword began to supersede the stone axe. Look
at the great trench in the opposite hill. That is his mark. Yes,
you will find some very singular points about the moor, Dr.
Watson. Oh, excuse me an instant! It is surely Cyclopides.”
A small fly or moth had fluttered across our path, and in an
instant Stapleton was rushing with extraordinary energy and speed
in pursuit of it. To my dismay the creature flew straight for the
great mire, and my acquaintance never paused for an instant,
bounding from tuft to tuft behind it, his green net waving in the
air. His grey clothes and jerky, zigzag, irregular progress made
him not unlike some huge moth himself. I was standing watching
his pursuit with a mixture of admiration for his extraordinary
activity and fear lest he should lose his footing in the
treacherous mire, when I heard the sound of steps and, turning
round, found a woman near me upon the path. She had come from the
direction in which the plume of smoke indicated the position of
Merripit House, but the dip of the moor had hid her until she was
quite close.
I could not doubt that this was the Miss Stapleton of whom I had
been told, since ladies of any sort must be few upon the moor,
and I remembered that I had heard someone describe her as being a
beauty. The woman who approached me was certainly that, and of a
most uncommon type. There could not have been a greater contrast
between brother and sister, for Stapleton was neutral tinted,
with light hair and grey eyes, while she was darker than any
brunette whom I have seen in England—slim, elegant, and tall. She
had a proud, finely cut face, so regular that it might have
seemed impassive were it not for the sensitive mouth and the
beautiful dark, eager eyes. With her perfect figure and elegant
dress she was, indeed, a strange apparition upon a lonely
moorland path. Her eyes were on her brother as I turned, and then
she quickened her pace towards me. I had raised my hat and was
about to make some explanatory remark when her own words turned
all my thoughts into a new channel.
“Go back!” she said. “Go straight back to London, instantly.”
I could only stare at her in stupid surprise. Her eyes blazed at
me, and she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot.
“Why should I go back?” I asked.
“I cannot explain.” She spoke in a low, eager voice, with a
curious lisp in her utterance. “But for God’s sake do what I ask
you. Go back and never set foot upon the moor again.”
“But I have only just come.”
“Man, man!” she cried. “Can you not tell when a warning is for
your own good? Go back to London! Start tonight! Get away from
this place at all costs! Hush, my brother is coming! Not a word
of what I have said. Would you mind getting that orchid for me
among the mare’s-tails yonder? We are very rich in orchids on the
moor, though, of course, you are rather late to see the beauties
of the place.”
Stapleton had abandoned the chase and came back to us breathing
hard and flushed with his exertions.
“Halloa, Beryl!” said he, and it seemed to me that the tone of
his greeting was not altogether a cordial one.
“Well, Jack, you are very hot.”
“Yes, I was chasing a Cyclopides. He is very rare and seldom
found in the late autumn. What a pity that I should have missed
him!” He spoke unconcernedly, but his small light eyes glanced
incessantly from the girl to me.
“You have introduced yourselves, I can see.”
“Yes. I was telling Sir Henry that it was rather late for him to
see the true beauties of the moor.”
“Why, who do you think this is?”
“I imagine that it must be Sir Henry Baskerville.”
“No, no,” said I. “Only a humble commoner, but his friend. My
name is Dr. Watson.”
A flush of vexation passed over her expressive face. “We have
been talking at cross purposes,” said she.
“Why, you had not very much time for talk,” her brother remarked
with the same questioning eyes.
“I talked as if Dr. Watson were a resident instead of being
merely a visitor,” said she. “It cannot much matter to him
whether it is early or late for the orchids. But you will come
on, will you not, and see Merripit House?”
A short walk brought us to it, a bleak moorland house, once the
farm of some grazier in the old prosperous days, but now put into
repair and turned into a modern dwelling. An orchard surrounded
it, but the trees, as is usual upon the moor, were stunted and
nipped, and the effect of the whole place was mean and
melancholy. We were admitted by a strange, wizened, rusty-coated
old manservant, who seemed in keeping with the house. Inside,
however, there were large rooms furnished with an elegance in
which I seemed to recognize the taste of the lady. As I looked
from their windows at the interminable granite-flecked moor
rolling unbroken to the farthest horizon I could not but marvel
at what could have brought this highly educated man and this
beautiful woman to live in such a place.
“Queer spot to choose, is it not?” said he as if in answer to my
thought. “And yet we manage to make ourselves fairly happy, do we
not, Beryl?”
“Quite happy,” said she, but there was no ring of conviction in
her words.
“I had a school,” said Stapleton. “It was in the north country.
The work to a man of my temperament was mechanical and
uninteresting, but the privilege of living with youth, of helping
to mould those young minds, and of impressing them with one’s own
character and ideals was very dear to me. However, the fates were
against us. A serious epidemic broke out in the school and three
of the boys died. It never recovered from the blow, and much of
my capital was irretrievably swallowed up. And yet, if it were
not for the loss of the charming companionship of the boys, I
could rejoice over my own misfortune, for, with my strong tastes
for botany and zoology, I find an unlimited field of work here,
and my sister is as devoted to Nature as I am. All this, Dr.
Watson, has been brought upon your head by your expression as you
surveyed the moor out of our window.”
“It certainly did cross my mind that it might be a little
dull—less for you, perhaps, than for your sister.”
“No, no, I am never dull,” said she quickly.
“We have books, we have our studies, and we have interesting
neighbours. Dr. Mortimer is a most learned man in his own line.
Poor Sir Charles was also an admirable companion. We knew him
well and miss him more than I can tell. Do you think that I
should intrude if I were to call this afternoon and make the
acquaintance of Sir Henry?”
“I am sure that he would be delighted.”
“Then perhaps you would mention that I propose to do so. We may
in our humble way do something to make things more easy for him
until he becomes accustomed to his new surroundings. Will you
come upstairs, Dr. Watson, and inspect my collection of
Lepidoptera? I think it is the most complete one in the
south-west of England. By the time that you have looked through
them lunch will be almost ready.”
But I was eager to get back to my charge. The melancholy of the
moor, the death of the unfortunate pony, the weird sound which
had been associated with the grim legend of the Baskervilles, all
these things tinged my thoughts with sadness. Then on the top of
these more or less vague impressions there had come the definite
and distinct warning of Miss Stapleton, delivered with such
intense earnestness that I could not doubt that some grave and
deep reason lay behind it. I resisted all pressure to stay for
lunch, and I set off at once upon my return journey, taking the
grass-grown path by which we had come.
It seems, however, that there must have been some short cut for
those who knew it, for before I had reached the road I was
astounded to see Miss Stapleton sitting upon a rock by the side
of the track. Her face was beautifully flushed with her exertions
and she held her hand to her side.
“I have run all the way in order to cut you off, Dr. Watson,”
said she. “I had not even time to put on my hat. I must not stop,
or my brother may miss me. I wanted to say to you how sorry I am
about the stupid mistake I made in thinking that you were Sir
Henry. Please forget the words I said, which have no application
whatever to you.”
“But I can’t forget them, Miss Stapleton,” said I. “I am Sir
Henry’s friend, and his welfare is a very close concern of mine.
Tell me why it was that you were so eager that Sir Henry should
return to London.”
“A woman’s whim, Dr. Watson. When you know me better you will
understand that I cannot always give reasons for what I say or
do.”
“No, no. I remember the thrill in your voice. I remember the look
in your eyes. Please, please, be frank with me, Miss Stapleton,
for ever since I have been here I have been conscious of shadows
all round me. Life has become like that great Grimpen Mire, with
little green patches everywhere into which one may sink and with
no guide to point the track. Tell me then what it was that you
meant, and I will promise to convey your warning to Sir Henry.”
An expression of irresolution passed for an instant over her
face, but her eyes had hardened again when she answered me.
“You make too much of it, Dr. Watson,” said she. “My brother and
I were very much shocked by the death of Sir Charles. We knew him
very intimately, for his favourite walk was over the moor to our
house. He was deeply impressed with the curse which hung over the
family, and when this tragedy came I naturally felt that there
must be some grounds for the fears which he had expressed. I was
distressed therefore when another member of the family came down
to live here, and I felt that he should be warned of the danger
which he will run. That was all which I intended to convey.
“But what is the danger?”
“You know the story of the hound?”
“I do not believe in such nonsense.”
“But I do. If you have any influence with Sir Henry, take him
away from a place which has always been fatal to his family. The
world is wide. Why should he wish to live at the place of
danger?”
“Because it _is_ the place of danger. That is Sir Henry’s nature.
I fear that unless you can give me some more definite information
than this it would be impossible to get him to move.”
“I cannot say anything definite, for I do not know anything
definite.”
“I would ask you one more question, Miss Stapleton. If you meant
no more than this when you first spoke to me, why should you not
wish your brother to overhear what you said? There is nothing to
which he, or anyone else, could object.”
“My brother is very anxious to have the Hall inhabited, for he
thinks it is for the good of the poor folk upon the moor. He
would be very angry if he knew that I have said anything which
might induce Sir Henry to go away. But I have done my duty now
and I will say no more. I must go back, or he will miss me and
suspect that I have seen you. Good-bye!” She turned and had
disappeared in a few minutes among the scattered boulders, while
I, with my soul full of vague fears, pursued my way to
Baskerville Hall.
Chapter 8.
First Report of Dr. Watson
From this point onward I will follow the course of events by
transcribing my own letters to Mr. Sherlock Holmes which lie
before me on the table. One page is missing, but otherwise they
are exactly as written and show my feelings and suspicions of the
moment more accurately than my memory, clear as it is upon these
tragic events, can possibly do.
Baskerville Hall, October 13th.
MY DEAR HOLMES,
My previous letters and telegrams have kept you pretty well up to
date as to all that has occurred in this most God-forsaken corner
of the world. The longer one stays here the more does the spirit
of the moor sink into one’s soul, its vastness, and also its grim
charm. When you are once out upon its bosom you have left all
traces of modern England behind you, but, on the other hand, you
are conscious everywhere of the homes and the work of the
prehistoric people. On all sides of you as you walk are the
houses of these forgotten folk, with their graves and the huge
monoliths which are supposed to have marked their temples. As you
look at their grey stone huts against the scarred hillsides you
leave your own age behind you, and if you were to see a
skin-clad, hairy man crawl out from the low door fitting a
flint-tipped arrow on to the string of his bow, you would feel
that his presence there was more natural than your own. The
strange thing is that they should have lived so thickly on what
must always have been most unfruitful soil. I am no antiquarian,
but I could imagine that they were some unwarlike and harried
race who were forced to accept that which none other would
occupy.
All this, however, is foreign to the mission on which you sent me
and will probably be very uninteresting to your severely
practical mind. I can still remember your complete indifference
as to whether the sun moved round the earth or the earth round
the sun. Let me, therefore, return to the facts concerning Sir
Henry Baskerville.
If you have not had any report within the last few days it is
because up to today there was nothing of importance to relate.
Then a very surprising circumstance occurred, which I shall tell
you in due course. But, first of all, I must keep you in touch
with some of the other factors in the situation.
One of these, concerning which I have said little, is the escaped
convict upon the moor. There is strong reason now to believe that
he has got right away, which is a considerable relief to the
lonely householders of this district. A fortnight has passed
since his flight, during which he has not been seen and nothing
has been heard of him. It is surely inconceivable that he could
have held out upon the moor during all that time. Of course, so
far as his concealment goes there is no difficulty at all. Any
one of these stone huts would give him a hiding-place. But there
is nothing to eat unless he were to catch and slaughter one of
the moor sheep. We think, therefore, that he has gone, and the
outlying farmers sleep the better in consequence.
We are four able-bodied men in this household, so that we could
take good care of ourselves, but I confess that I have had uneasy
moments when I have thought of the Stapletons. They live miles
from any help. There are one maid, an old manservant, the sister,
and the brother, the latter not a very strong man. They would be
helpless in the hands of a desperate fellow like this Notting
Hill criminal if he could once effect an entrance. Both Sir Henry
and I were concerned at their situation, and it was suggested
that Perkins the groom should go over to sleep there, but
Stapleton would not hear of it.
The fact is that our friend, the baronet, begins to display a
considerable interest in our fair neighbour. It is not to be
wondered at, for time hangs heavily in this lonely spot to an
active man like him, and she is a very fascinating and beautiful
woman. There is something tropical and exotic about her which
forms a singular contrast to her cool and unemotional brother.
Yet he also gives the idea of hidden fires. He has certainly a
very marked influence over her, for I have seen her continually
glance at him as she talked as if seeking approbation for what
she said. I trust that he is kind to her. There is a dry glitter
in his eyes and a firm set of his thin lips, which goes with a
positive and possibly a harsh nature. You would find him an
interesting study.
He came over to call upon Baskerville on that first day, and the
very next morning he took us both to show us the spot where the
legend of the wicked Hugo is supposed to have had its origin. It
was an excursion of some miles across the moor to a place which
is so dismal that it might have suggested the story. We found a
short valley between rugged tors which led to an open, grassy
space flecked over with the white cotton grass. In the middle of
it rose two great stones, worn and sharpened at the upper end
until they looked like the huge corroding fangs of some monstrous
beast. In every way it corresponded with the scene of the old
tragedy. Sir Henry was much interested and asked Stapleton more
than once whether he did really believe in the possibility of the
interference of the supernatural in the affairs of men. He spoke
lightly, but it was evident that he was very much in earnest.
Stapleton was guarded in his replies, but it was easy to see that
he said less than he might, and that he would not express his
whole opinion out of consideration for the feelings of the
baronet. He told us of similar cases, where families had suffered
from some evil influence, and he left us with the impression that
he shared the popular view upon the matter.
On our way back we stayed for lunch at Merripit House, and it was
there that Sir Henry made the acquaintance of Miss Stapleton.
From the first moment that he saw her he appeared to be strongly
attracted by her, and I am much mistaken if the feeling was not
mutual. He referred to her again and again on our walk home, and
since then hardly a day has passed that we have not seen
something of the brother and sister. They dine here tonight, and
there is some talk of our going to them next week. One would
imagine that such a match would be very welcome to Stapleton, and
yet I have more than once caught a look of the strongest
disapprobation in his face when Sir Henry has been paying some
attention to his sister. He is much attached to her, no doubt,
and would lead a lonely life without her, but it would seem the
height of selfishness if he were to stand in the way of her
making so brilliant a marriage. Yet I am certain that he does not
wish their intimacy to ripen into love, and I have several times
observed that he has taken pains to prevent them from being
_tête-à-tête_. By the way, your instructions to me never to allow
Sir Henry to go out alone will become very much more onerous if a
love affair were to be added to our other difficulties. My
popularity would soon suffer if I were to carry out your orders
to the letter.
The other day—Thursday, to be more exact—Dr. Mortimer lunched
with us. He has been excavating a barrow at Long Down and has got
a prehistoric skull which fills him with great joy. Never was
there such a single-minded enthusiast as he! The Stapletons came
in afterwards, and the good doctor took us all to the yew alley
at Sir Henry’s request to show us exactly how everything occurred
upon that fatal night. It is a long, dismal walk, the yew alley,
between two high walls of clipped hedge, with a narrow band of
grass upon either side. At the far end is an old tumble-down
summer-house. Halfway down is the moor-gate, where the old
gentleman left his cigar-ash. It is a white wooden gate with a
latch. Beyond it lies the wide moor. I remembered your theory of
the affair and tried to picture all that had occurred. As the old
man stood there he saw something coming across the moor,
something which terrified him so that he lost his wits and ran
and ran until he died of sheer horror and exhaustion. There was
the long, gloomy tunnel down which he fled. And from what? A
sheep-dog of the moor? Or a spectral hound, black, silent, and
monstrous? Was there a human agency in the matter? Did the pale,
watchful Barrymore know more than he cared to say? It was all dim
and vague, but always there is the dark shadow of crime behind
it.
One other neighbour I have met since I wrote last. This is Mr.
Frankland, of Lafter Hall, who lives some four miles to the south
of us. He is an elderly man, red-faced, white-haired, and
choleric. His passion is for the British law, and he has spent a
large fortune in litigation. He fights for the mere pleasure of
fighting and is equally ready to take up either side of a
question, so that it is no wonder that he has found it a costly
amusement. Sometimes he will shut up a right of way and defy the
parish to make him open it. At others he will with his own hands
tear down some other man’s gate and declare that a path has
existed there from time immemorial, defying the owner to
prosecute him for trespass. He is learned in old manorial and
communal rights, and he applies his knowledge sometimes in favour
of the villagers of Fernworthy and sometimes against them, so
that he is periodically either carried in triumph down the
village street or else burned in effigy, according to his latest
exploit. He is said to have about seven lawsuits upon his hands
at present, which will probably swallow up the remainder of his
fortune and so draw his sting and leave him harmless for the
future. Apart from the law he seems a kindly, good-natured
person, and I only mention him because you were particular that I
should send some description of the people who surround us. He is
curiously employed at present, for, being an amateur astronomer,
he has an excellent telescope, with which he lies upon the roof
of his own house and sweeps the moor all day in the hope of
catching a glimpse of the escaped convict. If he would confine
his energies to this all would be well, but there are rumours
that he intends to prosecute Dr. Mortimer for opening a grave
without the consent of the next of kin because he dug up the
Neolithic skull in the barrow on Long Down. He helps to keep our
lives from being monotonous and gives a little comic relief where
it is badly needed.
And now, having brought you up to date in the escaped convict,
the Stapletons, Dr. Mortimer, and Frankland, of Lafter Hall, let
me end on that which is most important and tell you more about
the Barrymores, and especially about the surprising development
of last night.
First of all about the test telegram, which you sent from London
in order to make sure that Barrymore was really here. I have
already explained that the testimony of the postmaster shows that
the test was worthless and that we have no proof one way or the
other. I told Sir Henry how the matter stood, and he at once, in
his downright fashion, had Barrymore up and asked him whether he
had received the telegram himself. Barrymore said that he had.
“Did the boy deliver it into your own hands?” asked Sir Henry.
Barrymore looked surprised, and considered for a little time.
“No,” said he, “I was in the box-room at the time, and my wife
brought it up to me.”
“Did you answer it yourself?”
“No; I told my wife what to answer and she went down to write
it.”
In the evening he recurred to the subject of his own accord.
“I could not quite understand the object of your questions this
morning, Sir Henry,” said he. “I trust that they do not mean that
I have done anything to forfeit your confidence?”
Sir Henry had to assure him that it was not so and pacify him by
giving him a considerable part of his old wardrobe, the London
outfit having now all arrived.
Mrs. Barrymore is of interest to me. She is a heavy, solid
person, very limited, intensely respectable, and inclined to be
puritanical. You could hardly conceive a less emotional subject.
Yet I have told you how, on the first night here, I heard her
sobbing bitterly, and since then I have more than once observed
traces of tears upon her face. Some deep sorrow gnaws ever at her
heart. Sometimes I wonder if she has a guilty memory which haunts
her, and sometimes I suspect Barrymore of being a domestic
tyrant. I have always felt that there was something singular and
questionable in this man’s character, but the adventure of last
night brings all my suspicions to a head.
And yet it may seem a small matter in itself. You are aware that
I am not a very sound sleeper, and since I have been on guard in
this house my slumbers have been lighter than ever. Last night,
about two in the morning, I was aroused by a stealthy step
passing my room. I rose, opened my door, and peeped out. A long
black shadow was trailing down the corridor. It was thrown by a
man who walked softly down the passage with a candle held in his
hand. He was in shirt and trousers, with no covering to his feet.
I could merely see the outline, but his height told me that it
was Barrymore. He walked very slowly and circumspectly, and there
was something indescribably guilty and furtive in his whole
appearance.
I have told you that the corridor is broken by the balcony which
runs round the hall, but that it is resumed upon the farther
side. I waited until he had passed out of sight and then I
followed him. When I came round the balcony he had reached the
end of the farther corridor, and I could see from the glimmer of
light through an open door that he had entered one of the rooms.
Now, all these rooms are unfurnished and unoccupied so that his
expedition became more mysterious than ever. The light shone
steadily as if he were standing motionless. I crept down the
passage as noiselessly as I could and peeped round the corner of
the door.
Barrymore was crouching at the window with the candle held
against the glass. His profile was half turned towards me, and
his face seemed to be rigid with expectation as he stared out
into the blackness of the moor. For some minutes he stood
watching intently. Then he gave a deep groan and with an
impatient gesture he put out the light. Instantly I made my way
back to my room, and very shortly came the stealthy steps passing
once more upon their return journey. Long afterwards when I had
fallen into a light sleep I heard a key turn somewhere in a lock,
but I could not tell whence the sound came. What it all means I
cannot guess, but there is some secret business going on in this
house of gloom which sooner or later we shall get to the bottom
of. I do not trouble you with my theories, for you asked me to
furnish you only with facts. I have had a long talk with Sir
Henry this morning, and we have made a plan of campaign founded
upon my observations of last night. I will not speak about it
just now, but it should make my next report interesting reading.
Chapter 9.
The Light upon the Moor [Second Report of Dr. Watson]
Baskerville Hall, Oct. 15th.
MY DEAR HOLMES,
If I was compelled to leave you without much news during the
early days of my mission you must acknowledge that I am making up
for lost time, and that events are now crowding thick and fast
upon us. In my last report I ended upon my top note with
Barrymore at the window, and now I have quite a budget already
which will, unless I am much mistaken, considerably surprise you.
Things have taken a turn which I could not have anticipated. In
some ways they have within the last forty-eight hours become much
clearer and in some ways they have become more complicated. But I
will tell you all and you shall judge for yourself.
Before breakfast on the morning following my adventure I went
down the corridor and examined the room in which Barrymore had
been on the night before. The western window through which he had
stared so intently has, I noticed, one peculiarity above all
other windows in the house—it commands the nearest outlook on to
the moor. There is an opening between two trees which enables one
from this point of view to look right down upon it, while from
all the other windows it is only a distant glimpse which can be
obtained. It follows, therefore, that Barrymore, since only this
window would serve the purpose, must have been looking out for
something or somebody upon the moor. The night was very dark, so
that I can hardly imagine how he could have hoped to see anyone.
It had struck me that it was possible that some love intrigue was
on foot. That would have accounted for his stealthy movements and
also for the uneasiness of his wife. The man is a
striking-looking fellow, very well equipped to steal the heart of
a country girl, so that this theory seemed to have something to
support it. That opening of the door which I had heard after I
had returned to my room might mean that he had gone out to keep
some clandestine appointment. So I reasoned with myself in the
morning, and I tell you the direction of my suspicions, however
much the result may have shown that they were unfounded.
But whatever the true explanation of Barrymore’s movements might
be, I felt that the responsibility of keeping them to myself
until I could explain them was more than I could bear. I had an
interview with the baronet in his study after breakfast, and I
told him all that I had seen. He was less surprised than I had
expected.
“I knew that Barrymore walked about nights, and I had a mind to
speak to him about it,” said he. “Two or three times I have heard
his steps in the passage, coming and going, just about the hour
you name.”
“Perhaps then he pays a visit every night to that particular
window,” I suggested.
“Perhaps he does. If so, we should be able to shadow him and see
what it is that he is after. I wonder what your friend Holmes
would do if he were here.”
“I believe that he would do exactly what you now suggest,” said
I. “He would follow Barrymore and see what he did.”
“Then we shall do it together.”
“But surely he would hear us.”
“The man is rather deaf, and in any case we must take our chance
of that. We’ll sit up in my room tonight and wait until he
passes.” Sir Henry rubbed his hands with pleasure, and it was
evident that he hailed the adventure as a relief to his somewhat
quiet life upon the moor.
The baronet has been in communication with the architect who
prepared the plans for Sir Charles, and with a contractor from
London, so that we may expect great changes to begin here soon.
There have been decorators and furnishers up from Plymouth, and
it is evident that our friend has large ideas and means to spare
no pains or expense to restore the grandeur of his family. When
the house is renovated and refurnished, all that he will need
will be a wife to make it complete. Between ourselves there are
pretty clear signs that this will not be wanting if the lady is
willing, for I have seldom seen a man more infatuated with a
woman than he is with our beautiful neighbour, Miss Stapleton.
And yet the course of true love does not run quite as smoothly as
one would under the circumstances expect. Today, for example, its
surface was broken by a very unexpected ripple, which has caused
our friend considerable perplexity and annoyance.
After the conversation which I have quoted about Barrymore, Sir
Henry put on his hat and prepared to go out. As a matter of
course I did the same.
“What, are _you_ coming, Watson?” he asked, looking at me in a
curious way.
“That depends on whether you are going on the moor,” said I.
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, you know what my instructions are. I am sorry to intrude,
but you heard how earnestly Holmes insisted that I should not
leave you, and especially that you should not go alone upon the
moor.”
Sir Henry put his hand upon my shoulder with a pleasant smile.
“My dear fellow,” said he, “Holmes, with all his wisdom, did not
foresee some things which have happened since I have been on the
moor. You understand me? I am sure that you are the last man in
the world who would wish to be a spoil-sport. I must go out
alone.”
It put me in a most awkward position. I was at a loss what to say
or what to do, and before I had made up my mind he picked up his
cane and was gone.
But when I came to think the matter over my conscience reproached
me bitterly for having on any pretext allowed him to go out of my
sight. I imagined what my feelings would be if I had to return to
you and to confess that some misfortune had occurred through my
disregard for your instructions. I assure you my cheeks flushed
at the very thought. It might not even now be too late to
overtake him, so I set off at once in the direction of Merripit
House.
I hurried along the road at the top of my speed without seeing
anything of Sir Henry, until I came to the point where the moor
path branches off. There, fearing that perhaps I had come in the
wrong direction after all, I mounted a hill from which I could
command a view—the same hill which is cut into the dark quarry.
Thence I saw him at once. He was on the moor path about a quarter
of a mile off, and a lady was by his side who could only be Miss
Stapleton. It was clear that there was already an understanding
between them and that they had met by appointment. They were
walking slowly along in deep conversation, and I saw her making
quick little movements of her hands as if she were very earnest
in what she was saying, while he listened intently, and once or
twice shook his head in strong dissent. I stood among the rocks
watching them, very much puzzled as to what I should do next. To
follow them and break into their intimate conversation seemed to
be an outrage, and yet my clear duty was never for an instant to
let him out of my sight. To act the spy upon a friend was a
hateful task. Still, I could see no better course than to observe
him from the hill, and to clear my conscience by confessing to
him afterwards what I had done. It is true that if any sudden
danger had threatened him I was too far away to be of use, and
yet I am sure that you will agree with me that the position was
very difficult, and that there was nothing more which I could do.
Our friend, Sir Henry, and the lady had halted on the path and
were standing deeply absorbed in their conversation, when I was
suddenly aware that I was not the only witness of their
interview. A wisp of green floating in the air caught my eye, and
another glance showed me that it was carried on a stick by a man
who was moving among the broken ground. It was Stapleton with his
butterfly-net. He was very much closer to the pair than I was,
and he appeared to be moving in their direction. At this instant
Sir Henry suddenly drew Miss Stapleton to his side. His arm was
round her, but it seemed to me that she was straining away from
him with her face averted. He stooped his head to hers, and she
raised one hand as if in protest. Next moment I saw them spring
apart and turn hurriedly round. Stapleton was the cause of the
interruption. He was running wildly towards them, his absurd net
dangling behind him. He gesticulated and almost danced with
excitement in front of the lovers. What the scene meant I could
not imagine, but it seemed to me that Stapleton was abusing Sir
Henry, who offered explanations, which became more angry as the
other refused to accept them. The lady stood by in haughty
silence. Finally Stapleton turned upon his heel and beckoned in a
peremptory way to his sister, who, after an irresolute glance at
Sir Henry, walked off by the side of her brother. The
naturalist’s angry gestures showed that the lady was included in
his displeasure. The baronet stood for a minute looking after
them, and then he walked slowly back the way that he had come,
his head hanging, the very picture of dejection.
What all this meant I could not imagine, but I was deeply ashamed
to have witnessed so intimate a scene without my friend’s
knowledge. I ran down the hill therefore and met the baronet at
the bottom. His face was flushed with anger and his brows were
wrinkled, like one who is at his wit’s ends what to do.
“Halloa, Watson! Where have you dropped from?” said he. “You
don’t mean to say that you came after me in spite of all?”
I explained everything to him: how I had found it impossible to
remain behind, how I had followed him, and how I had witnessed
all that had occurred. For an instant his eyes blazed at me, but
my frankness disarmed his anger, and he broke at last into a
rather rueful laugh.
“You would have thought the middle of that prairie a fairly safe
place for a man to be private,” said he, “but, by thunder, the
whole countryside seems to have been out to see me do my
wooing—and a mighty poor wooing at that! Where had you engaged a
seat?”
“I was on that hill.”
“Quite in the back row, eh? But her brother was well up to the
front. Did you see him come out on us?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did he ever strike you as being crazy—this brother of hers?”
“I can’t say that he ever did.”
“I dare say not. I always thought him sane enough until today,
but you can take it from me that either he or I ought to be in a
straitjacket. What’s the matter with me, anyhow? You’ve lived
near me for some weeks, Watson. Tell me straight, now! Is there
anything that would prevent me from making a good husband to a
woman that I loved?”
“I should say not.”
“He can’t object to my worldly position, so it must be myself
that he has this down on. What has he against me? I never hurt
man or woman in my life that I know of. And yet he would not so
much as let me touch the tips of her fingers.”
“Did he say so?”
“That, and a deal more. I tell you, Watson, I’ve only known her
these few weeks, but from the first I just felt that she was made
for me, and she, too—she was happy when she was with me, and that
I’ll swear. There’s a light in a woman’s eyes that speaks louder
than words. But he has never let us get together and it was only
today for the first time that I saw a chance of having a few
words with her alone. She was glad to meet me, but when she did
it was not love that she would talk about, and she wouldn’t have
let me talk about it either if she could have stopped it. She
kept coming back to it that this was a place of danger, and that
she would never be happy until I had left it. I told her that
since I had seen her I was in no hurry to leave it, and that if
she really wanted me to go, the only way to work it was for her
to arrange to go with me. With that I offered in as many words to
marry her, but before she could answer, down came this brother of
hers, running at us with a face on him like a madman. He was just
white with rage, and those light eyes of his were blazing with
fury. What was I doing with the lady? How dared I offer her
attentions which were distasteful to her? Did I think that
because I was a baronet I could do what I liked? If he had not
been her brother I should have known better how to answer him. As
it was I told him that my feelings towards his sister were such
as I was not ashamed of, and that I hoped that she might honour
me by becoming my wife. That seemed to make the matter no better,
so then I lost my temper too, and I answered him rather more
hotly than I should perhaps, considering that she was standing
by. So it ended by his going off with her, as you saw, and here
am I as badly puzzled a man as any in this county. Just tell me
what it all means, Watson, and I’ll owe you more than ever I can
hope to pay.”
I tried one or two explanations, but, indeed, I was completely
puzzled myself. Our friend’s title, his fortune, his age, his
character, and his appearance are all in his favour, and I know
nothing against him unless it be this dark fate which runs in his
family. That his advances should be rejected so brusquely without
any reference to the lady’s own wishes and that the lady should
accept the situation without protest is very amazing. However,
our conjectures were set at rest by a visit from Stapleton
himself that very afternoon. He had come to offer apologies for
his rudeness of the morning, and after a long private interview
with Sir Henry in his study the upshot of their conversation was
that the breach is quite healed, and that we are to dine at
Merripit House next Friday as a sign of it.
“I don’t say now that he isn’t a crazy man,” said Sir Henry; “I
can’t forget the look in his eyes when he ran at me this morning,
but I must allow that no man could make a more handsome apology
than he has done.”
“Did he give any explanation of his conduct?”
“His sister is everything in his life, he says. That is natural
enough, and I am glad that he should understand her value. They
have always been together, and according to his account he has
been a very lonely man with only her as a companion, so that the
thought of losing her was really terrible to him. He had not
understood, he said, that I was becoming attached to her, but
when he saw with his own eyes that it was really so, and that she
might be taken away from him, it gave him such a shock that for a
time he was not responsible for what he said or did. He was very
sorry for all that had passed, and he recognized how foolish and
how selfish it was that he should imagine that he could hold a
beautiful woman like his sister to himself for her whole life. If
she had to leave him he had rather it was to a neighbour like
myself than to anyone else. But in any case it was a blow to him
and it would take him some time before he could prepare himself
to meet it. He would withdraw all opposition upon his part if I
would promise for three months to let the matter rest and to be
content with cultivating the lady’s friendship during that time
without claiming her love. This I promised, and so the matter
rests.”
So there is one of our small mysteries cleared up. It is
something to have touched bottom anywhere in this bog in which we
are floundering. We know now why Stapleton looked with disfavour
upon his sister’s suitor—even when that suitor was so eligible a
one as Sir Henry. And now I pass on to another thread which I
have extricated out of the tangled skein, the mystery of the sobs
in the night, of the tear-stained face of Mrs. Barrymore, of the
secret journey of the butler to the western lattice window.
Congratulate me, my dear Holmes, and tell me that I have not
disappointed you as an agent—that you do not regret the
confidence which you showed in me when you sent me down. All
these things have by one night’s work been thoroughly cleared.
I have said “by one night’s work,” but, in truth, it was by two
nights’ work, for on the first we drew entirely blank. I sat up
with Sir Henry in his rooms until nearly three o’clock in the
morning, but no sound of any sort did we hear except the chiming
clock upon the stairs. It was a most melancholy vigil and ended
by each of us falling asleep in our chairs. Fortunately we were
not discouraged, and we determined to try again. The next night
we lowered the lamp and sat smoking cigarettes without making the
least sound. It was incredible how slowly the hours crawled by,
and yet we were helped through it by the same sort of patient
interest which the hunter must feel as he watches the trap into
which he hopes the game may wander. One struck, and two, and we
had almost for the second time given it up in despair when in an
instant we both sat bolt upright in our chairs with all our weary
senses keenly on the alert once more. We had heard the creak of a
step in the passage.
Very stealthily we heard it pass along until it died away in the
distance. Then the baronet gently opened his door and we set out
in pursuit. Already our man had gone round the gallery and the
corridor was all in darkness. Softly we stole along until we had
come into the other wing. We were just in time to catch a glimpse
of the tall, black-bearded figure, his shoulders rounded as he
tiptoed down the passage. Then he passed through the same door as
before, and the light of the candle framed it in the darkness and
shot one single yellow beam across the gloom of the corridor. We
shuffled cautiously towards it, trying every plank before we
dared to put our whole weight upon it. We had taken the
precaution of leaving our boots behind us, but, even so, the old
boards snapped and creaked beneath our tread. Sometimes it seemed
impossible that he should fail to hear our approach. However, the
man is fortunately rather deaf, and he was entirely preoccupied
in that which he was doing. When at last we reached the door and
peeped through we found him crouching at the window, candle in
hand, his white, intent face pressed against the pane, exactly as
I had seen him two nights before.
We had arranged no plan of campaign, but the baronet is a man to
whom the most direct way is always the most natural. He walked
into the room, and as he did so Barrymore sprang up from the
window with a sharp hiss of his breath and stood, livid and
trembling, before us. His dark eyes, glaring out of the white
mask of his face, were full of horror and astonishment as he
gazed from Sir Henry to me.
“What are you doing here, Barrymore?”
“Nothing, sir.” His agitation was so great that he could hardly
speak, and the shadows sprang up and down from the shaking of his
candle. “It was the window, sir. I go round at night to see that
they are fastened.”
“On the second floor?”
“Yes, sir, all the windows.”
“Look here, Barrymore,” said Sir Henry sternly, “we have made up
our minds to have the truth out of you, so it will save you
trouble to tell it sooner rather than later. Come, now! No lies!
What were you doing at that window?”
The fellow looked at us in a helpless way, and he wrung his hands
together like one who is in the last extremity of doubt and
misery.
“I was doing no harm, sir. I was holding a candle to the window.”
“And why were you holding a candle to the window?”
“Don’t ask me, Sir Henry—don’t ask me! I give you my word, sir,
that it is not my secret, and that I cannot tell it. If it
concerned no one but myself I would not try to keep it from you.”
A sudden idea occurred to me, and I took the candle from the
trembling hand of the butler.
“He must have been holding it as a signal,” said I. “Let us see
if there is any answer.” I held it as he had done, and stared out
into the darkness of the night. Vaguely I could discern the black
bank of the trees and the lighter expanse of the moor, for the
moon was behind the clouds. And then I gave a cry of exultation,
for a tiny pinpoint of yellow light had suddenly transfixed the
dark veil, and glowed steadily in the centre of the black square
framed by the window.
“There it is!” I cried.
“No, no, sir, it is nothing—nothing at all!” the butler broke in;
“I assure you, sir—”
“Move your light across the window, Watson!” cried the baronet.
“See, the other moves also! Now, you rascal, do you deny that it
is a signal? Come, speak up! Who is your confederate out yonder,
and what is this conspiracy that is going on?”
The man’s face became openly defiant. “It is my business, and not
yours. I will not tell.”
“Then you leave my employment right away.”
“Very good, sir. If I must I must.”
“And you go in disgrace. By thunder, you may well be ashamed of
yourself. Your family has lived with mine for over a hundred
years under this roof, and here I find you deep in some dark plot
against me.”
“No, no, sir; no, not against you!” It was a woman’s voice, and
Mrs. Barrymore, paler and more horror-struck than her husband,
was standing at the door. Her bulky figure in a shawl and skirt
might have been comic were it not for the intensity of feeling
upon her face.
“We have to go, Eliza. This is the end of it. You can pack our
things,” said the butler.
“Oh, John, John, have I brought you to this? It is my doing, Sir
Henry—all mine. He has done nothing except for my sake and
because I asked him.”
“Speak out, then! What does it mean?”
“My unhappy brother is starving on the moor. We cannot let him
perish at our very gates. The light is a signal to him that food
is ready for him, and his light out yonder is to show the spot to
which to bring it.”
“Then your brother is—”
“The escaped convict, sir—Selden, the criminal.”
“That’s the truth, sir,” said Barrymore. “I said that it was not
my secret and that I could not tell it to you. But now you have
heard it, and you will see that if there was a plot it was not
against you.”
This, then, was the explanation of the stealthy expeditions at
night and the light at the window. Sir Henry and I both stared at
the woman in amazement. Was it possible that this stolidly
respectable person was of the same blood as one of the most
notorious criminals in the country?
“Yes, sir, my name was Selden, and he is my younger brother. We
humoured him too much when he was a lad and gave him his own way
in everything until he came to think that the world was made for
his pleasure, and that he could do what he liked in it. Then as
he grew older he met wicked companions, and the devil entered
into him until he broke my mother’s heart and dragged our name in
the dirt. From crime to crime he sank lower and lower until it is
only the mercy of God which has snatched him from the scaffold;
but to me, sir, he was always the little curly-headed boy that I
had nursed and played with as an elder sister would. That was why
he broke prison, sir. He knew that I was here and that we could
not refuse to help him. When he dragged himself here one night,
weary and starving, with the warders hard at his heels, what
could we do? We took him in and fed him and cared for him. Then
you returned, sir, and my brother thought he would be safer on
the moor than anywhere else until the hue and cry was over, so he
lay in hiding there. But every second night we made sure if he
was still there by putting a light in the window, and if there
was an answer my husband took out some bread and meat to him.
Every day we hoped that he was gone, but as long as he was there
we could not desert him. That is the whole truth, as I am an
honest Christian woman and you will see that if there is blame in
the matter it does not lie with my husband but with me, for whose
sake he has done all that he has.”
The woman’s words came with an intense earnestness which carried
conviction with them.
“Is this true, Barrymore?”
“Yes, Sir Henry. Every word of it.”
“Well, I cannot blame you for standing by your own wife. Forget
what I have said. Go to your room, you two, and we shall talk
further about this matter in the morning.”
When they were gone we looked out of the window again. Sir Henry
had flung it open, and the cold night wind beat in upon our
faces. Far away in the black distance there still glowed that one
tiny point of yellow light.
“I wonder he dares,” said Sir Henry.
“It may be so placed as to be only visible from here.”
“Very likely. How far do you think it is?”
“Out by the Cleft Tor, I think.”
“Not more than a mile or two off.”
“Hardly that.”
“Well, it cannot be far if Barrymore had to carry out the food to
it. And he is waiting, this villain, beside that candle. By
thunder, Watson, I am going out to take that man!”
The same thought had crossed my own mind. It was not as if the
Barrymores had taken us into their confidence. Their secret had
been forced from them. The man was a danger to the community, an
unmitigated scoundrel for whom there was neither pity nor excuse.
We were only doing our duty in taking this chance of putting him
back where he could do no harm. With his brutal and violent
nature, others would have to pay the price if we held our hands.
Any night, for example, our neighbours the Stapletons might be
attacked by him, and it may have been the thought of this which
made Sir Henry so keen upon the adventure.
“I will come,” said I.
“Then get your revolver and put on your boots. The sooner we
start the better, as the fellow may put out his light and be
off.”
In five minutes we were outside the door, starting upon our
expedition. We hurried through the dark shrubbery, amid the dull
moaning of the autumn wind and the rustle of the falling leaves.
The night air was heavy with the smell of damp and decay. Now and
again the moon peeped out for an instant, but clouds were driving
over the face of the sky, and just as we came out on the moor a
thin rain began to fall. The light still burned steadily in
front.
“Are you armed?” I asked.
“I have a hunting-crop.”
“We must close in on him rapidly, for he is said to be a
desperate fellow. We shall take him by surprise and have him at
our mercy before he can resist.”
“I say, Watson,” said the baronet, “what would Holmes say to
this? How about that hour of darkness in which the power of evil
is exalted?”
As if in answer to his words there rose suddenly out of the vast
gloom of the moor that strange cry which I had already heard upon
the borders of the great Grimpen Mire. It came with the wind
through the silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a
rising howl, and then the sad moan in which it died away. Again
and again it sounded, the whole air throbbing with it, strident,
wild, and menacing. The baronet caught my sleeve and his face
glimmered white through the darkness.
“My God, what’s that, Watson?”
“I don’t know. It’s a sound they have on the moor. I heard it
once before.”
It died away, and an absolute silence closed in upon us. We stood
straining our ears, but nothing came.
“Watson,” said the baronet, “it was the cry of a hound.”
My blood ran cold in my veins, for there was a break in his voice
which told of the sudden horror which had seized him.
“What do they call this sound?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The folk on the countryside.”
“Oh, they are ignorant people. Why should you mind what they call
it?”
“Tell me, Watson. What do they say of it?”
I hesitated but could not escape the question.
“They say it is the cry of the Hound of the Baskervilles.”
He groaned and was silent for a few moments.
“A hound it was,” he said at last, “but it seemed to come from
miles away, over yonder, I think.”
“It was hard to say whence it came.”
“It rose and fell with the wind. Isn’t that the direction of the
great Grimpen Mire?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, it was up there. Come now, Watson, didn’t you think
yourself that it was the cry of a hound? I am not a child. You
need not fear to speak the truth.”
“Stapleton was with me when I heard it last. He said that it
might be the calling of a strange bird.”
“No, no, it was a hound. My God, can there be some truth in all
these stories? Is it possible that I am really in danger from so
dark a cause? You don’t believe it, do you, Watson?”
“No, no.”
“And yet it was one thing to laugh about it in London, and it is
another to stand out here in the darkness of the moor and to hear
such a cry as that. And my uncle! There was the footprint of the
hound beside him as he lay. It all fits together. I don’t think
that I am a coward, Watson, but that sound seemed to freeze my
very blood. Feel my hand!”
It was as cold as a block of marble.
“You’ll be all right tomorrow.”
“I don’t think I’ll get that cry out of my head. What do you
advise that we do now?”
“Shall we turn back?”
“No, by thunder; we have come out to get our man, and we will do
it. We after the convict, and a hell-hound, as likely as not,
after us. Come on! We’ll see it through if all the fiends of the
pit were loose upon the moor.”
We stumbled slowly along in the darkness, with the black loom of
the craggy hills around us, and the yellow speck of light burning
steadily in front. There is nothing so deceptive as the distance
of a light upon a pitch-dark night, and sometimes the glimmer
seemed to be far away upon the horizon and sometimes it might
have been within a few yards of us. But at last we could see
whence it came, and then we knew that we were indeed very close.
A guttering candle was stuck in a crevice of the rocks which
flanked it on each side so as to keep the wind from it and also
to prevent it from being visible, save in the direction of
Baskerville Hall. A boulder of granite concealed our approach,
and crouching behind it we gazed over it at the signal light. It
was strange to see this single candle burning there in the middle
of the moor, with no sign of life near it—just the one straight
yellow flame and the gleam of the rock on each side of it.
“What shall we do now?” whispered Sir Henry.
“Wait here. He must be near his light. Let us see if we can get a
glimpse of him.”
The words were hardly out of my mouth when we both saw him. Over
the rocks, in the crevice of which the candle burned, there was
thrust out an evil yellow face, a terrible animal face, all
seamed and scored with vile passions. Foul with mire, with a
bristling beard, and hung with matted hair, it might well have
belonged to one of those old savages who dwelt in the burrows on
the hillsides. The light beneath him was reflected in his small,
cunning eyes which peered fiercely to right and left through the
darkness like a crafty and savage animal who has heard the steps
of the hunters.
Something had evidently aroused his suspicions. It may have been
that Barrymore had some private signal which we had neglected to
give, or the fellow may have had some other reason for thinking
that all was not well, but I could read his fears upon his wicked
face. Any instant he might dash out the light and vanish in the
darkness. I sprang forward therefore, and Sir Henry did the same.
At the same moment the convict screamed out a curse at us and
hurled a rock which splintered up against the boulder which had
sheltered us. I caught one glimpse of his short, squat, strongly
built figure as he sprang to his feet and turned to run. At the
same moment by a lucky chance the moon broke through the clouds.
We rushed over the brow of the hill, and there was our man
running with great speed down the other side, springing over the
stones in his way with the activity of a mountain goat. A lucky
long shot of my revolver might have crippled him, but I had
brought it only to defend myself if attacked and not to shoot an
unarmed man who was running away.
We were both swift runners and in fairly good training, but we
soon found that we had no chance of overtaking him. We saw him
for a long time in the moonlight until he was only a small speck
moving swiftly among the boulders upon the side of a distant
hill. We ran and ran until we were completely blown, but the
space between us grew ever wider. Finally we stopped and sat
panting on two rocks, while we watched him disappearing in the
distance.
And it was at this moment that there occurred a most strange and
unexpected thing. We had risen from our rocks and were turning to
go home, having abandoned the hopeless chase. The moon was low
upon the right, and the jagged pinnacle of a granite tor stood up
against the lower curve of its silver disc. There, outlined as
black as an ebony statue on that shining background, I saw the
figure of a man upon the tor. Do not think that it was a
delusion, Holmes. I assure you that I have never in my life seen
anything more clearly. As far as I could judge, the figure was
that of a tall, thin man. He stood with his legs a little
separated, his arms folded, his head bowed, as if he were
brooding over that enormous wilderness of peat and granite which
lay before him. He might have been the very spirit of that
terrible place. It was not the convict. This man was far from the
place where the latter had disappeared. Besides, he was a much
taller man. With a cry of surprise I pointed him out to the
baronet, but in the instant during which I had turned to grasp
his arm the man was gone. There was the sharp pinnacle of granite
still cutting the lower edge of the moon, but its peak bore no
trace of that silent and motionless figure.
I wished to go in that direction and to search the tor, but it
was some distance away. The baronet’s nerves were still quivering
from that cry, which recalled the dark story of his family, and
he was not in the mood for fresh adventures. He had not seen this
lonely man upon the tor and could not feel the thrill which his
strange presence and his commanding attitude had given to me. “A
warder, no doubt,” said he. “The moor has been thick with them
since this fellow escaped.” Well, perhaps his explanation may be
the right one, but I should like to have some further proof of
it. Today we mean to communicate to the Princetown people where
they should look for their missing man, but it is hard lines that
we have not actually had the triumph of bringing him back as our
own prisoner. Such are the adventures of last night, and you must
acknowledge, my dear Holmes, that I have done you very well in
the matter of a report. Much of what I tell you is no doubt quite
irrelevant, but still I feel that it is best that I should let
you have all the facts and leave you to select for yourself those
which will be of most service to you in helping you to your
conclusions. We are certainly making some progress. So far as the
Barrymores go we have found the motive of their actions, and that
has cleared up the situation very much. But the moor with its
mysteries and its strange inhabitants remains as inscrutable as
ever. Perhaps in my next I may be able to throw some light upon
this also. Best of all would it be if you could come down to us.
In any case you will hear from me again in the course of the next
few days.
Chapter 10.
Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson
So far I have been able to quote from the reports which I have
forwarded during these early days to Sherlock Holmes. Now,
however, I have arrived at a point in my narrative where I am
compelled to abandon this method and to trust once more to my
recollections, aided by the diary which I kept at the time. A few
extracts from the latter will carry me on to those scenes which
are indelibly fixed in every detail upon my memory. I proceed,
then, from the morning which followed our abortive chase of the
convict and our other strange experiences upon the moor.
_October_ 16_th_.—A dull and foggy day with a drizzle of rain.
The house is banked in with rolling clouds, which rise now and
then to show the dreary curves of the moor, with thin, silver
veins upon the sides of the hills, and the distant boulders
gleaming where the light strikes upon their wet faces. It is
melancholy outside and in. The baronet is in a black reaction
after the excitements of the night. I am conscious myself of a
weight at my heart and a feeling of impending danger—ever present
danger, which is the more terrible because I am unable to define
it.
And have I not cause for such a feeling? Consider the long
sequence of incidents which have all pointed to some sinister
influence which is at work around us. There is the death of the
last occupant of the Hall, fulfilling so exactly the conditions
of the family legend, and there are the repeated reports from
peasants of the appearance of a strange creature upon the moor.
Twice I have with my own ears heard the sound which resembled the
distant baying of a hound. It is incredible, impossible, that it
should really be outside the ordinary laws of nature. A spectral
hound which leaves material footmarks and fills the air with its
howling is surely not to be thought of. Stapleton may fall in
with such a superstition, and Mortimer also, but if I have one
quality upon earth it is common sense, and nothing will persuade
me to believe in such a thing. To do so would be to descend to
the level of these poor peasants, who are not content with a mere
fiend dog but must needs describe him with hell-fire shooting
from his mouth and eyes. Holmes would not listen to such fancies,
and I am his agent. But facts are facts, and I have twice heard
this crying upon the moor. Suppose that there were really some
huge hound loose upon it; that would go far to explain
everything. But where could such a hound lie concealed, where did
it get its food, where did it come from, how was it that no one
saw it by day? It must be confessed that the natural explanation
offers almost as many difficulties as the other. And always,
apart from the hound, there is the fact of the human agency in
London, the man in the cab, and the letter which warned Sir Henry
against the moor. This at least was real, but it might have been
the work of a protecting friend as easily as of an enemy. Where
is that friend or enemy now? Has he remained in London, or has he
followed us down here? Could he—could he be the stranger whom I
saw upon the tor?
It is true that I have had only the one glance at him, and yet
there are some things to which I am ready to swear. He is no one
whom I have seen down here, and I have now met all the
neighbours. The figure was far taller than that of Stapleton, far
thinner than that of Frankland. Barrymore it might possibly have
been, but we had left him behind us, and I am certain that he
could not have followed us. A stranger then is still dogging us,
just as a stranger dogged us in London. We have never shaken him
off. If I could lay my hands upon that man, then at last we might
find ourselves at the end of all our difficulties. To this one
purpose I must now devote all my energies.
My first impulse was to tell Sir Henry all my plans. My second
and wisest one is to play my own game and speak as little as
possible to anyone. He is silent and distrait. His nerves have
been strangely shaken by that sound upon the moor. I will say
nothing to add to his anxieties, but I will take my own steps to
attain my own end.
We had a small scene this morning after breakfast. Barrymore
asked leave to speak with Sir Henry, and they were closeted in
his study some little time. Sitting in the billiard-room I more
than once heard the sound of voices raised, and I had a pretty
good idea what the point was which was under discussion. After a
time the baronet opened his door and called for me. “Barrymore
considers that he has a grievance,” he said. “He thinks that it
was unfair on our part to hunt his brother-in-law down when he,
of his own free will, had told us the secret.”
The butler was standing very pale but very collected before us.
“I may have spoken too warmly, sir,” said he, “and if I have, I
am sure that I beg your pardon. At the same time, I was very much
surprised when I heard you two gentlemen come back this morning
and learned that you had been chasing Selden. The poor fellow has
enough to fight against without my putting more upon his track.”
“If you had told us of your own free will it would have been a
different thing,” said the baronet, “you only told us, or rather
your wife only told us, when it was forced from you and you could
not help yourself.”
“I didn’t think you would have taken advantage of it, Sir
Henry—indeed I didn’t.”
“The man is a public danger. There are lonely houses scattered
over the moor, and he is a fellow who would stick at nothing. You
only want to get a glimpse of his face to see that. Look at Mr.
Stapleton’s house, for example, with no one but himself to defend
it. There’s no safety for anyone until he is under lock and key.”
“He’ll break into no house, sir. I give you my solemn word upon
that. But he will never trouble anyone in this country again. I
assure you, Sir Henry, that in a very few days the necessary
arrangements will have been made and he will be on his way to
South America. For God’s sake, sir, I beg of you not to let the
police know that he is still on the moor. They have given up the
chase there, and he can lie quiet until the ship is ready for
him. You can’t tell on him without getting my wife and me into
trouble. I beg you, sir, to say nothing to the police.”
“What do you say, Watson?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “If he were safely out of the country it
would relieve the tax-payer of a burden.”
“But how about the chance of his holding someone up before he
goes?”
“He would not do anything so mad, sir. We have provided him with
all that he can want. To commit a crime would be to show where he
was hiding.”
“That is true,” said Sir Henry. “Well, Barrymore—”
“God bless you, sir, and thank you from my heart! It would have
killed my poor wife had he been taken again.”
“I guess we are aiding and abetting a felony, Watson? But, after
what we have heard I don’t feel as if I could give the man up, so
there is an end of it. All right, Barrymore, you can go.”
With a few broken words of gratitude the man turned, but he
hesitated and then came back.
“You’ve been so kind to us, sir, that I should like to do the
best I can for you in return. I know something, Sir Henry, and
perhaps I should have said it before, but it was long after the
inquest that I found it out. I’ve never breathed a word about it
yet to mortal man. It’s about poor Sir Charles’s death.”
The baronet and I were both upon our feet. “Do you know how he
died?”
“No, sir, I don’t know that.”
“What then?”
“I know why he was at the gate at that hour. It was to meet a
woman.”
“To meet a woman! He?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the woman’s name?”
“I can’t give you the name, sir, but I can give you the initials.
Her initials were L. L.”
“How do you know this, Barrymore?”
“Well, Sir Henry, your uncle had a letter that morning. He had
usually a great many letters, for he was a public man and well
known for his kind heart, so that everyone who was in trouble was
glad to turn to him. But that morning, as it chanced, there was
only this one letter, so I took the more notice of it. It was
from Coombe Tracey, and it was addressed in a woman’s hand.”
“Well?”
“Well, sir, I thought no more of the matter, and never would have
done had it not been for my wife. Only a few weeks ago she was
cleaning out Sir Charles’s study—it had never been touched since
his death—and she found the ashes of a burned letter in the back
of the grate. The greater part of it was charred to pieces, but
one little slip, the end of a page, hung together, and the
writing could still be read, though it was grey on a black
ground. It seemed to us to be a postscript at the end of the
letter and it said: ‘Please, please, as you are a gentleman, burn
this letter, and be at the gate by ten o clock. Beneath it were
signed the initials L. L.”
“Have you got that slip?”
“No, sir, it crumbled all to bits after we moved it.”
“Had Sir Charles received any other letters in the same writing?”
“Well, sir, I took no particular notice of his letters. I should
not have noticed this one, only it happened to come alone.”
“And you have no idea who L. L. is?”
“No, sir. No more than you have. But I expect if we could lay our
hands upon that lady we should know more about Sir Charles’s
death.”
“I cannot understand, Barrymore, how you came to conceal this
important information.”
“Well, sir, it was immediately after that our own trouble came to
us. And then again, sir, we were both of us very fond of Sir
Charles, as we well might be considering all that he has done for
us. To rake this up couldn’t help our poor master, and it’s well
to go carefully when there’s a lady in the case. Even the best of
us—”
“You thought it might injure his reputation?”
“Well, sir, I thought no good could come of it. But now you have
been kind to us, and I feel as if it would be treating you
unfairly not to tell you all that I know about the matter.”
“Very good, Barrymore; you can go.” When the butler had left us
Sir Henry turned to me. “Well, Watson, what do you think of this
new light?”
“It seems to leave the darkness rather blacker than before.”
“So I think. But if we can only trace L. L. it should clear up
the whole business. We have gained that much. We know that there
is someone who has the facts if we can only find her. What do you
think we should do?”
“Let Holmes know all about it at once. It will give him the clue
for which he has been seeking. I am much mistaken if it does not
bring him down.”
I went at once to my room and drew up my report of the morning’s
conversation for Holmes. It was evident to me that he had been
very busy of late, for the notes which I had from Baker Street
were few and short, with no comments upon the information which I
had supplied and hardly any reference to my mission. No doubt his
blackmailing case is absorbing all his faculties. And yet this
new factor must surely arrest his attention and renew his
interest. I wish that he were here.
_October_ 17_th_.—All day today the rain poured down, rustling on
the ivy and dripping from the eaves. I thought of the convict out
upon the bleak, cold, shelterless moor. Poor devil! Whatever his
crimes, he has suffered something to atone for them. And then I
thought of that other one—the face in the cab, the figure against
the moon. Was he also out in that deluged—the unseen watcher, the
man of darkness? In the evening I put on my waterproof and I
walked far upon the sodden moor, full of dark imaginings, the
rain beating upon my face and the wind whistling about my ears.
God help those who wander into the great mire now, for even the
firm uplands are becoming a morass. I found the black tor upon
which I had seen the solitary watcher, and from its craggy summit
I looked out myself across the melancholy downs. Rain squalls
drifted across their russet face, and the heavy, slate-coloured
clouds hung low over the landscape, trailing in grey wreaths down
the sides of the fantastic hills. In the distant hollow on the
left, half hidden by the mist, the two thin towers of Baskerville
Hall rose above the trees. They were the only signs of human life
which I could see, save only those prehistoric huts which lay
thickly upon the slopes of the hills. Nowhere was there any trace
of that lonely man whom I had seen on the same spot two nights
before.
As I walked back I was overtaken by Dr. Mortimer driving in his
dog-cart over a rough moorland track which led from the outlying
farmhouse of Foulmire. He has been very attentive to us, and
hardly a day has passed that he has not called at the Hall to see
how we were getting on. He insisted upon my climbing into his
dog-cart, and he gave me a lift homeward. I found him much
troubled over the disappearance of his little spaniel. It had
wandered on to the moor and had never come back. I gave him such
consolation as I might, but I thought of the pony on the Grimpen
Mire, and I do not fancy that he will see his little dog again.
“By the way, Mortimer,” said I as we jolted along the rough road,
“I suppose there are few people living within driving distance of
this whom you do not know?”
“Hardly any, I think.”
“Can you, then, tell me the name of any woman whose initials are
L. L.?”
He thought for a few minutes.
“No,” said he. “There are a few gipsies and labouring folk for
whom I can’t answer, but among the farmers or gentry there is no
one whose initials are those. Wait a bit though,” he added after
a pause. “There is Laura Lyons—her initials are L. L.—but she
lives in Coombe Tracey.”
“Who is she?” I asked.
“She is Frankland’s daughter.”
“What! Old Frankland the crank?”
“Exactly. She married an artist named Lyons, who came sketching
on the moor. He proved to be a blackguard and deserted her. The
fault from what I hear may not have been entirely on one side.
Her father refused to have anything to do with her because she
had married without his consent and perhaps for one or two other
reasons as well. So, between the old sinner and the young one the
girl has had a pretty bad time.”
“How does she live?”
“I fancy old Frankland allows her a pittance, but it cannot be
more, for his own affairs are considerably involved. Whatever she
may have deserved one could not allow her to go hopelessly to the
bad. Her story got about, and several of the people here did
something to enable her to earn an honest living. Stapleton did
for one, and Sir Charles for another. I gave a trifle myself. It
was to set her up in a typewriting business.”
He wanted to know the object of my inquiries, but I managed to
satisfy his curiosity without telling him too much, for there is
no reason why we should take anyone into our confidence. Tomorrow
morning I shall find my way to Coombe Tracey, and if I can see
this Mrs. Laura Lyons, of equivocal reputation, a long step will
have been made towards clearing one incident in this chain of
mysteries. I am certainly developing the wisdom of the serpent,
for when Mortimer pressed his questions to an inconvenient extent
I asked him casually to what type Frankland’s skull belonged, and
so heard nothing but craniology for the rest of our drive. I have
not lived for years with Sherlock Holmes for nothing.
I have only one other incident to record upon this tempestuous
and melancholy day. This was my conversation with Barrymore just
now, which gives me one more strong card which I can play in due
time.
Mortimer had stayed to dinner, and he and the baronet played
écarté afterwards. The butler brought me my coffee into the
library, and I took the chance to ask him a few questions.
“Well,” said I, “has this precious relation of yours departed, or
is he still lurking out yonder?”
“I don’t know, sir. I hope to heaven that he has gone, for he has
brought nothing but trouble here! I’ve not heard of him since I
left out food for him last, and that was three days ago.”
“Did you see him then?”
“No, sir, but the food was gone when next I went that way.”
“Then he was certainly there?”
“So you would think, sir, unless it was the other man who took
it.”
I sat with my coffee-cup halfway to my lips and stared at
Barrymore.
“You know that there is another man then?”
“Yes, sir; there is another man upon the moor.”
“Have you seen him?”
“No, sir.”
“How do you know of him then?”
“Selden told me of him, sir, a week ago or more. He’s in hiding,
too, but he’s not a convict as far as I can make out. I don’t
like it, Dr. Watson—I tell you straight, sir, that I don’t like
it.” He spoke with a sudden passion of earnestness.
“Now, listen to me, Barrymore! I have no interest in this matter
but that of your master. I have come here with no object except
to help him. Tell me, frankly, what it is that you don’t like.”
Barrymore hesitated for a moment, as if he regretted his outburst
or found it difficult to express his own feelings in words.
“It’s all these goings-on, sir,” he cried at last, waving his
hand towards the rain-lashed window which faced the moor.
“There’s foul play somewhere, and there’s black villainy brewing,
to that I’ll swear! Very glad I should be, sir, to see Sir Henry
on his way back to London again!”
“But what is it that alarms you?”
“Look at Sir Charles’s death! That was bad enough, for all that
the coroner said. Look at the noises on the moor at night.
There’s not a man would cross it after sundown if he was paid for
it. Look at this stranger hiding out yonder, and watching and
waiting! What’s he waiting for? What does it mean? It means no
good to anyone of the name of Baskerville, and very glad I shall
be to be quit of it all on the day that Sir Henry’s new servants
are ready to take over the Hall.”
“But about this stranger,” said I. “Can you tell me anything
about him? What did Selden say? Did he find out where he hid, or
what he was doing?”
“He saw him once or twice, but he is a deep one and gives nothing
away. At first he thought that he was the police, but soon he
found that he had some lay of his own. A kind of gentleman he
was, as far as he could see, but what he was doing he could not
make out.”
“And where did he say that he lived?”
“Among the old houses on the hillside—the stone huts where the
old folk used to live.”
“But how about his food?”
“Selden found out that he has got a lad who works for him and
brings all he needs. I dare say he goes to Coombe Tracey for what
he wants.”
“Very good, Barrymore. We may talk further of this some other
time.” When the butler had gone I walked over to the black
window, and I looked through a blurred pane at the driving clouds
and at the tossing outline of the wind-swept trees. It is a wild
night indoors, and what must it be in a stone hut upon the moor.
What passion of hatred can it be which leads a man to lurk in
such a place at such a time! And what deep and earnest purpose
can he have which calls for such a trial! There, in that hut upon
the moor, seems to lie the very centre of that problem which has
vexed me so sorely. I swear that another day shall not have
passed before I have done all that man can do to reach the heart
of the mystery.
Chapter 11.
The Man on the Tor
The extract from my private diary which forms the last chapter
has brought my narrative up to the eighteenth of October, a time
when these strange events began to move swiftly towards their
terrible conclusion. The incidents of the next few days are
indelibly graven upon my recollection, and I can tell them
without reference to the notes made at the time. I start them
from the day which succeeded that upon which I had established
two facts of great importance, the one that Mrs. Laura Lyons of
Coombe Tracey had written to Sir Charles Baskerville and made an
appointment with him at the very place and hour that he met his
death, the other that the lurking man upon the moor was to be
found among the stone huts upon the hillside. With these two
facts in my possession I felt that either my intelligence or my
courage must be deficient if I could not throw some further light
upon these dark places.
I had no opportunity to tell the baronet what I had learned about
Mrs. Lyons upon the evening before, for Dr. Mortimer remained
with him at cards until it was very late. At breakfast, however,
I informed him about my discovery and asked him whether he would
care to accompany me to Coombe Tracey. At first he was very eager
to come, but on second thoughts it seemed to both of us that if I
went alone the results might be better. The more formal we made
the visit the less information we might obtain. I left Sir Henry
behind, therefore, not without some prickings of conscience, and
drove off upon my new quest.
When I reached Coombe Tracey I told Perkins to put up the horses,
and I made inquiries for the lady whom I had come to interrogate.
I had no difficulty in finding her rooms, which were central and
well appointed. A maid showed me in without ceremony, and as I
entered the sitting-room a lady, who was sitting before a
Remington typewriter, sprang up with a pleasant smile of welcome.
Her face fell, however, when she saw that I was a stranger, and
she sat down again and asked me the object of my visit.
The first impression left by Mrs. Lyons was one of extreme
beauty. Her eyes and hair were of the same rich hazel colour, and
her cheeks, though considerably freckled, were flushed with the
exquisite bloom of the brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at
the heart of the sulphur rose. Admiration was, I repeat, the
first impression. But the second was criticism. There was
something subtly wrong with the face, some coarseness of
expression, some hardness, perhaps, of eye, some looseness of lip
which marred its perfect beauty. But these, of course, are
afterthoughts. At the moment I was simply conscious that I was in
the presence of a very handsome woman, and that she was asking me
the reasons for my visit. I had not quite understood until that
instant how delicate my mission was.
“I have the pleasure,” said I, “of knowing your father.”
It was a clumsy introduction, and the lady made me feel it.
“There is nothing in common between my father and me,” she said.
“I owe him nothing, and his friends are not mine. If it were not
for the late Sir Charles Baskerville and some other kind hearts I
might have starved for all that my father cared.”
“It was about the late Sir Charles Baskerville that I have come
here to see you.”
The freckles started out on the lady’s face.
“What can I tell you about him?” she asked, and her fingers
played nervously over the stops of her typewriter.
“You knew him, did you not?”
“I have already said that I owe a great deal to his kindness. If
I am able to support myself it is largely due to the interest
which he took in my unhappy situation.”
“Did you correspond with him?”
The lady looked quickly up with an angry gleam in her hazel eyes.
“What is the object of these questions?” she asked sharply.
“The object is to avoid a public scandal. It is better that I
should ask them here than that the matter should pass outside our
control.”
She was silent and her face was still very pale. At last she
looked up with something reckless and defiant in her manner.
“Well, I’ll answer,” she said. “What are your questions?”
“Did you correspond with Sir Charles?”
“I certainly wrote to him once or twice to acknowledge his
delicacy and his generosity.”
“Have you the dates of those letters?”
“No.”
“Have you ever met him?”
“Yes, once or twice, when he came into Coombe Tracey. He was a
very retiring man, and he preferred to do good by stealth.”
“But if you saw him so seldom and wrote so seldom, how did he
know enough about your affairs to be able to help you, as you say
that he has done?”
She met my difficulty with the utmost readiness.
“There were several gentlemen who knew my sad history and united
to help me. One was Mr. Stapleton, a neighbour and intimate
friend of Sir Charles’s. He was exceedingly kind, and it was
through him that Sir Charles learned about my affairs.”
I knew already that Sir Charles Baskerville had made Stapleton
his almoner upon several occasions, so the lady’s statement bore
the impress of truth upon it.
“Did you ever write to Sir Charles asking him to meet you?” I
continued.
Mrs. Lyons flushed with anger again. “Really, sir, this is a very
extraordinary question.”
“I am sorry, madam, but I must repeat it.”
“Then I answer, certainly not.”
“Not on the very day of Sir Charles’s death?”
The flush had faded in an instant, and a deathly face was before
me. Her dry lips could not speak the “No” which I saw rather than
heard.
“Surely your memory deceives you,” said I. “I could even quote a
passage of your letter. It ran ‘Please, please, as you are a
gentleman, burn this letter, and be at the gate by ten o’clock.’”
I thought that she had fainted, but she recovered herself by a
supreme effort.
“Is there no such thing as a gentleman?” she gasped.
“You do Sir Charles an injustice. He _did_ burn the letter. But
sometimes a letter may be legible even when burned. You
acknowledge now that you wrote it?”
“Yes, I did write it,” she cried, pouring out her soul in a
torrent of words. “I did write it. Why should I deny it? I have
no reason to be ashamed of it. I wished him to help me. I
believed that if I had an interview I could gain his help, so I
asked him to meet me.”
“But why at such an hour?”
“Because I had only just learned that he was going to London next
day and might be away for months. There were reasons why I could
not get there earlier.”
“But why a rendezvous in the garden instead of a visit to the
house?”
“Do you think a woman could go alone at that hour to a bachelor’s
house?”
“Well, what happened when you did get there?”
“I never went.”
“Mrs. Lyons!”
“No, I swear it to you on all I hold sacred. I never went.
Something intervened to prevent my going.”
“What was that?”
“That is a private matter. I cannot tell it.”
“You acknowledge then that you made an appointment with Sir
Charles at the very hour and place at which he met his death, but
you deny that you kept the appointment.”
“That is the truth.”
Again and again I cross-questioned her, but I could never get
past that point.
“Mrs. Lyons,” said I as I rose from this long and inconclusive
interview, “you are taking a very great responsibility and
putting yourself in a very false position by not making an
absolutely clean breast of all that you know. If I have to call
in the aid of the police you will find how seriously you are
compromised. If your position is innocent, why did you in the
first instance deny having written to Sir Charles upon that
date?”
“Because I feared that some false conclusion might be drawn from
it and that I might find myself involved in a scandal.”
“And why were you so pressing that Sir Charles should destroy
your letter?”
“If you have read the letter you will know.”
“I did not say that I had read all the letter.”
“You quoted some of it.”
“I quoted the postscript. The letter had, as I said, been burned
and it was not all legible. I ask you once again why it was that
you were so pressing that Sir Charles should destroy this letter
which he received on the day of his death.”
“The matter is a very private one.”
“The more reason why you should avoid a public investigation.”
“I will tell you, then. If you have heard anything of my unhappy
history you will know that I made a rash marriage and had reason
to regret it.”
“I have heard so much.”
“My life has been one incessant persecution from a husband whom I
abhor. The law is upon his side, and every day I am faced by the
possibility that he may force me to live with him. At the time
that I wrote this letter to Sir Charles I had learned that there
was a prospect of my regaining my freedom if certain expenses
could be met. It meant everything to me—peace of mind, happiness,
self-respect—everything. I knew Sir Charles’s generosity, and I
thought that if he heard the story from my own lips he would help
me.”
“Then how is it that you did not go?”
“Because I received help in the interval from another source.”
“Why then, did you not write to Sir Charles and explain this?”
“So I should have done had I not seen his death in the paper next
morning.”
The woman’s story hung coherently together, and all my questions
were unable to shake it. I could only check it by finding if she
had, indeed, instituted divorce proceedings against her husband
at or about the time of the tragedy.
It was unlikely that she would dare to say that she had not been
to Baskerville Hall if she really had been, for a trap would be
necessary to take her there, and could not have returned to
Coombe Tracey until the early hours of the morning. Such an
excursion could not be kept secret. The probability was,
therefore, that she was telling the truth, or, at least, a part
of the truth. I came away baffled and disheartened. Once again I
had reached that dead wall which seemed to be built across every
path by which I tried to get at the object of my mission. And yet
the more I thought of the lady’s face and of her manner the more
I felt that something was being held back from me. Why should she
turn so pale? Why should she fight against every admission until
it was forced from her? Why should she have been so reticent at
the time of the tragedy? Surely the explanation of all this could
not be as innocent as she would have me believe. For the moment I
could proceed no farther in that direction, but must turn back to
that other clue which was to be sought for among the stone huts
upon the moor.
And that was a most vague direction. I realised it as I drove
back and noted how hill after hill showed traces of the ancient
people. Barrymore’s only indication had been that the stranger
lived in one of these abandoned huts, and many hundreds of them
are scattered throughout the length and breadth of the moor. But
I had my own experience for a guide since it had shown me the man
himself standing upon the summit of the Black Tor. That, then,
should be the centre of my search. From there I should explore
every hut upon the moor until I lighted upon the right one. If
this man were inside it I should find out from his own lips, at
the point of my revolver if necessary, who he was and why he had
dogged us so long. He might slip away from us in the crowd of
Regent Street, but it would puzzle him to do so upon the lonely
moor. On the other hand, if I should find the hut and its tenant
should not be within it I must remain there, however long the
vigil, until he returned. Holmes had missed him in London. It
would indeed be a triumph for me if I could run him to earth
where my master had failed.
Luck had been against us again and again in this inquiry, but now
at last it came to my aid. And the messenger of good fortune was
none other than Mr. Frankland, who was standing, grey-whiskered
and red-faced, outside the gate of his garden, which opened on to
the highroad along which I travelled.
“Good-day, Dr. Watson,” cried he with unwonted good humour, “you
must really give your horses a rest and come in to have a glass
of wine and to congratulate me.”
My feelings towards him were very far from being friendly after
what I had heard of his treatment of his daughter, but I was
anxious to send Perkins and the wagonette home, and the
opportunity was a good one. I alighted and sent a message to Sir
Henry that I should walk over in time for dinner. Then I followed
Frankland into his dining-room.
“It is a great day for me, sir—one of the red-letter days of my
life,” he cried with many chuckles. “I have brought off a double
event. I mean to teach them in these parts that law is law, and
that there is a man here who does not fear to invoke it. I have
established a right of way through the centre of old Middleton’s
park, slap across it, sir, within a hundred yards of his own
front door. What do you think of that? We’ll teach these magnates
that they cannot ride roughshod over the rights of the commoners,
confound them! And I’ve closed the wood where the Fernworthy folk
used to picnic. These infernal people seem to think that there
are no rights of property, and that they can swarm where they
like with their papers and their bottles. Both cases decided, Dr.
Watson, and both in my favour. I haven’t had such a day since I
had Sir John Morland for trespass because he shot in his own
warren.”
“How on earth did you do that?”
“Look it up in the books, sir. It will repay reading—Frankland
_v_. Morland, Court of Queen’s Bench. It cost me £200, but I got
my verdict.”
“Did it do you any good?”
“None, sir, none. I am proud to say that I had no interest in the
matter. I act entirely from a sense of public duty. I have no
doubt, for example, that the Fernworthy people will burn me in
effigy tonight. I told the police last time they did it that they
should stop these disgraceful exhibitions. The County
Constabulary is in a scandalous state, sir, and it has not
afforded me the protection to which I am entitled. The case of
Frankland _v_. Regina will bring the matter before the attention
of the public. I told them that they would have occasion to
regret their treatment of me, and already my words have come
true.”
“How so?” I asked.
The old man put on a very knowing expression. “Because I could
tell them what they are dying to know; but nothing would induce
me to help the rascals in any way.”
I had been casting round for some excuse by which I could get
away from his gossip, but now I began to wish to hear more of it.
I had seen enough of the contrary nature of the old sinner to
understand that any strong sign of interest would be the surest
way to stop his confidences.
“Some poaching case, no doubt?” said I with an indifferent
manner.
“Ha, ha, my boy, a very much more important matter than that!
What about the convict on the moor?”
I stared. “You don’t mean that you know where he is?” said I.
“I may not know exactly where he is, but I am quite sure that I
could help the police to lay their hands on him. Has it never
struck you that the way to catch that man was to find out where
he got his food and so trace it to him?”
He certainly seemed to be getting uncomfortably near the truth.
“No doubt,” said I; “but how do you know that he is anywhere upon
the moor?”
“I know it because I have seen with my own eyes the messenger who
takes him his food.”
My heart sank for Barrymore. It was a serious thing to be in the
power of this spiteful old busybody. But his next remark took a
weight from my mind.
“You’ll be surprised to hear that his food is taken to him by a
child. I see him every day through my telescope upon the roof. He
passes along the same path at the same hour, and to whom should
he be going except to the convict?”
Here was luck indeed! And yet I suppressed all appearance of
interest. A child! Barrymore had said that our unknown was
supplied by a boy. It was on his track, and not upon the
convict’s, that Frankland had stumbled. If I could get his
knowledge it might save me a long and weary hunt. But incredulity
and indifference were evidently my strongest cards.
“I should say that it was much more likely that it was the son of
one of the moorland shepherds taking out his father’s dinner.”
The least appearance of opposition struck fire out of the old
autocrat. His eyes looked malignantly at me, and his grey
whiskers bristled like those of an angry cat.
“Indeed, sir!” said he, pointing out over the wide-stretching
moor. “Do you see that Black Tor over yonder? Well, do you see
the low hill beyond with the thornbush upon it? It is the
stoniest part of the whole moor. Is that a place where a shepherd
would be likely to take his station? Your suggestion, sir, is a
most absurd one.”
I meekly answered that I had spoken without knowing all the
facts. My submission pleased him and led him to further
confidences.
“You may be sure, sir, that I have very good grounds before I
come to an opinion. I have seen the boy again and again with his
bundle. Every day, and sometimes twice a day, I have been
able—but wait a moment, Dr. Watson. Do my eyes deceive me, or is
there at the present moment something moving upon that hillside?”
It was several miles off, but I could distinctly see a small dark
dot against the dull green and grey.
“Come, sir, come!” cried Frankland, rushing upstairs. “You will
see with your own eyes and judge for yourself.”
The telescope, a formidable instrument mounted upon a tripod,
stood upon the flat leads of the house. Frankland clapped his eye
to it and gave a cry of satisfaction.
“Quick, Dr. Watson, quick, before he passes over the hill!”
There he was, sure enough, a small urchin with a little bundle
upon his shoulder, toiling slowly up the hill. When he reached
the crest I saw the ragged uncouth figure outlined for an instant
against the cold blue sky. He looked round him with a furtive and
stealthy air, as one who dreads pursuit. Then he vanished over
the hill.
“Well! Am I right?”
“Certainly, there is a boy who seems to have some secret errand.”
“And what the errand is even a county constable could guess. But
not one word shall they have from me, and I bind you to secrecy
also, Dr. Watson. Not a word! You understand!”
“Just as you wish.”
“They have treated me shamefully—shamefully. When the facts come
out in Frankland _v_. Regina I venture to think that a thrill of
indignation will run through the country. Nothing would induce me
to help the police in any way. For all they cared it might have
been me, instead of my effigy, which these rascals burned at the
stake. Surely you are not going! You will help me to empty the
decanter in honour of this great occasion!”
But I resisted all his solicitations and succeeded in dissuading
him from his announced intention of walking home with me. I kept
the road as long as his eye was on me, and then I struck off
across the moor and made for the stony hill over which the boy
had disappeared. Everything was working in my favour, and I swore
that it should not be through lack of energy or perseverance that
I should miss the chance which fortune had thrown in my way.
The sun was already sinking when I reached the summit of the
hill, and the long slopes beneath me were all golden-green on one
side and grey shadow on the other. A haze lay low upon the
farthest sky-line, out of which jutted the fantastic shapes of
Belliver and Vixen Tor. Over the wide expanse there was no sound
and no movement. One great grey bird, a gull or curlew, soared
aloft in the blue heaven. He and I seemed to be the only living
things between the huge arch of the sky and the desert beneath
it. The barren scene, the sense of loneliness, and the mystery
and urgency of my task all struck a chill into my heart. The boy
was nowhere to be seen. But down beneath me in a cleft of the
hills there was a circle of the old stone huts, and in the middle
of them there was one which retained sufficient roof to act as a
screen against the weather. My heart leaped within me as I saw
it. This must be the burrow where the stranger lurked. At last my
foot was on the threshold of his hiding place—his secret was
within my grasp.
As I approached the hut, walking as warily as Stapleton would do
when with poised net he drew near the settled butterfly, I
satisfied myself that the place had indeed been used as a
habitation. A vague pathway among the boulders led to the
dilapidated opening which served as a door. All was silent
within. The unknown might be lurking there, or he might be
prowling on the moor. My nerves tingled with the sense of
adventure. Throwing aside my cigarette, I closed my hand upon the
butt of my revolver and, walking swiftly up to the door, I looked
in. The place was empty.
But there were ample signs that I had not come upon a false
scent. This was certainly where the man lived. Some blankets
rolled in a waterproof lay upon that very stone slab upon which
Neolithic man had once slumbered. The ashes of a fire were heaped
in a rude grate. Beside it lay some cooking utensils and a bucket
half-full of water. A litter of empty tins showed that the place
had been occupied for some time, and I saw, as my eyes became
accustomed to the checkered light, a pannikin and a half-full
bottle of spirits standing in the corner. In the middle of the
hut a flat stone served the purpose of a table, and upon this
stood a small cloth bundle—the same, no doubt, which I had seen
through the telescope upon the shoulder of the boy. It contained
a loaf of bread, a tinned tongue, and two tins of preserved
peaches. As I set it down again, after having examined it, my
heart leaped to see that beneath it there lay a sheet of paper
with writing upon it. I raised it, and this was what I read,
roughly scrawled in pencil: “Dr. Watson has gone to Coombe
Tracey.”
For a minute I stood there with the paper in my hands thinking
out the meaning of this curt message. It was I, then, and not Sir
Henry, who was being dogged by this secret man. He had not
followed me himself, but he had set an agent—the boy,
perhaps—upon my track, and this was his report. Possibly I had
taken no step since I had been upon the moor which had not been
observed and reported. Always there was this feeling of an unseen
force, a fine net drawn round us with infinite skill and
delicacy, holding us so lightly that it was only at some supreme
moment that one realised that one was indeed entangled in its
meshes.
If there was one report there might be others, so I looked round
the hut in search of them. There was no trace, however, of
anything of the kind, nor could I discover any sign which might
indicate the character or intentions of the man who lived in this
singular place, save that he must be of Spartan habits and cared
little for the comforts of life. When I thought of the heavy
rains and looked at the gaping roof I understood how strong and
immutable must be the purpose which had kept him in that
inhospitable abode. Was he our malignant enemy, or was he by
chance our guardian angel? I swore that I would not leave the hut
until I knew.
Outside the sun was sinking low and the west was blazing with
scarlet and gold. Its reflection was shot back in ruddy patches
by the distant pools which lay amid the great Grimpen Mire. There
were the two towers of Baskerville Hall, and there a distant blur
of smoke which marked the village of Grimpen. Between the two,
behind the hill, was the house of the Stapletons. All was sweet
and mellow and peaceful in the golden evening light, and yet as I
looked at them my soul shared none of the peace of Nature but
quivered at the vagueness and the terror of that interview which
every instant was bringing nearer. With tingling nerves but a
fixed purpose, I sat in the dark recess of the hut and waited
with sombre patience for the coming of its tenant.
And then at last I heard him. Far away came the sharp clink of a
boot striking upon a stone. Then another and yet another, coming
nearer and nearer. I shrank back into the darkest corner and
cocked the pistol in my pocket, determined not to discover myself
until I had an opportunity of seeing something of the stranger.
There was a long pause which showed that he had stopped. Then
once more the footsteps approached and a shadow fell across the
opening of the hut.
“It is a lovely evening, my dear Watson,” said a well-known
voice. “I really think that you will be more comfortable outside
than in.”
Chapter 12.
Death on the Moor
For a moment or two I sat breathless, hardly able to believe my
ears. Then my senses and my voice came back to me, while a
crushing weight of responsibility seemed in an instant to be
lifted from my soul. That cold, incisive, ironical voice could
belong to but one man in all the world.
“Holmes!” I cried—“Holmes!”
“Come out,” said he, “and please be careful with the revolver.”
I stooped under the rude lintel, and there he sat upon a stone
outside, his grey eyes dancing with amusement as they fell upon
my astonished features. He was thin and worn, but clear and
alert, his keen face bronzed by the sun and roughened by the
wind. In his tweed suit and cloth cap he looked like any other
tourist upon the moor, and he had contrived, with that catlike
love of personal cleanliness which was one of his
characteristics, that his chin should be as smooth and his linen
as perfect as if he were in Baker Street.
“I never was more glad to see anyone in my life,” said I as I
wrung him by the hand.
“Or more astonished, eh?”
“Well, I must confess to it.”
“The surprise was not all on one side, I assure you. I had no
idea that you had found my occasional retreat, still less that
you were inside it, until I was within twenty paces of the door.”
“My footprint, I presume?”
“No, Watson, I fear that I could not undertake to recognize your
footprint amid all the footprints of the world. If you seriously
desire to deceive me you must change your tobacconist; for when I
see the stub of a cigarette marked Bradley, Oxford Street, I know
that my friend Watson is in the neighbourhood. You will see it
there beside the path. You threw it down, no doubt, at that
supreme moment when you charged into the empty hut.”
“Exactly.”
“I thought as much—and knowing your admirable tenacity I was
convinced that you were sitting in ambush, a weapon within reach,
waiting for the tenant to return. So you actually thought that I
was the criminal?”
“I did not know who you were, but I was determined to find out.”
“Excellent, Watson! And how did you localise me? You saw me,
perhaps, on the night of the convict hunt, when I was so
imprudent as to allow the moon to rise behind me?”
“Yes, I saw you then.”
“And have no doubt searched all the huts until you came to this
one?”
“No, your boy had been observed, and that gave me a guide where
to look.”
“The old gentleman with the telescope, no doubt. I could not make
it out when first I saw the light flashing upon the lens.” He
rose and peeped into the hut. “Ha, I see that Cartwright has
brought up some supplies. What’s this paper? So you have been to
Coombe Tracey, have you?”
“Yes.”
“To see Mrs. Laura Lyons?”
“Exactly.”
“Well done! Our researches have evidently been running on
parallel lines, and when we unite our results I expect we shall
have a fairly full knowledge of the case.”
“Well, I am glad from my heart that you are here, for indeed the
responsibility and the mystery were both becoming too much for my
nerves. But how in the name of wonder did you come here, and what
have you been doing? I thought that you were in Baker Street
working out that case of blackmailing.”
“That was what I wished you to think.”
“Then you use me, and yet do not trust me!” I cried with some
bitterness. “I think that I have deserved better at your hands,
Holmes.”
“My dear fellow, you have been invaluable to me in this as in
many other cases, and I beg that you will forgive me if I have
seemed to play a trick upon you. In truth, it was partly for your
own sake that I did it, and it was my appreciation of the danger
which you ran which led me to come down and examine the matter
for myself. Had I been with Sir Henry and you it is confident
that my point of view would have been the same as yours, and my
presence would have warned our very formidable opponents to be on
their guard. As it is, I have been able to get about as I could
not possibly have done had I been living in the Hall, and I
remain an unknown factor in the business, ready to throw in all
my weight at a critical moment.”
“But why keep me in the dark?”
“For you to know could not have helped us and might possibly have
led to my discovery. You would have wished to tell me something,
or in your kindness you would have brought me out some comfort or
other, and so an unnecessary risk would be run. I brought
Cartwright down with me—you remember the little chap at the
express office—and he has seen after my simple wants: a loaf of
bread and a clean collar. What does man want more? He has given
me an extra pair of eyes upon a very active pair of feet, and
both have been invaluable.”
“Then my reports have all been wasted!”—My voice trembled as I
recalled the pains and the pride with which I had composed them.
Holmes took a bundle of papers from his pocket.
“Here are your reports, my dear fellow, and very well thumbed, I
assure you. I made excellent arrangements, and they are only
delayed one day upon their way. I must compliment you exceedingly
upon the zeal and the intelligence which you have shown over an
extraordinarily difficult case.”
I was still rather raw over the deception which had been
practised upon me, but the warmth of Holmes’s praise drove my
anger from my mind. I felt also in my heart that he was right in
what he said and that it was really best for our purpose that I
should not have known that he was upon the moor.
“That’s better,” said he, seeing the shadow rise from my face.
“And now tell me the result of your visit to Mrs. Laura Lyons—it
was not difficult for me to guess that it was to see her that you
had gone, for I am already aware that she is the one person in
Coombe Tracey who might be of service to us in the matter. In
fact, if you had not gone today it is exceedingly probable that I
should have gone tomorrow.”
The sun had set and dusk was settling over the moor. The air had
turned chill and we withdrew into the hut for warmth. There,
sitting together in the twilight, I told Holmes of my
conversation with the lady. So interested was he that I had to
repeat some of it twice before he was satisfied.
“This is most important,” said he when I had concluded. “It fills
up a gap which I had been unable to bridge in this most complex
affair. You are aware, perhaps, that a close intimacy exists
between this lady and the man Stapleton?”
“I did not know of a close intimacy.”
“There can be no doubt about the matter. They meet, they write,
there is a complete understanding between them. Now, this puts a
very powerful weapon into our hands. If I could only use it to
detach his wife—”
“His wife?”
“I am giving you some information now, in return for all that you
have given me. The lady who has passed here as Miss Stapleton is
in reality his wife.”
“Good heavens, Holmes! Are you sure of what you say? How could he
have permitted Sir Henry to fall in love with her?”
“Sir Henry’s falling in love could do no harm to anyone except
Sir Henry. He took particular care that Sir Henry did not make
love to her, as you have yourself observed. I repeat that the
lady is his wife and not his sister.”
“But why this elaborate deception?”
“Because he foresaw that she would be very much more useful to
him in the character of a free woman.”
All my unspoken instincts, my vague suspicions, suddenly took
shape and centred upon the naturalist. In that impassive
colourless man, with his straw hat and his butterfly-net, I
seemed to see something terrible—a creature of infinite patience
and craft, with a smiling face and a murderous heart.
“It is he, then, who is our enemy—it is he who dogged us in
London?”
“So I read the riddle.”
“And the warning—it must have come from her!”
“Exactly.”
The shape of some monstrous villainy, half seen, half guessed,
loomed through the darkness which had girt me so long.
“But are you sure of this, Holmes? How do you know that the woman
is his wife?”
“Because he so far forgot himself as to tell you a true piece of
autobiography upon the occasion when he first met you, and I dare
say he has many a time regretted it since. He was once a
schoolmaster in the north of England. Now, there is no one more
easy to trace than a schoolmaster. There are scholastic agencies
by which one may identify any man who has been in the profession.
A little investigation showed me that a school had come to grief
under atrocious circumstances, and that the man who had owned
it—the name was different—had disappeared with his wife. The
descriptions agreed. When I learned that the missing man was
devoted to entomology the identification was complete.”
The darkness was rising, but much was still hidden by the
shadows.
“If this woman is in truth his wife, where does Mrs. Laura Lyons
come in?” I asked.
“That is one of the points upon which your own researches have
shed a light. Your interview with the lady has cleared the
situation very much. I did not know about a projected divorce
between herself and her husband. In that case, regarding
Stapleton as an unmarried man, she counted no doubt upon becoming
his wife.”
“And when she is undeceived?”
“Why, then we may find the lady of service. It must be our first
duty to see her—both of us—tomorrow. Don’t you think, Watson,
that you are away from your charge rather long? Your place should
be at Baskerville Hall.”
The last red streaks had faded away in the west and night had
settled upon the moor. A few faint stars were gleaming in a
violet sky.
“One last question, Holmes,” I said as I rose. “Surely there is
no need of secrecy between you and me. What is the meaning of it
all? What is he after?”
Holmes’s voice sank as he answered:
“It is murder, Watson—refined, cold-blooded, deliberate murder.
Do not ask me for particulars. My nets are closing upon him, even
as his are upon Sir Henry, and with your help he is already
almost at my mercy. There is but one danger which can threaten
us. It is that he should strike before we are ready to do so.
Another day—two at the most—and I have my case complete, but
until then guard your charge as closely as ever a fond mother
watched her ailing child. Your mission today has justified
itself, and yet I could almost wish that you had not left his
side. Hark!”
A terrible scream—a prolonged yell of horror and anguish—burst
out of the silence of the moor. That frightful cry turned the
blood to ice in my veins.
“Oh, my God!” I gasped. “What is it? What does it mean?”
Holmes had sprung to his feet, and I saw his dark, athletic
outline at the door of the hut, his shoulders stooping, his head
thrust forward, his face peering into the darkness.
“Hush!” he whispered. “Hush!”
The cry had been loud on account of its vehemence, but it had
pealed out from somewhere far off on the shadowy plain. Now it
burst upon our ears, nearer, louder, more urgent than before.
“Where is it?” Holmes whispered; and I knew from the thrill of
his voice that he, the man of iron, was shaken to the soul.
“Where is it, Watson?”
“There, I think.” I pointed into the darkness.
“No, there!”
Again the agonised cry swept through the silent night, louder and
much nearer than ever. And a new sound mingled with it, a deep,
muttered rumble, musical and yet menacing, rising and falling
like the low, constant murmur of the sea.
“The hound!” cried Holmes. “Come, Watson, come! Great heavens, if
we are too late!”
He had started running swiftly over the moor, and I had followed
at his heels. But now from somewhere among the broken ground
immediately in front of us there came one last despairing yell,
and then a dull, heavy thud. We halted and listened. Not another
sound broke the heavy silence of the windless night.
I saw Holmes put his hand to his forehead like a man distracted.
He stamped his feet upon the ground.
“He has beaten us, Watson. We are too late.”
“No, no, surely not!”
“Fool that I was to hold my hand. And you, Watson, see what comes
of abandoning your charge! But, by Heaven, if the worst has
happened we’ll avenge him!”
Blindly we ran through the gloom, blundering against boulders,
forcing our way through gorse bushes, panting up hills and
rushing down slopes, heading always in the direction whence those
dreadful sounds had come. At every rise Holmes looked eagerly
round him, but the shadows were thick upon the moor, and nothing
moved upon its dreary face.
“Can you see anything?”
“Nothing.”
“But, hark, what is that?”
A low moan had fallen upon our ears. There it was again upon our
left! On that side a ridge of rocks ended in a sheer cliff which
overlooked a stone-strewn slope. On its jagged face was
spread-eagled some dark, irregular object. As we ran towards it
the vague outline hardened into a definite shape. It was a
prostrate man face downward upon the ground, the head doubled
under him at a horrible angle, the shoulders rounded and the body
hunched together as if in the act of throwing a somersault. So
grotesque was the attitude that I could not for the instant
realise that that moan had been the passing of his soul. Not a
whisper, not a rustle, rose now from the dark figure over which
we stooped. Holmes laid his hand upon him and held it up again
with an exclamation of horror. The gleam of the match which he
struck shone upon his clotted fingers and upon the ghastly pool
which widened slowly from the crushed skull of the victim. And it
shone upon something else which turned our hearts sick and faint
within us—the body of Sir Henry Baskerville!
There was no chance of either of us forgetting that peculiar
ruddy tweed suit—the very one which he had worn on the first
morning that we had seen him in Baker Street. We caught the one
clear glimpse of it, and then the match flickered and went out,
even as the hope had gone out of our souls. Holmes groaned, and
his face glimmered white through the darkness.
“The brute! The brute!” I cried with clenched hands. “Oh Holmes,
I shall never forgive myself for having left him to his fate.”
“I am more to blame than you, Watson. In order to have my case
well rounded and complete, I have thrown away the life of my
client. It is the greatest blow which has befallen me in my
career. But how could I know—how _could_ I know—that he would
risk his life alone upon the moor in the face of all my
warnings?”
“That we should have heard his screams—my God, those screams!—and
yet have been unable to save him! Where is this brute of a hound
which drove him to his death? It may be lurking among these rocks
at this instant. And Stapleton, where is he? He shall answer for
this deed.”
“He shall. I will see to that. Uncle and nephew have been
murdered—the one frightened to death by the very sight of a beast
which he thought to be supernatural, the other driven to his end
in his wild flight to escape from it. But now we have to prove
the connection between the man and the beast. Save from what we
heard, we cannot even swear to the existence of the latter, since
Sir Henry has evidently died from the fall. But, by heavens,
cunning as he is, the fellow shall be in my power before another
day is past!”
We stood with bitter hearts on either side of the mangled body,
overwhelmed by this sudden and irrevocable disaster which had
brought all our long and weary labours to so piteous an end. Then
as the moon rose we climbed to the top of the rocks over which
our poor friend had fallen, and from the summit we gazed out over
the shadowy moor, half silver and half gloom. Far away, miles
off, in the direction of Grimpen, a single steady yellow light
was shining. It could only come from the lonely abode of the
Stapletons. With a bitter curse I shook my fist at it as I gazed.
“Why should we not seize him at once?”
“Our case is not complete. The fellow is wary and cunning to the
last degree. It is not what we know, but what we can prove. If we
make one false move the villain may escape us yet.”
“What can we do?”
“There will be plenty for us to do tomorrow. Tonight we can only
perform the last offices to our poor friend.”
Together we made our way down the precipitous slope and
approached the body, black and clear against the silvered stones.
The agony of those contorted limbs struck me with a spasm of pain
and blurred my eyes with tears.
“We must send for help, Holmes! We cannot carry him all the way
to the Hall. Good heavens, are you mad?”
He had uttered a cry and bent over the body. Now he was dancing
and laughing and wringing my hand. Could this be my stern,
self-contained friend? These were hidden fires, indeed!
“A beard! A beard! The man has a beard!”
“A beard?”
“It is not the baronet—it is—why, it is my neighbour, the
convict!”
With feverish haste we had turned the body over, and that
dripping beard was pointing up to the cold, clear moon. There
could be no doubt about the beetling forehead, the sunken animal
eyes. It was indeed the same face which had glared upon me in the
light of the candle from over the rock—the face of Selden, the
criminal.
Then in an instant it was all clear to me. I remembered how the
baronet had told me that he had handed his old wardrobe to
Barrymore. Barrymore had passed it on in order to help Selden in
his escape. Boots, shirt, cap—it was all Sir Henry’s. The tragedy
was still black enough, but this man had at least deserved death
by the laws of his country. I told Holmes how the matter stood,
my heart bubbling over with thankfulness and joy.
“Then the clothes have been the poor devil’s death,” said he. “It
is clear enough that the hound has been laid on from some article
of Sir Henry’s—the boot which was abstracted in the hotel, in all
probability—and so ran this man down. There is one very singular
thing, however: How came Selden, in the darkness, to know that
the hound was on his trail?”
“He heard him.”
“To hear a hound upon the moor would not work a hard man like
this convict into such a paroxysm of terror that he would risk
recapture by screaming wildly for help. By his cries he must have
run a long way after he knew the animal was on his track. How did
he know?”
“A greater mystery to me is why this hound, presuming that all
our conjectures are correct—”
“I presume nothing.”
“Well, then, why this hound should be loose tonight. I suppose
that it does not always run loose upon the moor. Stapleton would
not let it go unless he had reason to think that Sir Henry would
be there.”
“My difficulty is the more formidable of the two, for I think
that we shall very shortly get an explanation of yours, while
mine may remain forever a mystery. The question now is, what
shall we do with this poor wretch’s body? We cannot leave it here
to the foxes and the ravens.”
“I suggest that we put it in one of the huts until we can
communicate with the police.”
“Exactly. I have no doubt that you and I could carry it so far.
Halloa, Watson, what’s this? It’s the man himself, by all that’s
wonderful and audacious! Not a word to show your suspicions—not a
word, or my plans crumble to the ground.”
A figure was approaching us over the moor, and I saw the dull red
glow of a cigar. The moon shone upon him, and I could distinguish
the dapper shape and jaunty walk of the naturalist. He stopped
when he saw us, and then came on again.
“Why, Dr. Watson, that’s not you, is it? You are the last man
that I should have expected to see out on the moor at this time
of night. But, dear me, what’s this? Somebody hurt? Not—don’t
tell me that it is our friend Sir Henry!” He hurried past me and
stooped over the dead man. I heard a sharp intake of his breath
and the cigar fell from his fingers.
“Who—who’s this?” he stammered.
“It is Selden, the man who escaped from Princetown.”
Stapleton turned a ghastly face upon us, but by a supreme effort
he had overcome his amazement and his disappointment. He looked
sharply from Holmes to me. “Dear me! What a very shocking affair!
How did he die?”
“He appears to have broken his neck by falling over these rocks.
My friend and I were strolling on the moor when we heard a cry.”
“I heard a cry also. That was what brought me out. I was uneasy
about Sir Henry.”
“Why about Sir Henry in particular?” I could not help asking.
“Because I had suggested that he should come over. When he did
not come I was surprised, and I naturally became alarmed for his
safety when I heard cries upon the moor. By the way”—his eyes
darted again from my face to Holmes’s—“did you hear anything else
besides a cry?”
“No,” said Holmes; “did you?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, then?”
“Oh, you know the stories that the peasants tell about a phantom
hound, and so on. It is said to be heard at night upon the moor.
I was wondering if there were any evidence of such a sound
tonight.”
“We heard nothing of the kind,” said I.
“And what is your theory of this poor fellow’s death?”
“I have no doubt that anxiety and exposure have driven him off
his head. He has rushed about the moor in a crazy state and
eventually fallen over here and broken his neck.”
“That seems the most reasonable theory,” said Stapleton, and he
gave a sigh which I took to indicate his relief. “What do you
think about it, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
My friend bowed his compliments. “You are quick at
identification,” said he.
“We have been expecting you in these parts since Dr. Watson came
down. You are in time to see a tragedy.”
“Yes, indeed. I have no doubt that my friend’s explanation will
cover the facts. I will take an unpleasant remembrance back to
London with me tomorrow.”
“Oh, you return tomorrow?”
“That is my intention.”
“I hope your visit has cast some light upon those occurrences
which have puzzled us?”
Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
“One cannot always have the success for which one hopes. An
investigator needs facts and not legends or rumours. It has not
been a satisfactory case.”
My friend spoke in his frankest and most unconcerned manner.
Stapleton still looked hard at him. Then he turned to me.
“I would suggest carrying this poor fellow to my house, but it
would give my sister such a fright that I do not feel justified
in doing it. I think that if we put something over his face he
will be safe until morning.”
And so it was arranged. Resisting Stapleton’s offer of
hospitality, Holmes and I set off to Baskerville Hall, leaving
the naturalist to return alone. Looking back we saw the figure
moving slowly away over the broad moor, and behind him that one
black smudge on the silvered slope which showed where the man was
lying who had come so horribly to his end.
“We’re at close grips at last,” said Holmes as we walked together
across the moor. “What a nerve the fellow has! How he pulled
himself together in the face of what must have been a paralyzing
shock when he found that the wrong man had fallen a victim to his
plot. I told you in London, Watson, and I tell you now again,
that we have never had a foeman more worthy of our steel.”
“I am sorry that he has seen you.”
“And so was I at first. But there was no getting out of it.”
“What effect do you think it will have upon his plans now that he
knows you are here?”
“It may cause him to be more cautious, or it may drive him to
desperate measures at once. Like most clever criminals, he may be
too confident in his own cleverness and imagine that he has
completely deceived us.”
“Why should we not arrest him at once?”
“My dear Watson, you were born to be a man of action. Your
instinct is always to do something energetic. But supposing, for
argument’s sake, that we had him arrested tonight, what on earth
the better off should we be for that? We could prove nothing
against him. There’s the devilish cunning of it! If he were
acting through a human agent we could get some evidence, but if
we were to drag this great dog to the light of day it would not
help us in putting a rope round the neck of its master.”
“Surely we have a case.”
“Not a shadow of one—only surmise and conjecture. We should be
laughed out of court if we came with such a story and such
evidence.”
“There is Sir Charles’s death.”
“Found dead without a mark upon him. You and I know that he died
of sheer fright, and we know also what frightened him, but how
are we to get twelve stolid jurymen to know it? What signs are
there of a hound? Where are the marks of its fangs? Of course we
know that a hound does not bite a dead body and that Sir Charles
was dead before ever the brute overtook him. But we have to prove
all this, and we are not in a position to do it.”
“Well, then, tonight?”
“We are not much better off tonight. Again, there was no direct
connection between the hound and the man’s death. We never saw
the hound. We heard it, but we could not prove that it was
running upon this man’s trail. There is a complete absence of
motive. No, my dear fellow; we must reconcile ourselves to the
fact that we have no case at present, and that it is worth our
while to run any risk in order to establish one.”
“And how do you propose to do so?”
“I have great hopes of what Mrs. Laura Lyons may do for us when
the position of affairs is made clear to her. And I have my own
plan as well. Sufficient for tomorrow is the evil thereof; but I
hope before the day is past to have the upper hand at last.”
I could draw nothing further from him, and he walked, lost in
thought, as far as the Baskerville gates.
“Are you coming up?”
“Yes; I see no reason for further concealment. But one last word,
Watson. Say nothing of the hound to Sir Henry. Let him think that
Selden’s death was as Stapleton would have us believe. He will
have a better nerve for the ordeal which he will have to undergo
tomorrow, when he is engaged, if I remember your report aright,
to dine with these people.”
“And so am I.”
“Then you must excuse yourself and he must go alone. That will be
easily arranged. And now, if we are too late for dinner, I think
that we are both ready for our suppers.”
Chapter 13.
Fixing the Nets
Sir Henry was more pleased than surprised to see Sherlock Holmes,
for he had for some days been expecting that recent events would
bring him down from London. He did raise his eyebrows, however,
when he found that my friend had neither any luggage nor any
explanations for its absence. Between us we soon supplied his
wants, and then over a belated supper we explained to the baronet
as much of our experience as it seemed desirable that he should
know. But first I had the unpleasant duty of breaking the news to
Barrymore and his wife. To him it may have been an unmitigated
relief, but she wept bitterly in her apron. To all the world he
was the man of violence, half animal and half demon; but to her
he always remained the little wilful boy of her own girlhood, the
child who had clung to her hand. Evil indeed is the man who has
not one woman to mourn him.
“I’ve been moping in the house all day since Watson went off in
the morning,” said the baronet. “I guess I should have some
credit, for I have kept my promise. If I hadn’t sworn not to go
about alone I might have had a more lively evening, for I had a
message from Stapleton asking me over there.”
“I have no doubt that you would have had a more lively evening,”
said Holmes drily. “By the way, I don’t suppose you appreciate
that we have been mourning over you as having broken your neck?”
Sir Henry opened his eyes. “How was that?”
“This poor wretch was dressed in your clothes. I fear your
servant who gave them to him may get into trouble with the
police.”
“That is unlikely. There was no mark on any of them, as far as I
know.”
“That’s lucky for him—in fact, it’s lucky for all of you, since
you are all on the wrong side of the law in this matter. I am not
sure that as a conscientious detective my first duty is not to
arrest the whole household. Watson’s reports are most
incriminating documents.”
“But how about the case?” asked the baronet. “Have you made
anything out of the tangle? I don’t know that Watson and I are
much the wiser since we came down.”
“I think that I shall be in a position to make the situation
rather more clear to you before long. It has been an exceedingly
difficult and most complicated business. There are several points
upon which we still want light—but it is coming all the same.”
“We’ve had one experience, as Watson has no doubt told you. We
heard the hound on the moor, so I can swear that it is not all
empty superstition. I had something to do with dogs when I was
out West, and I know one when I hear one. If you can muzzle that
one and put him on a chain I’ll be ready to swear you are the
greatest detective of all time.”
“I think I will muzzle him and chain him all right if you will
give me your help.”
“Whatever you tell me to do I will do.”
“Very good; and I will ask you also to do it blindly, without
always asking the reason.”
“Just as you like.”
“If you will do this I think the chances are that our little
problem will soon be solved. I have no doubt—”
He stopped suddenly and stared fixedly up over my head into the
air. The lamp beat upon his face, and so intent was it and so
still that it might have been that of a clear-cut classical
statue, a personification of alertness and expectation.
“What is it?” we both cried.
I could see as he looked down that he was repressing some
internal emotion. His features were still composed, but his eyes
shone with amused exultation.
“Excuse the admiration of a connoisseur,” said he as he waved his
hand towards the line of portraits which covered the opposite
wall. “Watson won’t allow that I know anything of art but that is
mere jealousy because our views upon the subject differ. Now,
these are a really very fine series of portraits.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear you say so,” said Sir Henry, glancing
with some surprise at my friend. “I don’t pretend to know much
about these things, and I’d be a better judge of a horse or a
steer than of a picture. I didn’t know that you found time for
such things.”
“I know what is good when I see it, and I see it now. That’s a
Kneller, I’ll swear, that lady in the blue silk over yonder, and
the stout gentleman with the wig ought to be a Reynolds. They are
all family portraits, I presume?”
“Every one.”
“Do you know the names?”
“Barrymore has been coaching me in them, and I think I can say my
lessons fairly well.”
“Who is the gentleman with the telescope?”
“That is Rear-Admiral Baskerville, who served under Rodney in the
West Indies. The man with the blue coat and the roll of paper is
Sir William Baskerville, who was Chairman of Committees of the
House of Commons under Pitt.”
“And this Cavalier opposite to me—the one with the black velvet
and the lace?”
“Ah, you have a right to know about him. That is the cause of all
the mischief, the wicked Hugo, who started the Hound of the
Baskervilles. We’re not likely to forget him.”
I gazed with interest and some surprise upon the portrait.
“Dear me!” said Holmes, “he seems a quiet, meek-mannered man
enough, but I dare say that there was a lurking devil in his
eyes. I had pictured him as a more robust and ruffianly person.”
“There’s no doubt about the authenticity, for the name and the
date, 1647, are on the back of the canvas.”
Holmes said little more, but the picture of the old roysterer
seemed to have a fascination for him, and his eyes were
continually fixed upon it during supper. It was not until later,
when Sir Henry had gone to his room, that I was able to follow
the trend of his thoughts. He led me back into the
banqueting-hall, his bedroom candle in his hand, and he held it
up against the time-stained portrait on the wall.
“Do you see anything there?”
I looked at the broad plumed hat, the curling love-locks, the
white lace collar, and the straight, severe face which was framed
between them. It was not a brutal countenance, but it was prim,
hard, and stern, with a firm-set, thin-lipped mouth, and a coldly
intolerant eye.
“Is it like anyone you know?”
“There is something of Sir Henry about the jaw.”
“Just a suggestion, perhaps. But wait an instant!” He stood upon
a chair, and, holding up the light in his left hand, he curved
his right arm over the broad hat and round the long ringlets.
“Good heavens!” I cried in amazement.
The face of Stapleton had sprung out of the canvas.
“Ha, you see it now. My eyes have been trained to examine faces
and not their trimmings. It is the first quality of a criminal
investigator that he should see through a disguise.”
“But this is marvellous. It might be his portrait.”
“Yes, it is an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears
to be both physical and spiritual. A study of family portraits is
enough to convert a man to the doctrine of reincarnation. The
fellow is a Baskerville—that is evident.”
“With designs upon the succession.”
“Exactly. This chance of the picture has supplied us with one of
our most obvious missing links. We have him, Watson, we have him,
and I dare swear that before tomorrow night he will be fluttering
in our net as helpless as one of his own butterflies. A pin, a
cork, and a card, and we add him to the Baker Street collection!”
He burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away
from the picture. I have not heard him laugh often, and it has
always boded ill to somebody.
I was up betimes in the morning, but Holmes was afoot earlier
still, for I saw him as I dressed, coming up the drive.
“Yes, we should have a full day today,” he remarked, and he
rubbed his hands with the joy of action. “The nets are all in
place, and the drag is about to begin. We’ll know before the day
is out whether we have caught our big, lean-jawed pike, or
whether he has got through the meshes.”
“Have you been on the moor already?”
“I have sent a report from Grimpen to Princetown as to the death
of Selden. I think I can promise that none of you will be
troubled in the matter. And I have also communicated with my
faithful Cartwright, who would certainly have pined away at the
door of my hut, as a dog does at his master’s grave, if I had not
set his mind at rest about my safety.”
“What is the next move?”
“To see Sir Henry. Ah, here he is!”
“Good-morning, Holmes,” said the baronet. “You look like a
general who is planning a battle with his chief of the staff.”
“That is the exact situation. Watson was asking for orders.”
“And so do I.”
“Very good. You are engaged, as I understand, to dine with our
friends the Stapletons tonight.”
“I hope that you will come also. They are very hospitable people,
and I am sure that they would be very glad to see you.”
“I fear that Watson and I must go to London.”
“To London?”
“Yes, I think that we should be more useful there at the present
juncture.”
The baronet’s face perceptibly lengthened.
“I hoped that you were going to see me through this business. The
Hall and the moor are not very pleasant places when one is
alone.”
“My dear fellow, you must trust me implicitly and do exactly what
I tell you. You can tell your friends that we should have been
happy to have come with you, but that urgent business required us
to be in town. We hope very soon to return to Devonshire. Will
you remember to give them that message?”
“If you insist upon it.”
“There is no alternative, I assure you.”
I saw by the baronet’s clouded brow that he was deeply hurt by
what he regarded as our desertion.
“When do you desire to go?” he asked coldly.
“Immediately after breakfast. We will drive in to Coombe Tracey,
but Watson will leave his things as a pledge that he will come
back to you. Watson, you will send a note to Stapleton to tell
him that you regret that you cannot come.”
“I have a good mind to go to London with you,” said the baronet.
“Why should I stay here alone?”
“Because it is your post of duty. Because you gave me your word
that you would do as you were told, and I tell you to stay.”
“All right, then, I’ll stay.”
“One more direction! I wish you to drive to Merripit House. Send
back your trap, however, and let them know that you intend to
walk home.”
“To walk across the moor?”
“Yes.”
“But that is the very thing which you have so often cautioned me
not to do.”
“This time you may do it with safety. If I had not every
confidence in your nerve and courage I would not suggest it, but
it is essential that you should do it.”
“Then I will do it.”
“And as you value your life do not go across the moor in any
direction save along the straight path which leads from Merripit
House to the Grimpen Road, and is your natural way home.”
“I will do just what you say.”
“Very good. I should be glad to get away as soon after breakfast
as possible, so as to reach London in the afternoon.”
I was much astounded by this programme, though I remembered that
Holmes had said to Stapleton on the night before that his visit
would terminate next day. It had not crossed my mind however,
that he would wish me to go with him, nor could I understand how
we could both be absent at a moment which he himself declared to
be critical. There was nothing for it, however, but implicit
obedience; so we bade good-bye to our rueful friend, and a couple
of hours afterwards we were at the station of Coombe Tracey and
had dispatched the trap upon its return journey. A small boy was
waiting upon the platform.
“Any orders, sir?”
“You will take this train to town, Cartwright. The moment you
arrive you will send a wire to Sir Henry Baskerville, in my name,
to say that if he finds the pocketbook which I have dropped he is
to send it by registered post to Baker Street.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And ask at the station office if there is a message for me.”
The boy returned with a telegram, which Holmes handed to me. It
ran:
Wire received. Coming down with unsigned warrant. Arrive
five-forty. Lestrade.
“That is in answer to mine of this morning. He is the best of the
professionals, I think, and we may need his assistance. Now,
Watson, I think that we cannot employ our time better than by
calling upon your acquaintance, Mrs. Laura Lyons.”
His plan of campaign was beginning to be evident. He would use
the baronet in order to convince the Stapletons that we were
really gone, while we should actually return at the instant when
we were likely to be needed. That telegram from London, if
mentioned by Sir Henry to the Stapletons, must remove the last
suspicions from their minds. Already I seemed to see our nets
drawing closer around that lean-jawed pike.
Mrs. Laura Lyons was in her office, and Sherlock Holmes opened
his interview with a frankness and directness which considerably
amazed her.
“I am investigating the circumstances which attended the death of
the late Sir Charles Baskerville,” said he. “My friend here, Dr.
Watson, has informed me of what you have communicated, and also
of what you have withheld in connection with that matter.”
“What have I withheld?” she asked defiantly.
“You have confessed that you asked Sir Charles to be at the gate
at ten o’clock. We know that that was the place and hour of his
death. You have withheld what the connection is between these
events.”
“There is no connection.”
“In that case the coincidence must indeed be an extraordinary
one. But I think that we shall succeed in establishing a
connection, after all. I wish to be perfectly frank with you,
Mrs. Lyons. We regard this case as one of murder, and the
evidence may implicate not only your friend Mr. Stapleton but his
wife as well.”
The lady sprang from her chair.
“His wife!” she cried.
“The fact is no longer a secret. The person who has passed for
his sister is really his wife.”
Mrs. Lyons had resumed her seat. Her hands were grasping the arms
of her chair, and I saw that the pink nails had turned white with
the pressure of her grip.
“His wife!” she said again. “His wife! He is not a married man.”
Sherlock Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
“Prove it to me! Prove it to me! And if you can do so—!”
The fierce flash of her eyes said more than any words.
“I have come prepared to do so,” said Holmes, drawing several
papers from his pocket. “Here is a photograph of the couple taken
in York four years ago. It is indorsed ‘Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur,’
but you will have no difficulty in recognizing him, and her also,
if you know her by sight. Here are three written descriptions by
trustworthy witnesses of Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur, who at that time
kept St. Oliver’s private school. Read them and see if you can
doubt the identity of these people.”
She glanced at them, and then looked up at us with the set, rigid
face of a desperate woman.
“Mr. Holmes,” she said, “this man had offered me marriage on
condition that I could get a divorce from my husband. He has lied
to me, the villain, in every conceivable way. Not one word of
truth has he ever told me. And why—why? I imagined that all was
for my own sake. But now I see that I was never anything but a
tool in his hands. Why should I preserve faith with him who never
kept any with me? Why should I try to shield him from the
consequences of his own wicked acts? Ask me what you like, and
there is nothing which I shall hold back. One thing I swear to
you, and that is that when I wrote the letter I never dreamed of
any harm to the old gentleman, who had been my kindest friend.”
“I entirely believe you, madam,” said Sherlock Holmes. “The
recital of these events must be very painful to you, and perhaps
it will make it easier if I tell you what occurred, and you can
check me if I make any material mistake. The sending of this
letter was suggested to you by Stapleton?”
“He dictated it.”
“I presume that the reason he gave was that you would receive
help from Sir Charles for the legal expenses connected with your
divorce?”
“Exactly.”
“And then after you had sent the letter he dissuaded you from
keeping the appointment?”
“He told me that it would hurt his self-respect that any other
man should find the money for such an object, and that though he
was a poor man himself he would devote his last penny to removing
the obstacles which divided us.”
“He appears to be a very consistent character. And then you heard
nothing until you read the reports of the death in the paper?”
“No.”
“And he made you swear to say nothing about your appointment with
Sir Charles?”
“He did. He said that the death was a very mysterious one, and
that I should certainly be suspected if the facts came out. He
frightened me into remaining silent.”
“Quite so. But you had your suspicions?”
She hesitated and looked down.
“I knew him,” she said. “But if he had kept faith with me I
should always have done so with him.”
“I think that on the whole you have had a fortunate escape,” said
Sherlock Holmes. “You have had him in your power and he knew it,
and yet you are alive. You have been walking for some months very
near to the edge of a precipice. We must wish you good-morning
now, Mrs. Lyons, and it is probable that you will very shortly
hear from us again.”
“Our case becomes rounded off, and difficulty after difficulty
thins away in front of us,” said Holmes as we stood waiting for
the arrival of the express from town. “I shall soon be in the
position of being able to put into a single connected narrative
one of the most singular and sensational crimes of modern times.
Students of criminology will remember the analogous incidents in
Godno, in Little Russia, in the year ’66, and of course there are
the Anderson murders in North Carolina, but this case possesses
some features which are entirely its own. Even now we have no
clear case against this very wily man. But I shall be very much
surprised if it is not clear enough before we go to bed this
night.”
The London express came roaring into the station, and a small,
wiry bulldog of a man had sprung from a first-class carriage. We
all three shook hands, and I saw at once from the reverential way
in which Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a
good deal since the days when they had first worked together. I
could well remember the scorn which the theories of the reasoner
used then to excite in the practical man.
“Anything good?” he asked.
“The biggest thing for years,” said Holmes. “We have two hours
before we need think of starting. I think we might employ it in
getting some dinner and then, Lestrade, we will take the London
fog out of your throat by giving you a breath of the pure night
air of Dartmoor. Never been there? Ah, well, I don’t suppose you
will forget your first visit.”
Chapter 14.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
One of Sherlock Holmes’s defects—if, indeed, one may call it a
defect—was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full
plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment.
Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which
loved to dominate and surprise those who were around him. Partly
also from his professional caution, which urged him never to take
any chances. The result, however, was very trying for those who
were acting as his agents and assistants. I had often suffered
under it, but never more so than during that long drive in the
darkness. The great ordeal was in front of us; at last we were
about to make our final effort, and yet Holmes had said nothing,
and I could only surmise what his course of action would be. My
nerves thrilled with anticipation when at last the cold wind upon
our faces and the dark, void spaces on either side of the narrow
road told me that we were back upon the moor once again. Every
stride of the horses and every turn of the wheels was taking us
nearer to our supreme adventure.
Our conversation was hampered by the presence of the driver of
the hired wagonette, so that we were forced to talk of trivial
matters when our nerves were tense with emotion and anticipation.
It was a relief to me, after that unnatural restraint, when we at
last passed Frankland’s house and knew that we were drawing near
to the Hall and to the scene of action. We did not drive up to
the door but got down near the gate of the avenue. The wagonette
was paid off and ordered to return to Coombe Tracey forthwith,
while we started to walk to Merripit House.
“Are you armed, Lestrade?”
The little detective smiled. “As long as I have my trousers I
have a hip-pocket, and as long as I have my hip-pocket I have
something in it.”
“Good! My friend and I are also ready for emergencies.”
“You’re mighty close about this affair, Mr. Holmes. What’s the
game now?”
“A waiting game.”
“My word, it does not seem a very cheerful place,” said the
detective with a shiver, glancing round him at the gloomy slopes
of the hill and at the huge lake of fog which lay over the
Grimpen Mire. “I see the lights of a house ahead of us.”
“That is Merripit House and the end of our journey. I must
request you to walk on tiptoe and not to talk above a whisper.”
We moved cautiously along the track as if we were bound for the
house, but Holmes halted us when we were about two hundred yards
from it.
“This will do,” said he. “These rocks upon the right make an
admirable screen.”
“We are to wait here?”
“Yes, we shall make our little ambush here. Get into this hollow,
Lestrade. You have been inside the house, have you not, Watson?
Can you tell the position of the rooms? What are those latticed
windows at this end?”
“I think they are the kitchen windows.”
“And the one beyond, which shines so brightly?”
“That is certainly the dining-room.”
“The blinds are up. You know the lie of the land best. Creep
forward quietly and see what they are doing—but for heaven’s sake
don’t let them know that they are watched!”
I tiptoed down the path and stooped behind the low wall which
surrounded the stunted orchard. Creeping in its shadow I reached
a point whence I could look straight through the uncurtained
window.
There were only two men in the room, Sir Henry and Stapleton.
They sat with their profiles towards me on either side of the
round table. Both of them were smoking cigars, and coffee and
wine were in front of them. Stapleton was talking with animation,
but the baronet looked pale and distrait. Perhaps the thought of
that lonely walk across the ill-omened moor was weighing heavily
upon his mind.
As I watched them Stapleton rose and left the room, while Sir
Henry filled his glass again and leaned back in his chair,
puffing at his cigar. I heard the creak of a door and the crisp
sound of boots upon gravel. The steps passed along the path on
the other side of the wall under which I crouched. Looking over,
I saw the naturalist pause at the door of an out-house in the
corner of the orchard. A key turned in a lock, and as he passed
in there was a curious scuffling noise from within. He was only a
minute or so inside, and then I heard the key turn once more and
he passed me and reentered the house. I saw him rejoin his guest,
and I crept quietly back to where my companions were waiting to
tell them what I had seen.
“You say, Watson, that the lady is not there?” Holmes asked when
I had finished my report.
“No.”
“Where can she be, then, since there is no light in any other
room except the kitchen?”
“I cannot think where she is.”
I have said that over the great Grimpen Mire there hung a dense,
white fog. It was drifting slowly in our direction and banked
itself up like a wall on that side of us, low but thick and well
defined. The moon shone on it, and it looked like a great
shimmering ice-field, with the heads of the distant tors as rocks
borne upon its surface. Holmes’s face was turned towards it, and
he muttered impatiently as he watched its sluggish drift.
“It’s moving towards us, Watson.”
“Is that serious?”
“Very serious, indeed—the one thing upon earth which could have
disarranged my plans. He can’t be very long, now. It is already
ten o’clock. Our success and even his life may depend upon his
coming out before the fog is over the path.”
The night was clear and fine above us. The stars shone cold and
bright, while a half-moon bathed the whole scene in a soft,
uncertain light. Before us lay the dark bulk of the house, its
serrated roof and bristling chimneys hard outlined against the
silver-spangled sky. Broad bars of golden light from the lower
windows stretched across the orchard and the moor. One of them
was suddenly shut off. The servants had left the kitchen. There
only remained the lamp in the dining-room where the two men, the
murderous host and the unconscious guest, still chatted over
their cigars.
Every minute that white woolly plain which covered one-half of
the moor was drifting closer and closer to the house. Already the
first thin wisps of it were curling across the golden square of
the lighted window. The farther wall of the orchard was already
invisible, and the trees were standing out of a swirl of white
vapour. As we watched it the fog-wreaths came crawling round both
corners of the house and rolled slowly into one dense bank on
which the upper floor and the roof floated like a strange ship
upon a shadowy sea. Holmes struck his hand passionately upon the
rock in front of us and stamped his feet in his impatience.
“If he isn’t out in a quarter of an hour the path will be
covered. In half an hour we won’t be able to see our hands in
front of us.”
“Shall we move farther back upon higher ground?”
“Yes, I think it would be as well.”
So as the fog-bank flowed onward we fell back before it until we
were half a mile from the house, and still that dense white sea,
with the moon silvering its upper edge, swept slowly and
inexorably on.
“We are going too far,” said Holmes. “We dare not take the chance
of his being overtaken before he can reach us. At all costs we
must hold our ground where we are.” He dropped on his knees and
clapped his ear to the ground. “Thank God, I think that I hear
him coming.”
A sound of quick steps broke the silence of the moor. Crouching
among the stones we stared intently at the silver-tipped bank in
front of us. The steps grew louder, and through the fog, as
through a curtain, there stepped the man whom we were awaiting.
He looked round him in surprise as he emerged into the clear,
starlit night. Then he came swiftly along the path, passed close
to where we lay, and went on up the long slope behind us. As he
walked he glanced continually over either shoulder, like a man
who is ill at ease.
“Hist!” cried Holmes, and I heard the sharp click of a cocking
pistol. “Look out! It’s coming!”
There was a thin, crisp, continuous patter from somewhere in the
heart of that crawling bank. The cloud was within fifty yards of
where we lay, and we glared at it, all three, uncertain what
horror was about to break from the heart of it. I was at Holmes’s
elbow, and I glanced for an instant at his face. It was pale and
exultant, his eyes shining brightly in the moonlight. But
suddenly they started forward in a rigid, fixed stare, and his
lips parted in amazement. At the same instant Lestrade gave a
yell of terror and threw himself face downward upon the ground. I
sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol, my mind
paralyzed by the dreadful shape which had sprung out upon us from
the shadows of the fog. A hound it was, an enormous coal-black
hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire
burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering
glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in
flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered
brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be
conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us
out of the wall of fog.
With long bounds the huge black creature was leaping down the
track, following hard upon the footsteps of our friend. So
paralyzed were we by the apparition that we allowed him to pass
before we had recovered our nerve. Then Holmes and I both fired
together, and the creature gave a hideous howl, which showed that
one at least had hit him. He did not pause, however, but bounded
onward. Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his
face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring
helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But
that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the
winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound
him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran
that night. I am reckoned fleet of foot, but he outpaced me as
much as I outpaced the little professional. In front of us as we
flew up the track we heard scream after scream from Sir Henry and
the deep roar of the hound. I was in time to see the beast spring
upon its victim, hurl him to the ground, and worry at his throat.
But the next instant Holmes had emptied five barrels of his
revolver into the creature’s flank. With a last howl of agony and
a vicious snap in the air, it rolled upon its back, four feet
pawing furiously, and then fell limp upon its side. I stooped,
panting, and pressed my pistol to the dreadful, shimmering head,
but it was useless to press the trigger. The giant hound was
dead.
Sir Henry lay insensible where he had fallen. We tore away his
collar, and Holmes breathed a prayer of gratitude when we saw
that there was no sign of a wound and that the rescue had been in
time. Already our friend’s eyelids shivered and he made a feeble
effort to move. Lestrade thrust his brandy-flask between the
baronet’s teeth, and two frightened eyes were looking up at us.
“My God!” he whispered. “What was it? What, in heaven’s name, was
it?”
“It’s dead, whatever it is,” said Holmes. “We’ve laid the family
ghost once and forever.”
In mere size and strength it was a terrible creature which was
lying stretched before us. It was not a pure bloodhound and it
was not a pure mastiff; but it appeared to be a combination of
the two—gaunt, savage, and as large as a small lioness. Even now
in the stillness of death, the huge jaws seemed to be dripping
with a bluish flame and the small, deep-set, cruel eyes were
ringed with fire. I placed my hand upon the glowing muzzle, and
as I held them up my own fingers smouldered and gleamed in the
darkness.
“Phosphorus,” I said.
“A cunning preparation of it,” said Holmes, sniffing at the dead
animal. “There is no smell which might have interfered with his
power of scent. We owe you a deep apology, Sir Henry, for having
exposed you to this fright. I was prepared for a hound, but not
for such a creature as this. And the fog gave us little time to
receive him.”
“You have saved my life.”
“Having first endangered it. Are you strong enough to stand?”
“Give me another mouthful of that brandy and I shall be ready for
anything. So! Now, if you will help me up. What do you propose to
do?”
“To leave you here. You are not fit for further adventures
tonight. If you will wait, one or other of us will go back with
you to the Hall.”
He tried to stagger to his feet; but he was still ghastly pale
and trembling in every limb. We helped him to a rock, where he
sat shivering with his face buried in his hands.
“We must leave you now,” said Holmes. “The rest of our work must
be done, and every moment is of importance. We have our case, and
now we only want our man.
“It’s a thousand to one against our finding him at the house,” he
continued as we retraced our steps swiftly down the path. “Those
shots must have told him that the game was up.”
“We were some distance off, and this fog may have deadened them.”
“He followed the hound to call him off—of that you may be
certain. No, no, he’s gone by this time! But we’ll search the
house and make sure.”
The front door was open, so we rushed in and hurried from room to
room to the amazement of a doddering old manservant, who met us
in the passage. There was no light save in the dining-room, but
Holmes caught up the lamp and left no corner of the house
unexplored. No sign could we see of the man whom we were chasing.
On the upper floor, however, one of the bedroom doors was locked.
“There’s someone in here,” cried Lestrade. “I can hear a
movement. Open this door!”
A faint moaning and rustling came from within. Holmes struck the
door just over the lock with the flat of his foot and it flew
open. Pistol in hand, we all three rushed into the room.
But there was no sign within it of that desperate and defiant
villain whom we expected to see. Instead we were faced by an
object so strange and so unexpected that we stood for a moment
staring at it in amazement.
The room had been fashioned into a small museum, and the walls
were lined by a number of glass-topped cases full of that
collection of butterflies and moths the formation of which had
been the relaxation of this complex and dangerous man. In the
centre of this room there was an upright beam, which had been
placed at some period as a support for the old worm-eaten baulk
of timber which spanned the roof. To this post a figure was tied,
so swathed and muffled in the sheets which had been used to
secure it that one could not for the moment tell whether it was
that of a man or a woman. One towel passed round the throat and
was secured at the back of the pillar. Another covered the lower
part of the face, and over it two dark eyes—eyes full of grief
and shame and a dreadful questioning—stared back at us. In a
minute we had torn off the gag, unswathed the bonds, and Mrs.
Stapleton sank upon the floor in front of us. As her beautiful
head fell upon her chest I saw the clear red weal of a whiplash
across her neck.
“The brute!” cried Holmes. “Here, Lestrade, your brandy-bottle!
Put her in the chair! She has fainted from ill-usage and
exhaustion.”
She opened her eyes again.
“Is he safe?” she asked. “Has he escaped?”
“He cannot escape us, madam.”
“No, no, I did not mean my husband. Sir Henry? Is he safe?”
“Yes.”
“And the hound?”
“It is dead.”
She gave a long sigh of satisfaction.
“Thank God! Thank God! Oh, this villain! See how he has treated
me!” She shot her arms out from her sleeves, and we saw with
horror that they were all mottled with bruises. “But this is
nothing—nothing! It is my mind and soul that he has tortured and
defiled. I could endure it all, ill-usage, solitude, a life of
deception, everything, as long as I could still cling to the hope
that I had his love, but now I know that in this also I have been
his dupe and his tool.” She broke into passionate sobbing as she
spoke.
“You bear him no good will, madam,” said Holmes. “Tell us then
where we shall find him. If you have ever aided him in evil, help
us now and so atone.”
“There is but one place where he can have fled,” she answered.
“There is an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the mire.
It was there that he kept his hound and there also he had made
preparations so that he might have a refuge. That is where he
would fly.”
The fog-bank lay like white wool against the window. Holmes held
the lamp towards it.
“See,” said he. “No one could find his way into the Grimpen Mire
tonight.”
She laughed and clapped her hands. Her eyes and teeth gleamed
with fierce merriment.
“He may find his way in, but never out,” she cried. “How can he
see the guiding wands tonight? We planted them together, he and
I, to mark the pathway through the mire. Oh, if I could only have
plucked them out today. Then indeed you would have had him at
your mercy!”
It was evident to us that all pursuit was in vain until the fog
had lifted. Meanwhile we left Lestrade in possession of the house
while Holmes and I went back with the baronet to Baskerville
Hall. The story of the Stapletons could no longer be withheld
from him, but he took the blow bravely when he learned the truth
about the woman whom he had loved. But the shock of the night’s
adventures had shattered his nerves, and before morning he lay
delirious in a high fever under the care of Dr. Mortimer. The two
of them were destined to travel together round the world before
Sir Henry had become once more the hale, hearty man that he had
been before he became master of that ill-omened estate.
And now I come rapidly to the conclusion of this singular
narrative, in which I have tried to make the reader share those
dark fears and vague surmises which clouded our lives so long and
ended in so tragic a manner. On the morning after the death of
the hound the fog had lifted and we were guided by Mrs. Stapleton
to the point where they had found a pathway through the bog. It
helped us to realise the horror of this woman’s life when we saw
the eagerness and joy with which she laid us on her husband’s
track. We left her standing upon the thin peninsula of firm,
peaty soil which tapered out into the widespread bog. From the
end of it a small wand planted here and there showed where the
path zigzagged from tuft to tuft of rushes among those
green-scummed pits and foul quagmires which barred the way to the
stranger. Rank reeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an odour
of decay and a heavy miasmatic vapour onto our faces, while a
false step plunged us more than once thigh-deep into the dark,
quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around
our feet. Its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as we walked,
and when we sank into it it was as if some malignant hand was
tugging us down into those obscene depths, so grim and purposeful
was the clutch in which it held us. Once only we saw a trace that
someone had passed that perilous way before us. From amid a tuft
of cotton grass which bore it up out of the slime some dark thing
was projecting. Holmes sank to his waist as he stepped from the
path to seize it, and had we not been there to drag him out he
could never have set his foot upon firm land again. He held an
old black boot in the air. “Meyers, Toronto,” was printed on the
leather inside.
“It is worth a mud bath,” said he. “It is our friend Sir Henry’s
missing boot.”
“Thrown there by Stapleton in his flight.”
“Exactly. He retained it in his hand after using it to set the
hound upon the track. He fled when he knew the game was up, still
clutching it. And he hurled it away at this point of his flight.
We know at least that he came so far in safety.”
But more than that we were never destined to know, though there
was much which we might surmise. There was no chance of finding
footsteps in the mire, for the rising mud oozed swiftly in upon
them, but as we at last reached firmer ground beyond the morass
we all looked eagerly for them. But no slightest sign of them
ever met our eyes. If the earth told a true story, then Stapleton
never reached that island of refuge towards which he struggled
through the fog upon that last night. Somewhere in the heart of
the great Grimpen Mire, down in the foul slime of the huge morass
which had sucked him in, this cold and cruel-hearted man is
forever buried.
Many traces we found of him in the bog-girt island where he had
hid his savage ally. A huge driving-wheel and a shaft half-filled
with rubbish showed the position of an abandoned mine. Beside it
were the crumbling remains of the cottages of the miners, driven
away no doubt by the foul reek of the surrounding swamp. In one
of these a staple and chain with a quantity of gnawed bones
showed where the animal had been confined. A skeleton with a
tangle of brown hair adhering to it lay among the _débris_.
“A dog!” said Holmes. “By Jove, a curly-haired spaniel. Poor
Mortimer will never see his pet again. Well, I do not know that
this place contains any secret which we have not already
fathomed. He could hide his hound, but he could not hush its
voice, and hence came those cries which even in daylight were not
pleasant to hear. On an emergency he could keep the hound in the
out-house at Merripit, but it was always a risk, and it was only
on the supreme day, which he regarded as the end of all his
efforts, that he dared do it. This paste in the tin is no doubt
the luminous mixture with which the creature was daubed. It was
suggested, of course, by the story of the family hell-hound, and
by the desire to frighten old Sir Charles to death. No wonder the
poor devil of a convict ran and screamed, even as our friend did,
and as we ourselves might have done, when he saw such a creature
bounding through the darkness of the moor upon his track. It was
a cunning device, for, apart from the chance of driving your
victim to his death, what peasant would venture to inquire too
closely into such a creature should he get sight of it, as many
have done, upon the moor? I said it in London, Watson, and I say
it again now, that never yet have we helped to hunt down a more
dangerous man than he who is lying yonder”—he swept his long arm
towards the huge mottled expanse of green-splotched bog which
stretched away until it merged into the russet slopes of the
moor.
Chapter 15.
A Retrospection
It was the end of November, and Holmes and I sat, upon a raw and
foggy night, on either side of a blazing fire in our sitting-room
in Baker Street. Since the tragic upshot of our visit to
Devonshire he had been engaged in two affairs of the utmost
importance, in the first of which he had exposed the atrocious
conduct of Colonel Upwood in connection with the famous card
scandal of the Nonpareil Club, while in the second he had
defended the unfortunate Mme. Montpensier from the charge of
murder which hung over her in connection with the death of her
step-daughter, Mlle. Carére, the young lady who, as it will be
remembered, was found six months later alive and married in New
York. My friend was in excellent spirits over the success which
had attended a succession of difficult and important cases, so
that I was able to induce him to discuss the details of the
Baskerville mystery. I had waited patiently for the opportunity
for I was aware that he would never permit cases to overlap, and
that his clear and logical mind would not be drawn from its
present work to dwell upon memories of the past. Sir Henry and
Dr. Mortimer were, however, in London, on their way to that long
voyage which had been recommended for the restoration of his
shattered nerves. They had called upon us that very afternoon, so
that it was natural that the subject should come up for
discussion.
“The whole course of events,” said Holmes, “from the point of
view of the man who called himself Stapleton was simple and
direct, although to us, who had no means in the beginning of
knowing the motives of his actions and could only learn part of
the facts, it all appeared exceedingly complex. I have had the
advantage of two conversations with Mrs. Stapleton, and the case
has now been so entirely cleared up that I am not aware that
there is anything which has remained a secret to us. You will
find a few notes upon the matter under the heading B in my
indexed list of cases.”
“Perhaps you would kindly give me a sketch of the course of
events from memory.”
“Certainly, though I cannot guarantee that I carry all the facts
in my mind. Intense mental concentration has a curious way of
blotting out what has passed. The barrister who has his case at
his fingers’ ends and is able to argue with an expert upon his
own subject finds that a week or two of the courts will drive it
all out of his head once more. So each of my cases displaces the
last, and Mlle. Carére has blurred my recollection of Baskerville
Hall. Tomorrow some other little problem may be submitted to my
notice which will in turn dispossess the fair French lady and the
infamous Upwood. So far as the case of the hound goes, however, I
will give you the course of events as nearly as I can, and you
will suggest anything which I may have forgotten.
“My inquiries show beyond all question that the family portrait
did not lie, and that this fellow was indeed a Baskerville. He
was a son of that Rodger Baskerville, the younger brother of Sir
Charles, who fled with a sinister reputation to South America,
where he was said to have died unmarried. He did, as a matter of
fact, marry, and had one child, this fellow, whose real name is
the same as his father’s. He married Beryl Garcia, one of the
beauties of Costa Rica, and, having purloined a considerable sum
of public money, he changed his name to Vandeleur and fled to
England, where he established a school in the east of Yorkshire.
His reason for attempting this special line of business was that
he had struck up an acquaintance with a consumptive tutor upon
the voyage home, and that he had used this man’s ability to make
the undertaking a success. Fraser, the tutor, died however, and
the school which had begun well sank from disrepute into infamy.
The Vandeleurs found it convenient to change their name to
Stapleton, and he brought the remains of his fortune, his schemes
for the future, and his taste for entomology to the south of
England. I learned at the British Museum that he was a recognized
authority upon the subject, and that the name of Vandeleur has
been permanently attached to a certain moth which he had, in his
Yorkshire days, been the first to describe.
“We now come to that portion of his life which has proved to be
of such intense interest to us. The fellow had evidently made
inquiry and found that only two lives intervened between him and
a valuable estate. When he went to Devonshire his plans were, I
believe, exceedingly hazy, but that he meant mischief from the
first is evident from the way in which he took his wife with him
in the character of his sister. The idea of using her as a decoy
was clearly already in his mind, though he may not have been
certain how the details of his plot were to be arranged. He meant
in the end to have the estate, and he was ready to use any tool
or run any risk for that end. His first act was to establish
himself as near to his ancestral home as he could, and his second
was to cultivate a friendship with Sir Charles Baskerville and
with the neighbours.
“The baronet himself told him about the family hound, and so
prepared the way for his own death. Stapleton, as I will continue
to call him, knew that the old man’s heart was weak and that a
shock would kill him. So much he had learned from Dr. Mortimer.
He had heard also that Sir Charles was superstitious and had
taken this grim legend very seriously. His ingenious mind
instantly suggested a way by which the baronet could be done to
death, and yet it would be hardly possible to bring home the
guilt to the real murderer.
“Having conceived the idea he proceeded to carry it out with
considerable finesse. An ordinary schemer would have been content
to work with a savage hound. The use of artificial means to make
the creature diabolical was a flash of genius upon his part. The
dog he bought in London from Ross and Mangles, the dealers in
Fulham Road. It was the strongest and most savage in their
possession. He brought it down by the North Devon line and walked
a great distance over the moor so as to get it home without
exciting any remarks. He had already on his insect hunts learned
to penetrate the Grimpen Mire, and so had found a safe
hiding-place for the creature. Here he kennelled it and waited
his chance.
“But it was some time coming. The old gentleman could not be
decoyed outside of his grounds at night. Several times Stapleton
lurked about with his hound, but without avail. It was during
these fruitless quests that he, or rather his ally, was seen by
peasants, and that the legend of the demon dog received a new
confirmation. He had hoped that his wife might lure Sir Charles
to his ruin, but here she proved unexpectedly independent. She
would not endeavour to entangle the old gentleman in a
sentimental attachment which might deliver him over to his enemy.
Threats and even, I am sorry to say, blows refused to move her.
She would have nothing to do with it, and for a time Stapleton
was at a deadlock.
“He found a way out of his difficulties through the chance that
Sir Charles, who had conceived a friendship for him, made him the
minister of his charity in the case of this unfortunate woman,
Mrs. Laura Lyons. By representing himself as a single man he
acquired complete influence over her, and he gave her to
understand that in the event of her obtaining a divorce from her
husband he would marry her. His plans were suddenly brought to a
head by his knowledge that Sir Charles was about to leave the
Hall on the advice of Dr. Mortimer, with whose opinion he himself
pretended to coincide. He must act at once, or his victim might
get beyond his power. He therefore put pressure upon Mrs. Lyons
to write this letter, imploring the old man to give her an
interview on the evening before his departure for London. He
then, by a specious argument, prevented her from going, and so
had the chance for which he had waited.
“Driving back in the evening from Coombe Tracey he was in time to
get his hound, to treat it with his infernal paint, and to bring
the beast round to the gate at which he had reason to expect that
he would find the old gentleman waiting. The dog, incited by its
master, sprang over the wicket-gate and pursued the unfortunate
baronet, who fled screaming down the yew alley. In that gloomy
tunnel it must indeed have been a dreadful sight to see that huge
black creature, with its flaming jaws and blazing eyes, bounding
after its victim. He fell dead at the end of the alley from heart
disease and terror. The hound had kept upon the grassy border
while the baronet had run down the path, so that no track but the
man’s was visible. On seeing him lying still the creature had
probably approached to sniff at him, but finding him dead had
turned away again. It was then that it left the print which was
actually observed by Dr. Mortimer. The hound was called off and
hurried away to its lair in the Grimpen Mire, and a mystery was
left which puzzled the authorities, alarmed the countryside, and
finally brought the case within the scope of our observation.
“So much for the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. You perceive
the devilish cunning of it, for really it would be almost
impossible to make a case against the real murderer. His only
accomplice was one who could never give him away, and the
grotesque, inconceivable nature of the device only served to make
it more effective. Both of the women concerned in the case, Mrs.
Stapleton and Mrs. Laura Lyons, were left with a strong suspicion
against Stapleton. Mrs. Stapleton knew that he had designs upon
the old man, and also of the existence of the hound. Mrs. Lyons
knew neither of these things, but had been impressed by the death
occurring at the time of an uncancelled appointment which was
only known to him. However, both of them were under his
influence, and he had nothing to fear from them. The first half
of his task was successfully accomplished but the more difficult
still remained.
“It is possible that Stapleton did not know of the existence of
an heir in Canada. In any case he would very soon learn it from
his friend Dr. Mortimer, and he was told by the latter all
details about the arrival of Henry Baskerville. Stapleton’s first
idea was that this young stranger from Canada might possibly be
done to death in London without coming down to Devonshire at all.
He distrusted his wife ever since she had refused to help him in
laying a trap for the old man, and he dared not leave her long
out of his sight for fear he should lose his influence over her.
It was for this reason that he took her to London with him. They
lodged, I find, at the Mexborough Private Hotel, in Craven
Street, which was actually one of those called upon by my agent
in search of evidence. Here he kept his wife imprisoned in her
room while he, disguised in a beard, followed Dr. Mortimer to
Baker Street and afterwards to the station and to the
Northumberland Hotel. His wife had some inkling of his plans; but
she had such a fear of her husband—a fear founded upon brutal
ill-treatment—that she dare not write to warn the man whom she
knew to be in danger. If the letter should fall into Stapleton’s
hands her own life would not be safe. Eventually, as we know, she
adopted the expedient of cutting out the words which would form
the message, and addressing the letter in a disguised hand. It
reached the baronet, and gave him the first warning of his
danger.
“It was very essential for Stapleton to get some article of Sir
Henry’s attire so that, in case he was driven to use the dog, he
might always have the means of setting him upon his track. With
characteristic promptness and audacity he set about this at once,
and we cannot doubt that the boots or chamber-maid of the hotel
was well bribed to help him in his design. By chance, however,
the first boot which was procured for him was a new one and,
therefore, useless for his purpose. He then had it returned and
obtained another—a most instructive incident, since it proved
conclusively to my mind that we were dealing with a real hound,
as no other supposition could explain this anxiety to obtain an
old boot and this indifference to a new one. The more _outré_ and
grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be
examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case
is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one
which is most likely to elucidate it.
“Then we had the visit from our friends next morning, shadowed
always by Stapleton in the cab. From his knowledge of our rooms
and of my appearance, as well as from his general conduct, I am
inclined to think that Stapleton’s career of crime has been by no
means limited to this single Baskerville affair. It is suggestive
that during the last three years there have been four
considerable burglaries in the west country, for none of which
was any criminal ever arrested. The last of these, at Folkestone
Court, in May, was remarkable for the cold-blooded pistolling of
the page, who surprised the masked and solitary burglar. I cannot
doubt that Stapleton recruited his waning resources in this
fashion, and that for years he has been a desperate and dangerous
man.
“We had an example of his readiness of resource that morning when
he got away from us so successfully, and also of his audacity in
sending back my own name to me through the cabman. From that
moment he understood that I had taken over the case in London,
and that therefore there was no chance for him there. He returned
to Dartmoor and awaited the arrival of the baronet.”
“One moment!” said I. “You have, no doubt, described the sequence
of events correctly, but there is one point which you have left
unexplained. What became of the hound when its master was in
London?”
“I have given some attention to this matter and it is undoubtedly
of importance. There can be no question that Stapleton had a
confidant, though it is unlikely that he ever placed himself in
his power by sharing all his plans with him. There was an old
manservant at Merripit House, whose name was Anthony. His
connection with the Stapletons can be traced for several years,
as far back as the school-mastering days, so that he must have
been aware that his master and mistress were really husband and
wife. This man has disappeared and has escaped from the country.
It is suggestive that Anthony is not a common name in England,
while Antonio is so in all Spanish or Spanish-American countries.
The man, like Mrs. Stapleton herself, spoke good English, but
with a curious lisping accent. I have myself seen this old man
cross the Grimpen Mire by the path which Stapleton had marked
out. It is very probable, therefore, that in the absence of his
master it was he who cared for the hound, though he may never
have known the purpose for which the beast was used.
“The Stapletons then went down to Devonshire, whither they were
soon followed by Sir Henry and you. One word now as to how I
stood myself at that time. It may possibly recur to your memory
that when I examined the paper upon which the printed words were
fastened I made a close inspection for the water-mark. In doing
so I held it within a few inches of my eyes, and was conscious of
a faint smell of the scent known as white jessamine. There are
seventy-five perfumes, which it is very necessary that a criminal
expert should be able to distinguish from each other, and cases
have more than once within my own experience depended upon their
prompt recognition. The scent suggested the presence of a lady,
and already my thoughts began to turn towards the Stapletons.
Thus I had made certain of the hound, and had guessed at the
criminal before ever we went to the west country.
“It was my game to watch Stapleton. It was evident, however, that
I could not do this if I were with you, since he would be keenly
on his guard. I deceived everybody, therefore, yourself included,
and I came down secretly when I was supposed to be in London. My
hardships were not so great as you imagined, though such trifling
details must never interfere with the investigation of a case. I
stayed for the most part at Coombe Tracey, and only used the hut
upon the moor when it was necessary to be near the scene of
action. Cartwright had come down with me, and in his disguise as
a country boy he was of great assistance to me. I was dependent
upon him for food and clean linen. When I was watching Stapleton,
Cartwright was frequently watching you, so that I was able to
keep my hand upon all the strings.
“I have already told you that your reports reached me rapidly,
being forwarded instantly from Baker Street to Coombe Tracey.
They were of great service to me, and especially that one
incidentally truthful piece of biography of Stapleton’s. I was
able to establish the identity of the man and the woman and knew
at last exactly how I stood. The case had been considerably
complicated through the incident of the escaped convict and the
relations between him and the Barrymores. This also you cleared
up in a very effective way, though I had already come to the same
conclusions from my own observations.
“By the time that you discovered me upon the moor I had a
complete knowledge of the whole business, but I had not a case
which could go to a jury. Even Stapleton’s attempt upon Sir Henry
that night which ended in the death of the unfortunate convict
did not help us much in proving murder against our man. There
seemed to be no alternative but to catch him red-handed, and to
do so we had to use Sir Henry, alone and apparently unprotected,
as a bait. We did so, and at the cost of a severe shock to our
client we succeeded in completing our case and driving Stapleton
to his destruction. That Sir Henry should have been exposed to
this is, I must confess, a reproach to my management of the case,
but we had no means of foreseeing the terrible and paralyzing
spectacle which the beast presented, nor could we predict the fog
which enabled him to burst upon us at such short notice. We
succeeded in our object at a cost which both the specialist and
Dr. Mortimer assure me will be a temporary one. A long journey
may enable our friend to recover not only from his shattered
nerves but also from his wounded feelings. His love for the lady
was deep and sincere, and to him the saddest part of all this
black business was that he should have been deceived by her.
“It only remains to indicate the part which she had played
throughout. There can be no doubt that Stapleton exercised an
influence over her which may have been love or may have been
fear, or very possibly both, since they are by no means
incompatible emotions. It was, at least, absolutely effective. At
his command she consented to pass as his sister, though he found
the limits of his power over her when he endeavoured to make her
the direct accessory to murder. She was ready to warn Sir Henry
so far as she could without implicating her husband, and again
and again she tried to do so. Stapleton himself seems to have
been capable of jealousy, and when he saw the baronet paying
court to the lady, even though it was part of his own plan, still
he could not help interrupting with a passionate outburst which
revealed the fiery soul which his self-contained manner so
cleverly concealed. By encouraging the intimacy he made it
certain that Sir Henry would frequently come to Merripit House
and that he would sooner or later get the opportunity which he
desired. On the day of the crisis, however, his wife turned
suddenly against him. She had learned something of the death of
the convict, and she knew that the hound was being kept in the
outhouse on the evening that Sir Henry was coming to dinner. She
taxed her husband with his intended crime, and a furious scene
followed in which he showed her for the first time that she had a
rival in his love. Her fidelity turned in an instant to bitter
hatred, and he saw that she would betray him. He tied her up,
therefore, that she might have no chance of warning Sir Henry,
and he hoped, no doubt, that when the whole countryside put down
the baronet’s death to the curse of his family, as they certainly
would do, he could win his wife back to accept an accomplished
fact and to keep silent upon what she knew. In this I fancy that
in any case he made a miscalculation, and that, if we had not
been there, his doom would none the less have been sealed. A
woman of Spanish blood does not condone such an injury so
lightly. And now, my dear Watson, without referring to my notes,
I cannot give you a more detailed account of this curious case. I
do not know that anything essential has been left unexplained.”
“He could not hope to frighten Sir Henry to death as he had done
the old uncle with his bogie hound.”
“The beast was savage and half-starved. If its appearance did not
frighten its victim to death, at least it would paralyze the
resistance which might be offered.”
“No doubt. There only remains one difficulty. If Stapleton came
into the succession, how could he explain the fact that he, the
heir, had been living unannounced under another name so close to
the property? How could he claim it without causing suspicion and
inquiry?”
“It is a formidable difficulty, and I fear that you ask too much
when you expect me to solve it. The past and the present are
within the field of my inquiry, but what a man may do in the
future is a hard question to answer. Mrs. Stapleton has heard her
husband discuss the problem on several occasions. There were
three possible courses. He might claim the property from South
America, establish his identity before the British authorities
there and so obtain the fortune without ever coming to England at
all, or he might adopt an elaborate disguise during the short
time that he need be in London; or, again, he might furnish an
accomplice with the proofs and papers, putting him in as heir,
and retaining a claim upon some proportion of his income. We
cannot doubt from what we know of him that he would have found
some way out of the difficulty. And now, my dear Watson, we have
had some weeks of severe work, and for one evening, I think, we
may turn our thoughts into more pleasant channels. I have a box
for _Les Huguenots_. Have you heard the De Reszkes? Might I
trouble you then to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at
Marcini’s for a little dinner on the way?”
THE END | null |
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans | Arthur Conan Doyle | 18 | ['Valentine Walter', 'Colonel Walter'] | The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
In the third week of November, in the year 1895, a dense yellow fog
settled down upon London. From the Monday to the Thursday I doubt
whether it was ever possible from our windows in Baker Street to see
the loom of the opposite houses. The first day Holmes had spent in
cross-indexing his huge book of references. The second and third had
been patiently occupied upon a subject which he had recently made his
hobby—the music of the Middle Ages. But when, for the fourth time,
after pushing back our chairs from breakfast we saw the greasy, heavy
brown swirl still drifting past us and condensing in oily drops upon
the window-panes, my comrade’s impatient and active nature could endure
this drab existence no longer. He paced restlessly about our
sitting-room in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails, tapping
the furniture, and chafing against inaction.
“Nothing of interest in the paper, Watson?” he said.
I was aware that by anything of interest, Holmes meant anything of
criminal interest. There was the news of a revolution, of a possible
war, and of an impending change of government; but these did not come
within the horizon of my companion. I could see nothing recorded in the
shape of crime which was not commonplace and futile. Holmes groaned and
resumed his restless meanderings.
“The London criminal is certainly a dull fellow,” said he in the
querulous voice of the sportsman whose game has failed him. “Look out
this window, Watson. See how the figures loom up, are dimly seen, and
then blend once more into the cloud-bank. The thief or the murderer
could roam London on such a day as the tiger does the jungle, unseen
until he pounces, and then evident only to his victim.”
“There have,” said I, “been numerous petty thefts.”
Holmes snorted his contempt.
“This great and sombre stage is set for something more worthy than
that,” said he. “It is fortunate for this community that I am not a
criminal.”
“It is, indeed!” said I heartily.
“Suppose that I were Brooks or Woodhouse, or any of the fifty men who
have good reason for taking my life, how long could I survive against
my own pursuit? A summons, a bogus appointment, and all would be over.
It is well they don’t have days of fog in the Latin countries—the
countries of assassination. By Jove! here comes something at last to
break our dead monotony.”
It was the maid with a telegram. Holmes tore it open and burst out
laughing.
“Well, well! What next?” said he. “Brother Mycroft is coming round.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Why not? It is as if you met a tram-car coming down a country lane.
Mycroft has his rails and he runs on them. His Pall Mall lodgings, the
Diogenes Club, Whitehall—that is his cycle. Once, and only once, he has
been here. What upheaval can possibly have derailed him?”
“Does he not explain?”
Holmes handed me his brother’s telegram.
“Must see you over Cadogan West. Coming at once.” MYCROFT.
“Cadogan West? I have heard the name.”
“It recalls nothing to my mind. But that Mycroft should break out in
this erratic fashion! A planet might as well leave its orbit. By the
way, do you know what Mycroft is?”
I had some vague recollection of an explanation at the time of the
Adventure of the Greek Interpreter.
“You told me that he had some small office under the British
government.”
Holmes chuckled.
“I did not know you quite so well in those days. One has to be discreet
when one talks of high matters of state. You are right in thinking that
he is under the British government. You would also be right in a sense
if you said that occasionally he _is_ the British government.”
“My dear Holmes!”
“I thought I might surprise you. Mycroft draws four hundred and fifty
pounds a year, remains a subordinate, has no ambitions of any kind,
will receive neither honour nor title, but remains the most
indispensable man in the country.”
“But how?”
“Well, his position is unique. He has made it for himself. There has
never been anything like it before, nor will be again. He has the
tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest capacity for storing
facts, of any man living. The same great powers which I have turned to
the detection of crime he has used for this particular business. The
conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the
central exchange, the clearinghouse, which makes out the balance. All
other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. We will
suppose that a minister needs information as to a point which involves
the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get his
separate advices from various departments upon each, but only Mycroft
can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would affect the
other. They began by using him as a short-cut, a convenience; now he
has made himself an essential. In that great brain of his everything is
pigeon-holed and can be handed out in an instant. Again and again his
word has decided the national policy. He lives in it. He thinks of
nothing else save when, as an intellectual exercise, he unbends if I
call upon him and ask him to advise me on one of my little problems.
But Jupiter is descending to-day. What on earth can it mean? Who is
Cadogan West, and what is he to Mycroft?”
“I have it,” I cried, and plunged among the litter of papers upon the
sofa. “Yes, yes, here he is, sure enough! Cadogan West was the young
man who was found dead on the Underground on Tuesday morning.”
Holmes sat up at attention, his pipe halfway to his lips.
“This must be serious, Watson. A death which has caused my brother to
alter his habits can be no ordinary one. What in the world can he have
to do with it? The case was featureless as I remember it. The young man
had apparently fallen out of the train and killed himself. He had not
been robbed, and there was no particular reason to suspect violence. Is
that not so?”
“There has been an inquest,” said I, “and a good many fresh facts have
come out. Looked at more closely, I should certainly say that it was a
curious case.”
“Judging by its effect upon my brother, I should think it must be a
most extraordinary one.” He snuggled down in his armchair. “Now,
Watson, let us have the facts.”
“The man’s name was Arthur Cadogan West. He was twenty-seven years of
age, unmarried, and a clerk at Woolwich Arsenal.”
“Government employ. Behold the link with Brother Mycroft!”
“He left Woolwich suddenly on Monday night. Was last seen by his
fiancée, Miss Violet Westbury, whom he left abruptly in the fog about
7:30 that evening. There was no quarrel between them and she can give
no motive for his action. The next thing heard of him was when his dead
body was discovered by a plate-layer named Mason, just outside Aldgate
Station on the Underground system in London.”
“When?”
“The body was found at six on Tuesday morning. It was lying wide of the
metals upon the left hand of the track as one goes eastward, at a point
close to the station, where the line emerges from the tunnel in which
it runs. The head was badly crushed—an injury which might well have
been caused by a fall from the train. The body could only have come on
the line in that way. Had it been carried down from any neighbouring
street, it must have passed the station barriers, where a collector is
always standing. This point seems absolutely certain.”
“Very good. The case is definite enough. The man, dead or alive, either
fell or was precipitated from a train. So much is clear to me.
Continue.”
“The trains which traverse the lines of rail beside which the body was
found are those which run from west to east, some being purely
Metropolitan, and some from Willesden and outlying junctions. It can be
stated for certain that this young man, when he met his death, was
travelling in this direction at some late hour of the night, but at
what point he entered the train it is impossible to state.”
“His ticket, of course, would show that.”
“There was no ticket in his pockets.”
“No ticket! Dear me, Watson, this is really very singular. According to
my experience it is not possible to reach the platform of a
Metropolitan train without exhibiting one’s ticket. Presumably, then,
the young man had one. Was it taken from him in order to conceal the
station from which he came? It is possible. Or did he drop it in the
carriage? That is also possible. But the point is of curious interest.
I understand that there was no sign of robbery?”
“Apparently not. There is a list here of his possessions. His purse
contained two pounds fifteen. He had also a check-book on the Woolwich
branch of the Capital and Counties Bank. Through this his identity was
established. There were also two dress-circle tickets for the Woolwich
Theatre, dated for that very evening. Also a small packet of technical
papers.”
Holmes gave an exclamation of satisfaction.
“There we have it at last, Watson! British government—Woolwich.
Arsenal—technical papers—Brother Mycroft, the chain is complete. But
here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to speak for himself.”
A moment later the tall and portly form of Mycroft Holmes was ushered
into the room. Heavily built and massive, there was a suggestion of
uncouth physical inertia in the figure, but above this unwieldy frame
there was perched a head so masterful in its brow, so alert in its
steel-grey, deep-set eyes, so firm in its lips, and so subtle in its
play of expression, that after the first glance one forgot the gross
body and remembered only the dominant mind.
At his heels came our old friend Lestrade, of Scotland Yard—thin and
austere. The gravity of both their faces foretold some weighty quest.
The detective shook hands without a word. Mycroft Holmes struggled out
of his overcoat and subsided into an armchair.
“A most annoying business, Sherlock,” said he. “I extremely dislike
altering my habits, but the powers that be would take no denial. In the
present state of Siam it is most awkward that I should be away from the
office. But it is a real crisis. I have never seen the Prime Minister
so upset. As to the Admiralty—it is buzzing like an overturned
bee-hive. Have you read up the case?”
“We have just done so. What were the technical papers?”
“Ah, there’s the point! Fortunately, it has not come out. The press
would be furious if it did. The papers which this wretched youth had in
his pocket were the plans of the Bruce-Partington submarine.”
Mycroft Holmes spoke with a solemnity which showed his sense of the
importance of the subject. His brother and I sat expectant.
“Surely you have heard of it? I thought everyone had heard of it.”
“Only as a name.”
“Its importance can hardly be exaggerated. It has been the most
jealously guarded of all government secrets. You may take it from me
that naval warfare becomes impossible within the radius of a
Bruce-Partington’s operation. Two years ago a very large sum was
smuggled through the Estimates and was expended in acquiring a monopoly
of the invention. Every effort has been made to keep the secret. The
plans, which are exceedingly intricate, comprising some thirty separate
patents, each essential to the working of the whole, are kept in an
elaborate safe in a confidential office adjoining the arsenal, with
burglar-proof doors and windows. Under no conceivable circumstances
were the plans to be taken from the office. If the chief constructor of
the Navy desired to consult them, even he was forced to go to the
Woolwich office for the purpose. And yet here we find them in the
pocket of a dead junior clerk in the heart of London. From an official
point of view it’s simply awful.”
“But you have recovered them?”
“No, Sherlock, no! That’s the pinch. We have not. Ten papers were taken
from Woolwich. There were seven in the pocket of Cadogan West. The
three most essential are gone—stolen, vanished. You must drop
everything, Sherlock. Never mind your usual petty puzzles of the
police-court. It’s a vital international problem that you have to
solve. Why did Cadogan West take the papers, where are the missing
ones, how did he die, how came his body where it was found, how can the
evil be set right? Find an answer to all these questions, and you will
have done good service for your country.”
“Why do you not solve it yourself, Mycroft? You can see as far as I.”
“Possibly, Sherlock. But it is a question of getting details. Give me
your details, and from an armchair I will return you an excellent
expert opinion. But to run here and run there, to cross-question
railway guards, and lie on my face with a lens to my eye—it is not my
métier. No, you are the one man who can clear the matter up. If you
have a fancy to see your name in the next honours list—”
My friend smiled and shook his head.
“I play the game for the game’s own sake,” said he. “But the problem
certainly presents some points of interest, and I shall be very pleased
to look into it. Some more facts, please.”
“I have jotted down the more essential ones upon this sheet of paper,
together with a few addresses which you will find of service. The
actual official guardian of the papers is the famous government expert,
Sir James Walter, whose decorations and sub-titles fill two lines of a
book of reference. He has grown grey in the service, is a gentleman, a
favoured guest in the most exalted houses, and, above all, a man whose
patriotism is beyond suspicion. He is one of two who have a key of the
safe. I may add that the papers were undoubtedly in the office during
working hours on Monday, and that Sir James left for London about three
o’clock taking his key with him. He was at the house of Admiral
Sinclair at Barclay Square during the whole of the evening when this
incident occurred.”
“Has the fact been verified?”
“Yes; his brother, Colonel Valentine Walter, has testified to his
departure from Woolwich, and Admiral Sinclair to his arrival in London;
so Sir James is no longer a direct factor in the problem.”
“Who was the other man with a key?”
“The senior clerk and draughtsman, Mr. Sidney Johnson. He is a man of
forty, married, with five children. He is a silent, morose man, but he
has, on the whole, an excellent record in the public service. He is
unpopular with his colleagues, but a hard worker. According to his own
account, corroborated only by the word of his wife, he was at home the
whole of Monday evening after office hours, and his key has never left
the watch-chain upon which it hangs.”
“Tell us about Cadogan West.”
“He has been ten years in the service and has done good work. He has
the reputation of being hot-headed and imperious, but a straight,
honest man. We have nothing against him. He was next Sidney Johnson in
the office. His duties brought him into daily, personal contact with
the plans. No one else had the handling of them.”
“Who locked up the plans that night?”
“Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk.”
“Well, it is surely perfectly clear who took them away. They are
actually found upon the person of this junior clerk, Cadogan West. That
seems final, does it not?”
“It does, Sherlock, and yet it leaves so much unexplained. In the first
place, why did he take them?”
“I presume they were of value?”
“He could have got several thousands for them very easily.”
“Can you suggest any possible motive for taking the papers to London
except to sell them?”
“No, I cannot.”
“Then we must take that as our working hypothesis. Young West took the
papers. Now this could only be done by having a false key—”
“Several false keys. He had to open the building and the room.”
“He had, then, several false keys. He took the papers to London to sell
the secret, intending, no doubt, to have the plans themselves back in
the safe next morning before they were missed. While in London on this
treasonable mission he met his end.”
“How?”
“We will suppose that he was travelling back to Woolwich when he was
killed and thrown out of the compartment.”
“Aldgate, where the body was found, is considerably past the station
London Bridge, which would be his route to Woolwich.”
“Many circumstances could be imagined under which he would pass London
Bridge. There was someone in the carriage, for example, with whom he
was having an absorbing interview. This interview led to a violent
scene in which he lost his life. Possibly he tried to leave the
carriage, fell out on the line, and so met his end. The other closed
the door. There was a thick fog, and nothing could be seen.”
“No better explanation can be given with our present knowledge; and yet
consider, Sherlock, how much you leave untouched. We will suppose, for
argument’s sake, that young Cadogan West _had_ determined to convey
these papers to London. He would naturally have made an appointment
with the foreign agent and kept his evening clear. Instead of that he
took two tickets for the theatre, escorted his fiancée halfway there,
and then suddenly disappeared.”
“A blind,” said Lestrade, who had sat listening with some impatience to
the conversation.
“A very singular one. That is objection No. 1. Objection No. 2: We will
suppose that he reaches London and sees the foreign agent. He must
bring back the papers before morning or the loss will be discovered. He
took away ten. Only seven were in his pocket. What had become of the
other three? He certainly would not leave them of his own free will.
Then, again, where is the price of his treason? One would have expected
to find a large sum of money in his pocket.”
“It seems to me perfectly clear,” said Lestrade. “I have no doubt at
all as to what occurred. He took the papers to sell them. He saw the
agent. They could not agree as to price. He started home again, but the
agent went with him. In the train the agent murdered him, took the more
essential papers, and threw his body from the carriage. That would
account for everything, would it not?”
“Why had he no ticket?”
“The ticket would have shown which station was nearest the agent’s
house. Therefore he took it from the murdered man’s pocket.”
“Good, Lestrade, very good,” said Holmes. “Your theory holds together.
But if this is true, then the case is at an end. On the one hand, the
traitor is dead. On the other, the plans of the Bruce-Partington
submarine are presumably already on the Continent. What is there for us
to do?”
“To act, Sherlock—to act!” cried Mycroft, springing to his feet. “All
my instincts are against this explanation. Use your powers! Go to the
scene of the crime! See the people concerned! Leave no stone unturned!
In all your career you have never had so great a chance of serving your
country.”
“Well, well!” said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. “Come, Watson! And
you, Lestrade, could you favour us with your company for an hour or
two? We will begin our investigation by a visit to Aldgate Station.
Good-bye, Mycroft. I shall let you have a report before evening, but I
warn you in advance that you have little to expect.”
An hour later Holmes, Lestrade and I stood upon the Underground
railroad at the point where it emerges from the tunnel immediately
before Aldgate Station. A courteous red-faced old gentleman represented
the railway company.
“This is where the young man’s body lay,” said he, indicating a spot
about three feet from the metals. “It could not have fallen from above,
for these, as you see, are all blank walls. Therefore, it could only
have come from a train, and that train, so far as we can trace it, must
have passed about midnight on Monday.”
“Have the carriages been examined for any sign of violence?”
“There are no such signs, and no ticket has been found.”
“No record of a door being found open?”
“None.”
“We have had some fresh evidence this morning,” said Lestrade. “A
passenger who passed Aldgate in an ordinary Metropolitan train about
11:40 on Monday night declares that he heard a heavy thud, as of a body
striking the line, just before the train reached the station. There was
dense fog, however, and nothing could be seen. He made no report of it
at the time. Why, whatever is the matter with Mr. Holmes?”
My friend was standing with an expression of strained intensity upon
his face, staring at the railway metals where they curved out of the
tunnel. Aldgate is a junction, and there was a network of points. On
these his eager, questioning eyes were fixed, and I saw on his keen,
alert face that tightening of the lips, that quiver of the nostrils,
and concentration of the heavy, tufted brows which I knew so well.
“Points,” he muttered; “the points.”
“What of it? What do you mean?”
“I suppose there are no great number of points on a system such as
this?”
“No; they are very few.”
“And a curve, too. Points, and a curve. By Jove! if it were only so.”
“What is it, Mr. Holmes? Have you a clue?”
“An idea—an indication, no more. But the case certainly grows in
interest. Unique, perfectly unique, and yet why not? I do not see any
indications of bleeding on the line.”
“There were hardly any.”
“But I understand that there was a considerable wound.”
“The bone was crushed, but there was no great external injury.”
“And yet one would have expected some bleeding. Would it be possible
for me to inspect the train which contained the passenger who heard the
thud of a fall in the fog?”
“I fear not, Mr. Holmes. The train has been broken up before now, and
the carriages redistributed.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade, “that every carriage has
been carefully examined. I saw to it myself.”
It was one of my friend’s most obvious weaknesses that he was impatient
with less alert intelligences than his own.
“Very likely,” said he, turning away. “As it happens, it was not the
carriages which I desired to examine. Watson, we have done all we can
here. We need not trouble you any further, Mr. Lestrade. I think our
investigations must now carry us to Woolwich.”
At London Bridge, Holmes wrote a telegram to his brother, which he
handed to me before dispatching it. It ran thus:
See some light in the darkness, but it may possibly flicker out.
Meanwhile, please send by messenger, to await return at Baker Street, a
complete list of all foreign spies or international agents known to be
in England, with full address.—Sherlock.
“That should be helpful, Watson,” he remarked as we took our seats in
the Woolwich train. “We certainly owe Brother Mycroft a debt for having
introduced us to what promises to be a really very remarkable case.”
His eager face still wore that expression of intense and high-strung
energy, which showed me that some novel and suggestive circumstance had
opened up a stimulating line of thought. See the foxhound with hanging
ears and drooping tail as it lolls about the kennels, and compare it
with the same hound as, with gleaming eyes and straining muscles, it
runs upon a breast-high scent—such was the change in Holmes since the
morning. He was a different man from the limp and lounging figure in
the mouse-coloured dressing-gown who had prowled so restlessly only a
few hours before round the fog-girt room.
“There is material here. There is scope,” said he. “I am dull indeed
not to have understood its possibilities.”
“Even now they are dark to me.”
“The end is dark to me also, but I have hold of one idea which may lead
us far. The man met his death elsewhere, and his body was on the _roof_
of a carriage.”
“On the roof!”
“Remarkable, is it not? But consider the facts. Is it a coincidence
that it is found at the very point where the train pitches and sways as
it comes round on the points? Is not that the place where an object
upon the roof might be expected to fall off? The points would affect no
object inside the train. Either the body fell from the roof, or a very
curious coincidence has occurred. But now consider the question of the
blood. Of course, there was no bleeding on the line if the body had
bled elsewhere. Each fact is suggestive in itself. Together they have a
cumulative force.”
“And the ticket, too!” I cried.
“Exactly. We could not explain the absence of a ticket. This would
explain it. Everything fits together.”
“But suppose it were so, we are still as far as ever from unravelling
the mystery of his death. Indeed, it becomes not simpler but stranger.”
“Perhaps,” said Holmes, thoughtfully, “perhaps.” He relapsed into a
silent reverie, which lasted until the slow train drew up at last in
Woolwich Station. There he called a cab and drew Mycroft’s paper from
his pocket.
“We have quite a little round of afternoon calls to make,” said he. “I
think that Sir James Walter claims our first attention.”
The house of the famous official was a fine villa with green lawns
stretching down to the Thames. As we reached it the fog was lifting,
and a thin, watery sunshine was breaking through. A butler answered our
ring.
“Sir James, sir!” said he with solemn face. “Sir James died this
morning.”
“Good heavens!” cried Holmes in amazement. “How did he die?”
“Perhaps you would care to step in, sir, and see his brother, Colonel
Valentine?”
“Yes, we had best do so.”
We were ushered into a dim-lit drawing-room, where an instant later we
were joined by a very tall, handsome, light-bearded man of fifty, the
younger brother of the dead scientist. His wild eyes, stained cheeks,
and unkempt hair all spoke of the sudden blow which had fallen upon the
household. He was hardly articulate as he spoke of it.
“It was this horrible scandal,” said he. “My brother, Sir James, was a
man of very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such an affair.
It broke his heart. He was always so proud of the efficiency of his
department, and this was a crushing blow.”
“We had hoped that he might have given us some indications which would
have helped us to clear the matter up.”
“I assure you that it was all a mystery to him as it is to you and to
all of us. He had already put all his knowledge at the disposal of the
police. Naturally he had no doubt that Cadogan West was guilty. But all
the rest was inconceivable.”
“You cannot throw any new light upon the affair?”
“I know nothing myself save what I have read or heard. I have no desire
to be discourteous, but you can understand, Mr. Holmes, that we are
much disturbed at present, and I must ask you to hasten this interview
to an end.”
“This is indeed an unexpected development,” said my friend when we had
regained the cab. “I wonder if the death was natural, or whether the
poor old fellow killed himself! If the latter, may it be taken as some
sign of self-reproach for duty neglected? We must leave that question
to the future. Now we shall turn to the Cadogan Wests.”
A small but well-kept house in the outskirts of the town sheltered the
bereaved mother. The old lady was too dazed with grief to be of any use
to us, but at her side was a white-faced young lady, who introduced
herself as Miss Violet Westbury, the fiancée of the dead man, and the
last to see him upon that fatal night.
“I cannot explain it, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “I have not shut an eye
since the tragedy, thinking, thinking, thinking, night and day, what
the true meaning of it can be. Arthur was the most single-minded,
chivalrous, patriotic man upon earth. He would have cut his right hand
off before he would sell a State secret confided to his keeping. It is
absurd, impossible, preposterous to anyone who knew him.”
“But the facts, Miss Westbury?”
“Yes, yes; I admit I cannot explain them.”
“Was he in any want of money?”
“No; his needs were very simple and his salary ample. He had saved a
few hundreds, and we were to marry at the New Year.”
“No signs of any mental excitement? Come, Miss Westbury, be absolutely
frank with us.”
The quick eye of my companion had noted some change in her manner. She
coloured and hesitated.
“Yes,” she said at last, “I had a feeling that there was something on
his mind.”
“For long?”
“Only for the last week or so. He was thoughtful and worried. Once I
pressed him about it. He admitted that there was something, and that it
was concerned with his official life. ‘It is too serious for me to
speak about, even to you,’ said he. I could get nothing more.”
Holmes looked grave.
“Go on, Miss Westbury. Even if it seems to tell against him, go on. We
cannot say what it may lead to.”
“Indeed, I have nothing more to tell. Once or twice it seemed to me
that he was on the point of telling me something. He spoke one evening
of the importance of the secret, and I have some recollection that he
said that no doubt foreign spies would pay a great deal to have it.”
My friend’s face grew graver still.
“Anything else?”
“He said that we were slack about such matters—that it would be easy
for a traitor to get the plans.”
“Was it only recently that he made such remarks?”
“Yes, quite recently.”
“Now tell us of that last evening.”
“We were to go to the theatre. The fog was so thick that a cab was
useless. We walked, and our way took us close to the office. Suddenly
he darted away into the fog.”
“Without a word?”
“He gave an exclamation; that was all. I waited but he never returned.
Then I walked home. Next morning, after the office opened, they came to
inquire. About twelve o’clock we heard the terrible news. Oh, Mr.
Holmes, if you could only, only save his honour! It was so much to
him.”
Holmes shook his head sadly.
“Come, Watson,” said he, “our ways lie elsewhere. Our next station must
be the office from which the papers were taken.
“It was black enough before against this young man, but our inquiries
make it blacker,” he remarked as the cab lumbered off. “His coming
marriage gives a motive for the crime. He naturally wanted money. The
idea was in his head, since he spoke about it. He nearly made the girl
an accomplice in the treason by telling her his plans. It is all very
bad.”
“But surely, Holmes, character goes for something? Then, again, why
should he leave the girl in the street and dart away to commit a
felony?”
“Exactly! There are certainly objections. But it is a formidable case
which they have to meet.”
Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk, met us at the office and received
us with that respect which my companion’s card always commanded. He was
a thin, gruff, bespectacled man of middle age, his cheeks haggard, and
his hands twitching from the nervous strain to which he had been
subjected.
“It is bad, Mr. Holmes, very bad! Have you heard of the death of the
chief?”
“We have just come from his house.”
“The place is disorganised. The chief dead, Cadogan West dead, our
papers stolen. And yet, when we closed our door on Monday evening, we
were as efficient an office as any in the government service. Good God,
it’s dreadful to think of! That West, of all men, should have done such
a thing!”
“You are sure of his guilt, then?”
“I can see no other way out of it. And yet I would have trusted him as
I trust myself.”
“At what hour was the office closed on Monday?”
“At five.”
“Did you close it?”
“I am always the last man out.”
“Where were the plans?”
“In that safe. I put them there myself.”
“Is there no watchman to the building?”
“There is, but he has other departments to look after as well. He is an
old soldier and a most trustworthy man. He saw nothing that evening. Of
course the fog was very thick.”
“Suppose that Cadogan West wished to make his way into the building
after hours; he would need three keys, would he not, before he could
reach the papers?”
“Yes, he would. The key of the outer door, the key of the office, and
the key of the safe.”
“Only Sir James Walter and you had those keys?”
“I had no keys of the doors—only of the safe.”
“Was Sir James a man who was orderly in his habits?”
“Yes, I think he was. I know that so far as those three keys are
concerned he kept them on the same ring. I have often seen them there.”
“And that ring went with him to London?”
“He said so.”
“And your key never left your possession?”
“Never.”
“Then West, if he is the culprit, must have had a duplicate. And yet
none was found upon his body. One other point: if a clerk in this
office desired to sell the plans, would it not be simpler to copy the
plans for himself than to take the originals, as was actually done?”
“It would take considerable technical knowledge to copy the plans in an
effective way.”
“But I suppose either Sir James, or you, or West has that technical
knowledge?”
“No doubt we had, but I beg you won’t try to drag me into the matter,
Mr. Holmes. What is the use of our speculating in this way when the
original plans were actually found on West?”
“Well, it is certainly singular that he should run the risk of taking
originals if he could safely have taken copies, which would have
equally served his turn.”
“Singular, no doubt—and yet he did so.”
“Every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable. Now there
are three papers still missing. They are, as I understand, the vital
ones.”
“Yes, that is so.”
“Do you mean to say that anyone holding these three papers, and without
the seven others, could construct a Bruce-Partington submarine?”
“I reported to that effect to the Admiralty. But to-day I have been
over the drawings again, and I am not so sure of it. The double valves
with the automatic self-adjusting slots are drawn in one of the papers
which have been returned. Until the foreigners had invented that for
themselves they could not make the boat. Of course they might soon get
over the difficulty.”
“But the three missing drawings are the most important?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“I think, with your permission, I will now take a stroll round the
premises. I do not recall any other question which I desired to ask.”
He examined the lock of the safe, the door of the room, and finally the
iron shutters of the window. It was only when we were on the lawn
outside that his interest was strongly excited. There was a laurel bush
outside the window, and several of the branches bore signs of having
been twisted or snapped. He examined them carefully with his lens, and
then some dim and vague marks upon the earth beneath. Finally he asked
the chief clerk to close the iron shutters, and he pointed out to me
that they hardly met in the centre, and that it would be possible for
anyone outside to see what was going on within the room.
“The indications are ruined by three days’ delay. They may mean
something or nothing. Well, Watson, I do not think that Woolwich can
help us further. It is a small crop which we have gathered. Let us see
if we can do better in London.”
Yet we added one more sheaf to our harvest before we left Woolwich
Station. The clerk in the ticket office was able to say with confidence
that he saw Cadogan West—whom he knew well by sight—upon the Monday
night, and that he went to London by the 8:15 to London Bridge. He was
alone and took a single third-class ticket. The clerk was struck at the
time by his excited and nervous manner. So shaky was he that he could
hardly pick up his change, and the clerk had helped him with it. A
reference to the timetable showed that the 8:15 was the first train
which it was possible for West to take after he had left the lady about
7:30.
“Let us reconstruct, Watson,” said Holmes after half an hour of
silence. “I am not aware that in all our joint researches we have ever
had a case which was more difficult to get at. Every fresh advance
which we make only reveals a fresh ridge beyond. And yet we have surely
made some appreciable progress.
“The effect of our inquiries at Woolwich has in the main been against
young Cadogan West; but the indications at the window would lend
themselves to a more favourable hypothesis. Let us suppose, for
example, that he had been approached by some foreign agent. It might
have been done under such pledges as would have prevented him from
speaking of it, and yet would have affected his thoughts in the
direction indicated by his remarks to his fiancée. Very good. We will
now suppose that as he went to the theatre with the young lady he
suddenly, in the fog, caught a glimpse of this same agent going in the
direction of the office. He was an impetuous man, quick in his
decisions. Everything gave way to his duty. He followed the man,
reached the window, saw the abstraction of the documents, and pursued
the thief. In this way we get over the objection that no one would take
originals when he could make copies. This outsider had to take
originals. So far it holds together.”
“What is the next step?”
“Then we come into difficulties. One would imagine that under such
circumstances the first act of young Cadogan West would be to seize the
villain and raise the alarm. Why did he not do so? Could it have been
an official superior who took the papers? That would explain West’s
conduct. Or could the chief have given West the slip in the fog, and
West started at once to London to head him off from his own rooms,
presuming that he knew where the rooms were? The call must have been
very pressing, since he left his girl standing in the fog and made no
effort to communicate with her. Our scent runs cold here, and there is
a vast gap between either hypothesis and the laying of West’s body,
with seven papers in his pocket, on the roof of a Metropolitan train.
My instinct now is to work from the other end. If Mycroft has given us
the list of addresses we may be able to pick our man and follow two
tracks instead of one.”
Surely enough, a note awaited us at Baker Street. A government
messenger had brought it post-haste. Holmes glanced at it and threw it
over to me.
There are numerous small fry, but few who would handle so big an
affair. The only men worth considering are Adolph Mayer, of 13, Great
George Street, Westminster; Louis La Rothière, of Campden Mansions,
Notting Hill; and Hugo Oberstein, 13, Caulfield Gardens, Kensington.
The latter was known to be in town on Monday and is now reported as
having left. Glad to hear you have seen some light. The Cabinet awaits
your final report with the utmost anxiety. Urgent representations have
arrived from the very highest quarter. The whole force of the State is
at your back if you should need it.—Mycroft.
“I’m afraid,” said Holmes, smiling, “that all the Queen’s horses and
all the Queen’s men cannot avail in this matter.” He had spread out his
big map of London and leaned eagerly over it. “Well, well,” said he
presently with an exclamation of satisfaction, “things are turning a
little in our direction at last. Why, Watson, I do honestly believe
that we are going to pull it off, after all.” He slapped me on the
shoulder with a sudden burst of hilarity. “I am going out now. It is
only a reconnaissance. I will do nothing serious without my trusted
comrade and biographer at my elbow. Do you stay here, and the odds are
that you will see me again in an hour or two. If time hangs heavy get
foolscap and a pen, and begin your narrative of how we saved the
State.”
I felt some reflection of his elation in my own mind, for I knew well
that he would not depart so far from his usual austerity of demeanour
unless there was good cause for exultation. All the long November
evening I waited, filled with impatience for his return. At last,
shortly after nine o’clock, there arrived a messenger with a note:
Am dining at Goldini’s Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please
come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark lantern,
a chisel, and a revolver.—S.H.
It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through the
dim, fog-draped streets. I stowed them all discreetly away in my
overcoat and drove straight to the address given. There sat my friend
at a little round table near the door of the garish Italian restaurant.
“Have you had something to eat? Then join me in a coffee and curaçao.
Try one of the proprietor’s cigars. They are less poisonous than one
would expect. Have you the tools?”
“They are here, in my overcoat.”
“Excellent. Let me give you a short sketch of what I have done, with
some indication of what we are about to do. Now it must be evident to
you, Watson, that this young man’s body was _placed_ on the roof of the
train. That was clear from the instant that I determined the fact that
it was from the roof, and not from a carriage, that he had fallen.”
“Could it not have been dropped from a bridge?”
“I should say it was impossible. If you examine the roofs you will find
that they are slightly rounded, and there is no railing round them.
Therefore, we can say for certain that young Cadogan West was placed on
it.”
“How could he be placed there?”
“That was the question which we had to answer. There is only one
possible way. You are aware that the Underground runs clear of tunnels
at some points in the West End. I had a vague memory that as I have
travelled by it I have occasionally seen windows just above my head.
Now, suppose that a train halted under such a window, would there be
any difficulty in laying a body upon the roof?”
“It seems most improbable.”
“We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies
fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Here all
other contingencies _have_ failed. When I found that the leading
international agent, who had just left London, lived in a row of houses
which abutted upon the Underground, I was so pleased that you were a
little astonished at my sudden frivolity.”
“Oh, that was it, was it?”
“Yes, that was it. Mr. Hugo Oberstein, of 13, Caulfield Gardens, had
become my objective. I began my operations at Gloucester Road Station,
where a very helpful official walked with me along the track and
allowed me to satisfy myself not only that the back-stair windows of
Caulfield Gardens open on the line but the even more essential fact
that, owing to the intersection of one of the larger railways, the
Underground trains are frequently held motionless for some minutes at
that very spot.”
“Splendid, Holmes! You have got it!”
“So far—so far, Watson. We advance, but the goal is afar. Well, having
seen the back of Caulfield Gardens, I visited the front and satisfied
myself that the bird was indeed flown. It is a considerable house,
unfurnished, so far as I could judge, in the upper rooms. Oberstein
lived there with a single valet, who was probably a confederate
entirely in his confidence. We must bear in mind that Oberstein has
gone to the Continent to dispose of his booty, but not with any idea of
flight; for he had no reason to fear a warrant, and the idea of an
amateur domiciliary visit would certainly never occur to him. Yet that
is precisely what we are about to make.”
“Could we not get a warrant and legalise it?”
“Hardly on the evidence.”
“What can we hope to do?”
“We cannot tell what correspondence may be there.”
“I don’t like it, Holmes.”
“My dear fellow, you shall keep watch in the street. I’ll do the
criminal part. It’s not a time to stick at trifles. Think of Mycroft’s
note, of the Admiralty, the Cabinet, the exalted person who waits for
news. We are bound to go.”
My answer was to rise from the table.
“You are right, Holmes. We are bound to go.”
He sprang up and shook me by the hand.
“I knew you would not shrink at the last,” said he, and for a moment I
saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had
ever seen. The next instant he was his masterful, practical self once
more.
“It is nearly half a mile, but there is no hurry. Let us walk,” said
he. “Don’t drop the instruments, I beg. Your arrest as a suspicious
character would be a most unfortunate complication.”
Caulfield Gardens was one of those lines of flat-faced pillared, and
porticoed houses which are so prominent a product of the middle
Victorian epoch in the West End of London. Next door there appeared to
be a children’s party, for the merry buzz of young voices and the
clatter of a piano resounded through the night. The fog still hung
about and screened us with its friendly shade. Holmes had lit his
lantern and flashed it upon the massive door.
“This is a serious proposition,” said he. “It is certainly bolted as
well as locked. We would do better in the area. There is an excellent
archway down yonder in case a too zealous policeman should intrude.
Give me a hand, Watson, and I’ll do the same for you.”
A minute later we were both in the area. Hardly had we reached the dark
shadows before the step of the policeman was heard in the fog above. As
its soft rhythm died away, Holmes set to work upon the lower door. I
saw him stoop and strain until with a sharp crash it flew open. We
sprang through into the dark passage, closing the area door behind us.
Holmes led the way up the curving, uncarpeted stair. His little fan of
yellow light shone upon a low window.
“Here we are, Watson—this must be the one.” He threw it open, and as he
did so there was a low, harsh murmur, growing steadily into a loud roar
as a train dashed past us in the darkness. Holmes swept his light along
the window-sill. It was thickly coated with soot from the passing
engines, but the black surface was blurred and rubbed in places.
“You can see where they rested the body. Halloa, Watson! what is this?
There can be no doubt that it is a blood mark.” He was pointing to
faint discolorations along the woodwork of the window. “Here it is on
the stone of the stair also. The demonstration is complete. Let us stay
here until a train stops.”
We had not long to wait. The very next train roared from the tunnel as
before, but slowed in the open, and then, with a creaking of brakes,
pulled up immediately beneath us. It was not four feet from the
window-ledge to the roof of the carriages. Holmes softly closed the
window.
“So far we are justified,” said he. “What do you think of it, Watson?”
“A masterpiece. You have never risen to a greater height.”
“I cannot agree with you there. From the moment that I conceived the
idea of the body being upon the roof, which surely was not a very
abstruse one, all the rest was inevitable. If it were not for the grave
interests involved the affair up to this point would be insignificant.
Our difficulties are still before us. But perhaps we may find something
here which may help us.”
We had ascended the kitchen stair and entered the suite of rooms upon
the first floor. One was a dining-room, severely furnished and
containing nothing of interest. A second was a bedroom, which also drew
blank. The remaining room appeared more promising, and my companion
settled down to a systematic examination. It was littered with books
and papers, and was evidently used as a study. Swiftly and methodically
Holmes turned over the contents of drawer after drawer and cupboard
after cupboard, but no gleam of success came to brighten his austere
face. At the end of an hour he was no further than when he started.
“The cunning dog has covered his tracks,” said he. “He has left nothing
to incriminate him. His dangerous correspondence has been destroyed or
removed. This is our last chance.”
It was a small tin cash-box which stood upon the writing-desk. Holmes
pried it open with his chisel. Several rolls of paper were within,
covered with figures and calculations, without any note to show to what
they referred. The recurring words, “water pressure” and “pressure to
the square inch” suggested some possible relation to a submarine.
Holmes tossed them all impatiently aside. There only remained an
envelope with some small newspaper slips inside it. He shook them out
on the table, and at once I saw by his eager face that his hopes had
been raised.
“What’s this, Watson? Eh? What’s this? Record of a series of messages
in the advertisements of a paper. _Daily Telegraph_ agony column by the
print and paper. Right-hand top corner of a page. No dates—but messages
arrange themselves. This must be the first:
“Hoped to hear sooner. Terms agreed to. Write fully to address given on
card.—Pierrot.
“Next comes:
“Too complex for description. Must have full report. Stuff awaits you
when goods delivered.—Pierrot.
“Then comes:
“Matter presses. Must withdraw offer unless contract completed. Make
appointment by letter. Will confirm by advertisement.—Pierrot.
“Finally:
“Monday night after nine. Two taps. Only ourselves. Do not be so
suspicious. Payment in hard cash when goods delivered.—Pierrot.
“A fairly complete record, Watson! If we could only get at the man at
the other end!” He sat lost in thought, tapping his fingers on the
table. Finally he sprang to his feet.
“Well, perhaps it won’t be so difficult, after all. There is nothing
more to be done here, Watson. I think we might drive round to the
offices of the _Daily Telegraph_, and so bring a good day’s work to a
conclusion.”
Mycroft Holmes and Lestrade had come round by appointment after
breakfast next day and Sherlock Holmes had recounted to them our
proceedings of the day before. The professional shook his head over our
confessed burglary.
“We can’t do these things in the force, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “No
wonder you get results that are beyond us. But some of these days
you’ll go too far, and you’ll find yourself and your friend in
trouble.”
“For England, home and beauty—eh, Watson? Martyrs on the altar of our
country. But what do you think of it, Mycroft?”
“Excellent, Sherlock! Admirable! But what use will you make of it?”
Holmes picked up the _Daily Telegraph_ which lay upon the table.
“Have you seen Pierrot’s advertisement to-day?”
“What? Another one?”
“Yes, here it is:
“To-night. Same hour. Same place. Two taps. Most vitally important.
Your own safety at stake.—Pierrot.
“By George!” cried Lestrade. “If he answers that we’ve got him!”
“That was my idea when I put it in. I think if you could both make it
convenient to come with us about eight o’clock to Caulfield Gardens we
might possibly get a little nearer to a solution.”
One of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his
power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his
thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that he
could no longer work to advantage. I remember that during the whole of
that memorable day he lost himself in a monograph which he had
undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus. For my own part I had
none of this power of detachment, and the day, in consequence, appeared
to be interminable. The great national importance of the issue, the
suspense in high quarters, the direct nature of the experiment which we
were trying—all combined to work upon my nerve. It was a relief to me
when at last, after a light dinner, we set out upon our expedition.
Lestrade and Mycroft met us by appointment at the outside of Gloucester
Road Station. The area door of Oberstein’s house had been left open the
night before, and it was necessary for me, as Mycroft Holmes absolutely
and indignantly declined to climb the railings, to pass in and open the
hall door. By nine o’clock we were all seated in the study, waiting
patiently for our man.
An hour passed and yet another. When eleven struck, the measured beat
of the great church clock seemed to sound the dirge of our hopes.
Lestrade and Mycroft were fidgeting in their seats and looking twice a
minute at their watches. Holmes sat silent and composed, his eyelids
half shut, but every sense on the alert. He raised his head with a
sudden jerk.
“He is coming,” said he.
There had been a furtive step past the door. Now it returned. We heard
a shuffling sound outside, and then two sharp taps with the knocker.
Holmes rose, motioning us to remain seated. The gas in the hall was a
mere point of light. He opened the outer door, and then as a dark
figure slipped past him he closed and fastened it. “This way!” we heard
him say, and a moment later our man stood before us. Holmes had
followed him closely, and as the man turned with a cry of surprise and
alarm he caught him by the collar and threw him back into the room.
Before our prisoner had recovered his balance the door was shut and
Holmes standing with his back against it. The man glared round him,
staggered, and fell senseless upon the floor. With the shock, his
broad-brimmed hat flew from his head, his cravat slipped down from his
lips, and there were the long light beard and the soft, handsome
delicate features of Colonel Valentine Walter.
Holmes gave a whistle of surprise.
“You can write me down an ass this time, Watson,” said he. “This was
not the bird that I was looking for.”
“Who is he?” asked Mycroft eagerly.
“The younger brother of the late Sir James Walter, the head of the
Submarine Department. Yes, yes; I see the fall of the cards. He is
coming to. I think that you had best leave his examination to me.”
We had carried the prostrate body to the sofa. Now our prisoner sat up,
looked round him with a horror-stricken face, and passed his hand over
his forehead, like one who cannot believe his own senses.
“What is this?” he asked. “I came here to visit Mr. Oberstein.”
“Everything is known, Colonel Walter,” said Holmes. “How an English
gentleman could behave in such a manner is beyond my comprehension. But
your whole correspondence and relations with Oberstein are within our
knowledge. So also are the circumstances connected with the death of
young Cadogan West. Let me advise you to gain at least the small credit
for repentance and confession, since there are still some details which
we can only learn from your lips.”
The man groaned and sank his face in his hands. We waited, but he was
silent.
“I can assure you,” said Holmes, “that every essential is already
known. We know that you were pressed for money; that you took an
impress of the keys which your brother held; and that you entered into
a correspondence with Oberstein, who answered your letters through the
advertisement columns of the _Daily Telegraph_. We are aware that you
went down to the office in the fog on Monday night, but that you were
seen and followed by young Cadogan West, who had probably some previous
reason to suspect you. He saw your theft, but could not give the alarm,
as it was just possible that you were taking the papers to your brother
in London. Leaving all his private concerns, like the good citizen that
he was, he followed you closely in the fog and kept at your heels until
you reached this very house. There he intervened, and then it was,
Colonel Walter, that to treason you added the more terrible crime of
murder.”
“I did not! I did not! Before God I swear that I did not!” cried our
wretched prisoner.
“Tell us, then, how Cadogan West met his end before you laid him upon
the roof of a railway carriage.”
“I will. I swear to you that I will. I did the rest. I confess it. It
was just as you say. A Stock Exchange debt had to be paid. I needed the
money badly. Oberstein offered me five thousand. It was to save myself
from ruin. But as to murder, I am as innocent as you.”
“What happened, then?”
“He had his suspicions before, and he followed me as you describe. I
never knew it until I was at the very door. It was thick fog, and one
could not see three yards. I had given two taps and Oberstein had come
to the door. The young man rushed up and demanded to know what we were
about to do with the papers. Oberstein had a short life-preserver. He
always carried it with him. As West forced his way after us into the
house Oberstein struck him on the head. The blow was a fatal one. He
was dead within five minutes. There he lay in the hall, and we were at
our wits’ end what to do. Then Oberstein had this idea about the trains
which halted under his back window. But first he examined the papers
which I had brought. He said that three of them were essential, and
that he must keep them. ‘You cannot keep them,’ said I. ‘There will be
a dreadful row at Woolwich if they are not returned.’ ‘I must keep
them,’ said he, ‘for they are so technical that it is impossible in the
time to make copies.’ ‘Then they must all go back together to-night,’
said I. He thought for a little, and then he cried out that he had it.
‘Three I will keep,’ said he. ‘The others we will stuff into the pocket
of this young man. When he is found the whole business will assuredly
be put to his account.’ I could see no other way out of it, so we did
as he suggested. We waited half an hour at the window before a train
stopped. It was so thick that nothing could be seen, and we had no
difficulty in lowering West’s body on to the train. That was the end of
the matter so far as I was concerned.”
“And your brother?”
“He said nothing, but he had caught me once with his keys, and I think
that he suspected. I read in his eyes that he suspected. As you know,
he never held up his head again.”
There was silence in the room. It was broken by Mycroft Holmes.
“Can you not make reparation? It would ease your conscience, and
possibly your punishment.”
“What reparation can I make?”
“Where is Oberstein with the papers?”
“I do not know.”
“Did he give you no address?”
“He said that letters to the Hôtel du Louvre, Paris, would eventually
reach him.”
“Then reparation is still within your power,” said Sherlock Holmes.
“I will do anything I can. I owe this fellow no particular good-will.
He has been my ruin and my downfall.”
“Here are paper and pen. Sit at this desk and write to my dictation.
Direct the envelope to the address given. That is right. Now the
letter:
“Dear Sir:
“With regard to our transaction, you will no doubt have observed by now
that one essential detail is missing. I have a tracing which will make
it complete. This has involved me in extra trouble, however, and I must
ask you for a further advance of five hundred pounds. I will not trust
it to the post, nor will I take anything but gold or notes. I would
come to you abroad, but it would excite remark if I left the country at
present. Therefore I shall expect to meet you in the smoking-room of
the Charing Cross Hotel at noon on Saturday. Remember that only English
notes, or gold, will be taken.
“That will do very well. I shall be very much surprised if it does not
fetch our man.”
And it did! It is a matter of history—that secret history of a nation
which is often so much more intimate and interesting than its public
chronicles—that Oberstein, eager to complete the coup of his lifetime,
came to the lure and was safely engulfed for fifteen years in a British
prison. In his trunk were found the invaluable Bruce-Partington plans,
which he had put up for auction in all the naval centres of Europe.
Colonel Walter died in prison towards the end of the second year of his
sentence. As to Holmes, he returned refreshed to his monograph upon the
Polyphonic Motets of Lassus, which has since been printed for private
circulation, and is said by experts to be the last word upon the
subject. Some weeks afterwards I learned incidentally that my friend
spent a day at Windsor, whence he returned with a remarkably fine
emerald tie-pin. When I asked him if he had bought it, he answered that
it was a present from a certain gracious lady in whose interests he had
once been fortunate enough to carry out a small commission. He said no
more; but I fancy that I could guess at that lady’s august name, and I
have little doubt that the emerald pin will forever recall to my
friend’s memory the adventure of the Bruce-Partington plans. | null |
Silver Blaze | Arthur Conan Doyle | 14 | ['John Straker'] |
I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go,” said Holmes, as we
sat down together to our breakfast one morning.
“Go! Where to?”
“To Dartmoor; to King’s Pyland.”
I was not surprised. Indeed, my only wonder was that he had not
already been mixed up in this extraordinary case, which was the
one topic of conversation through the length and breadth of
England. For a whole day my companion had rambled about the room
with his chin upon his chest and his brows knitted, charging and
recharging his pipe with the strongest black tobacco, and
absolutely deaf to any of my questions or remarks. Fresh editions
of every paper had been sent up by our news agent, only to be
glanced over and tossed down into a corner. Yet, silent as he
was, I knew perfectly well what it was over which he was
brooding. There was but one problem before the public which could
challenge his powers of analysis, and that was the singular
disappearance of the favourite for the Wessex Cup, and the tragic
murder of its trainer. When, therefore, he suddenly announced his
intention of setting out for the scene of the drama it was only
what I had both expected and hoped for.
“I should be most happy to go down with you if I should not be in
the way,” said I.
“My dear Watson, you would confer a great favour upon me by
coming. And I think that your time will not be misspent, for
there are points about the case which promise to make it an
absolutely unique one. We have, I think, just time to catch our
train at Paddington, and I will go further into the matter upon
our journey. You would oblige me by bringing with you your very
excellent field-glass.”
And so it happened that an hour or so later I found myself in the
corner of a first-class carriage flying along en route for
Exeter, while Sherlock Holmes, with his sharp, eager face framed
in his ear-flapped travelling-cap, dipped rapidly into the bundle
of fresh papers which he had procured at Paddington. We had left
Reading far behind us before he thrust the last one of them under
the seat, and offered me his cigar-case.
“We are going well,” said he, looking out the window and glancing
at his watch. “Our rate at present is fifty-three and a half
miles an hour.”
“I have not observed the quarter-mile posts,” said I.
“Nor have I. But the telegraph posts upon this line are sixty
yards apart, and the calculation is a simple one. I presume that
you have looked into this matter of the murder of John Straker
and the disappearance of Silver Blaze?”
“I have seen what the _Telegraph_ and the _Chronicle_ have to
say.”
“It is one of those cases where the art of the reasoner should be
used rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of
fresh evidence. The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete and
of such personal importance to so many people, that we are
suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis.
The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact—of absolute
undeniable fact—from the embellishments of theorists and
reporters. Then, having established ourselves upon this sound
basis, it is our duty to see what inferences may be drawn and
what are the special points upon which the whole mystery turns.
On Tuesday evening I received telegrams from both Colonel Ross,
the owner of the horse, and from Inspector Gregory, who is
looking after the case, inviting my co-operation.”
“Tuesday evening!” I exclaimed. “And this is Thursday morning.
Why didn’t you go down yesterday?”
“Because I made a blunder, my dear Watson—which is, I am afraid,
a more common occurrence than any one would think who only knew
me through your memoirs. The fact is that I could not believe it
possible that the most remarkable horse in England could long
remain concealed, especially in so sparsely inhabited a place as
the north of Dartmoor. From hour to hour yesterday I expected to
hear that he had been found, and that his abductor was the
murderer of John Straker. When, however, another morning had
come, and I found that beyond the arrest of young Fitzroy Simpson
nothing had been done, I felt that it was time for me to take
action. Yet in some ways I feel that yesterday has not been
wasted.”
“You have formed a theory, then?”
“At least I have got a grip of the essential facts of the case. I
shall enumerate them to you, for nothing clears up a case so much
as stating it to another person, and I can hardly expect your
co-operation if I do not show you the position from which we
start.”
I lay back against the cushions, puffing at my cigar, while
Holmes, leaning forward, with his long, thin forefinger checking
off the points upon the palm of his left hand, gave me a sketch
of the events which had led to our journey.
“Silver Blaze,” said he, “is from the Isonomy stock, and holds as
brilliant a record as his famous ancestor. He is now in his fifth
year, and has brought in turn each of the prizes of the turf to
Colonel Ross, his fortunate owner. Up to the time of the
catastrophe he was the first favourite for the Wessex Cup, the
betting being three to one on him. He has always, however, been a
prime favourite with the racing public, and has never yet
disappointed them, so that even at those odds enormous sums of
money have been laid upon him. It is obvious, therefore, that
there were many people who had the strongest interest in
preventing Silver Blaze from being there at the fall of the flag
next Tuesday.
“The fact was, of course, appreciated at King’s Pyland, where the
Colonel’s training-stable is situated. Every precaution was taken
to guard the favourite. The trainer, John Straker, is a retired
jockey who rode in Colonel Ross’s colours before he became too
heavy for the weighing-chair. He has served the Colonel for five
years as jockey and for seven as trainer, and has always shown
himself to be a zealous and honest servant. Under him were three
lads; for the establishment was a small one, containing only four
horses in all. One of these lads sat up each night in the stable,
while the others slept in the loft. All three bore excellent
characters. John Straker, who is a married man, lived in a small
villa about two hundred yards from the stables. He has no
children, keeps one maid-servant, and is comfortably off. The
country round is very lonely, but about half a mile to the north
there is a small cluster of villas which have been built by a
Tavistock contractor for the use of invalids and others who may
wish to enjoy the pure Dartmoor air. Tavistock itself lies two
miles to the west, while across the moor, also about two miles
distant, is the larger training establishment of Mapleton, which
belongs to Lord Backwater, and is managed by Silas Brown. In
every other direction the moor is a complete wilderness,
inhabited only by a few roaming gypsies. Such was the general
situation last Monday night when the catastrophe occurred.
“On that evening the horses had been exercised and watered as
usual, and the stables were locked up at nine o’clock. Two of the
lads walked up to the trainer’s house, where they had supper in
the kitchen, while the third, Ned Hunter, remained on guard. At a
few minutes after nine the maid, Edith Baxter, carried down to
the stables his supper, which consisted of a dish of curried
mutton. She took no liquid, as there was a water-tap in the
stables, and it was the rule that the lad on duty should drink
nothing else. The maid carried a lantern with her, as it was very
dark and the path ran across the open moor.
“Edith Baxter was within thirty yards of the stables, when a man
appeared out of the darkness and called to her to stop. As he
stepped into the circle of yellow light thrown by the lantern she
saw that he was a person of gentlemanly bearing, dressed in a
grey suit of tweeds, with a cloth cap. He wore gaiters, and
carried a heavy stick with a knob to it. She was most impressed,
however, by the extreme pallor of his face and by the nervousness
of his manner. His age, she thought, would be rather over thirty
than under it.
“‘Can you tell me where I am?’ he asked. ‘I had almost made up my
mind to sleep on the moor, when I saw the light of your lantern.’
“‘You are close to the King’s Pyland training-stables,’ said she.
“‘Oh, indeed! What a stroke of luck!’ he cried. ‘I understand
that a stable-boy sleeps there alone every night. Perhaps that is
his supper which you are carrying to him. Now I am sure that you
would not be too proud to earn the price of a new dress, would
you?’ He took a piece of white paper folded up out of his
waistcoat pocket. ‘See that the boy has this to-night, and you
shall have the prettiest frock that money can buy.’
“She was frightened by the earnestness of his manner, and ran
past him to the window through which she was accustomed to hand
the meals. It was already opened, and Hunter was seated at the
small table inside. She had begun to tell him of what had
happened, when the stranger came up again.
“‘Good-evening,’ said he, looking through the window. ‘I wanted
to have a word with you.’ The girl has sworn that as he spoke she
noticed the corner of the little paper packet protruding from his
closed hand.
“‘What business have you here?’ asked the lad.
“‘It’s business that may put something into your pocket,’ said
the other. ‘You’ve two horses in for the Wessex Cup—Silver Blaze
and Bayard. Let me have the straight tip and you won’t be a
loser. Is it a fact that at the weights Bayard could give the
other a hundred yards in five furlongs, and that the stable have
put their money on him?’
“‘So, you’re one of those damned touts!’ cried the lad. ‘I’ll
show you how we serve them in King’s Pyland.’ He sprang up and
rushed across the stable to unloose the dog. The girl fled away
to the house, but as she ran she looked back and saw that the
stranger was leaning through the window. A minute later, however,
when Hunter rushed out with the hound he was gone, and though he
ran all round the buildings he failed to find any trace of him.”
“One moment,” I asked. “Did the stable-boy, when he ran out with
the dog, leave the door unlocked behind him?”
“Excellent, Watson, excellent!” murmured my companion. “The
importance of the point struck me so forcibly that I sent a
special wire to Dartmoor yesterday to clear the matter up. The
boy locked the door before he left it. The window, I may add, was
not large enough for a man to get through.
“Hunter waited until his fellow-grooms had returned, when he sent
a message to the trainer and told him what had occurred. Straker
was excited at hearing the account, although he does not seem to
have quite realized its true significance. It left him, however,
vaguely uneasy, and Mrs. Straker, waking at one in the morning,
found that he was dressing. In reply to her inquiries, he said
that he could not sleep on account of his anxiety about the
horses, and that he intended to walk down to the stables to see
that all was well. She begged him to remain at home, as she could
hear the rain pattering against the window, but in spite of her
entreaties he pulled on his large mackintosh and left the house.
“Mrs. Straker awoke at seven in the morning, to find that her
husband had not yet returned. She dressed herself hastily, called
the maid, and set off for the stables. The door was open; inside,
huddled together upon a chair, Hunter was sunk in a state of
absolute stupor, the favourite’s stall was empty, and there were
no signs of his trainer.
“The two lads who slept in the chaff-cutting loft above the
harness-room were quickly aroused. They had heard nothing during
the night, for they are both sound sleepers. Hunter was obviously
under the influence of some powerful drug, and as no sense could
be got out of him, he was left to sleep it off while the two lads
and the two women ran out in search of the absentees. They still
had hopes that the trainer had for some reason taken out the
horse for early exercise, but on ascending the knoll near the
house, from which all the neighbouring moors were visible, they
not only could see no signs of the missing favourite, but they
perceived something which warned them that they were in the
presence of a tragedy.
“About a quarter of a mile from the stables John Straker’s
overcoat was flapping from a furze-bush. Immediately beyond there
was a bowl-shaped depression in the moor, and at the bottom of
this was found the dead body of the unfortunate trainer. His head
had been shattered by a savage blow from some heavy weapon, and
he was wounded on the thigh, where there was a long, clean cut,
inflicted evidently by some very sharp instrument. It was clear,
however, that Straker had defended himself vigorously against his
assailants, for in his right hand he held a small knife, which
was clotted with blood up to the handle, while in his left he
clasped a red and black silk cravat, which was recognised by the
maid as having been worn on the preceding evening by the stranger
who had visited the stables.
“Hunter, on recovering from his stupor, was also quite positive
as to the ownership of the cravat. He was equally certain that
the same stranger had, while standing at the window, drugged his
curried mutton, and so deprived the stables of their watchman.
“As to the missing horse, there were abundant proofs in the mud
which lay at the bottom of the fatal hollow that he had been
there at the time of the struggle. But from that morning he has
disappeared, and although a large reward has been offered, and
all the gypsies of Dartmoor are on the alert, no news has come of
him. Finally, an analysis has shown that the remains of his
supper left by the stable-lad contain an appreciable quantity of
powdered opium, while the people at the house partook of the same
dish on the same night without any ill effect.
“Those are the main facts of the case, stripped of all surmise,
and stated as baldly as possible. I shall now recapitulate what
the police have done in the matter.
“Inspector Gregory, to whom the case has been committed, is an
extremely competent officer. Were he but gifted with imagination
he might rise to great heights in his profession. On his arrival
he promptly found and arrested the man upon whom suspicion
naturally rested. There was little difficulty in finding him, for
he inhabited one of those villas which I have mentioned. His
name, it appears, was Fitzroy Simpson. He was a man of excellent
birth and education, who had squandered a fortune upon the turf,
and who lived now by doing a little quiet and genteel book-making
in the sporting clubs of London. An examination of his
betting-book shows that bets to the amount of five thousand
pounds had been registered by him against the favourite.
“On being arrested he volunteered the statement that he had come
down to Dartmoor in the hope of getting some information about
the King’s Pyland horses, and also about Desborough, the second
favourite, which was in charge of Silas Brown at the Mapleton
stables. He did not attempt to deny that he had acted as
described upon the evening before, but declared that he had no
sinister designs, and had simply wished to obtain first-hand
information. When confronted with his cravat, he turned very
pale, and was utterly unable to account for its presence in the
hand of the murdered man. His wet clothing showed that he had
been out in the storm of the night before, and his stick, which
was a Penang-lawyer weighted with lead, was just such a weapon as
might, by repeated blows, have inflicted the terrible injuries to
which the trainer had succumbed.
“On the other hand, there was no wound upon his person, while the
state of Straker’s knife would show that one at least of his
assailants must bear his mark upon him. There you have it all in
a nutshell, Watson, and if you can give me any light I shall be
infinitely obliged to you.”
I had listened with the greatest interest to the statement which
Holmes, with characteristic clearness, had laid before me. Though
most of the facts were familiar to me, I had not sufficiently
appreciated their relative importance, nor their connection to
each other.
“Is it not possible,” I suggested, “that the incised wound upon
Straker may have been caused by his own knife in the convulsive
struggles which follow any brain injury?”
“It is more than possible; it is probable,” said Holmes. “In that
case one of the main points in favour of the accused disappears.”
“And yet,” said I, “even now I fail to understand what the theory
of the police can be.”
“I am afraid that whatever theory we state has very grave
objections to it,” returned my companion. “The police imagine, I
take it, that this Fitzroy Simpson, having drugged the lad, and
having in some way obtained a duplicate key, opened the stable
door and took out the horse, with the intention, apparently, of
kidnapping him altogether. His bridle is missing, so that Simpson
must have put this on. Then, having left the door open behind
him, he was leading the horse away over the moor, when he was
either met or overtaken by the trainer. A row naturally ensued.
Simpson beat out the trainer’s brains with his heavy stick
without receiving any injury from the small knife which Straker
used in self-defence, and then the thief either led the horse on
to some secret hiding-place, or else it may have bolted during
the struggle, and be now wandering out on the moors. That is the
case as it appears to the police, and improbable as it is, all
other explanations are more improbable still. However, I shall
very quickly test the matter when I am once upon the spot, and
until then I cannot really see how we can get much further than
our present position.”
It was evening before we reached the little town of Tavistock,
which lies, like the boss of a shield, in the middle of the huge
circle of Dartmoor. Two gentlemen were awaiting us in the
station—the one a tall, fair man with lion-like hair and beard
and curiously penetrating light blue eyes; the other a small,
alert person, very neat and dapper, in a frock-coat and gaiters,
with trim little side-whiskers and an eye-glass. The latter was
Colonel Ross, the well-known sportsman; the other, Inspector
Gregory, a man who was rapidly making his name in the English
detective service.
“I am delighted that you have come down, Mr. Holmes,” said the
Colonel. “The Inspector here has done all that could possibly be
suggested, but I wish to leave no stone unturned in trying to
avenge poor Straker and in recovering my horse.”
“Have there been any fresh developments?” asked Holmes.
“I am sorry to say that we have made very little progress,” said
the Inspector. “We have an open carriage outside, and as you
would no doubt like to see the place before the light fails, we
might talk it over as we drive.”
A minute later we were all seated in a comfortable landau, and
were rattling through the quaint old Devonshire city. Inspector
Gregory was full of his case, and poured out a stream of remarks,
while Holmes threw in an occasional question or interjection.
Colonel Ross leaned back with his arms folded and his hat tilted
over his eyes, while I listened with interest to the dialogue of
the two detectives. Gregory was formulating his theory, which was
almost exactly what Holmes had foretold in the train.
“The net is drawn pretty close round Fitzroy Simpson,” he
remarked, “and I believe myself that he is our man. At the same
time I recognise that the evidence is purely circumstantial, and
that some new development may upset it.”
“How about Straker’s knife?”
“We have quite come to the conclusion that he wounded himself in
his fall.”
“My friend Dr. Watson made that suggestion to me as we came down.
If so, it would tell against this man Simpson.”
“Undoubtedly. He has neither a knife nor any sign of a wound. The
evidence against him is certainly very strong. He had a great
interest in the disappearance of the favourite. He lies under
suspicion of having poisoned the stable-boy, he was undoubtedly
out in the storm, he was armed with a heavy stick, and his cravat
was found in the dead man’s hand. I really think we have enough
to go before a jury.”
Holmes shook his head. “A clever counsel would tear it all to
rags,” said he. “Why should he take the horse out of the stable?
If he wished to injure it why could he not do it there? Has a
duplicate key been found in his possession? What chemist sold him
the powdered opium? Above all, where could he, a stranger to the
district, hide a horse, and such a horse as this? What is his own
explanation as to the paper which he wished the maid to give to
the stable-boy?”
“He says that it was a ten-pound note. One was found in his
purse. But your other difficulties are not so formidable as they
seem. He is not a stranger to the district. He has twice lodged
at Tavistock in the summer. The opium was probably brought from
London. The key, having served its purpose, would be hurled away.
The horse may be at the bottom of one of the pits or old mines
upon the moor.”
“What does he say about the cravat?”
“He acknowledges that it is his, and declares that he had lost
it. But a new element has been introduced into the case which may
account for his leading the horse from the stable.”
Holmes pricked up his ears.
“We have found traces which show that a party of gypsies encamped
on Monday night within a mile of the spot where the murder took
place. On Tuesday they were gone. Now, presuming that there was
some understanding between Simpson and these gypsies, might he
not have been leading the horse to them when he was overtaken,
and may they not have him now?”
“It is certainly possible.”
“The moor is being scoured for these gypsies. I have also
examined every stable and out-house in Tavistock, and for a
radius of ten miles.”
“There is another training-stable quite close, I understand?”
“Yes, and that is a factor which we must certainly not neglect.
As Desborough, their horse, was second in the betting, they had
an interest in the disappearance of the favourite. Silas Brown,
the trainer, is known to have had large bets upon the event, and
he was no friend to poor Straker. We have, however, examined the
stables, and there is nothing to connect him with the affair.”
“And nothing to connect this man Simpson with the interests of
the Mapleton stables?”
“Nothing at all.”
Holmes leaned back in the carriage, and the conversation ceased.
A few minutes later our driver pulled up at a neat little
red-brick villa with overhanging eaves which stood by the road.
Some distance off, across a paddock, lay a long grey-tiled
out-building. In every other direction the low curves of the
moor, bronze-coloured from the fading ferns, stretched away to
the sky-line, broken only by the steeples of Tavistock, and by a
cluster of houses away to the westward which marked the Mapleton
stables. We all sprang out with the exception of Holmes, who
continued to lean back with his eyes fixed upon the sky in front
of him, entirely absorbed in his own thoughts. It was only when I
touched his arm that he roused himself with a violent start and
stepped out of the carriage.
“Excuse me,” said he, turning to Colonel Ross, who had looked at
him in some surprise. “I was day-dreaming.” There was a gleam in
his eyes and a suppressed excitement in his manner which
convinced me, used as I was to his ways, that his hand was upon a
clue, though I could not imagine where he had found it.
“Perhaps you would prefer at once to go on to the scene of the
crime, Mr. Holmes?” said Gregory.
“I think that I should prefer to stay here a little and go into
one or two questions of detail. Straker was brought back here, I
presume?”
“Yes; he lies upstairs. The inquest is to-morrow.”
“He has been in your service some years, Colonel Ross?”
“I have always found him an excellent servant.”
“I presume that you made an inventory of what he had in his
pockets at the time of his death, Inspector?”
“I have the things themselves in the sitting-room, if you would
care to see them.”
“I should be very glad.” We all filed into the front room and sat
round the central table while the Inspector unlocked a square tin
box and laid a small heap of things before us. There was a box of
vestas, two inches of tallow candle, an A.D.P. briar-root pipe, a
pouch of seal-skin with half an ounce of long-cut Cavendish, a
silver watch with a gold chain, five sovereigns in gold, an
aluminium pencil-case, a few papers, and an ivory-handled knife
with a very delicate, inflexible blade marked Weiss & Co.,
London.
“This is a very singular knife,” said Holmes, lifting it up and
examining it minutely. “I presume, as I see blood-stains upon it,
that it is the one which was found in the dead man’s grasp.
Watson, this knife is surely in your line?”
“It is what we call a cataract knife,” said I.
“I thought so. A very delicate blade devised for very delicate
work. A strange thing for a man to carry with him upon a rough
expedition, especially as it would not shut in his pocket.”
“The tip was guarded by a disk of cork which we found beside his
body,” said the Inspector. “His wife tells us that the knife had
lain upon the dressing-table, and that he had picked it up as he
left the room. It was a poor weapon, but perhaps the best that he
could lay his hands on at the moment.”
“Very possible. How about these papers?”
“Three of them are receipted hay-dealers’ accounts. One of them
is a letter of instructions from Colonel Ross. This other is a
milliner’s account for thirty-seven pounds fifteen made out by
Madame Lesurier, of Bond Street, to William Derbyshire. Mrs.
Straker tells us that Derbyshire was a friend of her husband’s
and that occasionally his letters were addressed here.”
“Madam Derbyshire had somewhat expensive tastes,” remarked
Holmes, glancing down the account. “Twenty-two guineas is rather
heavy for a single costume. However there appears to be nothing
more to learn, and we may now go down to the scene of the crime.”
As we emerged from the sitting-room a woman, who had been waiting
in the passage, took a step forward and laid her hand upon the
Inspector’s sleeve. Her face was haggard and thin and eager,
stamped with the print of a recent horror.
“Have you got them? Have you found them?” she panted.
“No, Mrs. Straker. But Mr. Holmes here has come from London to
help us, and we shall do all that is possible.”
“Surely I met you in Plymouth at a garden-party some little time
ago, Mrs. Straker?” said Holmes.
“No, sir; you are mistaken.”
“Dear me! Why, I could have sworn to it. You wore a costume of
dove-coloured silk with ostrich-feather trimming.”
“I never had such a dress, sir,” answered the lady.
“Ah, that quite settles it,” said Holmes. And with an apology he
followed the Inspector outside. A short walk across the moor took
us to the hollow in which the body had been found. At the brink
of it was the furze-bush upon which the coat had been hung.
“There was no wind that night, I understand,” said Holmes.
“None; but very heavy rain.”
“In that case the overcoat was not blown against the furze-bush,
but placed there.”
“Yes, it was laid across the bush.”
“You fill me with interest, I perceive that the ground has been
trampled up a good deal. No doubt many feet have been here since
Monday night.”
“A piece of matting has been laid here at the side, and we have
all stood upon that.”
“Excellent.”
“In this bag I have one of the boots which Straker wore, one of
Fitzroy Simpson’s shoes, and a cast horseshoe of Silver Blaze.”
“My dear Inspector, you surpass yourself!” Holmes took the bag,
and, descending into the hollow, he pushed the matting into a
more central position. Then stretching himself upon his face and
leaning his chin upon his hands, he made a careful study of the
trampled mud in front of him. “Hullo!” said he, suddenly. “What’s
this?” It was a wax vesta half burned, which was so coated with
mud that it looked at first like a little chip of wood.
“I cannot think how I came to overlook it,” said the Inspector,
with an expression of annoyance.
“It was invisible, buried in the mud. I only saw it because I was
looking for it.”
“What! You expected to find it?”
“I thought it not unlikely.”
He took the boots from the bag, and compared the impressions of
each of them with marks upon the ground. Then he clambered up to
the rim of the hollow, and crawled about among the ferns and
bushes.
“I am afraid that there are no more tracks,” said the Inspector.
“I have examined the ground very carefully for a hundred yards in
each direction.”
“Indeed!” said Holmes, rising. “I should not have the
impertinence to do it again after what you say. But I should like
to take a little walk over the moor before it grows dark, that I
may know my ground to-morrow, and I think that I shall put this
horseshoe into my pocket for luck.”
Colonel Ross, who had shown some signs of impatience at my
companion’s quiet and systematic method of work, glanced at his
watch. “I wish you would come back with me, Inspector,” said he.
“There are several points on which I should like your advice, and
especially as to whether we do not owe it to the public to remove
our horse’s name from the entries for the Cup.”
“Certainly not,” cried Holmes, with decision. “I should let the
name stand.”
The Colonel bowed. “I am very glad to have had your opinion,
sir,” said he. “You will find us at poor Straker’s house when you
have finished your walk, and we can drive together into
Tavistock.”
He turned back with the Inspector, while Holmes and I walked
slowly across the moor. The sun was beginning to sink behind the
stables of Mapleton, and the long, sloping plain in front of us
was tinged with gold, deepening into rich, ruddy browns where the
faded ferns and brambles caught the evening light. But the
glories of the landscape were all wasted upon my companion, who
was sunk in the deepest thought.
“It’s this way, Watson,” said he at last. “We may leave the
question of who killed John Straker for the instant, and confine
ourselves to finding out what has become of the horse. Now,
supposing that he broke away during or after the tragedy, where
could he have gone to? The horse is a very gregarious creature.
If left to himself his instincts would have been either to return
to King’s Pyland or go over to Mapleton. Why should he run wild
upon the moor? He would surely have been seen by now. And why
should gypsies kidnap him? These people always clear out when
they hear of trouble, for they do not wish to be pestered by the
police. They could not hope to sell such a horse. They would run
a great risk and gain nothing by taking him. Surely that is
clear.”
“Where is he, then?”
“I have already said that he must have gone to King’s Pyland or
to Mapleton. He is not at King’s Pyland. Therefore he is at
Mapleton. Let us take that as a working hypothesis and see what
it leads us to. This part of the moor, as the Inspector remarked,
is very hard and dry. But it falls away towards Mapleton, and you
can see from here that there is a long hollow over yonder, which
must have been very wet on Monday night. If our supposition is
correct, then the horse must have crossed that, and there is the
point where we should look for his tracks.”
We had been walking briskly during this conversation, and a few
more minutes brought us to the hollow in question. At Holmes’
request I walked down the bank to the right, and he to the left,
but I had not taken fifty paces before I heard him give a shout,
and saw him waving his hand to me. The track of a horse was
plainly outlined in the soft earth in front of him, and the shoe
which he took from his pocket exactly fitted the impression.
“See the value of imagination,” said Holmes. “It is the one
quality which Gregory lacks. We imagined what might have
happened, acted upon the supposition, and find ourselves
justified. Let us proceed.”
We crossed the marshy bottom and passed over a quarter of a mile
of dry, hard turf. Again the ground sloped, and again we came on
the tracks. Then we lost them for half a mile, but only to pick
them up once more quite close to Mapleton. It was Holmes who saw
them first, and he stood pointing with a look of triumph upon his
face. A man’s track was visible beside the horse’s.
“The horse was alone before,” I cried.
“Quite so. It was alone before. Hullo, what is this?”
The double track turned sharp off and took the direction of
King’s Pyland. Holmes whistled, and we both followed along after
it. His eyes were on the trail, but I happened to look a little
to one side, and saw to my surprise the same tracks coming back
again in the opposite direction.
“One for you, Watson,” said Holmes, when I pointed it out. “You
have saved us a long walk, which would have brought us back on
our own traces. Let us follow the return track.”
We had not to go far. It ended at the paving of asphalt which led
up to the gates of the Mapleton stables. As we approached, a
groom ran out from them.
“We don’t want any loiterers about here,” said he.
“I only wished to ask a question,” said Holmes, with his finger
and thumb in his waistcoat pocket. “Should I be too early to see
your master, Mr. Silas Brown, if I were to call at five o’clock
to-morrow morning?”
“Bless you, sir, if any one is about he will be, for he is always
the first stirring. But here he is, sir, to answer your questions
for himself. No, sir, no; it is as much as my place is worth to
let him see me touch your money. Afterwards, if you like.”
As Sherlock Holmes replaced the half-crown which he had drawn
from his pocket, a fierce-looking elderly man strode out from the
gate with a hunting-crop swinging in his hand.
“What’s this, Dawson!” he cried. “No gossiping! Go about your
business! And you, what the devil do you want here?”
“Ten minutes’ talk with you, my good sir,” said Holmes in the
sweetest of voices.
“I’ve no time to talk to every gadabout. We want no strangers
here. Be off, or you may find a dog at your heels.”
Holmes leaned forward and whispered something in the trainer’s
ear. He started violently and flushed to the temples.
“It’s a lie!” he shouted, “an infernal lie!”
“Very good. Shall we argue about it here in public or talk it
over in your parlour?”
“Oh, come in if you wish to.”
Holmes smiled. “I shall not keep you more than a few minutes,
Watson,” said he. “Now, Mr. Brown, I am quite at your disposal.”
It was twenty minutes, and the reds had all faded into greys
before Holmes and the trainer reappeared. Never have I seen such
a change as had been brought about in Silas Brown in that short
time. His face was ashy pale, beads of perspiration shone upon
his brow, and his hands shook until the hunting-crop wagged like
a branch in the wind. His bullying, overbearing manner was all
gone too, and he cringed along at my companion’s side like a dog
with its master.
“Your instructions will be done. It shall all be done,” said he.
“There must be no mistake,” said Holmes, looking round at him.
The other winced as he read the menace in his eyes.
“Oh no, there shall be no mistake. It shall be there. Should I
change it first or not?”
Holmes thought a little and then burst out laughing. “No, don’t,”
said he; “I shall write to you about it. No tricks, now, or—”
“Oh, you can trust me, you can trust me!”
“Yes, I think I can. Well, you shall hear from me to-morrow.” He
turned upon his heel, disregarding the trembling hand which the
other held out to him, and we set off for King’s Pyland.
“A more perfect compound of the bully, coward, and sneak than
Master Silas Brown I have seldom met with,” remarked Holmes as we
trudged along together.
“He has the horse, then?”
“He tried to bluster out of it, but I described to him so exactly
what his actions had been upon that morning that he is convinced
that I was watching him. Of course you observed the peculiarly
square toes in the impressions, and that his own boots exactly
corresponded to them. Again, of course no subordinate would have
dared to do such a thing. I described to him how, when according
to his custom he was the first down, he perceived a strange horse
wandering over the moor. How he went out to it, and his
astonishment at recognising, from the white forehead which has
given the favourite its name, that chance had put in his power
the only horse which could beat the one upon which he had put his
money. Then I described how his first impulse had been to lead
him back to King’s Pyland, and how the devil had shown him how he
could hide the horse until the race was over, and how he had led
it back and concealed it at Mapleton. When I told him every
detail he gave it up and thought only of saving his own skin.”
“But his stables had been searched?”
“Oh, an old horse-faker like him has many a dodge.”
“But are you not afraid to leave the horse in his power now,
since he has every interest in injuring it?”
“My dear fellow, he will guard it as the apple of his eye. He
knows that his only hope of mercy is to produce it safe.”
“Colonel Ross did not impress me as a man who would be likely to
show much mercy in any case.”
“The matter does not rest with Colonel Ross. I follow my own
methods, and tell as much or as little as I choose. That is the
advantage of being unofficial. I don’t know whether you observed
it, Watson, but the Colonel’s manner has been just a trifle
cavalier to me. I am inclined now to have a little amusement at
his expense. Say nothing to him about the horse.”
“Certainly not without your permission.”
“And of course this is all quite a minor point compared to the
question of who killed John Straker.”
“And you will devote yourself to that?”
“On the contrary, we both go back to London by the night train.”
I was thunderstruck by my friend’s words. We had only been a few
hours in Devonshire, and that he should give up an investigation
which he had begun so brilliantly was quite incomprehensible to
me. Not a word more could I draw from him until we were back at
the trainer’s house. The Colonel and the Inspector were awaiting
us in the parlour.
“My friend and I return to town by the night-express,” said
Holmes. “We have had a charming little breath of your beautiful
Dartmoor air.”
The Inspector opened his eyes, and the Colonel’s lip curled in a
sneer.
“So you despair of arresting the murderer of poor Straker,” said
he.
Holmes shrugged his shoulders. “There are certainly grave
difficulties in the way,” said he. “I have every hope, however,
that your horse will start upon Tuesday, and I beg that you will
have your jockey in readiness. Might I ask for a photograph of
Mr. John Straker?”
The Inspector took one from an envelope and handed it to him.
“My dear Gregory, you anticipate all my wants. If I might ask you
to wait here for an instant, I have a question which I should
like to put to the maid.”
“I must say that I am rather disappointed in our London
consultant,” said Colonel Ross, bluntly, as my friend left the
room. “I do not see that we are any further than when he came.”
“At least you have his assurance that your horse will run,” said
I.
“Yes, I have his assurance,” said the Colonel, with a shrug of
his shoulders. “I should prefer to have the horse.”
I was about to make some reply in defence of my friend when he
entered the room again.
“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “I am quite ready for Tavistock.”
As we stepped into the carriage one of the stable-lads held the
door open for us. A sudden idea seemed to occur to Holmes, for he
leaned forward and touched the lad upon the sleeve.
“You have a few sheep in the paddock,” he said. “Who attends to
them?”
“I do, sir.”
“Have you noticed anything amiss with them of late?”
“Well, sir, not of much account; but three of them have gone
lame, sir.”
I could see that Holmes was extremely pleased, for he chuckled
and rubbed his hands together.
“A long shot, Watson; a very long shot,” said he, pinching my
arm. “Gregory, let me recommend to your attention this singular
epidemic among the sheep. Drive on, coachman!”
Colonel Ross still wore an expression which showed the poor
opinion which he had formed of my companion’s ability, but I saw
by the Inspector’s face that his attention had been keenly
aroused.
“You consider that to be important?” he asked.
“Exceedingly so.”
“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my
attention?”
“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
Four days later Holmes and I were again in the train, bound for
Winchester to see the race for the Wessex Cup. Colonel Ross met
us by appointment outside the station, and we drove in his drag
to the course beyond the town. His face was grave, and his manner
was cold in the extreme.
“I have seen nothing of my horse,” said he.
“I suppose that you would know him when you saw him?” asked
Holmes.
The Colonel was very angry. “I have been on the turf for twenty
years, and never was asked such a question as that before,” said
he. “A child would know Silver Blaze, with his white forehead and
his mottled off-foreleg.”
“How is the betting?”
“Well, that is the curious part of it. You could have got fifteen
to one yesterday, but the price has become shorter and shorter,
until you can hardly get three to one now.”
“Hum!” said Holmes. “Somebody knows something, that is clear.”
As the drag drew up in the enclosure near the grand stand I
glanced at the card to see the entries. It ran:—
Wessex Plate. 50 sovs each h ft with 1000 sovs added for four and
five year olds. Second, £300. Third, £200. New course (one mile
and five furlongs).
1. Mr. Heath Newton’s The Negro (red cap, cinnamon jacket).
2. Colonel Wardlaw’s Pugilist (pink cap, blue and black jacket).
3. Lord Backwater’s Desborough (yellow cap and sleeves).
4. Colonel Ross’s Silver Blaze (black cap, red jacket).
5. Duke of Balmoral’s Iris (yellow and black stripes).
6. Lord Singleford’s Rasper (purple cap, black sleeves).
“We scratched our other one, and put all hopes on your word,”
said the Colonel. “Why, what is that? Silver Blaze favourite?”
“Five to four against Silver Blaze!” roared the ring. “Five to
four against Silver Blaze! Five to fifteen against Desborough!
Five to four on the field!”
“There are the numbers up,” I cried. “They are all six there.”
“All six there? Then my horse is running,” cried the Colonel in
great agitation. “But I don’t see him. My colours have not
passed.”
“Only five have passed. This must be he.”
As I spoke a powerful bay horse swept out from the weighing
enclosure and cantered past us, bearing on its back the
well-known black and red of the Colonel.
“That’s not my horse,” cried the owner. “That beast has not a
white hair upon its body. What is this that you have done, Mr.
Holmes?”
“Well, well, let us see how he gets on,” said my friend,
imperturbably. For a few minutes he gazed through my field-glass.
“Capital! An excellent start!” he cried suddenly. “There they
are, coming round the curve!”
From our drag we had a superb view as they came up the straight.
The six horses were so close together that a carpet could have
covered them, but half way up the yellow of the Mapleton stable
showed to the front. Before they reached us, however,
Desborough’s bolt was shot, and the Colonel’s horse, coming away
with a rush, passed the post a good six lengths before its rival,
the Duke of Balmoral’s Iris making a bad third.
“It’s my race, anyhow,” gasped the Colonel, passing his hand over
his eyes. “I confess that I can make neither head nor tail of it.
Don’t you think that you have kept up your mystery long enough,
Mr. Holmes?”
“Certainly, Colonel, you shall know everything. Let us all go
round and have a look at the horse together. Here he is,” he
continued, as we made our way into the weighing enclosure, where
only owners and their friends find admittance. “You have only to
wash his face and his leg in spirits of wine, and you will find
that he is the same old Silver Blaze as ever.”
“You take my breath away!”
“I found him in the hands of a faker, and took the liberty of
running him just as he was sent over.”
“My dear sir, you have done wonders. The horse looks very fit and
well. It never went better in its life. I owe you a thousand
apologies for having doubted your ability. You have done me a
great service by recovering my horse. You would do me a greater
still if you could lay your hands on the murderer of John
Straker.”
“I have done so,” said Holmes quietly.
The Colonel and I stared at him in amazement. “You have got him!
Where is he, then?”
“He is here.”
“Here! Where?”
“In my company at the present moment.”
The Colonel flushed angrily. “I quite recognise that I am under
obligations to you, Mr. Holmes,” said he, “but I must regard what
you have just said as either a very bad joke or an insult.”
Sherlock Holmes laughed. “I assure you that I have not associated
you with the crime, Colonel,” said he. “The real murderer is
standing immediately behind you.” He stepped past and laid his
hand upon the glossy neck of the thoroughbred.
“The horse!” cried both the Colonel and myself.
“Yes, the horse. And it may lessen his guilt if I say that it was
done in self-defence, and that John Straker was a man who was
entirely unworthy of your confidence. But there goes the bell,
and as I stand to win a little on this next race, I shall defer a
lengthy explanation until a more fitting time.”
We had the corner of a Pullman car to ourselves that evening as
we whirled back to London, and I fancy that the journey was a
short one to Colonel Ross as well as to myself, as we listened to
our companion’s narrative of the events which had occurred at the
Dartmoor training-stables upon the Monday night, and the means by
which he had unravelled them.
“I confess,” said he, “that any theories which I had formed from
the newspaper reports were entirely erroneous. And yet there were
indications there, had they not been overlaid by other details
which concealed their true import. I went to Devonshire with the
conviction that Fitzroy Simpson was the true culprit, although,
of course, I saw that the evidence against him was by no means
complete. It was while I was in the carriage, just as we reached
the trainer’s house, that the immense significance of the curried
mutton occurred to me. You may remember that I was distrait, and
remained sitting after you had all alighted. I was marvelling in
my own mind how I could possibly have overlooked so obvious a
clue.”
“I confess,” said the Colonel, “that even now I cannot see how it
helps us.”
“It was the first link in my chain of reasoning. Powdered opium
is by no means tasteless. The flavour is not disagreeable, but it
is perceptible. Were it mixed with any ordinary dish the eater
would undoubtedly detect it, and would probably eat no more. A
curry was exactly the medium which would disguise this taste. By
no possible supposition could this stranger, Fitzroy Simpson,
have caused curry to be served in the trainer’s family that
night, and it is surely too monstrous a coincidence to suppose
that he happened to come along with powdered opium upon the very
night when a dish happened to be served which would disguise the
flavour. That is unthinkable. Therefore Simpson becomes
eliminated from the case, and our attention centres upon Straker
and his wife, the only two people who could have chosen curried
mutton for supper that night. The opium was added after the dish
was set aside for the stable-boy, for the others had the same for
supper with no ill effects. Which of them, then, had access to
that dish without the maid seeing them?
“Before deciding that question I had grasped the significance of
the silence of the dog, for one true inference invariably
suggests others. The Simpson incident had shown me that a dog was
kept in the stables, and yet, though some one had been in and had
fetched out a horse, he had not barked enough to arouse the two
lads in the loft. Obviously the midnight visitor was some one
whom the dog knew well.
“I was already convinced, or almost convinced, that John Straker
went down to the stables in the dead of the night and took out
Silver Blaze. For what purpose? For a dishonest one, obviously,
or why should he drug his own stable-boy? And yet I was at a loss
to know why. There have been cases before now where trainers have
made sure of great sums of money by laying against their own
horses, through agents, and then preventing them from winning by
fraud. Sometimes it is a pulling jockey. Sometimes it is some
surer and subtler means. What was it here? I hoped that the
contents of his pockets might help me to form a conclusion.
“And they did so. You cannot have forgotten the singular knife
which was found in the dead man’s hand, a knife which certainly
no sane man would choose for a weapon. It was, as Dr. Watson told
us, a form of knife which is used for the most delicate
operations known in surgery. And it was to be used for a delicate
operation that night. You must know, with your wide experience of
turf matters, Colonel Ross, that it is possible to make a slight
nick upon the tendons of a horse’s ham, and to do it
subcutaneously, so as to leave absolutely no trace. A horse so
treated would develop a slight lameness, which would be put down
to a strain in exercise or a touch of rheumatism, but never to
foul play.”
“Villain! Scoundrel!” cried the Colonel.
“We have here the explanation of why John Straker wished to take
the horse out on to the moor. So spirited a creature would have
certainly roused the soundest of sleepers when it felt the prick
of the knife. It was absolutely necessary to do it in the open
air.”
“I have been blind!” cried the Colonel. “Of course that was why
he needed the candle, and struck the match.”
“Undoubtedly. But in examining his belongings I was fortunate
enough to discover not only the method of the crime, but even its
motives. As a man of the world, Colonel, you know that men do not
carry other people’s bills about in their pockets. We have most
of us quite enough to do to settle our own. I at once concluded
that Straker was leading a double life, and keeping a second
establishment. The nature of the bill showed that there was a
lady in the case, and one who had expensive tastes. Liberal as
you are with your servants, one can hardly expect that they can
buy twenty-guinea walking dresses for their ladies. I questioned
Mrs. Straker as to the dress without her knowing it, and having
satisfied myself that it had never reached her, I made a note of
the milliner’s address, and felt that by calling there with
Straker’s photograph I could easily dispose of the mythical
Derbyshire.
“From that time on all was plain. Straker had led out the horse
to a hollow where his light would be invisible. Simpson in his
flight had dropped his cravat, and Straker had picked it up—with
some idea, perhaps, that he might use it in securing the horse’s
leg. Once in the hollow, he had got behind the horse and had
struck a light; but the creature frightened at the sudden glare,
and with the strange instinct of animals feeling that some
mischief was intended, had lashed out, and the steel shoe had
struck Straker full on the forehead. He had already, in spite of
the rain, taken off his overcoat in order to do his delicate
task, and so, as he fell, his knife gashed his thigh. Do I make
it clear?”
“Wonderful!” cried the Colonel. “Wonderful! You might have been
there!”
“My final shot was, I confess a very long one. It struck me that
so astute a man as Straker would not undertake this delicate
tendon-nicking without a little practice. What could he practice
on? My eyes fell upon the sheep, and I asked a question which,
rather to my surprise, showed that my surmise was correct.
“When I returned to London I called upon the milliner, who had
recognised Straker as an excellent customer of the name of
Derbyshire, who had a very dashing wife, with a strong partiality
for expensive dresses. I have no doubt that this woman had
plunged him over head and ears in debt, and so led him into this
miserable plot.”
“You have explained all but one thing,” cried the Colonel. “Where
was the horse?”
“Ah, it bolted, and was cared for by one of your neighbours. We
must have an amnesty in that direction, I think. This is Clapham
Junction, if I am not mistaken, and we shall be in Victoria in
less than ten minutes. If you care to smoke a cigar in our rooms,
Colonel, I shall be happy to give you any other details which
might interest you.”
| null |
The Adventure of the Dying Detective | Arthur Conan Doyle | 15 | ['Culverton Smith'] | Produced by David Brannan. HTML version by Al Haines.
The Adventure of the Dying Detective
By
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long-suffering
woman. Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by
throngs of singular and often undesirable characters but her remarkable
lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity in his life which must
have sorely tried her patience. His incredible untidiness, his
addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice
within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments,
and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made
him the very worst tenant in London. On the other hand, his payments
were princely. I have no doubt that the house might have been purchased
at the price which Holmes paid for his rooms during the years that I
was with him.
The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to
interfere with him, however outrageous his proceedings might seem. She
was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable gentleness and courtesy
in his dealings with women. He disliked and distrusted the sex, but he
was always a chivalrous opponent. Knowing how genuine was her regard
for him, I listened earnestly to her story when she came to my rooms in
the second year of my married life and told me of the sad condition to
which my poor friend was reduced.
"He's dying, Dr. Watson," said she. "For three days he has been
sinking, and I doubt if he will last the day. He would not let me get
a doctor. This morning when I saw his bones sticking out of his face
and his great bright eyes looking at me I could stand no more of it.
'With your leave or without it, Mr. Holmes, I am going for a doctor
this very hour,' said I. 'Let it be Watson, then,' said he. I
wouldn't waste an hour in coming to him, sir, or you may not see him
alive."
I was horrified for I had heard nothing of his illness. I need not say
that I rushed for my coat and my hat. As we drove back I asked for the
details.
"There is little I can tell you, sir. He has been working at a case
down at Rotherhithe, in an alley near the river, and he has brought
this illness back with him. He took to his bed on Wednesday afternoon
and has never moved since. For these three days neither food nor drink
has passed his lips."
"Good God! Why did you not call in a doctor?"
"He wouldn't have it, sir. You know how masterful he is. I didn't
dare to disobey him. But he's not long for this world, as you'll see
for yourself the moment that you set eyes on him."
He was indeed a deplorable spectacle. In the dim light of a foggy
November day the sick room was a gloomy spot, but it was that gaunt,
wasted face staring at me from the bed which sent a chill to my heart.
His eyes had the brightness of fever, there was a hectic flush upon
either cheek, and dark crusts clung to his lips; the thin hands upon
the coverlet twitched incessantly, his voice was croaking and
spasmodic. He lay listlessly as I entered the room, but the sight of
me brought a gleam of recognition to his eyes.
"Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days," said he in a
feeble voice, but with something of his old carelessness of manner.
"My dear fellow!" I cried, approaching him.
"Stand back! Stand right back!" said he with the sharp imperiousness
which I had associated only with moments of crisis. "If you approach
me, Watson, I shall order you out of the house."
"But why?"
"Because it is my desire. Is that not enough?"
Yes, Mrs. Hudson was right. He was more masterful than ever. It was
pitiful, however, to see his exhaustion.
"I only wished to help," I explained.
"Exactly! You will help best by doing what you are told."
"Certainly, Holmes."
He relaxed the austerity of his manner.
"You are not angry?" he asked, gasping for breath.
Poor devil, how could I be angry when I saw him lying in such a plight
before me?
"It's for your own sake, Watson," he croaked.
"For MY sake?"
"I know what is the matter with me. It is a coolie disease from
Sumatra--a thing that the Dutch know more about than we, though they
have made little of it up to date. One thing only is certain. It is
infallibly deadly, and it is horribly contagious."
He spoke now with a feverish energy, the long hands twitching and
jerking as he motioned me away.
"Contagious by touch, Watson--that's it, by touch. Keep your distance
and all is well."
"Good heavens, Holmes! Do you suppose that such a consideration weighs
with me of an instant? It would not affect me in the case of a
stranger. Do you imagine it would prevent me from doing my duty to so
old a friend?"
Again I advanced, but he repulsed me with a look of furious anger.
"If you will stand there I will talk. If you do not you must leave the
room."
I have so deep a respect for the extraordinary qualities of Holmes that
I have always deferred to his wishes, even when I least understood
them. But now all my professional instincts were aroused. Let him be
my master elsewhere, I at least was his in a sick room.
"Holmes," said I, "you are not yourself. A sick man is but a child,
and so I will treat you. Whether you like it or not, I will examine
your symptoms and treat you for them."
He looked at me with venomous eyes.
"If I am to have a doctor whether I will or not, let me at least have
someone in whom I have confidence," said he.
"Then you have none in me?"
"In your friendship, certainly. But facts are facts, Watson, and,
after all, you are only a general practitioner with very limited
experience and mediocre qualifications. It is painful to have to say
these things, but you leave me no choice."
I was bitterly hurt.
"Such a remark is unworthy of you, Holmes. It shows me very clearly
the state of your own nerves. But if you have no confidence in me I
would not intrude my services. Let me bring Sir Jasper Meek or Penrose
Fisher, or any of the best men in London. But someone you MUST have,
and that is final. If you think that I am going to stand here and see
you die without either helping you myself or bringing anyone else to
help you, then you have mistaken your man."
"You mean well, Watson," said the sick man with something between a sob
and a groan. "Shall I demonstrate your own ignorance? What do you
know, pray, of Tapanuli fever? What do you know of the black Formosa
corruption?"
"I have never heard of either."
"There are many problems of disease, many strange pathological
possibilities, in the East, Watson." He paused after each sentence to
collect his failing strength. "I have learned so much during some
recent researches which have a medico-criminal aspect. It was in the
course of them that I contracted this complaint. You can do nothing."
"Possibly not. But I happen to know that Dr. Ainstree, the greatest
living authority upon tropical disease, is now in London. All
remonstrance is useless, Holmes, I am going this instant to fetch him."
I turned resolutely to the door.
Never have I had such a shock! In an instant, with a tiger-spring, the
dying man had intercepted me. I heard the sharp snap of a twisted key.
The next moment he had staggered back to his bed, exhausted and panting
after his one tremendous outflame of energy.
"You won't take the key from me by force, Watson, I've got you, my
friend. Here you are, and here you will stay until I will otherwise.
But I'll humour you." (All this in little gasps, with terrible
struggles for breath between.) "You've only my own good at heart. Of
course I know that very well. You shall have your way, but give me
time to get my strength. Not now, Watson, not now. It's four o'clock.
At six you can go."
"This is insanity, Holmes."
"Only two hours, Watson. I promise you will go at six. Are you
content to wait?"
"I seem to have no choice."
"None in the world, Watson. Thank you, I need no help in arranging the
clothes. You will please keep your distance. Now, Watson, there is
one other condition that I would make. You will seek help, not from
the man you mention, but from the one that I choose."
"By all means."
"The first three sensible words that you have uttered since you entered
this room, Watson. You will find some books over there. I am somewhat
exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into
a non-conductor? At six, Watson, we resume our conversation."
But it was destined to be resumed long before that hour, and in
circumstances which gave me a shock hardly second to that caused by his
spring to the door. I had stood for some minutes looking at the silent
figure in the bed. His face was almost covered by the clothes and he
appeared to be asleep. Then, unable to settle down to reading, I
walked slowly round the room, examining the pictures of celebrated
criminals with which every wall was adorned. Finally, in my aimless
perambulation, I came to the mantelpiece. A litter of pipes,
tobacco-pouches, syringes, penknives, revolver-cartridges, and other
debris was scattered over it. In the midst of these was a small black
and white ivory box with a sliding lid. It was a neat little thing,
and I had stretched out my hand to examine it more closely, when----
It was a dreadful cry that he gave--a yell which might have been heard
down the street. My skin went cold and my hair bristled at that
horrible scream. As I turned I caught a glimpse of a convulsed face
and frantic eyes. I stood paralyzed, with the little box in my hand.
"Put it down! Down, this instant, Watson--this instant, I say!" His
head sank back upon the pillow and he gave a deep sigh of relief as I
replaced the box upon the mantelpiece. "I hate to have my things
touched, Watson. You know that I hate it. You fidget me beyond
endurance. You, a doctor--you are enough to drive a patient into an
asylum. Sit down, man, and let me have my rest!"
The incident left a most unpleasant impression upon my mind. The
violent and causeless excitement, followed by this brutality of speech,
so far removed from his usual suavity, showed me how deep was the
disorganization of his mind. Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the
most deplorable. I sat in silent dejection until the stipulated time
had passed. He seemed to have been watching the clock as well as I,
for it was hardly six before he began to talk with the same feverish
animation as before.
"Now, Watson," said he. "Have you any change in your pocket?"
"Yes."
"Any silver?"
"A good deal."
"How many half-crowns?"
"I have five."
"Ah, too few! Too few! How very unfortunate, Watson! However, such
as they are you can put them in your watchpocket. And all the rest of
your money in your left trouser pocket. Thank you. It will balance you
so much better like that."
This was raving insanity. He shuddered, and again made a sound between
a cough and a sob.
"You will now light the gas, Watson, but you will be very careful that
not for one instant shall it be more than half on. I implore you to be
careful, Watson. Thank you, that is excellent. No, you need not draw
the blind. Now you will have the kindness to place some letters and
papers upon this table within my reach. Thank you. Now some of that
litter from the mantelpiece. Excellent, Watson! There is a sugar-tongs
there. Kindly raise that small ivory box with its assistance. Place
it here among the papers. Good! You can now go and fetch Mr.
Culverton Smith, of 13 Lower Burke Street."
To tell the truth, my desire to fetch a doctor had somewhat weakened,
for poor Holmes was so obviously delirious that it seemed dangerous to
leave him. However, he was as eager now to consult the person named as
he had been obstinate in refusing.
"I never heard the name," said I.
"Possibly not, my good Watson. It may surprise you to know that the
man upon earth who is best versed in this disease is not a medical man,
but a planter. Mr. Culverton Smith is a well-known resident of
Sumatra, now visiting London. An outbreak of the disease upon his
plantation, which was distant from medical aid, caused him to study it
himself, with some rather far-reaching consequences. He is a very
methodical person, and I did not desire you to start before six,
because I was well aware that you would not find him in his study. If
you could persuade him to come here and give us the benefit of his
unique experience of this disease, the investigation of which has been
his dearest hobby, I cannot doubt that he could help me."
I gave Holmes's remarks as a consecutive whole and will not attempt to
indicate how they were interrupted by gaspings for breath and those
clutchings of his hands which indicated the pain from which he was
suffering. His appearance had changed for the worse during the few
hours that I had been with him. Those hectic spots were more
pronounced, the eyes shone more brightly out of darker hollows, and a
cold sweat glimmered upon his brow. He still retained, however, the
jaunty gallantry of his speech. To the last gasp he would always be the
master.
"You will tell him exactly how you have left me," said he. "You will
convey the very impression which is in your own mind--a dying man--a
dying and delirious man. Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of
the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures
seem. Ah, I am wandering! Strange how the brain controls the brain!
What was I saying, Watson?"
"My directions for Mr. Culverton Smith."
"Ah, yes, I remember. My life depends upon it. Plead with him,
Watson. There is no good feeling between us. His nephew, Watson--I
had suspicions of foul play and I allowed him to see it. The boy died
horribly. He has a grudge against me. You will soften him, Watson.
Beg him, pray him, get him here by any means. He can save me--only he!"
"I will bring him in a cab, if I have to carry him down to it."
"You will do nothing of the sort. You will persuade him to come. And
then you will return in front of him. Make any excuse so as not to
come with him. Don't forget, Watson. You won't fail me. You never did
fail me. No doubt there are natural enemies which limit the increase
of the creatures. You and I, Watson, we have done our part. Shall the
world, then, be overrun by oysters? No, no; horrible! You'll convey
all that is in your mind."
I left him full of the image of this magnificent intellect babbling
like a foolish child. He had handed me the key, and with a happy
thought I took it with me lest he should lock himself in. Mrs. Hudson
was waiting, trembling and weeping, in the passage. Behind me as I
passed from the flat I heard Holmes's high, thin voice in some
delirious chant. Below, as I stood whistling for a cab, a man came on
me through the fog.
"How is Mr. Holmes, sir?" he asked.
It was an old acquaintance, Inspector Morton, of Scotland Yard, dressed
in unofficial tweeds.
"He is very ill," I answered.
He looked at me in a most singular fashion. Had it not been too
fiendish, I could have imagined that the gleam of the fanlight showed
exultation in his face.
"I heard some rumour of it," said he.
The cab had driven up, and I left him.
Lower Burke Street proved to be a line of fine houses lying in the
vague borderland between Notting Hill and Kensington. The particular
one at which my cabman pulled up had an air of smug and demure
respectability in its old-fashioned iron railings, its massive
folding-door, and its shining brasswork. All was in keeping with a
solemn butler who appeared framed in the pink radiance of a tinted
electrical light behind him.
"Yes, Mr. Culverton Smith is in. Dr. Watson! Very good, sir, I will
take up your card."
My humble name and title did not appear to impress Mr. Culverton Smith.
Through the half-open door I heard a high, petulant, penetrating voice.
"Who is this person? What does he want? Dear me, Staples, how often
have I said that I am not to be disturbed in my hours of study?"
There came a gentle flow of soothing explanation from the butler.
"Well, I won't see him, Staples. I can't have my work interrupted like
this. I am not at home. Say so. Tell him to come in the morning if
he really must see me."
Again the gentle murmur.
"Well, well, give him that message. He can come in the morning, or he
can stay away. My work must not be hindered."
I thought of Holmes tossing upon his bed of sickness and counting the
minutes, perhaps, until I could bring help to him. It was not a time
to stand upon ceremony. His life depended upon my promptness. Before
the apologetic butler had delivered his message I had pushed past him
and was in the room.
With a shrill cry of anger a man rose from a reclining chair beside the
fire. I saw a great yellow face, coarse-grained and greasy, with
heavy, double-chin, and two sullen, menacing gray eyes which glared at
me from under tufted and sandy brows. A high bald head had a small
velvet smoking-cap poised coquettishly upon one side of its pink curve.
The skull was of enormous capacity, and yet as I looked down I saw to
my amazement that the figure of the man was small and frail, twisted in
the shoulders and back like one who has suffered from rickets in his
childhood.
"What's this?" he cried in a high, screaming voice. "What is the
meaning of this intrusion? Didn't I send you word that I would see you
to-morrow morning?"
"I am sorry," said I, "but the matter cannot be delayed. Mr. Sherlock
Holmes--"
The mention of my friend's name had an extraordinary effect upon the
little man. The look of anger passed in an instant from his face. His
features became tense and alert.
"Have you come from Holmes?" he asked.
"I have just left him."
"What about Holmes? How is he?"
"He is desperately ill. That is why I have come."
The man motioned me to a chair, and turned to resume his own. As he
did so I caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror over the
mantelpiece. I could have sworn that it was set in a malicious and
abominable smile. Yet I persuaded myself that it must have been some
nervous contraction which I had surprised, for he turned to me an
instant later with genuine concern upon his features.
"I am sorry to hear this," said he. "I only know Mr. Holmes through
some business dealings which we have had, but I have every respect for
his talents and his character. He is an amateur of crime, as I am of
disease. For him the villain, for me the microbe. There are my
prisons," he continued, pointing to a row of bottles and jars which
stood upon a side table. "Among those gelatine cultivations some of the
very worst offenders in the world are now doing time."
"It was on account of your special knowledge that Mr. Holmes desired to
see you. He has a high opinion of you and thought that you were the
one man in London who could help him."
The little man started, and the jaunty smoking-cap slid to the floor.
"Why?" he asked. "Why should Mr. Homes think that I could help him in
his trouble?"
"Because of your knowledge of Eastern diseases."
"But why should he think that this disease which he has contracted is
Eastern?"
"Because, in some professional inquiry, he has been working among
Chinese sailors down in the docks."
Mr. Culverton Smith smiled pleasantly and picked up his smoking-cap.
"Oh, that's it--is it?" said he. "I trust the matter is not so grave
as you suppose. How long has he been ill?"
"About three days."
"Is he delirious?"
"Occasionally."
"Tut, tut! This sounds serious. It would be inhuman not to answer his
call. I very much resent any interruption to my work, Dr. Watson, but
this case is certainly exceptional. I will come with you at once."
I remembered Holmes's injunction.
"I have another appointment," said I.
"Very good. I will go alone. I have a note of Mr. Holmes's address.
You can rely upon my being there within half an hour at most."
It was with a sinking heart that I reentered Holmes's bedroom. For all
that I knew the worst might have happened in my absence. To my enormous
relief, he had improved greatly in the interval. His appearance was as
ghastly as ever, but all trace of delirium had left him and he spoke in
a feeble voice, it is true, but with even more than his usual crispness
and lucidity.
"Well, did you see him, Watson?"
"Yes; he is coming."
"Admirable, Watson! Admirable! You are the best of messengers."
"He wished to return with me."
"That would never do, Watson. That would be obviously impossible. Did
he ask what ailed me?"
"I told him about the Chinese in the East End."
"Exactly! Well, Watson, you have done all that a good friend could.
You can now disappear from the scene."
"I must wait and hear his opinion, Holmes."
"Of course you must. But I have reasons to suppose that this opinion
would be very much more frank and valuable if he imagines that we are
alone. There is just room behind the head of my bed, Watson."
"My dear Holmes!"
"I fear there is no alternative, Watson. The room does not lend itself
to concealment, which is as well, as it is the less likely to arouse
suspicion. But just there, Watson, I fancy that it could be done."
Suddenly he sat up with a rigid intentness upon his haggard face.
"There are the wheels, Watson. Quick, man, if you love me! And don't
budge, whatever happens--whatever happens, do you hear? Don't speak!
Don't move! Just listen with all your ears." Then in an instant his
sudden access of strength departed, and his masterful, purposeful talk
droned away into the low, vague murmurings of a semi-delirious man.
From the hiding-place into which I had been so swiftly hustled I heard
the footfalls upon the stair, with the opening and the closing of the
bedroom door. Then, to my surprise, there came a long silence, broken
only by the heavy breathings and gaspings of the sick man. I could
imagine that our visitor was standing by the bedside and looking down
at the sufferer. At last that strange hush was broken.
"Holmes!" he cried. "Holmes!" in the insistent tone of one who awakens
a sleeper. "Can't you hear me, Holmes?" There was a rustling, as if
he had shaken the sick man roughly by the shoulder.
"Is that you, Mr. Smith?" Holmes whispered. "I hardly dared hope that
you would come."
The other laughed.
"I should imagine not," he said. "And yet, you see, I am here. Coals
of fire, Holmes--coals of fire!"
"It is very good of you--very noble of you. I appreciate your special
knowledge."
Our visitor sniggered.
"You do. You are, fortunately, the only man in London who does. Do you
know what is the matter with you?"
"The same," said Holmes.
"Ah! You recognize the symptoms?"
"Only too well."
"Well, I shouldn't be surprised, Holmes. I shouldn't be surprised if
it WERE the same. A bad lookout for you if it is. Poor Victor was a
dead man on the fourth day--a strong, hearty young fellow. It was
certainly, as you said, very surprising that he should have contracted
an out-of-the-way Asiatic disease in the heart of London--a disease,
too, of which I had made such a very special study. Singular
coincidence, Holmes. Very smart of you to notice it, but rather
uncharitable to suggest that it was cause and effect."
"I knew that you did it."
"Oh, you did, did you? Well, you couldn't prove it, anyhow. But what
do you think of yourself spreading reports about me like that, and then
crawling to me for help the moment you are in trouble? What sort of a
game is that--eh?"
I heard the rasping, laboured breathing of the sick man. "Give me the
water!" he gasped.
"You're precious near your end, my friend, but I don't want you to go
till I have had a word with you. That's why I give you water. There,
don't slop it about! That's right. Can you understand what I say?"
Holmes groaned.
"Do what you can for me. Let bygones be bygones," he whispered. "I'll
put the words out of my head--I swear I will. Only cure me, and I'll
forget it."
"Forget what?"
"Well, about Victor Savage's death. You as good as admitted just now
that you had done it. I'll forget it."
"You can forget it or remember it, just as you like. I don't see you
in the witnessbox. Quite another shaped box, my good Holmes, I assure
you. It matters nothing to me that you should know how my nephew died.
It's not him we are talking about. It's you."
"Yes, yes."
"The fellow who came for me--I've forgotten his name--said that you
contracted it down in the East End among the sailors."
"I could only account for it so."
"You are proud of your brains, Holmes, are you not? Think yourself
smart, don't you? You came across someone who was smarter this time.
Now cast your mind back, Holmes. Can you think of no other way you
could have got this thing?"
"I can't think. My mind is gone. For heaven's sake help me!"
"Yes, I will help you. I'll help you to understand just where you are
and how you got there. I'd like you to know before you die."
"Give me something to ease my pain."
"Painful, is it? Yes, the coolies used to do some squealing towards
the end. Takes you as cramp, I fancy."
"Yes, yes; it is cramp."
"Well, you can hear what I say, anyhow. Listen now! Can you remember
any unusual incident in your life just about the time your symptoms
began?"
"No, no; nothing."
"Think again."
"I'm too ill to think."
"Well, then, I'll help you. Did anything come by post?"
"By post?"
"A box by chance?"
"I'm fainting--I'm gone!"
"Listen, Holmes!" There was a sound as if he was shaking the dying
man, and it was all that I could do to hold myself quiet in my
hiding-place. "You must hear me. You SHALL hear me. Do you remember
a box--an ivory box? It came on Wednesday. You opened it--do you
remember?"
"Yes, yes, I opened it. There was a sharp spring inside it. Some
joke--"
"It was no joke, as you will find to your cost. You fool, you would
have it and you have got it. Who asked you to cross my path? If you
had left me alone I would not have hurt you."
"I remember," Holmes gasped. "The spring! It drew blood. This
box--this on the table."
"The very one, by George! And it may as well leave the room in my
pocket. There goes your last shred of evidence. But you have the
truth now, Holmes, and you can die with the knowledge that I killed
you. You knew too much of the fate of Victor Savage, so I have sent
you to share it. You are very near your end, Holmes. I will sit here
and I will watch you die."
Holmes's voice had sunk to an almost inaudible whisper.
"What is that?" said Smith. "Turn up the gas? Ah, the shadows begin
to fall, do they? Yes, I will turn it up, that I may see you the
better." He crossed the room and the light suddenly brightened. "Is
there any other little service that I can do you, my friend?"
"A match and a cigarette."
I nearly called out in my joy and my amazement. He was speaking in his
natural voice--a little weak, perhaps, but the very voice I knew.
There was a long pause, and I felt that Culverton Smith was standing in
silent amazement looking down at his companion.
"What's the meaning of this?" I heard him say at last in a dry, rasping
tone.
"The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it," said Holmes.
"I give you my word that for three days I have tasted neither food nor
drink until you were good enough to pour me out that glass of water.
But it is the tobacco which I find most irksome. Ah, here ARE some
cigarettes." I heard the striking of a match. "That is very much
better. Halloa! halloa! Do I hear the step of a friend?"
There were footfalls outside, the door opened, and Inspector Morton
appeared.
"All is in order and this is your man," said Holmes.
The officer gave the usual cautions.
"I arrest you on the charge of the murder of one Victor Savage," he
concluded.
"And you might add of the attempted murder of one Sherlock Holmes,"
remarked my friend with a chuckle. "To save an invalid trouble,
Inspector, Mr. Culverton Smith was good enough to give our signal by
turning up the gas. By the way, the prisoner has a small box in the
right-hand pocket of his coat which it would be as well to remove.
Thank you. I would handle it gingerly if I were you. Put it down
here. It may play its part in the trial."
There was a sudden rush and a scuffle, followed by the clash of iron
and a cry of pain.
"You'll only get yourself hurt," said the inspector. "Stand still,
will you?" There was the click of the closing handcuffs.
"A nice trap!" cried the high, snarling voice. "It will bring YOU into
the dock, Holmes, not me. He asked me to come here to cure him. I was
sorry for him and I came. Now he will pretend, no doubt, that I have
said anything which he may invent which will corroborate his insane
suspicions. You can lie as you like, Holmes. My word is always as good
as yours."
"Good heavens!" cried Holmes. "I had totally forgotten him. My dear
Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies. To think that I should have
overlooked you! I need not introduce you to Mr. Culverton Smith, since
I understand that you met somewhat earlier in the evening. Have you the
cab below? I will follow you when I am dressed, for I may be of some
use at the station.
"I never needed it more," said Holmes as he refreshed himself with a
glass of claret and some biscuits in the intervals of his toilet.
"However, as you know, my habits are irregular, and such a feat means
less to me than to most men. It was very essential that I should
impress Mrs. Hudson with the reality of my condition, since she was to
convey it to you, and you in turn to him. You won't be offended,
Watson? You will realize that among your many talents dissimulation
finds no place, and that if you had shared my secret you would never
have been able to impress Smith with the urgent necessity of his
presence, which was the vital point of the whole scheme. Knowing his
vindictive nature, I was perfectly certain that he would come to look
upon his handiwork."
"But your appearance, Holmes--your ghastly face?"
"Three days of absolute fast does not improve one's beauty, Watson.
For the rest, there is nothing which a sponge may not cure. With
vaseline upon one's forehead, belladonna in one's eyes, rouge over the
cheek-bones, and crusts of beeswax round one's lips, a very satisfying
effect can be produced. Malingering is a subject upon which I have
sometimes thought of writing a monograph. A little occasional talk
about half-crowns, oysters, or any other extraneous subject produces a
pleasing effect of delirium."
"But why would you not let me near you, since there was in truth no
infection?"
"Can you ask, my dear Watson? Do you imagine that I have no respect
for your medical talents? Could I fancy that your astute judgment
would pass a dying man who, however weak, had no rise of pulse or
temperature? At four yards, I could deceive you. If I failed to do
so, who would bring my Smith within my grasp? No, Watson, I would not
touch that box. You can just see if you look at it sideways where the
sharp spring like a viper's tooth emerges as you open it. I dare say
it was by some such device that poor Savage, who stood between this
monster and a reversion, was done to death. My correspondence,
however, is, as you know, a varied one, and I am somewhat upon my guard
against any packages which reach me. It was clear to me, however, that
by pretending that he had really succeeded in his design I might
surprise a confession. That pretence I have carried out with the
thoroughness of the true artist. Thank you, Watson, you must help me
on with my coat. When we have finished at the police-station I think
that something nutritious at Simpson's would not be out of place." | null |
The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb | Arthur Conan Doyle | 14 | ['Lysander Stark'] |
Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, Mr.
Sherlock Holmes, for solution during the years of our intimacy, there
were only two which I was the means of introducing to his notice—that
of Mr. Hatherley’s thumb, and that of Colonel Warburton’s madness. Of
these the latter may have afforded a finer field for an acute and
original observer, but the other was so strange in its inception and so
dramatic in its details that it may be the more worthy of being placed
upon record, even if it gave my friend fewer openings for those
deductive methods of reasoning by which he achieved such remarkable
results. The story has, I believe, been told more than once in the
newspapers, but, like all such narratives, its effect is much less
striking when set forth _en bloc_ in a single half-column of print than
when the facts slowly evolve before your own eyes, and the mystery
clears gradually away as each new discovery furnishes a step which
leads on to the complete truth. At the time the circumstances made a
deep impression upon me, and the lapse of two years has hardly served
to weaken the effect.
It was in the summer of ’89, not long after my marriage, that the
events occurred which I am now about to summarise. I had returned to
civil practice and had finally abandoned Holmes in his Baker Street
rooms, although I continually visited him and occasionally even
persuaded him to forgo his Bohemian habits so far as to come and visit
us. My practice had steadily increased, and as I happened to live at no
very great distance from Paddington Station, I got a few patients from
among the officials. One of these, whom I had cured of a painful and
lingering disease, was never weary of advertising my virtues and of
endeavouring to send me on every sufferer over whom he might have any
influence.
One morning, at a little before seven o’clock, I was awakened by the
maid tapping at the door to announce that two men had come from
Paddington and were waiting in the consulting-room. I dressed
hurriedly, for I knew by experience that railway cases were seldom
trivial, and hastened downstairs. As I descended, my old ally, the
guard, came out of the room and closed the door tightly behind him.
“I’ve got him here,” he whispered, jerking his thumb over his shoulder;
“he’s all right.”
“What is it, then?” I asked, for his manner suggested that it was some
strange creature which he had caged up in my room.
“It’s a new patient,” he whispered. “I thought I’d bring him round
myself; then he couldn’t slip away. There he is, all safe and sound. I
must go now, Doctor; I have my dooties, just the same as you.” And off
he went, this trusty tout, without even giving me time to thank him.
I entered my consulting-room and found a gentleman seated by the table.
He was quietly dressed in a suit of heather tweed with a soft cloth cap
which he had laid down upon my books. Round one of his hands he had a
handkerchief wrapped, which was mottled all over with bloodstains. He
was young, not more than five-and-twenty, I should say, with a strong,
masculine face; but he was exceedingly pale and gave me the impression
of a man who was suffering from some strong agitation, which it took
all his strength of mind to control.
“I am sorry to knock you up so early, Doctor,” said he, “but I have had
a very serious accident during the night. I came in by train this
morning, and on inquiring at Paddington as to where I might find a
doctor, a worthy fellow very kindly escorted me here. I gave the maid a
card, but I see that she has left it upon the side-table.”
I took it up and glanced at it. “Mr. Victor Hatherley, hydraulic
engineer, 16A, Victoria Street (3rd floor).” That was the name, style,
and abode of my morning visitor. “I regret that I have kept you
waiting,” said I, sitting down in my library-chair. “You are fresh from
a night journey, I understand, which is in itself a monotonous
occupation.”
“Oh, my night could not be called monotonous,” said he, and laughed. He
laughed very heartily, with a high, ringing note, leaning back in his
chair and shaking his sides. All my medical instincts rose up against
that laugh.
“Stop it!” I cried; “pull yourself together!” and I poured out some
water from a caraffe.
It was useless, however. He was off in one of those hysterical
outbursts which come upon a strong nature when some great crisis is
over and gone. Presently he came to himself once more, very weary and
pale-looking.
“I have been making a fool of myself,” he gasped.
“Not at all. Drink this.” I dashed some brandy into the water, and the
colour began to come back to his bloodless cheeks.
“That’s better!” said he. “And now, Doctor, perhaps you would kindly
attend to my thumb, or rather to the place where my thumb used to be.”
He unwound the handkerchief and held out his hand. It gave even my
hardened nerves a shudder to look at it. There were four protruding
fingers and a horrid red, spongy surface where the thumb should have
been. It had been hacked or torn right out from the roots.
“Good heavens!” I cried, “this is a terrible injury. It must have bled
considerably.”
“Yes, it did. I fainted when it was done, and I think that I must have
been senseless for a long time. When I came to I found that it was
still bleeding, so I tied one end of my handkerchief very tightly round
the wrist and braced it up with a twig.”
“Excellent! You should have been a surgeon.”
“It is a question of hydraulics, you see, and came within my own
province.”
“This has been done,” said I, examining the wound, “by a very heavy and
sharp instrument.”
“A thing like a cleaver,” said he.
“An accident, I presume?”
“By no means.”
“What! a murderous attack?”
“Very murderous indeed.”
“You horrify me.”
I sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it, and finally covered it
over with cotton wadding and carbolised bandages. He lay back without
wincing, though he bit his lip from time to time.
“How is that?” I asked when I had finished.
“Capital! Between your brandy and your bandage, I feel a new man. I was
very weak, but I have had a good deal to go through.”
“Perhaps you had better not speak of the matter. It is evidently trying
to your nerves.”
“Oh, no, not now. I shall have to tell my tale to the police; but,
between ourselves, if it were not for the convincing evidence of this
wound of mine, I should be surprised if they believed my statement, for
it is a very extraordinary one, and I have not much in the way of proof
with which to back it up; and, even if they believe me, the clues which
I can give them are so vague that it is a question whether justice will
be done.”
“Ha!” cried I, “if it is anything in the nature of a problem which you
desire to see solved, I should strongly recommend you to come to my
friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, before you go to the official police.”
“Oh, I have heard of that fellow,” answered my visitor, “and I should
be very glad if he would take the matter up, though of course I must
use the official police as well. Would you give me an introduction to
him?”
“I’ll do better. I’ll take you round to him myself.”
“I should be immensely obliged to you.”
“We’ll call a cab and go together. We shall just be in time to have a
little breakfast with him. Do you feel equal to it?”
“Yes; I shall not feel easy until I have told my story.”
“Then my servant will call a cab, and I shall be with you in an
instant.” I rushed upstairs, explained the matter shortly to my wife,
and in five minutes was inside a hansom, driving with my new
acquaintance to Baker Street.
Sherlock Holmes was, as I expected, lounging about his sitting-room in
his dressing-gown, reading the agony column of _The Times_ and smoking
his before-breakfast pipe, which was composed of all the plugs and
dottles left from his smokes of the day before, all carefully dried and
collected on the corner of the mantelpiece. He received us in his
quietly genial fashion, ordered fresh rashers and eggs, and joined us
in a hearty meal. When it was concluded he settled our new acquaintance
upon the sofa, placed a pillow beneath his head, and laid a glass of
brandy and water within his reach.
“It is easy to see that your experience has been no common one, Mr.
Hatherley,” said he. “Pray, lie down there and make yourself absolutely
at home. Tell us what you can, but stop when you are tired and keep up
your strength with a little stimulant.”
“Thank you,” said my patient, “but I have felt another man since the
doctor bandaged me, and I think that your breakfast has completed the
cure. I shall take up as little of your valuable time as possible, so I
shall start at once upon my peculiar experiences.”
Holmes sat in his big armchair with the weary, heavy-lidded expression
which veiled his keen and eager nature, while I sat opposite to him,
and we listened in silence to the strange story which our visitor
detailed to us.
“You must know,” said he, “that I am an orphan and a bachelor, residing
alone in lodgings in London. By profession I am a hydraulic engineer,
and I have had considerable experience of my work during the seven
years that I was apprenticed to Venner & Matheson, the well-known firm,
of Greenwich. Two years ago, having served my time, and having also
come into a fair sum of money through my poor father’s death, I
determined to start in business for myself and took professional
chambers in Victoria Street.
“I suppose that everyone finds his first independent start in business
a dreary experience. To me it has been exceptionally so. During two
years I have had three consultations and one small job, and that is
absolutely all that my profession has brought me. My gross takings
amount to £ 27 10_s_. Every day, from nine in the morning until four in
the afternoon, I waited in my little den, until at last my heart began
to sink, and I came to believe that I should never have any practice at
all.
“Yesterday, however, just as I was thinking of leaving the office, my
clerk entered to say there was a gentleman waiting who wished to see me
upon business. He brought up a card, too, with the name of ‘Colonel
Lysander Stark’ engraved upon it. Close at his heels came the colonel
himself, a man rather over the middle size, but of an exceeding
thinness. I do not think that I have ever seen so thin a man. His whole
face sharpened away into nose and chin, and the skin of his cheeks was
drawn quite tense over his outstanding bones. Yet this emaciation
seemed to be his natural habit, and due to no disease, for his eye was
bright, his step brisk, and his bearing assured. He was plainly but
neatly dressed, and his age, I should judge, would be nearer forty than
thirty.
“‘Mr. Hatherley?’ said he, with something of a German accent. ‘You have
been recommended to me, Mr. Hatherley, as being a man who is not only
proficient in his profession but is also discreet and capable of
preserving a secret.’
“I bowed, feeling as flattered as any young man would at such an
address. ‘May I ask who it was who gave me so good a character?’
“‘Well, perhaps it is better that I should not tell you that just at
this moment. I have it from the same source that you are both an orphan
and a bachelor and are residing alone in London.’
“‘That is quite correct,’ I answered; ‘but you will excuse me if I say
that I cannot see how all this bears upon my professional
qualifications. I understand that it was on a professional matter that
you wished to speak to me?’
“‘Undoubtedly so. But you will find that all I say is really to the
point. I have a professional commission for you, but absolute secrecy
is quite essential—absolute secrecy, you understand, and of course we
may expect that more from a man who is alone than from one who lives in
the bosom of his family.’
“‘If I promise to keep a secret,’ said I, ‘you may absolutely depend
upon my doing so.’
“He looked very hard at me as I spoke, and it seemed to me that I had
never seen so suspicious and questioning an eye.
“‘Do you promise, then?’ said he at last.
“‘Yes, I promise.’
“‘Absolute and complete silence before, during, and after? No reference
to the matter at all, either in word or writing?’
“‘I have already given you my word.’
“‘Very good.’ He suddenly sprang up, and darting like lightning across
the room he flung open the door. The passage outside was empty.
“‘That’s all right,’ said he, coming back. ‘I know that clerks are
sometimes curious as to their master’s affairs. Now we can talk in
safety.’ He drew up his chair very close to mine and began to stare at
me again with the same questioning and thoughtful look.
“A feeling of repulsion, and of something akin to fear had begun to
rise within me at the strange antics of this fleshless man. Even my
dread of losing a client could not restrain me from showing my
impatience.
“‘I beg that you will state your business, sir,’ said I; ‘my time is of
value.’ Heaven forgive me for that last sentence, but the words came to
my lips.
“‘How would fifty guineas for a night’s work suit you?’ he asked.
“‘Most admirably.’
“‘I say a night’s work, but an hour’s would be nearer the mark. I
simply want your opinion about a hydraulic stamping machine which has
got out of gear. If you show us what is wrong we shall soon set it
right ourselves. What do you think of such a commission as that?’
“‘The work appears to be light and the pay munificent.’
“‘Precisely so. We shall want you to come to-night by the last train.’
“‘Where to?’
“‘To Eyford, in Berkshire. It is a little place near the borders of
Oxfordshire, and within seven miles of Reading. There is a train from
Paddington which would bring you there at about 11:15.’
“‘Very good.’
“‘I shall come down in a carriage to meet you.’
“‘There is a drive, then?’
“‘Yes, our little place is quite out in the country. It is a good seven
miles from Eyford Station.’
“‘Then we can hardly get there before midnight. I suppose there would
be no chance of a train back. I should be compelled to stop the night.’
“‘Yes, we could easily give you a shake-down.’
“‘That is very awkward. Could I not come at some more convenient hour?’
“‘We have judged it best that you should come late. It is to recompense
you for any inconvenience that we are paying to you, a young and
unknown man, a fee which would buy an opinion from the very heads of
your profession. Still, of course, if you would like to draw out of the
business, there is plenty of time to do so.’
“I thought of the fifty guineas, and of how very useful they would be
to me. ‘Not at all,’ said I, ‘I shall be very happy to accommodate
myself to your wishes. I should like, however, to understand a little
more clearly what it is that you wish me to do.’
“‘Quite so. It is very natural that the pledge of secrecy which we have
exacted from you should have aroused your curiosity. I have no wish to
commit you to anything without your having it all laid before you. I
suppose that we are absolutely safe from eavesdroppers?’
“‘Entirely.’
“‘Then the matter stands thus. You are probably aware that
fuller’s-earth is a valuable product, and that it is only found in one
or two places in England?’
“‘I have heard so.’
“‘Some little time ago I bought a small place—a very small place—within
ten miles of Reading. I was fortunate enough to discover that there was
a deposit of fuller’s-earth in one of my fields. On examining it,
however, I found that this deposit was a comparatively small one, and
that it formed a link between two very much larger ones upon the right
and left—both of them, however, in the grounds of my neighbours. These
good people were absolutely ignorant that their land contained that
which was quite as valuable as a gold-mine. Naturally, it was to my
interest to buy their land before they discovered its true value, but
unfortunately I had no capital by which I could do this. I took a few
of my friends into the secret, however, and they suggested that we
should quietly and secretly work our own little deposit and that in
this way we should earn the money which would enable us to buy the
neighbouring fields. This we have now been doing for some time, and in
order to help us in our operations we erected a hydraulic press. This
press, as I have already explained, has got out of order, and we wish
your advice upon the subject. We guard our secret very jealously,
however, and if it once became known that we had hydraulic engineers
coming to our little house, it would soon rouse inquiry, and then, if
the facts came out, it would be good-bye to any chance of getting these
fields and carrying out our plans. That is why I have made you promise
me that you will not tell a human being that you are going to Eyford
to-night. I hope that I make it all plain?’
“‘I quite follow you,’ said I. ‘The only point which I could not quite
understand was what use you could make of a hydraulic press in
excavating fuller’s-earth, which, as I understand, is dug out like
gravel from a pit.’
“‘Ah!’ said he carelessly, ‘we have our own process. We compress the
earth into bricks, so as to remove them without revealing what they
are. But that is a mere detail. I have taken you fully into my
confidence now, Mr. Hatherley, and I have shown you how I trust you.’
He rose as he spoke. ‘I shall expect you, then, at Eyford at 11:15.’
“‘I shall certainly be there.’
“‘And not a word to a soul.’ He looked at me with a last long,
questioning gaze, and then, pressing my hand in a cold, dank grasp, he
hurried from the room.
“Well, when I came to think it all over in cool blood I was very much
astonished, as you may both think, at this sudden commission which had
been intrusted to me. On the one hand, of course, I was glad, for the
fee was at least tenfold what I should have asked had I set a price
upon my own services, and it was possible that this order might lead to
other ones. On the other hand, the face and manner of my patron had
made an unpleasant impression upon me, and I could not think that his
explanation of the fuller’s-earth was sufficient to explain the
necessity for my coming at midnight, and his extreme anxiety lest I
should tell anyone of my errand. However, I threw all fears to the
winds, ate a hearty supper, drove to Paddington, and started off,
having obeyed to the letter the injunction as to holding my tongue.
“At Reading I had to change not only my carriage but my station.
However, I was in time for the last train to Eyford, and I reached the
little dim-lit station after eleven o’clock. I was the only passenger
who got out there, and there was no one upon the platform save a single
sleepy porter with a lantern. As I passed out through the wicket gate,
however, I found my acquaintance of the morning waiting in the shadow
upon the other side. Without a word he grasped my arm and hurried me
into a carriage, the door of which was standing open. He drew up the
windows on either side, tapped on the wood-work, and away we went as
fast as the horse could go.”
“One horse?” interjected Holmes.
“Yes, only one.”
“Did you observe the colour?”
“Yes, I saw it by the side-lights when I was stepping into the
carriage. It was a chestnut.”
“Tired-looking or fresh?”
“Oh, fresh and glossy.”
“Thank you. I am sorry to have interrupted you. Pray continue your most
interesting statement.”
“Away we went then, and we drove for at least an hour. Colonel Lysander
Stark had said that it was only seven miles, but I should think, from
the rate that we seemed to go, and from the time that we took, that it
must have been nearer twelve. He sat at my side in silence all the
time, and I was aware, more than once when I glanced in his direction,
that he was looking at me with great intensity. The country roads seem
to be not very good in that part of the world, for we lurched and
jolted terribly. I tried to look out of the windows to see something of
where we were, but they were made of frosted glass, and I could make
out nothing save the occasional bright blur of a passing light. Now and
then I hazarded some remark to break the monotony of the journey, but
the colonel answered only in monosyllables, and the conversation soon
flagged. At last, however, the bumping of the road was exchanged for
the crisp smoothness of a gravel-drive, and the carriage came to a
stand. Colonel Lysander Stark sprang out, and, as I followed after him,
pulled me swiftly into a porch which gaped in front of us. We stepped,
as it were, right out of the carriage and into the hall, so that I
failed to catch the most fleeting glance of the front of the house. The
instant that I had crossed the threshold the door slammed heavily
behind us, and I heard faintly the rattle of the wheels as the carriage
drove away.
“It was pitch dark inside the house, and the colonel fumbled about
looking for matches and muttering under his breath. Suddenly a door
opened at the other end of the passage, and a long, golden bar of light
shot out in our direction. It grew broader, and a woman appeared with a
lamp in her hand, which she held above her head, pushing her face
forward and peering at us. I could see that she was pretty, and from
the gloss with which the light shone upon her dark dress I knew that it
was a rich material. She spoke a few words in a foreign tongue in a
tone as though asking a question, and when my companion answered in a
gruff monosyllable she gave such a start that the lamp nearly fell from
her hand. Colonel Stark went up to her, whispered something in her ear,
and then, pushing her back into the room from whence she had come, he
walked towards me again with the lamp in his hand.
“‘Perhaps you will have the kindness to wait in this room for a few
minutes,’ said he, throwing open another door. It was a quiet, little,
plainly furnished room, with a round table in the centre, on which
several German books were scattered. Colonel Stark laid down the lamp
on the top of a harmonium beside the door. ‘I shall not keep you
waiting an instant,’ said he, and vanished into the darkness.
“I glanced at the books upon the table, and in spite of my ignorance of
German I could see that two of them were treatises on science, the
others being volumes of poetry. Then I walked across to the window,
hoping that I might catch some glimpse of the country-side, but an oak
shutter, heavily barred, was folded across it. It was a wonderfully
silent house. There was an old clock ticking loudly somewhere in the
passage, but otherwise everything was deadly still. A vague feeling of
uneasiness began to steal over me. Who were these German people, and
what were they doing living in this strange, out-of-the-way place? And
where was the place? I was ten miles or so from Eyford, that was all I
knew, but whether north, south, east, or west I had no idea. For that
matter, Reading, and possibly other large towns, were within that
radius, so the place might not be so secluded, after all. Yet it was
quite certain, from the absolute stillness, that we were in the
country. I paced up and down the room, humming a tune under my breath
to keep up my spirits and feeling that I was thoroughly earning my
fifty-guinea fee.
“Suddenly, without any preliminary sound in the midst of the utter
stillness, the door of my room swung slowly open. The woman was
standing in the aperture, the darkness of the hall behind her, the
yellow light from my lamp beating upon her eager and beautiful face. I
could see at a glance that she was sick with fear, and the sight sent a
chill to my own heart. She held up one shaking finger to warn me to be
silent, and she shot a few whispered words of broken English at me, her
eyes glancing back, like those of a frightened horse, into the gloom
behind her.
“‘I would go,’ said she, trying hard, as it seemed to me, to speak
calmly; ‘I would go. I should not stay here. There is no good for you
to do.’
“‘But, madam,’ said I, ‘I have not yet done what I came for. I cannot
possibly leave until I have seen the machine.’
“‘It is not worth your while to wait,’ she went on. ‘You can pass
through the door; no one hinders.’ And then, seeing that I smiled and
shook my head, she suddenly threw aside her constraint and made a step
forward, with her hands wrung together. ‘For the love of Heaven!’ she
whispered, ‘get away from here before it is too late!’
“But I am somewhat headstrong by nature, and the more ready to engage
in an affair when there is some obstacle in the way. I thought of my
fifty-guinea fee, of my wearisome journey, and of the unpleasant night
which seemed to be before me. Was it all to go for nothing? Why should
I slink away without having carried out my commission, and without the
payment which was my due? This woman might, for all I knew, be a
monomaniac. With a stout bearing, therefore, though her manner had
shaken me more than I cared to confess, I still shook my head and
declared my intention of remaining where I was. She was about to renew
her entreaties when a door slammed overhead, and the sound of several
footsteps was heard upon the stairs. She listened for an instant, threw
up her hands with a despairing gesture, and vanished as suddenly and as
noiselessly as she had come.
“The newcomers were Colonel Lysander Stark and a short thick man with a
chinchilla beard growing out of the creases of his double chin, who was
introduced to me as Mr. Ferguson.
“‘This is my secretary and manager,’ said the colonel. ‘By the way, I
was under the impression that I left this door shut just now. I fear
that you have felt the draught.’
“‘On the contrary,’ said I, ‘I opened the door myself because I felt
the room to be a little close.’
“He shot one of his suspicious looks at me. ‘Perhaps we had better
proceed to business, then,’ said he. ‘Mr. Ferguson and I will take you
up to see the machine.’
“‘I had better put my hat on, I suppose.’
“‘Oh, no, it is in the house.’
“‘What, you dig fuller’s-earth in the house?’
“‘No, no. This is only where we compress it. But never mind that. All
we wish you to do is to examine the machine and to let us know what is
wrong with it.’
“We went upstairs together, the colonel first with the lamp, the fat
manager and I behind him. It was a labyrinth of an old house, with
corridors, passages, narrow winding staircases, and little low doors,
the thresholds of which were hollowed out by the generations who had
crossed them. There were no carpets and no signs of any furniture above
the ground floor, while the plaster was peeling off the walls, and the
damp was breaking through in green, unhealthy blotches. I tried to put
on as unconcerned an air as possible, but I had not forgotten the
warnings of the lady, even though I disregarded them, and I kept a keen
eye upon my two companions. Ferguson appeared to be a morose and silent
man, but I could see from the little that he said that he was at least
a fellow-countryman.
“Colonel Lysander Stark stopped at last before a low door, which he
unlocked. Within was a small, square room, in which the three of us
could hardly get at one time. Ferguson remained outside, and the
colonel ushered me in.
“‘We are now,’ said he, ‘actually within the hydraulic press, and it
would be a particularly unpleasant thing for us if anyone were to turn
it on. The ceiling of this small chamber is really the end of the
descending piston, and it comes down with the force of many tons upon
this metal floor. There are small lateral columns of water outside
which receive the force, and which transmit and multiply it in the
manner which is familiar to you. The machine goes readily enough, but
there is some stiffness in the working of it, and it has lost a little
of its force. Perhaps you will have the goodness to look it over and to
show us how we can set it right.’
“I took the lamp from him, and I examined the machine very thoroughly.
It was indeed a gigantic one, and capable of exercising enormous
pressure. When I passed outside, however, and pressed down the levers
which controlled it, I knew at once by the whishing sound that there
was a slight leakage, which allowed a regurgitation of water through
one of the side cylinders. An examination showed that one of the
india-rubber bands which was round the head of a driving-rod had shrunk
so as not quite to fill the socket along which it worked. This was
clearly the cause of the loss of power, and I pointed it out to my
companions, who followed my remarks very carefully and asked several
practical questions as to how they should proceed to set it right. When
I had made it clear to them, I returned to the main chamber of the
machine and took a good look at it to satisfy my own curiosity. It was
obvious at a glance that the story of the fuller’s-earth was the merest
fabrication, for it would be absurd to suppose that so powerful an
engine could be designed for so inadequate a purpose. The walls were of
wood, but the floor consisted of a large iron trough, and when I came
to examine it I could see a crust of metallic deposit all over it. I
had stooped and was scraping at this to see exactly what it was when I
heard a muttered exclamation in German and saw the cadaverous face of
the colonel looking down at me.
“‘What are you doing there?’ he asked.
“I felt angry at having been tricked by so elaborate a story as that
which he had told me. ‘I was admiring your fuller’s-earth,’ said I; ‘I
think that I should be better able to advise you as to your machine if
I knew what the exact purpose was for which it was used.’
“The instant that I uttered the words I regretted the rashness of my
speech. His face set hard, and a baleful light sprang up in his grey
eyes.
“‘Very well,’ said he, ‘you shall know all about the machine.’ He took
a step backward, slammed the little door, and turned the key in the
lock. I rushed towards it and pulled at the handle, but it was quite
secure, and did not give in the least to my kicks and shoves. ‘Hullo!’
I yelled. ‘Hullo! Colonel! Let me out!’
“And then suddenly in the silence I heard a sound which sent my heart
into my mouth. It was the clank of the levers and the swish of the
leaking cylinder. He had set the engine at work. The lamp still stood
upon the floor where I had placed it when examining the trough. By its
light I saw that the black ceiling was coming down upon me, slowly,
jerkily, but, as none knew better than myself, with a force which must
within a minute grind me to a shapeless pulp. I threw myself,
screaming, against the door, and dragged with my nails at the lock. I
implored the colonel to let me out, but the remorseless clanking of the
levers drowned my cries. The ceiling was only a foot or two above my
head, and with my hand upraised I could feel its hard, rough surface.
Then it flashed through my mind that the pain of my death would depend
very much upon the position in which I met it. If I lay on my face the
weight would come upon my spine, and I shuddered to think of that
dreadful snap. Easier the other way, perhaps; and yet, had I the nerve
to lie and look up at that deadly black shadow wavering down upon me?
Already I was unable to stand erect, when my eye caught something which
brought a gush of hope back to my heart.
“I have said that though the floor and ceiling were of iron, the walls
were of wood. As I gave a last hurried glance around, I saw a thin line
of yellow light between two of the boards, which broadened and
broadened as a small panel was pushed backward. For an instant I could
hardly believe that here was indeed a door which led away from death.
The next instant I threw myself through, and lay half-fainting upon the
other side. The panel had closed again behind me, but the crash of the
lamp, and a few moments afterwards the clang of the two slabs of metal,
told me how narrow had been my escape.
“I was recalled to myself by a frantic plucking at my wrist, and I
found myself lying upon the stone floor of a narrow corridor, while a
woman bent over me and tugged at me with her left hand, while she held
a candle in her right. It was the same good friend whose warning I had
so foolishly rejected.
“‘Come! come!’ she cried breathlessly. ‘They will be here in a moment.
They will see that you are not there. Oh, do not waste the so-precious
time, but come!’
“This time, at least, I did not scorn her advice. I staggered to my
feet and ran with her along the corridor and down a winding stair. The
latter led to another broad passage, and just as we reached it we heard
the sound of running feet and the shouting of two voices, one answering
the other from the floor on which we were and from the one beneath. My
guide stopped and looked about her like one who is at her wit’s end.
Then she threw open a door which led into a bedroom, through the window
of which the moon was shining brightly.
“‘It is your only chance,’ said she. ‘It is high, but it may be that
you can jump it.’
“As she spoke a light sprang into view at the further end of the
passage, and I saw the lean figure of Colonel Lysander Stark rushing
forward with a lantern in one hand and a weapon like a butcher’s
cleaver in the other. I rushed across the bedroom, flung open the
window, and looked out. How quiet and sweet and wholesome the garden
looked in the moonlight, and it could not be more than thirty feet
down. I clambered out upon the sill, but I hesitated to jump until I
should have heard what passed between my saviour and the ruffian who
pursued me. If she were ill-used, then at any risks I was determined to
go back to her assistance. The thought had hardly flashed through my
mind before he was at the door, pushing his way past her; but she threw
her arms round him and tried to hold him back.
“‘Fritz! Fritz!’ she cried in English, ‘remember your promise after the
last time. You said it should not be again. He will be silent! Oh, he
will be silent!’
“‘You are mad, Elise!’ he shouted, struggling to break away from her.
‘You will be the ruin of us. He has seen too much. Let me pass, I say!’
He dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the window, cut at me with
his heavy weapon. I had let myself go, and was hanging by the hands to
the sill, when his blow fell. I was conscious of a dull pain, my grip
loosened, and I fell into the garden below.
“I was shaken but not hurt by the fall; so I picked myself up and
rushed off among the bushes as hard as I could run, for I understood
that I was far from being out of danger yet. Suddenly, however, as I
ran, a deadly dizziness and sickness came over me. I glanced down at my
hand, which was throbbing painfully, and then, for the first time, saw
that my thumb had been cut off and that the blood was pouring from my
wound. I endeavoured to tie my handkerchief round it, but there came a
sudden buzzing in my ears, and next moment I fell in a dead faint among
the rose-bushes.
“How long I remained unconscious I cannot tell. It must have been a
very long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was
breaking when I came to myself. My clothes were all sodden with dew,
and my coat-sleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded thumb. The
smarting of it recalled in an instant all the particulars of my night’s
adventure, and I sprang to my feet with the feeling that I might hardly
yet be safe from my pursuers. But to my astonishment, when I came to
look round me, neither house nor garden were to be seen. I had been
lying in an angle of the hedge close by the high road, and just a little
lower down was a long building, which proved, upon my approaching it,
to be the very station at which I had arrived upon the previous night.
Were it not for the ugly wound upon my hand, all that had passed during
those dreadful hours might have been an evil dream.
“Half dazed, I went into the station and asked about the morning train.
There would be one to Reading in less than an hour. The same porter was
on duty, I found, as had been there when I arrived. I inquired of him
whether he had ever heard of Colonel Lysander Stark. The name was
strange to him. Had he observed a carriage the night before waiting for
me? No, he had not. Was there a police-station anywhere near? There was
one about three miles off.
“It was too far for me to go, weak and ill as I was. I determined to
wait until I got back to town before telling my story to the police. It
was a little past six when I arrived, so I went first to have my wound
dressed, and then the doctor was kind enough to bring me along here. I
put the case into your hands and shall do exactly what you advise.”
We both sat in silence for some little time after listening to this
extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock Holmes pulled down from the
shelf one of the ponderous commonplace books in which he placed his
cuttings.
“Here is an advertisement which will interest you,” said he. “It
appeared in all the papers about a year ago. Listen to this: ‘Lost, on
the 9th inst., Mr. Jeremiah Hayling, aged twenty-six, a hydraulic
engineer. Left his lodgings at ten o’clock at night, and has not been
heard of since. Was dressed in,’ etc., etc. Ha! That represents the
last time that the colonel needed to have his machine overhauled, I
fancy.”
“Good heavens!” cried my patient. “Then that explains what the girl
said.”
“Undoubtedly. It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and
desperate man, who was absolutely determined that nothing should stand
in the way of his little game, like those out-and-out pirates who will
leave no survivor from a captured ship. Well, every moment now is
precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall go down to Scotland Yard
at once as a preliminary to starting for Eyford.”
Some three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train together,
bound from Reading to the little Berkshire village. There were Sherlock
Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector Bradstreet, of Scotland Yard,
a plain-clothes man, and myself. Bradstreet had spread an ordnance map
of the county out upon the seat and was busy with his compasses drawing
a circle with Eyford for its centre.
“There you are,” said he. “That circle is drawn at a radius of ten
miles from the village. The place we want must be somewhere near that
line. You said ten miles, I think, sir.”
“It was an hour’s good drive.”
“And you think that they brought you back all that way when you were
unconscious?”
“They must have done so. I have a confused memory, too, of having been
lifted and conveyed somewhere.”
“What I cannot understand,” said I, “is why they should have spared you
when they found you lying fainting in the garden. Perhaps the villain
was softened by the woman’s entreaties.”
“I hardly think that likely. I never saw a more inexorable face in my
life.”
“Oh, we shall soon clear up all that,” said Bradstreet. “Well, I have
drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon it the folk
that we are in search of are to be found.”
“I think I could lay my finger on it,” said Holmes quietly.
“Really, now!” cried the inspector, “you have formed your opinion!
Come, now, we shall see who agrees with you. I say it is south, for the
country is more deserted there.”
“And I say east,” said my patient.
“I am for west,” remarked the plain-clothes man. “There are several
quiet little villages up there.”
“And I am for north,” said I, “because there are no hills there, and
our friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up any.”
“Come,” cried the inspector, laughing; “it’s a very pretty diversity of
opinion. We have boxed the compass among us. Who do you give your
casting vote to?”
“You are all wrong.”
“But we can’t all be.”
“Oh, yes, you can. This is my point.” He placed his finger in the
centre of the circle. “This is where we shall find them.”
“But the twelve-mile drive?” gasped Hatherley.
“Six out and six back. Nothing simpler. You say yourself that the horse
was fresh and glossy when you got in. How could it be that if it had
gone twelve miles over heavy roads?”
“Indeed, it is a likely ruse enough,” observed Bradstreet thoughtfully.
“Of course there can be no doubt as to the nature of this gang.”
“None at all,” said Holmes. “They are coiners on a large scale, and
have used the machine to form the amalgam which has taken the place of
silver.”
“We have known for some time that a clever gang was at work,” said the
inspector. “They have been turning out half-crowns by the thousand. We
even traced them as far as Reading, but could get no farther, for they
had covered their traces in a way that showed that they were very old
hands. But now, thanks to this lucky chance, I think that we have got
them right enough.”
But the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not destined
to fall into the hands of justice. As we rolled into Eyford Station we
saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed up from behind a small
clump of trees in the neighbourhood and hung like an immense ostrich
feather over the landscape.
“A house on fire?” asked Bradstreet as the train steamed off again on
its way.
“Yes, sir!” said the station-master.
“When did it break out?”
“I hear that it was during the night, sir, but it has got worse, and
the whole place is in a blaze.”
“Whose house is it?”
“Dr. Becher’s.”
“Tell me,” broke in the engineer, “is Dr. Becher a German, very thin,
with a long, sharp nose?”
The station-master laughed heartily. “No, sir, Dr. Becher is an
Englishman, and there isn’t a man in the parish who has a better-lined
waistcoat. But he has a gentleman staying with him, a patient, as I
understand, who is a foreigner, and he looks as if a little good
Berkshire beef would do him no harm.”
The station-master had not finished his speech before we were all
hastening in the direction of the fire. The road topped a low hill, and
there was a great widespread whitewashed building in front of us,
spouting fire at every chink and window, while in the garden in front
three fire-engines were vainly striving to keep the flames under.
“That’s it!” cried Hatherley, in intense excitement. “There is the
gravel-drive, and there are the rose-bushes where I lay. That second
window is the one that I jumped from.”
“Well, at least,” said Holmes, “you have had your revenge upon them.
There can be no question that it was your oil-lamp which, when it was
crushed in the press, set fire to the wooden walls, though no doubt
they were too excited in the chase after you to observe it at the time.
Now keep your eyes open in this crowd for your friends of last night,
though I very much fear that they are a good hundred miles off by now.”
And Holmes’ fears came to be realised, for from that day to this no
word has ever been heard either of the beautiful woman, the sinister
German, or the morose Englishman. Early that morning a peasant had met
a cart containing several people and some very bulky boxes driving
rapidly in the direction of Reading, but there all traces of the
fugitives disappeared, and even Holmes’ ingenuity failed ever to
discover the least clue as to their whereabouts.
The firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements which
they had found within, and still more so by discovering a newly severed
human thumb upon a window-sill of the second floor. About sunset,
however, their efforts were at last successful, and they subdued the
flames, but not before the roof had fallen in, and the whole place been
reduced to such absolute ruin that, save some twisted cylinders and
iron piping, not a trace remained of the machinery which had cost our
unfortunate acquaintance so dearly. Large masses of nickel and of tin
were discovered stored in an out-house, but no coins were to be found,
which may have explained the presence of those bulky boxes which have
been already referred to.
How our hydraulic engineer had been conveyed from the garden to the
spot where he recovered his senses might have remained forever a
mystery were it not for the soft mould, which told us a very plain
tale. He had evidently been carried down by two persons, one of whom
had remarkably small feet and the other unusually large ones. On the
whole, it was most probable that the silent Englishman, being less bold
or less murderous than his companion, had assisted the woman to bear
the unconscious man out of the way of danger.
“Well,” said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return once
more to London, “it has been a pretty business for me! I have lost my
thumb and I have lost a fifty-guinea fee, and what have I gained?”
“Experience,” said Holmes, laughing. “Indirectly it may be of value,
you know; you have only to put it into words to gain the reputation of
being excellent company for the remainder of your existence.”
X.
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The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez | Arthur Conan Doyle | 15 | ['Anna Coram'] |
When I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which contain
our work for the year 1894, I confess that it is very difficult
for me, out of such a wealth of material, to select the cases
which are most interesting in themselves, and at the same time
most conducive to a display of those peculiar powers for which my
friend was famous. As I turn over the pages, I see my notes upon
the repulsive story of the red leech and the terrible death of
Crosby, the banker. Here also I find an account of the Addleton
tragedy, and the singular contents of the ancient British barrow.
The famous Smith-Mortimer succession case comes also within this
period, and so does the tracking and arrest of Huret, the
Boulevard assassin—an exploit which won for Holmes an autograph
letter of thanks from the French President and the Order of the
Legion of Honour. Each of these would furnish a narrative, but on
the whole I am of opinion that none of them unites so many
singular points of interest as the episode of Yoxley Old Place,
which includes not only the lamentable death of young Willoughby
Smith, but also those subsequent developments which threw so
curious a light upon the causes of the crime.
It was a wild, tempestuous night, towards the close of November.
Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening, he engaged
with a powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original
inscription upon a palimpsest, I deep in a recent treatise upon
surgery. Outside the wind howled down Baker Street, while the
rain beat fiercely against the windows. It was strange there, in
the very depths of the town, with ten miles of man’s handiwork on
every side of us, to feel the iron grip of Nature, and to be
conscious that to the huge elemental forces all London was no
more than the molehills that dot the fields. I walked to the
window, and looked out on the deserted street. The occasional
lamps gleamed on the expanse of muddy road and shining pavement.
A single cab was splashing its way from the Oxford Street end.
“Well, Watson, it’s as well we have not to turn out to-night,”
said Holmes, laying aside his lens and rolling up the palimpsest.
“I’ve done enough for one sitting. It is trying work for the
eyes. So far as I can make out, it is nothing more exciting than
an Abbey’s accounts dating from the second half of the fifteenth
century. Halloa! halloa! halloa! What’s this?”
Amid the droning of the wind there had come the stamping of a
horse’s hoofs, and the long grind of a wheel as it rasped against
the curb. The cab which I had seen had pulled up at our door.
“What can he want?” I ejaculated, as a man stepped out of it.
“Want? He wants us. And we, my poor Watson, want overcoats and
cravats and goloshes, and every aid that man ever invented to
fight the weather. Wait a bit, though! There’s the cab off again!
There’s hope yet. He’d have kept it if he had wanted us to come.
Run down, my dear fellow, and open the door, for all virtuous
folk have been long in bed.”
When the light of the hall lamp fell upon our midnight visitor, I
had no difficulty in recognizing him. It was young Stanley
Hopkins, a promising detective, in whose career Holmes had
several times shown a very practical interest.
“Is he in?” he asked, eagerly.
“Come up, my dear sir,” said Holmes’s voice from above. “I hope
you have no designs upon us such a night as this.”
The detective mounted the stairs, and our lamp gleamed upon his
shining waterproof. I helped him out of it, while Holmes knocked
a blaze out of the logs in the grate.
“Now, my dear Hopkins, draw up and warm your toes,” said he.
“Here’s a cigar, and the doctor has a prescription containing hot
water and a lemon, which is good medicine on a night like this.
It must be something important which has brought you out in such
a gale.”
“It is indeed, Mr. Holmes. I’ve had a bustling afternoon, I
promise you. Did you see anything of the Yoxley case in the
latest editions?”
“I’ve seen nothing later than the fifteenth century to-day.”
“Well, it was only a paragraph, and all wrong at that, so you
have not missed anything. I haven’t let the grass grow under my
feet. It’s down in Kent, seven miles from Chatham and three from
the railway line. I was wired for at 3:15, reached Yoxley Old
Place at 5, conducted my investigation, was back at Charing Cross
by the last train, and straight to you by cab.”
“Which means, I suppose, that you are not quite clear about your
case?”
“It means that I can make neither head nor tail of it. So far as
I can see, it is just as tangled a business as ever I handled,
and yet at first it seemed so simple that one couldn’t go wrong.
There’s no motive, Mr. Holmes. That’s what bothers me—I can’t put
my hand on a motive. Here’s a man dead—there’s no denying
that—but, so far as I can see, no reason on earth why anyone
should wish him harm.”
Holmes lit his cigar and leaned back in his chair.
“Let us hear about it,” said he.
“I’ve got my facts pretty clear,” said Stanley Hopkins. “All I
want now is to know what they all mean. The story, so far as I
can make it out, is like this. Some years ago this country house,
Yoxley Old Place, was taken by an elderly man, who gave the name
of Professor Coram. He was an invalid, keeping his bed half the
time, and the other half hobbling round the house with a stick or
being pushed about the grounds by the gardener in a Bath chair.
He was well liked by the few neighbours who called upon him, and
he has the reputation down there of being a very learned man. His
household used to consist of an elderly housekeeper, Mrs. Marker,
and of a maid, Susan Tarlton. These have both been with him since
his arrival, and they seem to be women of excellent character.
The professor is writing a learned book, and he found it
necessary, about a year ago, to engage a secretary. The first two
that he tried were not successes, but the third, Mr. Willoughby
Smith, a very young man straight from the university, seems to
have been just what his employer wanted. His work consisted in
writing all the morning to the professor’s dictation, and he
usually spent the evening in hunting up references and passages
which bore upon the next day’s work. This Willoughby Smith has
nothing against him, either as a boy at Uppingham or as a young
man at Cambridge. I have seen his testimonials, and from the
first he was a decent, quiet, hard-working fellow, with no weak
spot in him at all. And yet this is the lad who has met his death
this morning in the professor’s study under circumstances which
can point only to murder.”
The wind howled and screamed at the windows. Holmes and I drew
closer to the fire, while the young inspector slowly and point by
point developed his singular narrative.
“If you were to search all England,” said he, “I don’t suppose
you could find a household more self-contained or freer from
outside influences. Whole weeks would pass, and not one of them
go past the garden gate. The professor was buried in his work and
existed for nothing else. Young Smith knew nobody in the
neighbourhood, and lived very much as his employer did. The two
women had nothing to take them from the house. Mortimer, the
gardener, who wheels the Bath chair, is an army pensioner—an old
Crimean man of excellent character. He does not live in the
house, but in a three-roomed cottage at the other end of the
garden. Those are the only people that you would find within the
grounds of Yoxley Old Place. At the same time, the gate of the
garden is a hundred yards from the main London to Chatham road.
It opens with a latch, and there is nothing to prevent anyone
from walking in.
“Now I will give you the evidence of Susan Tarlton, who is the
only person who can say anything positive about the matter. It
was in the forenoon, between eleven and twelve. She was engaged
at the moment in hanging some curtains in the upstairs front
bedroom. Professor Coram was still in bed, for when the weather
is bad he seldom rises before midday. The housekeeper was busied
with some work in the back of the house. Willoughby Smith had
been in his bedroom, which he uses as a sitting-room, but the
maid heard him at that moment pass along the passage and descend
to the study immediately below her. She did not see him, but she
says that she could not be mistaken in his quick, firm tread. She
did not hear the study door close, but a minute or so later there
was a dreadful cry in the room below. It was a wild, hoarse
scream, so strange and unnatural that it might have come either
from a man or a woman. At the same instant there was a heavy
thud, which shook the old house, and then all was silence. The
maid stood petrified for a moment, and then, recovering her
courage, she ran downstairs. The study door was shut and she
opened it. Inside, young Mr. Willoughby Smith was stretched upon
the floor. At first she could see no injury, but as she tried to
raise him she saw that blood was pouring from the underside of
his neck. It was pierced by a very small but very deep wound,
which had divided the carotid artery. The instrument with which
the injury had been inflicted lay upon the carpet beside him. It
was one of those small sealing-wax knives to be found on
old-fashioned writing-tables, with an ivory handle and a stiff
blade. It was part of the fittings of the professor’s own desk.
“At first the maid thought that young Smith was already dead, but
on pouring some water from the carafe over his forehead he opened
his eyes for an instant. ‘The professor,’ he murmured—‘it was
she.’ The maid is prepared to swear that those were the exact
words. He tried desperately to say something else, and he held
his right hand up in the air. Then he fell back dead.
“In the meantime the housekeeper had also arrived upon the scene,
but she was just too late to catch the young man’s dying words.
Leaving Susan with the body, she hurried to the professor’s room.
He was sitting up in bed, horribly agitated, for he had heard
enough to convince him that something terrible had occurred. Mrs.
Marker is prepared to swear that the professor was still in his
night-clothes, and indeed it was impossible for him to dress
without the help of Mortimer, whose orders were to come at twelve
o’clock. The professor declares that he heard the distant cry,
but that he knows nothing more. He can give no explanation of the
young man’s last words, ‘The professor—it was she,’ but imagines
that they were the outcome of delirium. He believes that
Willoughby Smith had not an enemy in the world, and can give no
reason for the crime. His first action was to send Mortimer, the
gardener, for the local police. A little later the chief
constable sent for me. Nothing was moved before I got there, and
strict orders were given that no one should walk upon the paths
leading to the house. It was a splendid chance of putting your
theories into practice, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. There was really
nothing wanting.”
“Except Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said my companion, with a somewhat
bitter smile. “Well, let us hear about it. What sort of a job did
you make of it?”
“I must ask you first, Mr. Holmes, to glance at this rough plan,
which will give you a general idea of the position of the
professor’s study and the various points of the case. It will
help you in following my investigation.”
He unfolded the rough chart, which I here reproduce, and he laid
it across Holmes’s knee. I rose and, standing behind Holmes,
studied it over his shoulder.
Professor's-Study
“It is very rough, of course, and it only deals with the points
which seem to me to be essential. All the rest you will see later
for yourself. Now, first of all, presuming that the assassin
entered the house, how did he or she come in? Undoubtedly by the
garden path and the back door, from which there is direct access
to the study. Any other way would have been exceedingly
complicated. The escape must have also been made along that line,
for of the two other exits from the room one was blocked by Susan
as she ran downstairs and the other leads straight to the
professor’s bedroom. I therefore directed my attention at once to
the garden path, which was saturated with recent rain, and would
certainly show any footmarks.
“My examination showed me that I was dealing with a cautious and
expert criminal. No footmarks were to be found on the path. There
could be no question, however, that someone had passed along the
grass border which lines the path, and that he had done so in
order to avoid leaving a track. I could not find anything in the
nature of a distinct impression, but the grass was trodden down,
and someone had undoubtedly passed. It could only have been the
murderer, since neither the gardener nor anyone else had been
there that morning, and the rain had only begun during the
night.”
“One moment,” said Holmes. “Where does this path lead to?”
“To the road.”
“How long is it?”
“A hundred yards or so.”
“At the point where the path passes through the gate, you could
surely pick up the tracks?”
“Unfortunately, the path was tiled at that point.”
“Well, on the road itself?”
“No, it was all trodden into mire.”
“Tut-tut! Well, then, these tracks upon the grass, were they
coming or going?”
“It was impossible to say. There was never any outline.”
“A large foot or a small?”
“You could not distinguish.”
Holmes gave an ejaculation of impatience.
“It has been pouring rain and blowing a hurricane ever since,”
said he. “It will be harder to read now than that palimpsest.
Well, well, it can’t be helped. What did you do, Hopkins, after
you had made certain that you had made certain of nothing?”
“I think I made certain of a good deal, Mr. Holmes. I knew that
someone had entered the house cautiously from without. I next
examined the corridor. It is lined with cocoanut matting and had
taken no impression of any kind. This brought me into the study
itself. It is a scantily furnished room. The main article is a
large writing-table with a fixed bureau. This bureau consists of
a double column of drawers, with a central small cupboard between
them. The drawers were open, the cupboard locked. The drawers, it
seems, were always open, and nothing of value was kept in them.
There were some papers of importance in the cupboard, but there
were no signs that this had been tampered with, and the professor
assures me that nothing was missing. It is certain that no
robbery has been committed.
“I come now to the body of the young man. It was found near the
bureau, and just to the left of it, as marked upon that chart.
The stab was on the right side of the neck and from behind
forward, so that it is almost impossible that it could have been
self-inflicted.”
“Unless he fell upon the knife,” said Holmes.
“Exactly. The idea crossed my mind. But we found the knife some
feet away from the body, so that seems impossible. Then, of
course, there are the man’s own dying words. And, finally, there
was this very important piece of evidence which was found clasped
in the dead man’s right hand.”
From his pocket Stanley Hopkins drew a small paper packet. He
unfolded it and disclosed a golden pince-nez, with two broken
ends of black silk cord dangling from the end of it. “Willoughby
Smith had excellent sight,” he added. “There can be no question
that this was snatched from the face or the person of the
assassin.”
Sherlock Holmes took the glasses into his hand, and examined them
with the utmost attention and interest. He held them on his nose,
endeavoured to read through them, went to the window and stared
up the street with them, looked at them most minutely in the full
light of the lamp, and finally, with a chuckle, seated himself at
the table and wrote a few lines upon a sheet of paper, which he
tossed across to Stanley Hopkins.
“That’s the best I can do for you,” said he. “It may prove to be
of some use.”
The astonished detective read the note aloud. It ran as follows:
“Wanted, a woman of good address, attired like a lady. She has a
remarkably thick nose, with eyes which are set close upon either
side of it. She has a puckered forehead, a peering expression,
and probably rounded shoulders. There are indications that she
has had recourse to an optician at least twice during the last
few months. As her glasses are of remarkable strength, and as
opticians are not very numerous, there should be no difficulty in
tracing her.”
Holmes smiled at the astonishment of Hopkins, which must have
been reflected upon my features. “Surely my deductions are
simplicity itself,” said he. “It would be difficult to name any
articles which afford a finer field for inference than a pair of
glasses, especially so remarkable a pair as these. That they
belong to a woman I infer from their delicacy, and also, of
course, from the last words of the dying man. As to her being a
person of refinement and well dressed, they are, as you perceive,
handsomely mounted in solid gold, and it is inconceivable that
anyone who wore such glasses could be slatternly in other
respects. You will find that the clips are too wide for your
nose, showing that the lady’s nose was very broad at the base.
This sort of nose is usually a short and coarse one, but there is
a sufficient number of exceptions to prevent me from being
dogmatic or from insisting upon this point in my description. My
own face is a narrow one, and yet I find that I cannot get my
eyes into the centre, nor near the centre, of these glasses.
Therefore, the lady’s eyes are set very near to the sides of the
nose. You will perceive, Watson, that the glasses are concave and
of unusual strength. A lady whose vision has been so extremely
contracted all her life is sure to have the physical
characteristics of such vision, which are seen in the forehead,
the eyelids, and the shoulders.”
“Yes,” I said, “I can follow each of your arguments. I confess,
however, that I am unable to understand how you arrive at the
double visit to the optician.”
Holmes took the glasses in his hand.
“You will perceive,” he said, “that the clips are lined with tiny
bands of cork to soften the pressure upon the nose. One of these
is discoloured and worn to some slight extent, but the other is
new. Evidently one has fallen off and been replaced. I should
judge that the older of them has not been there more than a few
months. They exactly correspond, so I gather that the lady went
back to the same establishment for the second.”
“By George, it’s marvellous!” cried Hopkins, in an ecstasy of
admiration. “To think that I had all that evidence in my hand and
never knew it! I had intended, however, to go the round of the
London opticians.”
“Of course you would. Meanwhile, have you anything more to tell
us about the case?”
“Nothing, Mr. Holmes. I think that you know as much as I do
now—probably more. We have had inquiries made as to any stranger
seen on the country roads or at the railway station. We have
heard of none. What beats me is the utter want of all object in
the crime. Not a ghost of a motive can anyone suggest.”
“Ah! there I am not in a position to help you. But I suppose you
want us to come out to-morrow?”
“If it is not asking too much, Mr. Holmes. There’s a train from
Charing Cross to Chatham at six in the morning, and we should be
at Yoxley Old Place between eight and nine.”
“Then we shall take it. Your case has certainly some features of
great interest, and I shall be delighted to look into it. Well,
it’s nearly one, and we had best get a few hours’ sleep. I
daresay you can manage all right on the sofa in front of the
fire. I’ll light my spirit lamp, and give you a cup of coffee
before we start.”
The gale had blown itself out next day, but it was a bitter
morning when we started upon our journey. We saw the cold winter
sun rise over the dreary marshes of the Thames and the long,
sullen reaches of the river, which I shall ever associate with
our pursuit of the Andaman Islander in the earlier days of our
career. After a long and weary journey, we alighted at a small
station some miles from Chatham. While a horse was being put into
a trap at the local inn, we snatched a hurried breakfast, and so
we were all ready for business when we at last arrived at Yoxley
Old Place. A constable met us at the garden gate.
“Well, Wilson, any news?”
“No, sir—nothing.”
“No reports of any stranger seen?”
“No, sir. Down at the station they are certain that no stranger
either came or went yesterday.”
“Have you had inquiries made at inns and lodgings?”
“Yes, sir: there is no one that we cannot account for.”
“Well, it’s only a reasonable walk to Chatham. Anyone might stay
there or take a train without being observed. This is the garden
path of which I spoke, Mr. Holmes. I’ll pledge my word there was
no mark on it yesterday.”
“On which side were the marks on the grass?”
“This side, sir. This narrow margin of grass between the path and
the flower-bed. I can’t see the traces now, but they were clear
to me then.”
“Yes, yes: someone has passed along,” said Holmes, stooping over
the grass border. “Our lady must have picked her steps carefully,
must she not, since on the one side she would leave a track on
the path, and on the other an even clearer one on the soft bed?”
“Yes, sir, she must have been a cool hand.”
I saw an intent look pass over Holmes’s face.
“You say that she must have come back this way?”
“Yes, sir, there is no other.”
“On this strip of grass?”
“Certainly, Mr. Holmes.”
“Hum! It was a very remarkable performance—very remarkable. Well,
I think we have exhausted the path. Let us go farther. This
garden door is usually kept open, I suppose? Then this visitor
had nothing to do but to walk in. The idea of murder was not in
her mind, or she would have provided herself with some sort of
weapon, instead of having to pick this knife off the
writing-table. She advanced along this corridor, leaving no
traces upon the cocoanut matting. Then she found herself in this
study. How long was she there? We have no means of judging.”
“Not more than a few minutes, sir. I forgot to tell you that Mrs.
Marker, the housekeeper, had been in there tidying not very long
before—about a quarter of an hour, she says.”
“Well, that gives us a limit. Our lady enters this room, and what
does she do? She goes over to the writing-table. What for? Not
for anything in the drawers. If there had been anything worth her
taking, it would surely have been locked up. No, it was for
something in that wooden bureau. Halloa! what is that scratch
upon the face of it? Just hold a match, Watson. Why did you not
tell me of this, Hopkins?”
The mark which he was examining began upon the brass-work on the
right-hand side of the keyhole, and extended for about four
inches, where it had scratched the varnish from the surface.
“I noticed it, Mr. Holmes, but you’ll always find scratches round
a keyhole.”
“This is recent, quite recent. See how the brass shines where it
is cut. An old scratch would be the same colour as the surface.
Look at it through my lens. There’s the varnish, too, like earth
on each side of a furrow. Is Mrs. Marker there?”
A sad-faced, elderly woman came into the room.
“Did you dust this bureau yesterday morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you notice this scratch?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
“I am sure you did not, for a duster would have swept away these
shreds of varnish. Who has the key of this bureau?”
“The Professor keeps it on his watch-chain.”
“Is it a simple key?”
“No, sir, it is a Chubb’s key.”
“Very good. Mrs. Marker, you can go. Now we are making a little
progress. Our lady enters the room, advances to the bureau, and
either opens it or tries to do so. While she is thus engaged,
young Willoughby Smith enters the room. In her hurry to withdraw
the key, she makes this scratch upon the door. He seizes her, and
she, snatching up the nearest object, which happens to be this
knife, strikes at him in order to make him let go his hold. The
blow is a fatal one. He falls and she escapes, either with or
without the object for which she has come. Is Susan, the maid,
there? Could anyone have got away through that door after the
time that you heard the cry, Susan?”
“No, sir, it is impossible. Before I got down the stair, I’d have
seen anyone in the passage. Besides, the door never opened, or I
would have heard it.”
“That settles this exit. Then no doubt the lady went out the way
she came. I understand that this other passage leads only to the
professor’s room. There is no exit that way?”
“No, sir.”
“We shall go down it and make the acquaintance of the professor.
Halloa, Hopkins! this is very important, very important indeed.
The professor’s corridor is also lined with cocoanut matting.”
“Well, sir, what of that?”
“Don’t you see any bearing upon the case? Well, well. I don’t
insist upon it. No doubt I am wrong. And yet it seems to me to be
suggestive. Come with me and introduce me.”
We passed down the passage, which was of the same length as that
which led to the garden. At the end was a short flight of steps
ending in a door. Our guide knocked, and then ushered us into the
professor’s bedroom.
It was a very large chamber, lined with innumerable volumes,
which had overflowed from the shelves and lay in piles in the
corners, or were stacked all round at the base of the cases. The
bed was in the centre of the room, and in it, propped up with
pillows, was the owner of the house. I have seldom seen a more
remarkable-looking person. It was a gaunt, aquiline face which
was turned towards us, with piercing dark eyes, which lurked in
deep hollows under overhung and tufted brows. His hair and beard
were white, save that the latter was curiously stained with
yellow around his mouth. A cigarette glowed amid the tangle of
white hair, and the air of the room was fetid with stale tobacco
smoke. As he held out his hand to Holmes, I perceived that it was
also stained with yellow nicotine.
“A smoker, Mr. Holmes?” said he, speaking in well-chosen English,
with a curious little mincing accent. “Pray take a cigarette. And
you, sir? I can recommend them, for I have them especially
prepared by Ionides, of Alexandria. He sends me a thousand at a
time, and I grieve to say that I have to arrange for a fresh
supply every fortnight. Bad, sir, very bad, but an old man has
few pleasures. Tobacco and my work—that is all that is left to
me.”
Holmes had lit a cigarette and was shooting little darting
glances all over the room.
“Tobacco and my work, but now only tobacco,” the old man
exclaimed. “Alas! what a fatal interruption! Who could have
foreseen such a terrible catastrophe? So estimable a young man! I
assure you that, after a few months’ training, he was an
admirable assistant. What do you think of the matter, Mr.
Holmes?”
“I have not yet made up my mind.”
“I shall indeed be indebted to you if you can throw a light where
all is so dark to us. To a poor bookworm and invalid like myself
such a blow is paralysing. I seem to have lost the faculty of
thought. But you are a man of action—you are a man of affairs. It
is part of the everyday routine of your life. You can preserve
your balance in every emergency. We are fortunate, indeed, in
having you at our side.”
Holmes was pacing up and down one side of the room whilst the old
professor was talking. I observed that he was smoking with
extraordinary rapidity. It was evident that he shared our host’s
liking for the fresh Alexandrian cigarettes.
“Yes, sir, it is a crushing blow,” said the old man. “That is my
_magnum opus_—the pile of papers on the side table yonder. It is
my analysis of the documents found in the Coptic monasteries of
Syria and Egypt, a work which will cut deep at the very
foundation of revealed religion. With my enfeebled health I do
not know whether I shall ever be able to complete it, now that my
assistant has been taken from me. Dear me! Mr. Holmes, why, you
are even a quicker smoker than I am myself.”
Holmes smiled.
“I am a connoisseur,” said he, taking another cigarette from the
box—his fourth—and lighting it from the stub of that which he had
finished. “I will not trouble you with any lengthy
cross-examination, Professor Coram, since I gather that you were
in bed at the time of the crime, and could know nothing about it.
I would only ask this: What do you imagine that this poor fellow
meant by his last words: ‘The professor—it was she’?”
The professor shook his head.
“Susan is a country girl,” said he, “and you know the incredible
stupidity of that class. I fancy that the poor fellow murmured
some incoherent delirious words, and that she twisted them into
this meaningless message.”
“I see. You have no explanation yourself of the tragedy?”
“Possibly an accident, possibly—I only breathe it among
ourselves—a suicide. Young men have their hidden troubles—some
affair of the heart, perhaps, which we have never known. It is a
more probable supposition than murder.”
“But the eyeglasses?”
“Ah! I am only a student—a man of dreams. I cannot explain the
practical things of life. But still, we are aware, my friend,
that love-gages may take strange shapes. By all means take
another cigarette. It is a pleasure to see anyone appreciate them
so. A fan, a glove, glasses—who knows what article may be carried
as a token or treasured when a man puts an end to his life? This
gentleman speaks of footsteps in the grass, but, after all, it is
easy to be mistaken on such a point. As to the knife, it might
well be thrown far from the unfortunate man as he fell. It is
possible that I speak as a child, but to me it seems that
Willoughby Smith has met his fate by his own hand.”
Holmes seemed struck by the theory thus put forward, and he
continued to walk up and down for some time, lost in thought and
consuming cigarette after cigarette.
“Tell me, Professor Coram,” he said, at last, “what is in that
cupboard in the bureau?”
“Nothing that would help a thief. Family papers, letters from my
poor wife, diplomas of universities which have done me honour.
Here is the key. You can look for yourself.”
Holmes picked up the key, and looked at it for an instant, then
he handed it back.
“No, I hardly think that it would help me,” said he. “I should
prefer to go quietly down to your garden, and turn the whole
matter over in my head. There is something to be said for the
theory of suicide which you have put forward. We must apologize
for having intruded upon you, Professor Coram, and I promise that
we won’t disturb you until after lunch. At two o’clock we will
come again, and report to you anything which may have happened in
the interval.”
Holmes was curiously distrait, and we walked up and down the
garden path for some time in silence.
“Have you a clue?” I asked, at last.
“It depends upon those cigarettes that I smoked,” said he. “It is
possible that I am utterly mistaken. The cigarettes will show
me.”
“My dear Holmes,” I exclaimed, “how on earth——”
“Well, well, you may see for yourself. If not, there’s no harm
done. Of course, we always have the optician clue to fall back
upon, but I take a short cut when I can get it. Ah, here is the
good Mrs. Marker! Let us enjoy five minutes of instructive
conversation with her.”
I may have remarked before that Holmes had, when he liked, a
peculiarly ingratiating way with women, and that he very readily
established terms of confidence with them. In half the time which
he had named, he had captured the housekeeper’s goodwill and was
chatting with her as if he had known her for years.
“Yes, Mr. Holmes, it is as you say, sir. He does smoke something
terrible. All day and sometimes all night, sir. I’ve seen that
room of a morning—well, sir, you’d have thought it was a London
fog. Poor young Mr. Smith, he was a smoker also, but not as bad
as the professor. His health—well, I don’t know that it’s better
nor worse for the smoking.”
“Ah!” said Holmes, “but it kills the appetite.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, sir.”
“I suppose the professor eats hardly anything?”
“Well, he is variable. I’ll say that for him.”
“I’ll wager he took no breakfast this morning, and won’t face his
lunch after all the cigarettes I saw him consume.”
“Well, you’re out there, sir, as it happens, for he ate a
remarkable big breakfast this morning. I don’t know when I’ve
known him make a better one, and he’s ordered a good dish of
cutlets for his lunch. I’m surprised myself, for since I came
into that room yesterday and saw young Mr. Smith lying there on
the floor, I couldn’t bear to look at food. Well, it takes all
sorts to make a world, and the professor hasn’t let it take his
appetite away.”
We loitered the morning away in the garden. Stanley Hopkins had
gone down to the village to look into some rumours of a strange
woman who had been seen by some children on the Chatham Road the
previous morning. As to my friend, all his usual energy seemed to
have deserted him. I had never known him handle a case in such a
half-hearted fashion. Even the news brought back by Hopkins that
he had found the children, and that they had undoubtedly seen a
woman exactly corresponding with Holmes’s description, and
wearing either spectacles or eyeglasses, failed to rouse any sign
of keen interest. He was more attentive when Susan, who waited
upon us at lunch, volunteered the information that she believed
Mr. Smith had been out for a walk yesterday morning, and that he
had only returned half an hour before the tragedy occurred. I
could not myself see the bearing of this incident, but I clearly
perceived that Holmes was weaving it into the general scheme
which he had formed in his brain. Suddenly he sprang from his
chair and glanced at his watch. “Two o’clock, gentlemen,” said
he. “We must go up and have it out with our friend, the
professor.”
The old man had just finished his lunch, and certainly his empty
dish bore evidence to the good appetite with which his
housekeeper had credited him. He was, indeed, a weird figure as
he turned his white mane and his glowing eyes towards us. The
eternal cigarette smouldered in his mouth. He had been dressed
and was seated in an armchair by the fire.
“Well, Mr. Holmes, have you solved this mystery yet?” He shoved
the large tin of cigarettes which stood on a table beside him
towards my companion. Holmes stretched out his hand at the same
moment, and between them they tipped the box over the edge. For a
minute or two we were all on our knees retrieving stray
cigarettes from impossible places. When we rose again, I observed
Holmes’s eyes were shining and his cheeks tinged with colour.
Only at a crisis have I seen those battle-signals flying.
“Yes,” said he, “I have solved it.”
Stanley Hopkins and I stared in amazement. Something like a sneer
quivered over the gaunt features of the old professor.
“Indeed! In the garden?”
“No, here.”
“Here! When?”
“This instant.”
“You are surely joking, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You compel me to
tell you that this is too serious a matter to be treated in such
a fashion.”
“I have forged and tested every link of my chain, Professor
Coram, and I am sure that it is sound. What your motives are, or
what exact part you play in this strange business, I am not yet
able to say. In a few minutes I shall probably hear it from your
own lips. Meanwhile I will reconstruct what is past for your
benefit, so that you may know the information which I still
require.
“A lady yesterday entered your study. She came with the intention
of possessing herself of certain documents which were in your
bureau. She had a key of her own. I have had an opportunity of
examining yours, and I do not find that slight discolouration
which the scratch made upon the varnish would have produced. You
were not an accessory, therefore, and she came, so far as I can
read the evidence, without your knowledge to rob you.”
The professor blew a cloud from his lips. “This is most
interesting and instructive,” said he. “Have you no more to add?
Surely, having traced this lady so far, you can also say what has
become of her.”
“I will endeavour to do so. In the first place she was seized by
your secretary, and stabbed him in order to escape. This
catastrophe I am inclined to regard as an unhappy accident, for I
am convinced that the lady had no intention of inflicting so
grievous an injury. An assassin does not come unarmed. Horrified
by what she had done, she rushed wildly away from the scene of
the tragedy. Unfortunately for her, she had lost her glasses in
the scuffle, and as she was extremely short-sighted she was
really helpless without them. She ran down a corridor, which she
imagined to be that by which she had come—both were lined with
cocoanut matting—and it was only when it was too late that she
understood that she had taken the wrong passage, and that her
retreat was cut off behind her. What was she to do? She could not
go back. She could not remain where she was. She must go on. She
went on. She mounted a stair, pushed open a door, and found
herself in your room.”
The old man sat with his mouth open, staring wildly at Holmes.
Amazement and fear were stamped upon his expressive features.
Now, with an effort, he shrugged his shoulders and burst into
insincere laughter.
“All very fine, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “But there is one little
flaw in your splendid theory. I was myself in my room, and I
never left it during the day.”
“I am aware of that, Professor Coram.”
“And you mean to say that I could lie upon that bed and not be
aware that a woman had entered my room?”
“I never said so. You _were_ aware of it. You spoke with her. You
recognized her. You aided her to escape.”
Again the professor burst into high-keyed laughter. He had risen
to his feet, and his eyes glowed like embers.
“You are mad!” he cried. “You are talking insanely. I helped her
to escape? Where is she now?”
“She is there,” said Holmes, and he pointed to a high bookcase in
the corner of the room.
I saw the old man throw up his arms, a terrible convulsion passed
over his grim face, and he fell back in his chair. At the same
instant the bookcase at which Holmes pointed swung round upon a
hinge, and a woman rushed out into the room. “You are right!” she
cried, in a strange foreign voice. “You are right! I am here.”
She was brown with the dust and draped with the cobwebs which had
come from the walls of her hiding-place. Her face, too, was
streaked with grime, and at the best she could never have been
handsome, for she had the exact physical characteristics which
Holmes had divined, with, in addition, a long and obstinate chin.
What with her natural blindness, and what with the change from
dark to light, she stood as one dazed, blinking about her to see
where and who we were. And yet, in spite of all these
disadvantages, there was a certain nobility in the woman’s
bearing—a gallantry in the defiant chin and in the upraised head,
which compelled something of respect and admiration.
Stanley Hopkins had laid his hand upon her arm and claimed her as
his prisoner, but she waved him aside gently, and yet with an
over-mastering dignity which compelled obedience. The old man lay
back in his chair with a twitching face, and stared at her with
brooding eyes.
“Yes, sir, I am your prisoner,” she said. “From where I stood I
could hear everything, and I know that you have learned the
truth. I confess it all. It was I who killed the young man. But
you are right—you who say it was an accident. I did not even know
that it was a knife which I held in my hand, for in my despair I
snatched anything from the table and struck at him to make him
let me go. It is the truth that I tell.”
“Madam,” said Holmes, “I am sure that it is the truth. I fear
that you are far from well.”
She had turned a dreadful colour, the more ghastly under the dark
dust-streaks upon her face. She seated herself on the side of the
bed; then she resumed.
“I have only a little time here,” she said, “but I would have you
to know the whole truth. I am this man’s wife. He is not an
Englishman. He is a Russian. His name I will not tell.”
For the first time the old man stirred. “God bless you, Anna!” he
cried. “God bless you!”
She cast a look of the deepest disdain in his direction. “Why
should you cling so hard to that wretched life of yours,
Sergius?” said she. “It has done harm to many and good to
none—not even to yourself. However, it is not for me to cause the
frail thread to be snapped before God’s time. I have enough
already upon my soul since I crossed the threshold of this cursed
house. But I must speak or I shall be too late.
“I have said, gentlemen, that I am this man’s wife. He was fifty
and I a foolish girl of twenty when we married. It was in a city
of Russia, a university—I will not name the place.”
“God bless you, Anna!” murmured the old man again.
“We were reformers—revolutionists—Nihilists, you understand. He
and I and many more. Then there came a time of trouble, a police
officer was killed, many were arrested, evidence was wanted, and
in order to save his own life and to earn a great reward, my
husband betrayed his own wife and his companions. Yes, we were
all arrested upon his confession. Some of us found our way to the
gallows, and some to Siberia. I was among these last, but my term
was not for life. My husband came to England with his ill-gotten
gains and has lived in quiet ever since, knowing well that if the
Brotherhood knew where he was not a week would pass before
justice would be done.”
The old man reached out a trembling hand and helped himself to a
cigarette. “I am in your hands, Anna,” said he. “You were always
good to me.”
“I have not yet told you the height of his villainy,” said she.
“Among our comrades of the Order, there was one who was the
friend of my heart. He was noble, unselfish, loving—all that my
husband was not. He hated violence. We were all guilty—if that is
guilt—but he was not. He wrote forever dissuading us from such a
course. These letters would have saved him. So would my diary, in
which, from day to day, I had entered both my feelings towards
him and the view which each of us had taken. My husband found and
kept both diary and letters. He hid them, and he tried hard to
swear away the young man’s life. In this he failed, but Alexis
was sent a convict to Siberia, where now, at this moment, he
works in a salt mine. Think of that, you villain, you
villain!—now, now, at this very moment, Alexis, a man whose name
you are not worthy to speak, works and lives like a slave, and
yet I have your life in my hands, and I let you go.”
“You were always a noble woman, Anna,” said the old man, puffing
at his cigarette.
She had risen, but she fell back again with a little cry of pain.
“I must finish,” she said. “When my term was over I set myself to
get the diary and letters which, if sent to the Russian
government, would procure my friend’s release. I knew that my
husband had come to England. After months of searching I
discovered where he was. I knew that he still had the diary, for
when I was in Siberia I had a letter from him once, reproaching
me and quoting some passages from its pages. Yet I was sure that,
with his revengeful nature, he would never give it to me of his
own free-will. I must get it for myself. With this object I
engaged an agent from a private detective firm, who entered my
husband’s house as a secretary—it was your second secretary,
Sergius, the one who left you so hurriedly. He found that papers
were kept in the cupboard, and he got an impression of the key.
He would not go farther. He furnished me with a plan of the
house, and he told me that in the forenoon the study was always
empty, as the secretary was employed up here. So at last I took
my courage in both hands, and I came down to get the papers for
myself. I succeeded; but at what a cost!
“I had just taken the paper; and was locking the cupboard, when
the young man seized me. I had seen him already that morning. He
had met me on the road, and I had asked him to tell me where
Professor Coram lived, not knowing that he was in his employ.”
“Exactly! Exactly!” said Holmes. “The secretary came back, and
told his employer of the woman he had met. Then, in his last
breath, he tried to send a message that it was she—the she whom
he had just discussed with him.”
“You must let me speak,” said the woman, in an imperative voice,
and her face contracted as if in pain. “When he had fallen I
rushed from the room, chose the wrong door, and found myself in
my husband’s room. He spoke of giving me up. I showed him that if
he did so, his life was in my hands. If he gave me to the law, I
could give him to the Brotherhood. It was not that I wished to
live for my own sake, but it was that I desired to accomplish my
purpose. He knew that I would do what I said—that his own fate
was involved in mine. For that reason, and for no other, he
shielded me. He thrust me into that dark hiding-place—a relic of
old days, known only to himself. He took his meals in his own
room, and so was able to give me part of his food. It was agreed
that when the police left the house I should slip away by night
and come back no more. But in some way you have read our plans.”
She tore from the bosom of her dress a small packet. “These are
my last words,” said she; “here is the packet which will save
Alexis. I confide it to your honour and to your love of justice.
Take it! You will deliver it at the Russian Embassy. Now, I have
done my duty, and——”
“Stop her!” cried Holmes. He had bounded across the room and had
wrenched a small phial from her hand.
“Too late!” she said, sinking back on the bed. “Too late! I took
the poison before I left my hiding-place. My head swims! I am
going! I charge you, sir, to remember the packet.”
“A simple case, and yet, in some ways, an instructive one,”
Holmes remarked, as we travelled back to town. “It hinged from
the outset upon the pince-nez. But for the fortunate chance of
the dying man having seized these, I am not sure that we could
ever have reached our solution. It was clear to me, from the
strength of the glasses, that the wearer must have been very
blind and helpless when deprived of them. When you asked me to
believe that she walked along a narrow strip of grass without
once making a false step, I remarked, as you may remember, that
it was a noteworthy performance. In my mind I set it down as an
impossible performance, save in the unlikely case that she had a
second pair of glasses. I was forced, therefore, to consider
seriously the hypothesis that she had remained within the house.
On perceiving the similarity of the two corridors, it became
clear that she might very easily have made such a mistake, and,
in that case, it was evident that she must have entered the
professor’s room. I was keenly on the alert, therefore, for
whatever would bear out this supposition, and I examined the room
narrowly for anything in the shape of a hiding-place. The carpet
seemed continuous and firmly nailed, so I dismissed the idea of a
trap-door. There might well be a recess behind the books. As you
are aware, such devices are common in old libraries. I observed
that books were piled on the floor at all other points, but that
one bookcase was left clear. This, then, might be the door. I
could see no marks to guide me, but the carpet was of a dun
colour, which lends itself very well to examination. I therefore
smoked a great number of those excellent cigarettes, and I
dropped the ash all over the space in front of the suspected
bookcase. It was a simple trick, but exceedingly effective. I
then went downstairs, and I ascertained, in your presence,
Watson, without your perceiving the drift of my remarks, that
Professor Coram’s consumption of food had increased—as one would
expect when he is supplying a second person. We then ascended to
the room again, when, by upsetting the cigarette-box, I obtained
a very excellent view of the floor, and was able to see quite
clearly, from the traces upon the cigarette ash, that the
prisoner had in our absence come out from her retreat. Well,
Hopkins, here we are at Charing Cross, and I congratulate you on
having brought your case to a successful conclusion. You are
going to headquarters, no doubt. I think, Watson, you and I will
drive together to the Russian Embassy.”
| null |
Unnatural Death | Dorothy L. Sayers | 256 | ['Muriel Forrest Mary Whittaker'] | Unnatural Death
DOROTHY L. SAYERS
Harper & Row, Publishers, New York
Grand Rapids, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco
London, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto
WIMSEY, Peter Death Bredon, D.S.O.; _born_ 1890, _2nd son_ of Mortimer
Gerald Bredon Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver, and of Honoria Lucasta,
_daughter of_ Francis Delagardie of Bellingham Manor, Hants. _Married_
1935, Harriet Deborah Vane, _daughter of_ Henry Vane, M.D.; one _son_
(Bredon Delagardie Peter) _born_ 1936.
_Educated_: Eton College and Balliol College, (1st class honours),
Sch. of Mod. Hist. 1912; served with H.M. Forces 1914/18 (Major, Rifle
Brigade). _Author of_: “Notes on the Collecting of Incunabula,” “The
Murderer’s Vade-Medum,” etc. Recreations: Criminology; bibliophily;
music; cricket.
_Clubs_: Marlborough; Egotists’; Bellona. _Residences_: 110A,
Piccadilly, W.; Bredon Hall, Duke’s Denver, Norfolk.
_Arms_: Sable, 3 mice courant, argent; crest, a domestic cat crouched
as to spring, proper; motto: As my Whimsy takes me.
[Illustration: AS MY WHIMSY TAKES ME]
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Communicated by
Paul Austin Delagardie
I am asked by Miss Sayers to fill up certain lacunae and correct a few
trifling errors of fact in her account of my nephew Peter’s career. I
shall do so with pleasure. To appear publicly in print is every man’s
ambition, and by acting as a kind of running footman to my nephew’s
triumph I shall only be showing a modesty suitable to my advanced age.
The Wimsey family is an ancient one—too ancient, if you ask me. The only
sensible thing Peter’s father ever did was to ally his exhausted stock
with the vigorous French-English strain of the Delagardies. Even so, my
nephew Gerald (the present Duke of Denver) is nothing but a beef-witted
English squire, and my niece Mary was flighty and foolish enough till
she married a policeman and settled down. Peter, I am glad to say, takes
after his mother and me. True, he is all nerves and nose—but that is
better than being all brawn and no brains like his father and brother,
or a bundle of emotions like Gerald’s boy, Saint-George. He has at least
inherited the Delagardie brains, by way of safeguard to the unfortunate
Wimsey temperament.
Peter was born in 1890. His mother was being very much worried at the
time by her husband’s behaviour (Denver was always tiresome, though the
big scandal did not break out till the Jubilee year), and her anxieties
may have affected the boy. He was a colorless shrimp of a child, very
restless and mischievous, and always much too sharp for his age. He had
nothing of Gerald’s robust beauty, but he developed what I can best call
a kind of bodily cleverness, more skill than strength. He had a quick
eye for a ball and beautiful hands for a horse. He had the devil’s own
pluck, too: the intelligent sort of pluck that sees the risk before it
takes it. He suffered badly from nightmares as a child. To his father’s
consternation he grew up with a passion for books and music.
His early school-days were not happy. He was a fastidious child, and I
suppose it was natural that his school-fellows should call him “Flimsy”
and treat him as a kind of comic turn. And he might, in sheer
self-protection, have accepted the position and degenerated into a mere
licensed buffoon, if some games-master at Eton had not discovered that
he was a brilliant natural cricketer. After that, of course, all his
eccentricities were accepted as wit, and Gerald underwent the salutary
shock of seeing his despised younger brother become a bigger personality
than himself. By the time he reached the Sixth Form, Peter had contrived
to become the fashion—athlete, scholar, _arbiter elegantiarum—nec
pluribus impar_. Cricket had a great deal to do with it—plenty of Eton
men will remember the “Great Flim” and his performance against
Harrow—but I take credit to myself for introducing him to a good tailor,
showing him the way about Town, and teaching him to distinguish good
wine from bad. Denver bothered little about him—he had too many
entanglements of his own and in addition was taken up with Gerald, who
by this time was making a prize fool of himself at Oxford. As a matter
of fact Peter never got on with his father, he was a ruthless young
critic of the paternal misdemeanours, and his sympathy for his mother
had a destructive effect upon his sense of humour.
Denver, needless to say, was the last person to tolerate his own
failings in his offspring. It cost him a good deal of money to extricate
Gerald from the Oxford affair, and he was willing enough to turn his
other son over to me. Indeed, at the age of seventeen, Peter came to me
of his own accord. He was old for his age and exceedingly reasonable,
and I treated him as a man of the world. I established him in
trustworthy hands in Paris, instructing him to keep his affairs upon a
sound business footing and to see that they terminated with goodwill on
both sides and generosity on his. He fully justified my confidence. I
believe that no woman has ever found cause to complain of Peter’s
treatment; and two at least of them have since married royalty (rather
obscure royalties, I admit, but royalty of a sort). Here again, I insist
upon my due share of the credit; however good the material one has to
work upon it is ridiculous to leave any young man’s social education to
chance.
The Peter of this period was really charming, very frank, modest and
well-mannered, with a pretty, lively wit. In 1909 he went up with a
scholarship to read History at Balliol, and here, I must confess, he
became rather intolerable. The world was at his feet, and he began to
give himself airs. He acquired affectations, an exaggerated Oxford
manner and a monocle, and aired his opinions a good deal, both in and
out of the Union, though I will do him the justice to say that he never
attempted to patronise his mother or me. He was in his second year when
Denver broke his neck out hunting and Gerald succeeded to the title.
Gerald showed more sense of responsibility than I had expected in
dealing with the estate; his worst mistake was to marry his cousin
Helen, a scrawny, over-bred prude, all country from head to heel. She
and Peter loathed each other cordially; but he could always take refuge
with his mother at the Dower House.
And then, in his last year at Oxford, Peter fell in love with a child of
seventeen and instantly forgot everything he had ever been taught. He
treated that girl as if she was made of gossamer, and me as a hardened
old monster of depravity who had made him unfit to touch her delicate
purity. I won’t deny that they made an exquisite pair—all white and
gold—a prince and princess of moonlight, people said. Moonshine would
have been nearer the mark. What Peter was to do in twenty years’ time
with a wife who had neither brains nor character nobody but his mother
and myself ever troubled to ask, and he, of course, was completely
besotted. Happily, Barbara’s parents decided that she was too young to
marry; so Peter went in for his final Schools in the temper of a Sir
Eglamore achieving his first dragon; laid his First-Class Honours at his
lady’s feet like the dragon’s head, and settled down to a period of
virtuous probation.
Then came the War. Of course the young idiot was mad to get married
before he went. But his own honourable scruples made him mere wax in
other people’s hands. It was pointed out to him that if he came back
mutilated it would be very unfair to the girl. He hadn’t thought of
that, and rushed off in a frenzy of self-abnegation to release her from
the engagement. I had no hand in that; I was glad enough of the result,
but I couldn’t stomach the means.
He did very well in France; he made a good officer and the men liked
him. And then, if you please, he came back on leave with his captaincy
in ’16, to find the girl married—to a hard-bitten rake of a Major
Somebody, whom she had nursed in the V.A.D. hospital, and whose motto
with women was catch ’em quick and treat ’em rough. It was pretty
brutal; for the girl hadn’t had the nerve to tell Peter beforehand. They
got married in a hurry when they heard he was coming home, and all he
got on landing was a letter, announcing the _fait accompli_ and
reminding him that he had set her free himself.
I will say for Peter that he came straight to me and admitted that he
had been a fool. “All right,” said I, “you’ve had your lesson. Don’t go
and make a fool of yourself in the other direction.” So he went back to
his job with (I am sure) the fixed intention of getting killed; but all
he got was his majority and his D.S.O. for some recklessly good
intelligence work behind the German front. In 1918 he was blown up and
buried in a shell-hole near Caudry, and that left him with a bad nervous
breakdown, lasting, on and off, for two years. After that, he set
himself up in a flat in Piccadilly, with the man Bunter (who had been
his sergeant and was, and is, devoted to him), and started out to put
himself together again.
I don’t mind saying that I was prepared for almost anything. He had lost
all his beautiful frankness, he shut everybody out of his confidence,
including his mother and me, adopted an impenetrable frivolity of manner
and a dilettante pose, and became, in fact, the complete comedian. He
was wealthy and could do as he chose, and it gave me a certain amount of
sardonic entertainment to watch the efforts of post-war feminine London
to capture him. “It can’t,” said one solicitous matron, “be good for
poor Peter to live like a hermit.” “Madam,” said I, “if he did, it
wouldn’t be.” No; from that point of view he gave me no anxiety. But I
could not but think it dangerous that a man of his ability should have
no job to occupy his mind, and I told him so.
In 1921 came the business of the Attenbury Emeralds. That affair has
never been written up, but it made a good deal of noise, even at that
noisiest of periods. The trial of the thief was a series of red-hot
sensations, and the biggest sensation of the bunch was when Lord Peter
Wimsey walked into the witness-box as chief witness for the prosecution.
That was notoriety with a vengeance. Actually, to an experienced
intelligence officer, I don’t suppose the investigation had offered any
great difficulties; but a “noble sleuth” was something new in thrills.
Denver was furious; personally, I didn’t mind what Peter did, provided
he did something. I thought he seemed happier for the work, and I liked
the Scotland Yard man he had picked up during the run of the case.
Charles Parker is a quiet, sensible, well-bred fellow, and has been a
good friend and brother-in-law to Peter. He has the valuable quality of
being fond of people without wanting to turn them inside out.
The only trouble about Peter’s new hobby was that it had to be more than
a hobby, if it was to be any hobby for a gentleman. You cannot get
murderers hanged for your private entertainment. Peter’s intellect
pulled him one way and his nerves another, till I began to be afraid
they would pull him to pieces. At the end of every case we had the old
nightmares and shell-shock over again. And then Denver, of all
people—Denver, the crashing great booby, in the middle of his
fulminations against Peter’s degrading and notorious police activities,
must needs get himself indicted on a murder charge and stand his trial
in the House of Lords, amid a blaze of publicity which made all Peter’s
efforts in that direction look like damp squibs.
Peter pulled his brother out of that mess, and, to my relief, was human
enough to get drunk on the strength of it. He now admits that his
“hobby” is his legitimate work for society, and has developed sufficient
interest in public affairs to undertake small diplomatic jobs from time
to time under the Foreign Office. Of late he has become a little more
ready to show his feelings, and a little less terrified of having any to
show.
His latest eccentricity has been to fall in love with that girl whom he
cleared of the charge of poisoning her lover. She refused to marry him,
as any woman of character would. Gratitude and a humiliating inferiority
complex are no foundation for matrimony; the position was false from the
start. Peter had the sense, this time, to take my advice. “My boy,” said
I, “what was wrong for you twenty years back is right now. It’s not the
innocent young things that need gentle handling—it’s the ones that have
been frightened and hurt. Begin again from the beginning—I warn you that
you will need all the self-discipline you have ever learnt.”
Well, he has tried. I don’t think I have ever seen such patience. The
girl has brains and character and honesty; but he has got to teach her
how to take, which is far more difficult than learning to give. I think
they will find one another, if they can keep their passions from running
ahead of their wills. He does realise, I know, that in this case there
can be no consent but free consent.
Peter is forty-five now, it is really time he was settled. As you will
see, I have been one of the important formative influences in his
career, and on the whole, I feel he does me credit. He is a true
Delagardie, with little of the Wimseys about him except (I must be fair)
that underlying sense of social responsibility which prevents the
English landed gentry from being a total loss, spiritually speaking.
Detective or no detective, he is a scholar and a gentleman; it will
amuse me to see what sort of shot he makes at being a husband and
father. I am getting an old man, and have no son of my own (that I know
of); I should be glad to see Peter happy. But as his mother says, “Peter
has always had everything except the things he really wanted,” and I
suppose he is luckier than most.
Paul Austin Delagardie
[Illustration: Wimsey Family Tree]
CONTENTS
_PART I_
_Chapter_ _Page_
I. Overheard 3
II. Miching Mallecho 11
III. A Use for Spinsters 17
IV. A Bit Mental 27
V. Gossip 35
VI. Found Dead 44
VII. Ham and Brandy 59
VIII. Concerning Crime 68
IX. The Will 77
_PART II_
X. The Will Again 85
XI. Cross-Roads 99
XII. A Tale of Two Spinsters 114
XIII. Hallelujah 123
XIV. Sharp Quillets of the Law 130
XV. Temptation of St. Peter 141
XVI. A Cast-Iron Alibi 150
XVII. The Country Lawyer’s Story 156
XVIII. The London Lawyer’s Story 165
_PART III_
XIX. Gone Away 179
XX. Murder 193
XXI. By What Means? 201
XXII. A Case of Conscience 213
XXIII. —and Smote Him, Thus 227
Part I
THE MEDICAL PROBLEM
“_But how I caught it, found it, came by it,
What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn._”
_Merchant of Venice_
CHAPTER I
Overheard
“_The death was certainly sudden, unexpected, and to me mysterious._”
_Letter from Dr. Paterson to the Registrar in the case of Reg. v.
Pritchard_
“But if he thought the woman was being murdered—”
“My dear Charles,” said the young man with the monocle, “it doesn’t do
for people, especially doctors, to go about ‘thinking’ things. They may
get into frightful trouble. In Pritchard’s case, I consider Dr. Paterson
did all he reasonably could by refusing a certificate for Mrs. Taylor
and sending that uncommonly disquieting letter to the Registrar. He
couldn’t help the man’s being a fool. If there had only been an inquest
on Mrs. Taylor, Pritchard would probably have been frightened off and
left his wife alone. After all, Paterson hadn’t a spark of real
evidence. And suppose he’d been quite wrong—what a dust-up there’d have
been!”
“All the same,” urged the nondescript young man, dubiously extracting a
bubbling-hot Helix Pomatia from its shell, and eyeing it nervously
before putting it in his mouth, “surely it’s a clear case of public duty
to voice one’s suspicions.”
“Of _your_ duty—yes,” said the other. “By the way, it’s not a public
duty to eat snails if you don’t like ’em. No, I thought you didn’t. Why
wrestle with a harsh fate any longer? Waiter, take the gentleman’s
snails away and bring oysters instead. .. .. . No—as I was saying, it
may be part of _your_ duty to have suspicions and invite investigation
and generally raise hell for everybody, and if you’re mistaken nobody
says much, beyond that you’re a smart, painstaking officer though a
little over-zealous. But doctors, poor devils! are everlastingly walking
a kind of social tight-rope. People don’t fancy calling in a man who’s
liable to bring out accusations of murder on the smallest provocation.”
“Excuse me.”
The thin-faced young man sitting alone at the next table had turned
round eagerly.
“It’s frightfully rude of me to break in, but every word you say is
absolutely true, and mine is a case in point. A doctor—you can’t have
any idea how dependent he is on the fancies and prejudices of his
patients. They resent the most elementary precautions. If you dare to
suggest a post-mortem, they’re up in arms at the idea of ‘cutting poor
dear So-and-so up,’ and even if you only ask permission to investigate
an obscure disease in the interests of research, they imagine you’re
hinting at something unpleasant. Of course, if you let things go, and it
turns out afterwards there’s been any jiggery-pokery, the coroner jumps
down your throat and the newspapers make a butt of you, and, whichever
way it is, you wish you’d never been born.”
“You speak with personal feeling,” said the man with the monocle, with
an agreeable air of interest.
“I do,” said the thin-faced man, emphatically. “If I had behaved like a
man of the world instead of a zealous citizen, I shouldn’t be hunting
about for a new job today.”
The man with the monocle glanced round the little Soho restaurant with a
faint smile. The fat man on their right was unctuously entertaining two
ladies of the chorus; beyond him, two elderly habitués were showing
their acquaintance with the fare at the “Au Bon Bourgeois” by consuming
a Tripes à la Mode de Caen (which they do very excellently there) and a
bottle of Chablis Moutonne 1916; on the other side of the room a
provincial and his wife were stupidly clamouring for a cut off the joint
with lemonade for the lady and whisky and soda for the gentleman, while
at the adjoining table, the handsome silver-haired proprietor, absorbed
in fatiguing a salad for a family party, had for the moment no thoughts
beyond the nice adjustment of the chopped herbs and garlic. The head
waiter, presenting for inspection a plate of Blue River Trout, helped
the monocled man and his companion and retired, leaving them in the
privacy which unsophisticated people always seek in genteel tea-shops
and never, never find there.
“I feel,” said the monocled man, “exactly like Prince Florizel of
Bohemia. I am confident that you, sir, have an interesting story to
relate, and shall be greatly obliged if you will favour us with the
recital. I perceive that you have finished your dinner, and it will
therefore perhaps not be disagreeable to you to remove to this table and
entertain us with your story while we eat. Pardon my Stevensonian
manner—my sympathy is none the less sincere on that account.”
“Don’t be an ass, Peter,” said the nondescript man. “My friend is a much
more rational person than you might suppose to hear him talk,” he added,
turning to the stranger, “and if there’s anything you’d like to get off
your chest, you may be perfectly certain it won’t go any farther.”
The other smiled a little grimly.
“I’ll tell you about it with pleasure if it won’t bore you. It just
happens to be a case in point, that’s all.”
“On _my_ side of the argument,” said the man called Peter, with triumph.
“Do carry on. Have something to drink. It’s a poor heart that never
rejoices. And begin right at the beginning, if you will, please. I have
a very trivial mind. Detail delights me. Ramifications enchant me.
Distance no object. No reasonable offer refused. Charles here will say
the same.”
“Well,” said the stranger, “to begin from the very beginning, I am a
medical man, particularly interested in the subject of cancer. I had
hoped, as so many people do, to specialise on the subject, but there
wasn’t money enough, when I’d done my exams., to allow me to settle down
to research work. I had to take a country practice, but I kept in touch
with the important men up here, hoping to be able to come back to it
some day. I may say I have quite decent expectations from an uncle, and
in the meanwhile they agreed it would be quite good for me to get some
all-round experience as a GP. Keeps one from getting narrow and all
that.
“Consequently, when I bought a nice little practice at . . .—I’d better
not mention any names, let’s call it X, down Hampshire way, a little
country town of about 5,000 people—I was greatly pleased to find a
cancer case on my list of patients. The old lady—”
“How long ago was this?” interrupted Peter.
“Three years ago. There wasn’t much to be done with the case. The old
lady was seventy-two, and had already had one operation. She was a game
old girl, though, and was making a good fight of it, with a very tough
constitution to back her up. She was not, I should say, and had never
been, a woman of very powerful intellect or strong character as far as
her dealings with other people went, but she was extremely obstinate in
certain ways and was possessed by a positive determination not to die.
At this time she lived alone with her niece, a young woman of
twenty-five or so. Previously to that, she had been living with another
old lady, the girl’s aunt on the other side of the family, who had been
her devoted friend since their school days. When this other old aunt
died, the girl, who was their only living relative, threw up her job as
a nurse at the Royal Free Hospital to look after the survivor—my
patient—and they had come and settled down at X about a year before I
took over the practice. I hope I am making myself clear.”
“Perfectly. Was there another nurse?”
“Not at that time. The patient was able to get about, visit
acquaintances, do light work about the house, flowers and knitting and
reading and so on, and to drive about the place—in fact, most of the
things that old ladies do occupy their time with. Of course, she had her
bad days of pain from time to time, but the niece’s training was quite
sufficient to enable her to do all that was necessary.”
“What was the niece like?”
“Oh, a very nice, well-educated, capable girl, with a great deal more
brain than her aunt. Self-reliant, cool, all that sort of thing. Quite
the modern type. The sort of woman one can trust to keep her head and
not forget things. Of course, after a time, the wretched growth made its
appearance again, as it always does if it isn’t tackled at the very
beginning, and another operation became necessary. That was when I had
been in X about eight months. I took her up to London, to my own old
chief, Sir Warburton Giles, and it was performed very successfully as
far as the operation itself went, though it was then only too evident
that a vital organ was being encroached upon, and that the end could
only be a matter of time. I needn’t go into details. Everything was done
that could be done. I wanted the old lady to stay in town under Sir
Warburton’s eye, but she was vigorously opposed to this. She was
accustomed to a country life and could not be happy except in her own
home. So she went back to X, and I was able to keep her going with
visits for treatment at the nearest large town, where there is an
excellent hospital. She rallied amazingly after the operation and
eventually was able to dismiss her nurse and go on in the old way under
the care of the niece.”
“One moment, doctor,” put in the man called Charles, “you say you took
her to Sir Warburton Giles and so on. I gather she was pretty well off.”
“Oh, yes, she was quite a wealthy woman.”
“Do you happen to know whether she made a will?”
“No. I think I mentioned her extreme aversion to the idea of death. She
had always refused to make any kind of will because it upset her to
think about such things. I did once venture to speak of the subject in
the most casual way I could, shortly before she underwent her operation,
but the effect was to excite her very undesirably. Also she said, which
was quite true, that it was quite unnecessary. ‘You, my dear,’ she said
to the niece, ‘are the only kith and kin I’ve got in the world, and all
I’ve got will be yours some day, whatever happens. I know I can trust
you to remember my servants and my little charities.’ So, of course, I
didn’t insist.
“I remember, by the way—but that was a good deal later on and has
nothing to do with the story—”
“_Please_,” said Peter, “_all_ the details.”
“Well, I remember going there one day and finding my patient not so well
as I could have wished and very much agitated. The niece told me that
the trouble was caused by a visit from her solicitor—a family lawyer
from her home town, not our local man. He had insisted on a private
interview with the old lady, at the close of which she had appeared
terribly excited and angry, declaring that everyone was in a conspiracy
to kill her before her time. The solicitor, before leaving, had given no
explanation to the niece, but had impressed upon her that if at any time
her aunt expressed a wish to see him, she was to send for him at any
hour of the day or night and he would come at once.”
“And was he ever sent for?”
“No. The old lady was deeply offended with him, and almost the last bit
of business she did for herself was to take her affairs out of his hands
and transfer them to the local solicitor. Shortly afterwards, a third
operation became necessary, and after this she gradually became more and
more of an invalid. Her head began to get weak, too, and she grew
incapable of understanding anything complicated, and indeed she was in
too much pain to be bothered about business. The niece had a power of
attorney, and took over the management of her aunt’s money entirely.”
“When was this?”
“In April, 1925. Mind you, though she was getting a bit ‘gaga’—after
all, she was getting on in years—her bodily strength was quite
remarkable. I was investigating a new method of treatment and the
results were extraordinarily interesting. That made it all the more
annoying to me when the surprising thing happened.
“I should mention that by this time we were obliged to have an outside
nurse for her, as the niece could not do both the day and night duty.
The first nurse came in April. She was a most charming and capable young
woman—the ideal nurse. I placed absolute dependence on her. She had been
specially recommended to me by Sir Warburton Giles, and though she was
not then more than twenty-eight, she had the discretion and judgment of
a woman twice her age. I may as well tell you at once that I became
deeply attached to this lady and she to me. We are engaged, and had
hoped to be married this year—if it hadn’t been for my damned
conscientiousness and public spirit.”
The doctor grimaced wryly at Charles, who murmured rather lamely that it
was very bad luck.
“My fiancée, like myself, took a keen interest in the case—partly
because it was my case and partly because she was herself greatly
interested in the disease. She looks forward to being of great
assistance to me in my life work if I ever get the chance to do anything
at it. But that’s by the way.
“Things went on like this till September. Then, for some reason, the
patient began to take one of those unaccountable dislikes that
feeble-minded patients do take sometimes. She got it into her head that
the nurse wanted to kill her—the same idea she’d had about the lawyer,
you see—and earnestly assured her niece that she was being poisoned. No
doubt she attributed her attacks of pain to this cause. Reasoning was
useless—she cried out and refused to let the nurse come near her. When
that happens, naturally, there’s nothing for it but to get rid of the
nurse, as she can do the patient no possible good. I sent my fiancée
back to town and wired to Sir Warburton’s Clinic to send me down another
nurse.
“The new nurse arrived the next day. Naturally, after the other, she was
a second-best as far as I was concerned, but she seemed quite up to her
work and the patient made no objection. However, now I began to have
trouble with the niece. Poor girl, all this long-drawn-out business was
getting on her nerves, I suppose. She took it into her head that her
aunt was very much worse. I said that of course she must gradually get
worse, but that she was putting up a wonderful fight and there was no
cause for alarm. The girl wasn’t satisfied, however, and on one occasion
early in November sent for me hurriedly in the middle of the night
because her aunt was dying.
“When I arrived, I found the patient in great pain, certainly, but in no
immediate danger. I told the nurse to give her a morphia injection, and
administered a dose of bromide to the girl, telling her to go to bed and
not to do any nursing for the next few days. The following day I
overhauled the patient very carefully and found that she was doing even
better than I supposed. Her heart was exceptionally strong and steady,
she was taking nourishment remarkably well and the progress of the
disease was temporarily arrested.
“The niece apologised for her agitation, and said she really thought her
aunt was going. I said that, on the contrary, I could now affirm
positively that she would live for another five or six months. As you
know, in cases like hers, one can speak with very fair certainty.
“‘In any case,’ I said, ‘I shouldn’t distress yourself too much. Death,
when it does come, will be a release from suffering.’
“‘Yes,’ she said, ‘poor Auntie. I’m afraid I’m selfish, but she’s the
only relative I have left in the world.’
“Three days later, I was just sitting down to dinner when a telephone
message came. Would I go over at once? The patient was dead.”
“Good gracious!” cried Charles, “it’s perfectly obvious—”
“Shut up, Sherlock,” said his friend, “the doctor’s story is not going
to be obvious. Far from it, as the private said when he aimed at the
bull’s-eye and hit the gunnery instructor. But I observe the waiter
hovering uneasily about us while his colleagues pile up chairs and carry
away the cruets. Will you not come and finish the story in my flat? I
can give you a glass of very decent port. You will? Good. Waiter, call a
taxi . . . 110A Piccadilly.”
CHAPTER II
Miching Mallecho
“_By the pricking of my thumbs_
_Something evil this way comes._”
_Macbeth_
The April night was clear and chilly, and a brisk wood fire burned in a
welcoming manner on the hearth. The bookcases which lined the walls were
filled with rich old calf bindings, mellow and glowing in the
lamp-light. There was a grand piano, open, a huge chesterfield piled
deep with cushions and two arm-chairs of the build that invites one to
wallow. The port was brought in by an impressive man-servant and placed
on a very beautiful little Chippendale table. Some big bowls of scarlet
and yellow parrot tulips beckoned, banner-like, from dark corners.
The doctor had just written his new acquaintance down as an æsthete with
a literary turn, looking for the ingredients of a human drama, when the
man-servant re-entered.
“Inspector Sugg rang up, my lord, and left this message, and said would
you be good enough to give him a call as soon as you came in.”
“Oh, did he?—well, just get him for me, would you? This is the
Worplesham business, Charles. Sugg’s mucked it up as usual. The baker
has an alibi—naturally—he would have. Oh, thanks. . . . Hullo! that you,
Inspector? What did I tell you?—Oh, routine be hanged. Now, look here.
You get hold of that gamekeeper fellow, and find out from him what he
saw in the sand-pit. . . . No, I know, but I fancy if you ask him
impressively enough he will come across with it. No, of course not—if
you ask if he was there, he’ll say no. Say you know he was there and
what did he see—and, look here! if he hums and haws about it, say you’re
sending a gang down to have the stream diverted. . . . All right. Not at
all. Let me know if anything comes of it.”
He put the receiver down.
“Excuse me, doctor. A little matter of business. Now go on with your
story. The old lady was dead, eh? Died in her sleep, I suppose. Passed
away in the most innocent manner possible. Everything all ship-shape and
Bristol-fashion. No struggle, no wounds, hæmorrhages, or obvious
symptoms, naturally, what?”
“Exactly. She had taken some nourishment at 6 o’clock—a little broth and
some milk pudding. At eight, the nurse gave her a morphine injection and
then went straight out to put some bowls of flowers on the little table
on the landing for the night. The maid came to speak to her about some
arrangements for the next day, and while they were talking, Miss . . .
that is, the niece—came up and went into her aunt’s room. She had only
been there a moment or two when she cried out, ‘Nurse! Nurse!’ The nurse
rushed in, and found the patient dead.
“Of course, my first idea was that by some accident a double dose of
morphine had been administered—”
“Surely that wouldn’t have acted so promptly.”
“No—but I thought that a deep coma might have been mistaken for death.
However, the nurse assured me that this was not the case, and, as a
matter of fact, the possibility was completely disproved, as we were
able to count the ampullæ of morphine and found them all satisfactorily
accounted for. There were no signs of the patient having tried to move
or strain herself, or of her having knocked against anything. The little
night-table was pushed aside, but that had been done by the niece when
she came in and was struck by her aunt’s alarmingly lifeless
appearance.”
“How about the broth and the milk pudding?”
“That occurred to me, also—not in any sinister way, but to wonder
whether she’d been having too much—distended stomach—pressure on the
heart, and that sort of thing. However, when I came to look into it, it
seemed very unlikely. The quantity was so small, and on the face of it,
two hours were sufficient for digestion—if it had been that, death would
have taken place earlier. I was completely puzzled, and so was the
nurse. Indeed, she was very much upset.”
“And the niece?”
“The niece could say nothing but ‘I told you so, I told you so—I knew
she was worse than you thought.’ Well, to cut a long story short, I was
so bothered with my pet patient going off like that, that next morning,
after I had thought the matter over, I asked for a post-mortem.”
“Any difficulty?”
“Not the slightest. A little natural distaste, of course, but no sort of
opposition. I explained that I felt sure there must be some obscure
morbid condition which I had failed to diagnose and that I should feel
more satisfied if I might make an investigation. The only thing which
seemed to trouble the niece was the thought of an inquest. I said—rather
unwisely, I suppose, according to general rules—that I didn’t think an
inquest would be necessary.”
“You mean you offered to perform the post-mortem yourself.”
“Yes—I made no doubt that I should find a sufficient cause of death to
enable me to give a certificate. I had one bit of luck, and that was
that the old lady had at some time or the other expressed in a general
way an opinion in favour of cremation, and the niece wished this to be
carried out. This meant getting a man with special qualifications to
sign the certificate with me, so I persuaded this other doctor to come
and help me to do the autopsy.”
“And did you find anything?”
“Not a thing. The other man, of course, said I was a fool to kick up a
fuss. He thought that as the old lady was certainly dying in any case,
it would be quite enough to put in, Cause of death, cancer; immediate
cause, heart failure, and leave it at that. But I was a damned
conscientious ass, and said I wasn’t satisfied. There was absolutely
nothing about the body to explain the death naturally, and I insisted on
an analysis.”
“Did you actually suspect—?”
“Well, no, not exactly. But—well, I wasn’t satisfied. By the way, it was
very clear at the autopsy that the morphine had nothing to do with it.
Death had occurred so soon after the injection that the drug had only
partially dispersed from the arm. Now I think it over, I suppose it must
have been shock, somehow.”
“Was the analysis privately made?”
“Yes; but of course the funeral was held up and things got round. The
coroner heard about it and started to make inquiries, and the nurse, who
got it into her head that I was accusing her of neglect or something,
behaved in a very unprofessional way and created a lot of talk and
trouble.”
“And nothing came of it?”
“Nothing. There was no trace of poison or anything of that sort, and the
analysis left us exactly where we were. Naturally, I began to think I
had made a ghastly exhibition of myself. Rather against my own
professional judgment, I signed the certificate—heart failure following
on shock, and my patient was finally got into her grave after a week of
worry, without an inquest.”
“Grave?”
“Oh, yes. That was another scandal. The crematorium authorities, who are
pretty particular, heard about the fuss and refused to act in the
matter, so the body is filed in the church-yard for reference if
necessary. There was a huge attendance at the funeral and a great deal
of sympathy for the niece. The next day I got a note from one of my most
influential patients, saying that my professional services would no
longer be required. The day after that, I was avoided in the street by
the Mayor’s wife. Presently I found my practice dropping away from me,
and discovered I was getting known as ‘the man who practically accused
that charming Miss So-and-so of murder.’ Sometimes it was the niece I
was supposed to be accusing. Sometimes it was ‘that nice Nurse—not the
flighty one who was dismissed, the other one, you know.’ Another version
was, that I had tried to get the nurse into trouble because I resented
the dismissal of my fiancée. Finally, I heard a rumour that the patient
had discovered me ‘canoodling’—that was the beastly word—with my
fiancée, instead of doing my job, and had done away with the old lady
myself out of revenge—though why, in that case, I should have refused a
certificate, my scandal-mongers didn’t trouble to explain.
“I stuck it out for a year, but my position became intolerable. The
practice dwindled to practically nothing, so I sold it, took a holiday
to get the taste out of my mouth—and here I am, looking for another
opening. So that’s that—and the moral is, Don’t be officious about
public duties.”
The doctor gave an irritated laugh, and flung himself back in his chair.
“I don’t care,” he added, combatantly, “the cats! Confusion to ’em!” and
he drained his glass.
“Hear, hear!” agreed his host. He sat for a few moments looking
thoughtfully into the fire.
“Do you know,” he said, suddenly, “I’m feeling rather interested by this
case. I have a sensation of internal gloating which assures me that
there is something to be investigated. That feeling has never failed me
yet—I trust it never will. It warned me the other day to look into my
income-tax assessment, and I discovered that I had been paying about
£900 too much for the last three years. It urged me only last week to
ask a bloke who was preparing to drive me over the Horseshoe Pass
whether he had any petrol in the tank, and he discovered he had just
about a pint—enough to get us nicely half-way round. It’s a very lonely
spot. Of course, I knew the man, so it wasn’t _all_ intuition. Still, I
always make it a rule to investigate anything I feel like investigating.
I believe,” he added, in a reminiscent tone, “I was a terror in my
nursery days. Anyhow, curious cases are rather a hobby of mine. In fact,
I’m not just being the perfect listener. I have deceived you. I have an
ulterior motive, said he, throwing off his side-whiskers and disclosing
the well-known hollow jaws of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”
“I was beginning to have my suspicions,” said the doctor, after a short
pause. “I think you must be Lord Peter Wimsey. I wondered why your face
was so familiar, but of course it was in all the papers a few years ago
when you disentangled the Riddlesdale Mystery.”
“Quite right. It’s a silly kind of face, of course, but rather
disarming, don’t you think? I don’t know that I’d have chosen it, but I
do my best with it. I do hope it isn’t contracting a sleuth-like
expression, or anything unpleasant. This is the real sleuth—my friend
Detective-Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard. He’s the one who really
does the work. I make imbecile suggestions and he does the work of
elaborately disproving them. Then, by a process of elimination, we find
the right explanation, and the world says, ‘My god, what intuition that
young man has!’ Well, look here—if you don’t mind, I’d like to have a go
at this. If you’ll entrust me with your name and address and the names
of the parties concerned, I’d like very much to have a shot at looking
into it.”
The doctor considered a moment, then shook his head.
“It’s very good of you, but I think I’d rather not. I’ve got into enough
bothers already. Anyway, it isn’t professional to talk, and if I stirred
up any more fuss, I should probably have to chuck this country
altogether and end up as one of those drunken ship’s doctors in the
South Seas or somewhere, who are always telling their life-history to
people and delivering awful warnings. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.
Thanks very much, all the same.”
“As you like,” said Wimsey. “But I’ll think it over, and if any useful
suggestion occurs to me, I’ll let you know.”
“It’s very good of you,” replied the visitor, absently, taking his hat
and stick from the man-servant, who had answered Wimsey’s ring. “Well,
good night, and many thanks for hearing me so patiently. By the way,
though,” he added, turning suddenly at the door, “how do you propose to
let me know when you haven’t got my name and address?”
Lord Peter laughed.
“I’m Hawkshaw, the detective,” he answered, “and you shall hear from me
anyhow before the end of the week.”
CHAPTER III
A Use for Spinsters
“_There are two million more females than males in England and Wales!
And this is an awe-inspiring circumstance._”
Gilbert Frankau
“What do you really think of that story?” inquired Parker. He had
dropped in to breakfast with Wimsey the next morning, before departing
in the Notting Dale direction, in quest of an elusive anonymous
letter-writer. “I thought it sounded rather as though our friend had
been a bit too cocksure about his grand medical specialising. After all,
the old girl might so easily have had some sort of heart attack. She was
very old and ill.”
“So she might, though I believe as a matter of fact cancer patients very
seldom pop off in that unexpected way. As a rule, they surprise
everybody by the way they cling to life. Still, I wouldn’t think much of
that if it wasn’t for the niece. She prepared the way for the death, you
see, by describing her aunt as so much worse than she was.”
“I thought the same when the doctor was telling his tale. But what did
the niece do? She can’t have poisoned her aunt or even smothered her, I
suppose, or they’d have found signs of it on the body. And the aunt
_did_ die—so perhaps the niece was right and the opinionated young
medico wrong.”
“Just so. And of course, we’ve only got his version of the niece and the
nurse—and he obviously had what the Scotch call ta’en a scunner at the
nurse. We mustn’t lose sight of her, by the way. She was the last person
to be with the old lady before her death, and it was she who
administered that injection.”
“Yes, yes—but the injection had nothing to do with it. If anything’s
clear, that is. I say, do you think the nurse can have said anything
that agitated the old lady and gave her a shock that way. The patient
was a bit gaga, but she may have had sense enough to understand
something really startling. Possibly the nurse just said something
stupid about dying—the old lady appears to have been very sensitive on
the point.”
“Ah!” said Lord Peter, “I was waiting for you to get on to that. Have
you realised that there really is one rather sinister figure in the
story, and that’s the family lawyer.”
“The one who came down to say something about the will, you mean, and
was so abruptly sent packing.”
“Yes. Suppose he’d wanted the patient to make a will in favour of
somebody quite different—somebody outside the story as we know it. And
when he found he couldn’t get any attention paid to him, he sent the new
nurse down as a sort of substitute.”
“It would be rather an elaborate plot,” said Parker, dubiously. “He
couldn’t know that the doctor’s fiancée was going to be sent away.
Unless he was in league with the niece, of course, and induced her to
engineer the change of nurses.”
“That cock won’t fight, Charles. The niece wouldn’t be in league with
the lawyer to get herself disinherited.”
“No, I suppose not. Still, I think there’s something in the idea that
the old girl was either accidentally or deliberately startled to death.”
“Yes—and whichever way it was, it probably wasn’t legal murder in that
case. However, I think it’s worth looking into. That reminds me.” He
rang the bell. “Bunter, just take a note to the post for me, would you?”
“Certainly, my lord.”
Lord Peter drew a writing pad towards him.
“What are you going to write?” asked Parker, looking over his shoulder
with some amusement.
Lord Peter wrote:
“Isn’t civilisation wonderful?”
He signed this simple message and slipped it into an envelope.
“If you want to be immune from silly letters, Charles,” he said, “don’t
carry your monomark in your hat.”
“And what do you propose to do next?” asked Parker. “Not, I hope, to
send me round to Monomark House to get the name of a client. I couldn’t
do that without official authority, and they would probably kick up an
awful shindy.”
“No,” replied his friend, “I don’t propose violating the secrets of the
confessional. Not in that quarter at any rate. I think, if you can spare
a moment from your mysterious correspondent, who probably does not
intend to be found, I will ask you to come and pay a visit to a friend
of mine. It won’t take long. I think you’ll be interested. I—in fact,
you’ll be the first person I’ve ever taken to see her. She will be very
much touched and pleased.”
He laughed a little self-consciously.
“Oh,” said Parker, embarrassed. Although the men were great friends,
Wimsey had always preserved a reticence about his personal affairs—not
so much by concealing as by ignoring them. This revelation seemed to
mark a new stage of intimacy, and Parker was not sure that he liked it.
He conducted his own life with an earnest middle-class morality which he
owed to his birth and up-bringing, and, while theoretically recognising
that Lord Peter’s world acknowledged different standards, he had never
contemplated being personally faced with any result of their application
in practice.
“—rather an experiment,” Wimsey was saying a trifle shyly; “anyway,
she’s quite comfortably fixed in a little flat in Pimlico. You can come,
can’t you, Charles? I really should like you two to meet.”
“Oh, yes, rather,” said Parker, hastily, “I should like to very much.
Er—how long—I mean—”
“Oh, the arrangement’s only been going a few months,” said Wimsey,
leading the way to the lift, “but it really seems to be working out
quite satisfactorily. Of course, it makes things much easier for me.”
“Just so,” said Parker.
“Of course, as you’ll understand—I won’t go into it all till we get
there, and then you’ll see for yourself,” Wimsey chattered on, slamming
the gates of the lift with unnecessary violence—“but, as I was saying,
you’ll observe it’s quite a new departure. I don’t suppose there’s ever
been anything exactly like it before. Of course, there’s nothing new
under the sun, as Solomon said, but after all, I daresay all those wives
and porcupines, as the child said, must have soured his disposition a
little, don’t you know.”
“Quite,” said Parker. “Poor fish,” he added to himself, “they _always_
seem to think it’s different.”
“Outlet,” said Wimsey, energetically, “hi! taxi! . . . outlet—everybody
needs an outlet—97A, St. George’s Square—and after all, one can’t really
blame people if it’s just that they need an outlet. I mean, why be
bitter? They can’t help it. I think it’s much kinder to give them an
outlet than to make fun of them in books—and, after all, it isn’t really
difficult to write books. Especially if you either write a rotten story
in good English or a good story in rotten English, which is as far as
most people seem to get nowadays. Don’t you agree?”
Mr. Parker agreed, and Lord Peter wandered away along the paths of
literature, till the cab stopped before one of those tall, awkward
mansions which, originally designed for a Victorian family with
fatigue-proof servants, have lately been dissected each into half a
dozen inconvenient band-boxes and let off in flats.
Lord Peter rang the top bell, which was marked CLIMPSON, and relaxed
negligently against the porch.
“Six flights of stairs,” he explained; “it takes her some time to answer
the bell, because there’s no lift, you see. She wouldn’t have a more
expensive flat, though. She thought it wouldn’t be suitable.”
Mr. Parker was greatly relieved, if somewhat surprised, by the modesty
of the lady’s demands, and, placing his foot on the door-scraper in an
easy attitude, prepared to wait with patience. Before many minutes,
however, the door was opened by a thin, middle-aged woman, with a sharp,
sallow face and very vivacious manner. She wore a neat, dark coat and
skirt, a high-necked blouse and a long gold neck-chain with a variety of
small ornaments dangling from it at intervals, and her iron-grey hair
was dressed under a net, in the style fashionable in the reign of the
late King Edward.
“Oh, Lord Peter! How very nice to see you. Rather an _early_ visit, but
I’m sure you will excuse the sitting-room being a trifle in disorder.
_Do_ come in. The lists are _quite_ ready for you. I finished them last
night. In fact, I was just about to put on my hat and bring them round
to you. I do _hope_ you don’t think I have taken an _unconscionable_
time, but there was a quite _surprising_ number of entries. It is _too_
good of you to trouble to call.”
“Not at all, Miss Climpson. This is my friend, Detective-Inspector
Parker, whom I have mentioned to you.”
“How do you do, Mr. Parker—or ought I to say Inspector? Excuse me if I
make mistakes—this is really the first time I have been in the hands of
the police. I hope it’s not rude of me to say that. Please come up. A
great many stairs, I am afraid, but I hope you do not mind. I do so like
to be _high up_. The air is so much better, and you know, Mr. Parker,
thanks to Lord Peter’s great kindness, I have such a _beautiful, airy_
view, right over the houses. I think one can work so much _better_ when
one doesn’t feel cribbed, cabined and confined, as Hamlet says. Dear me!
Mrs. Winbottle _will_ leave the pail on the stairs, and always in that
very dark corner. I am _continually_ telling her about it. If you keep
close to the banisters you will avoid it nicely. Only one more flight.
Here we are. Please overlook the untidiness. I always think breakfast
things look so _ugly_ when one has finished with them—almost sordid, to
use a nasty word for a nasty subject. What a pity that some of these
clever people can’t invent _self-cleaning_ and _self-clearing_ plates,
is it not? But please _do_ sit down; I won’t keep you a moment. And I
know, Lord Peter, that you will not hesitate to smoke. I do so enjoy the
smell of your cigarettes—quite delicious—and you are so _very_ good
about extinguishing the ends.”
The little room was, as a matter of fact, most exquisitely neat, in
spite of the crowded array of knick-knacks and photographs that adorned
every available inch of space. The sole evidences of dissipation were an
empty eggshell, a used cup and a crumby plate on a breakfast tray. Miss
Climpson promptly subdued this riot by carrying the tray bodily on to
the landing.
Mr. Parker, a little bewildered, lowered himself cautiously into a small
arm-chair, embellished with a hard, fat little cushion which made it
impossible to lean back. Lord Peter wriggled into the window-seat, lit a
Sobriane and clasped his hands above his knees. Miss Climpson, seated
upright at the table, gazed at him with a gratified air which was
positively touching.
“I have gone _very_ carefully into all these cases,” she began, taking
up a thick wad of type-script. “I’m afraid, indeed, my notes are rather
_copious_, but I trust the typist’s bill will not be considered too
heavy. My handwriting is very clear, so I don’t think there can be any
errors. Dear me! such _sad_ stories some of these poor women had to tell
me! But I have investigated most fully, with the kind assistance of the
clergyman—a very nice man and so helpful—and I feel sure that in the
majority of the cases your assistance will be _well bestowed_. If you
would like to go through—”
“Not at the moment, Miss Climpson,” interrupted Lord Peter, hurriedly.
“It’s all right, Charles—nothing whatever to do with Our Dumb Friends or
supplying Flannel to Unmarried Mothers. I’ll tell you about it later.
Just now, Miss Climpson, we want your help on something quite
different.”
Miss Climpson produced a business-like notebook and sat at attention.
“The inquiry divides itself into two parts,” said Lord Peter. “The first
part, I’m afraid, is rather dull. I want you (if you will be so good) to
go down to Somerset House and search, or get them to search, through all
the death-certificates for Hampshire in the month of November, 1925. I
don’t know the town and I don’t know the name of the deceased. What you
are looking for is the death-certificate of an old lady of 73; cause of
death, cancer; immediate cause, heart failure; and the certificate will
have been signed by two doctors, one of whom will be either a Medical
Officer of Health, Police Surgeon, Certifying Surgeon under the Factory
and Workshops Act, Medical Referee under the Workmen’s Compensation Act,
Physician or Surgeon in a big General Hospital, or a man specially
appointed by the Cremation authorities. If you want to give any excuse
for the search, you can say that you are compiling statistics about
cancer; but what you really want is the names of the people concerned
and the name of the town.”
“Suppose there are more than one answering to the requirements?”
“Ah! that’s where the second part comes in, and where your remarkable
tact and shrewdness are going to be so helpful to us. When you have
collected all the ‘possibles,’ I shall ask you to go down to each of the
towns concerned and make very, very skilful inquiries, to find out which
is the case we want to get on to. Of course, you mustn’t appear to be
inquiring. You must find some good gossipy lady living in the
neighbourhood and just get her to talk in a natural way. You must
pretend to be gossipy yourself—it’s not in your nature, I know, but I’m
sure you can make a little pretense about it—and find out all you can. I
fancy you’ll find it pretty easy if you once strike the right town,
because I know for a certainty that there was a terrible lot of
ill-natured talk about this particular death, and it won’t have been
forgotten yet by a long chalk.”
“How shall I know when it’s the right one?”
“Well, if you can spare the time, I want you to listen to a little
story. Mind you, Miss Climpson, when you get to wherever it is, you are
not supposed ever to have heard a word of this tale before. But I
needn’t tell you that. Now, Charles, you’ve got an official kind of way
of puttin’ these things clearly. Will you just weigh in and give Miss
Climpson the gist of that rigmarole our friend served out to us last
night?”
Pulling his wits into order, Mr. Parker accordingly obliged with a
digest of the doctor’s story. Miss Climpson listened with great
attention, making notes of the dates and details. Parker observed that
she showed great acumen in seizing on the salient points; she asked a
number of very shrewd questions, and her grey eyes were intelligent.
When he had finished, she repeated the story, and he was able to
congratulate her on a clear head and retentive memory.
“A dear old friend of mine used to say that I should have made a very
good lawyer,” said Miss Climpson, complacently, “but of course, when I
was young, girls didn’t have the education or the _opportunities_ they
get nowadays, Mr. Parker. I should have liked a good education, but my
dear father didn’t believe in it for women. Very old-fashioned, you
young people would think him.”
“Never mind, Miss Climpson,” said Wimsey, “you’ve got just exactly the
qualifications we want, and they’re rather rare, so we’re in luck. Now
we want this matter pushed forward as fast as possible.”
“I’ll go down to Somerset House at once,” replied the lady, with great
energy, “and let you know the minute I’m ready to start for Hampshire.”
“That’s right,” said his lordship, rising. “And now we’ll just make a
noise like a hoop and roll away. Oh! and while I think of it, I’d better
give you something in hand for traveling expenses and so on. I think you
had better be just a retired lady in easy circumstances looking for a
nice little place to settle down in. I don’t think you’d better be
wealthy—wealthy people don’t inspire confidence. Perhaps you would
oblige me by living at the rate of about £800 a year—your own excellent
taste and experience will suggest the correct accessories and so on for
creating that impression. If you will allow me, I will give you a cheque
for £50 now, and when you start on your wanderings you will let me know
what you require.”
“Dear me,” said Miss Climpson, “I don’t—”
“This is a pure matter of business, of course,” said Wimsey, rather
rapidly, “and you will let me have a note of the expenses in your usual
business-like way.”
“Of course.” Miss Climpson was dignified. “And I will give you a proper
receipt immediately.
“Dear, dear,” she added, hunting through her purse, “I do not appear to
have any penny stamps. How extremely remiss of me. It is most _unusual_
for me not to have my little book of stamps—so handy I always think they
are—but only last night Mrs. Williams borrowed my last stamps to send a
very urgent letter to her son in Japan. If you will excuse me a moment—”
“I think I have some,” interposed Parker.
“Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Parker. Here is the twopence. I _never_
allow myself to be without pennies—on account of the bathroom geyser,
you know. Such a very _sensible_ invention, most _convenient_, and
prevents _all_ dispute about hot water among the tenants. Thank you so
much. And now I sign my name _across_ the stamps. That’s right, isn’t
it? My dear father would be surprised to find his daughter so
business-like. He always said a woman should never _need_ to know
anything about money matters, but times have changed so greatly, have
they not?”
Miss Climpson ushered them down all six flights of stairs, volubly
protesting at their protests, and the door closed behind them.
“May I ask—?” began Parker.
“It is not what you think,” said his lordship, earnestly.
“Of course not,” agreed Parker.
“There, I knew you had a nasty mind. Even the closest of one’s friends
turn out to be secret thinkers. They think in private thoughts which
they publicly repudiate.”
“Don’t be a fool. Who _is_ Miss Climpson?”
“Miss Climpson,” said Lord Peter, “is a manifestation of the wasteful
way in which this country is run. Look at electricity. Look at
water-power. Look at the tides. Look at the sun. Millions of power units
being given off into space every minute. Thousands of old maids, simply
bursting with useful energy, forced by our stupid social system into
hydros and hotels and communities and hostels and posts as companions,
where their magnificent gossip-powers and units of inquisitiveness are
allowed to dissipate themselves or even become harmful to the community,
while the ratepayers’ money is spent on getting work for which these
women are providentially fitted, inefficiently carried out by
ill-equipped policemen like you. My god! it’s enough to make a man write
to _John Bull_. And then bright young men write nasty little patronising
books called ‘Elderly Women,’ and ‘On the Edge of the Explosion’—and the
drunkards make songs upon ’em, poor things.”
“Quite, quite,” said Parker. “You mean that Miss Climpson is a kind of
inquiry agent for you.”
“She is my ears and tongue,” said Lord Peter, dramatically, “and
especially my nose. She asks questions which a young man could not put
without a blush. She is the angel that rushes in where fools get a clump
on the head. She can smell a rat in the dark. In fact, she is the cat’s
whiskers.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Parker.
“Naturally—it is mine, therefore brilliant. Just think. People want
questions asked. Whom do they send? A man with large flat feet and a
notebook—the sort of man whose private life is conducted in a series of
inarticulate grunts. I send a lady with a long, woolly jumper on
knitting-needles and jingly things round her neck. Of course she asks
questions—everyone expects it. Nobody is surprised. Nobody is alarmed.
And so-called superfluity is agreeably and usefully disposed of. One of
these days you will put up a statue to me, with an inscription:
“‘To the Man who Made
Thousands of Superfluous Women
Happy
without Injury to their Modesty
or Exertion to Himself.’”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk so much,” complained his friend. “And how
about all those type-written reports? Are you turning philanthropist in
your old age?”
“No—no,” said Wimsey, rather hurriedly hailing a taxi. “Tell you about
that later. Little private pogrom of my own—Insurance against the
Socialist Revolution—when it comes. ‘What did you do with your great
wealth, comrade?’ ‘I bought First Editions.’ ‘Aristocrat! à la
lanterne!’ ‘Stay, spare me! I took proceedings against 500 money-lenders
who oppressed the workers.’ ‘Citizen, you have done well. We will spare
your life. You shall be promoted to cleaning out the sewers.’ Voilà! We
must move with the times. Citizen taxi-driver, take me to the British
Museum. Can I drop you anywhere? No? So long. I am going to collate a
12th century manuscript of Tristan, while the old order lasts.”
Mr. Parker thoughtfully boarded a westward-bound ’bus and was rolled
away to do some routine questioning, on his own account, among the
female population of Notting Dale. It did not appear to him to be a
milieu in which the talents of Miss Climpson could be usefully employed.
CHAPTER IV
A Bit Mental
“_A babbled of green fields._”
_King Henry V_
_Letter from Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson to Lord Peter Wimsey._
C/o Mrs. Hamilton Budge,
Fairview, Nelson Avenue,
Leahampton, Hants.
April 29th, 1927.
My dear Lord Peter,
You will be happy to hear, after my _two previous_ bad shots (!), that
I have found the _right_ place at last. The Agatha Dawson certificate
is the _correct_ one, and the dreadful _scandal_ about Dr. Carr is
still very much alive, I am sorry to say for the sake of _human
nature_. I have been fortunate enough to secure rooms in the _very
next street_ to Wellington Avenue, where Miss Dawson used to live. My
landlady seems a very nice woman, though a _terrible gossip_!—which is
_all to the good_!! Her charge for a very pleasant bedroom and
sitting-room with _full board_ is 3½ guineas weekly. I trust you will
not think this _too extravagant_, as the situation is _just_ what you
wished me to look for. I enclose a careful statement of my expenses
up-to-date. You will _excuse_ the mention of _underwear_, which is, I
fear, a somewhat large item! but wool is so expensive nowadays, and it
is necessary that every detail of my equipment should be suitable to
my (supposed!) position in life. I have been careful to _wash_ the
garments through, so that they do not look _too new_, as this might
have a _suspicious_ appearance!!
But you will be anxious for me to (if I may use a vulgar expression)
‘cut the cackle, and come to the horses’ (!!). On the day after my
arrival, I informed Mrs. Budge that I was a great sufferer from
_rheumatism_ (which is quite true, as I have a sad legacy of that kind
left me by, alas! my _port-drinking_ ancestors!)—and inquired what
_doctors_ there were in the neighbourhood. This at once brought forth
a _long catalogue_, together with a _grand panegyric_ of the sandy
soil and healthy situation of the town. I said I should prefer an
_elderly_ doctor, as the _young men_, in my opinion, were _not to be
depended on_. Mrs. Budge heartily agreed with me, and a little
discreet questioning brought out the _whole story_ of Miss Dawson’s
illness and the ‘carryings-on’ (as she termed them) of Dr. Carr and
_the nurse_! “I never did trust that first nurse,” said Mrs. Budge,
“for all she had her training at Guy’s and ought to have been
trustworthy. A sly, red-headed, _baggage_, and it’s my belief that all
Dr. Carr’s fussing over Miss Dawson and his visits all day and every
day were just to get love-making with Nurse Philliter. No wonder poor
Miss Whittaker couldn’t stand it any longer and gave the girl the
sack—none too soon, in my opinion. Not quite so attentive after that,
Dr. Carr wasn’t—why, up to the last minute, he was pretending the old
lady was quite all right, when Miss Whittaker had only said the day
before that she felt sure she was going to be taken from us.”
I asked if Mrs. Budge knew Miss Whittaker personally. Miss Whittaker
is _the niece_, you know.
Not personally, she said, though she had met her in a social way at
the Vicarage working-parties. But she knew all about it, because her
maid was own sister to the maid at Miss Dawson’s. Now is not that a
_fortunate_ coincidence, for you know how these girls _talk_!
I also made careful inquiries about the _Vicar_, Mr. Tredgold, and was
much gratified to find that he teaches _sound Catholic_ doctrine, so
that I shall be able to attend the Church (S. Onesimus) without doing
_violence_ to my religious beliefs—a thing I could _not_ undertake to
do, _even in your interests_. I am sure you will _understand_ this. As
it happens, _all is well_, and I have written to my _very good
friend_, the Vicar of S. Edfrith’s, Holborn, to ask for an
introduction to Mr. Tredgold. By this means, I feel sure of meeting
_Miss Whittaker_ before long, as I hear she is quite a “pillar of the
Church”! I do hope it is not wrong to make use of the Church of God to
a _worldly_ end; but after all, you are only seeking to establish
_Truth_ and _Justice_!—and in so good a cause, we may _perhaps_ permit
ourselves to be a little bit _JESUITICAL_!!!
This is all I have been able to do as yet, but I shall not be _idle_,
and will write to you again as soon as I have _anything to report_. By
the way, the _pillar-box_ is most _conveniently_ placed just at the
corner of Wellington Avenue, so that I can easily _run out_ and post
my letters to you _myself_ (away from _prying_ eyes!!)—and just take a
little peep at Miss _Dawson’s_—now Miss _Whittaker’s_—house, “The
Grove,” at the same time.
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
Alexandra Katherine Climpson.
The little red-headed nurse gave her visitor a quick, slightly hostile
look-over.
“It’s quite all right,” he said apologetically, “I haven’t come to sell
you soap or gramophones, or to borrow money or enroll you in the Ancient
Froth-blowers or anything charitable. I really am Lord Peter Wimsey—I
mean, that really is my title, don’t you know, not a Christian name like
Sanger’s Circus or Earl Derr Biggers. I’ve come to ask you some
questions, and I’ve no real excuse, I’m afraid, for butting in on you—do
you ever read the _News of the World_?”
Nurse Philliter decided that she was to be asked to go to a mental case,
and that the patient had come to fetch her in person.
“Sometimes,” she said, guardedly.
“Oh—well, you may have noticed my name croppin’ up in a few murders and
things lately. I sleuth, you know. For a hobby. Harmless outlet for
natural inquisitiveness, don’t you see, which might otherwise strike
inward and produce introspection an’ suicide. Very natural, healthy
pursuit—not too strenuous, not too sedentary; trains and invigorates the
mind.”
“I know who you are now,” said Nurse Philliter, slowly. “You—you gave
evidence against Sir Julian Freke. In fact, you traced the murder to
him, didn’t you?”
“I did—it was rather unpleasant,” said Lord Peter, simply, “and I’ve got
another little job of the same kind in hand now, and I want your help.”
“Won’t you sit down?” said Nurse Philliter, setting the example. “How am
I concerned in the matter?”
“You know Dr. Edward Carr, I think—late of Leahampton—conscientious but
a little lackin’ in worldly wisdom—not serpentine at all, as the Bible
advises, but far otherwise.”
“What!” she cried, “do _you_ believe it was murder, then?”
Lord Peter looked at her for a few seconds. Her face was eager, her eyes
gleaming curiously under her thick, level brows. She had expressive
hands, rather large and with strong, flat joints. He noticed how they
gripped the arms of her chair.
“Haven’t the faintest,” he replied, nonchalantly, “but I wanted your
opinion.”
“Mine?”—she checked herself. “You know, I am not supposed to give
opinions about my cases.”
“You have given it to me already,” said his lordship, grinning. “Though
possibly I ought to allow for a little prejudice in favour of Dr. Carr’s
diagnosis.”
“Well, yes—but it’s not merely personal. I mean, my being engaged to Dr.
Carr wouldn’t affect my judgment of a cancer case. I have worked with
him on a great many of them, and I know that his opinion is really
trustworthy—just as I know that, as a motorist, he’s exactly the
opposite.”
“Right. I take it that if he says the death was inexplicable, it really
was so. That’s one point gained. Now about the old lady herself. I
gather she was a little queer towards the end—a bit mental, I think you
people call it?”
“I don’t know that I’d say that either. Of course, when she was under
morphia, she would be unconscious, or only semi-conscious, for hours
together. But up to the time when I left, I should say she was
quite—well, quite all there. She was obstinate, you know, and what they
call a character, at the best of times.”
“But Dr. Carr told me she got odd fancies—about people poisoning her?”
The red-haired nurse rubbed her fingers slowly along the arm of the
chair, and hesitated.
“If it will make you feel any less unprofessional,” said Lord Peter,
guessing what was in her mind, “I may say that my friend
Detective-Inspector Parker is looking into this matter with me, which
gives me a sort of right to ask questions.”
“In that case—yes—in that case I think I can speak freely. I never
understood about that poisoning idea. I never saw anything of it—no
aversion, I mean, or fear of me. As a rule, a patient will show it, if
she’s got any queer ideas about the nurse. Poor Miss Dawson was always
most kind and affectionate. She kissed me when I went away and gave me a
little present, and said she was sorry to lose me.”
“She didn’t show any sort of nervousness about taking food from you?”
“Well, I wasn’t allowed to give her any food that last week. Miss
Whittaker said her aunt had taken this funny notion, and gave her all
her meals herself.”
“Oh! that’s very interestin’. Was it Miss Whittaker, then, who first
mentioned this little eccentricity to you?”
“Yes. And she begged me not to say anything about it to Miss Dawson, for
fear of agitating her.”
“And did you?”
“I did not. I wouldn’t mention it in any case to a patient. It does no
good.”
“Did Miss Dawson ever speak about it to anyone else? Dr. Carr, for
instance?”
“No. According to Miss Whittaker, her aunt was frightened of the doctor
too, because she imagined he was in league with me. Of course, that
story rather lent colour to the unkind things that were said afterwards.
I suppose it’s just possible that she saw us glancing at one another or
speaking aside, and got the idea that we were plotting something.”
“How about the maids?”
“There were new maids about that time. She probably wouldn’t talk about
it to them, and anyhow, I wouldn’t be discussing my patient with her
servants.”
“Of course not. Why did the other maids leave? How many were there? Did
they all go at once?”
“Two of them went. They were sisters. One was a terrible
crockery-smasher, and Miss Whittaker gave her notice, so the other left
with her.”
“Ah, well! one can have too much of seeing the Crown Derby rollin’ round
the floor. Quite. Then it had nothing to do with—it wasn’t on account of
any little—”
“It wasn’t because they couldn’t get along with the nurse, if you mean
that,” said Nurse Philliter, with a smile. “They were very obliging
girls, but not very bright.”
“Quite. Well, now, is there any little odd, out-of-the-way incident you
can think of that might throw light on the thing. There was a visit from
a lawyer, I believe, that agitated your patient quite a lot. Was that in
your time?”
“No. I only heard about it from Dr. Carr. And he never heard the name of
the lawyer, what he came about, or anything.”
“A pity,” said his lordship. “I have been hoping great things of the
lawyer. There’s such a sinister charm, don’t you think, about lawyers
who appear unexpectedly with little bags, and alarm people with
mysterious conferences, and then go away leaving urgent messages that if
anything happens they are to be sent for. If it hadn’t been for the
lawyer, I probably shouldn’t have treated Dr. Carr’s medical problem
with the respect it deserves. He never came again, or wrote, I suppose?”
“I don’t know. Wait a minute. I do remember one thing. I remember Miss
Dawson having another hysterical attack of the same sort, and saying
just what she said then—‘that they were trying to kill her before her
time.’”
“When was that?”
“Oh, a couple of weeks before I left. Miss Whittaker had been up to her
with the post, I think, and there were some papers of some kind to sign,
and it seems to have upset her. I came in from my walk and found her in
a dreadful state. The maids could have told you more about it than I
could, really, for they were doing some dusting on the landing at the
time and heard her going on, and they ran down and fetched me up to her.
I didn’t ask them about what happened myself, naturally—it doesn’t do
for nurses to gossip with the maids behind their employers’ backs. Miss
Whittaker said that her aunt had had an annoying communication from a
solicitor.”
“Yes, it sounds as though there might be something there. Do you
remember what the maids were called?”
“What was the name now? A funny one, or I shouldn’t remember it—Gotobed,
that was it—Bertha and Evelyn Gotobed. I don’t know where they went, but
I daresay you could find out.”
“Now one last question, and I want you to forget all about Christian
kindliness and the law of slander when you answer it. What is Miss
Whittaker like?”
An indefinable expression crossed the nurse’s face.
“Tall, handsome, very decided in manner,” she said, with an air of doing
strict justice against her will, “an extremely competent nurse—she was
at the Royal Free, you know, till she went to live with her aunt. I
think she would have made a perfectly wonderful theatre nurse. She did
not like me, nor I her, you know, Lord Peter—and it’s better I should be
telling you so at once, that way you can take everything I say about her
with a grain of charity added—but we both knew good hospital work when
we saw it, and respected one another.”
“Why in the world didn’t she like you, Miss Philliter? I really don’t
know when I’ve seen a more likeable kind of person, if you’ll ’scuse my
mentionin’ it.”
“I don’t know.” The nurse seemed a little embarrassed. “The dislike
seemed to grow on her. You—perhaps you heard the kind of things people
said in the town? when I left?—that Dr. Carr and I—Oh! it really was
damnable, and I had the most dreadful interview with Matron when I got
back here. She _must_ have spread those stories. Who else could have
done it?”
“Well—you _did_ become engaged to Dr. Carr, didn’t you?” said his
lordship, gently. “Mind you, I’m not sayin’ it wasn’t a very agreeable
occurrence and all that, but—”
“But she said I neglected the patient. I _never_ did. I wouldn’t think
of such a thing.”
“Of course not. No. But, do you suppose that possibly getting engaged
was an offence in itself? Is Miss Whittaker engaged to anyone, by the
way?”
“No. You mean, was she jealous? I’m sure Dr. Carr never gave the
slightest, not the _slightest_—”
“Oh, _please_,” cried Lord Peter, “please don’t be ruffled. Such a nice
word, ruffled—like a kitten, I always think—so furry and nice. But even
without the least what-d’ye-call-it on Dr. Carr’s side, he’s a very
prepossessin’ person and all that. Don’t you think there _might_ be
something in it?”
“I did think so once,” admitted Miss Philliter, “but afterwards, when
she got him into such awful trouble over the post-mortem, I gave up the
idea.”
“But she didn’t object to the post-mortem?”
“She did not. But there’s such a thing as putting yourself in the right
in the eyes of your neighbours, Lord Peter, and then going off to tell
people all about it at Vicarage tea-parties. I wasn’t there, but you ask
someone who was. I know those tea-parties.”
“Well, it’s not impossible. People can be very spiteful if they think
they’ve been slighted.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Nurse Philliter, thoughtfully. “But,” she
added suddenly, “that’s no motive for murdering a perfectly innocent old
lady.”
“That’s the second time you’ve used that word,” said Wimsey, gravely.
“There’s no proof yet that it was murder.”
“I know that.”
“But you think it was?”
“I do.”
“And you think she did it?”
“Yes.”
Lord Peter walked across to the aspidistra in the bow-window and stroked
its leaves thoughtfully. The silence was broken by a buxom nurse who,
entering precipitately first and knocking afterwards, announced with a
giggle:
“Excuse me, I’m sure, but you’re in request this afternoon, Philliter.
Here’s Dr. Carr come for you.”
Dr. Carr followed hard upon his name. The sight of Wimsey struck him
speechless.
“I told you I’d be turnin’ up again before long,” said Lord Peter,
cheerfully. “Sherlock is my name and Holmes is my nature. I’m delighted
to see you, Dr. Carr. Your little matter is well in hand, and seein’ I’m
not required any longer I’ll make a noise like a bee and buzz off.”
“How did _he_ get here?” demanded Dr. Carr, not altogether pleased.
“Didn’t you send him? I think he’s very nice,” said Nurse Philliter.
“He’s mad,” said Dr. Carr.
“He’s clever,” said the red-haired nurse.
CHAPTER V
Gossip
“_With vollies of eternal babble._”
Butler, _Hudibras_
“So you are thinking of coming to live in Leahampton,” said Miss
Murgatroyd. “How _very nice_. I do hope you will be settling down in the
parish. We are _not_ too well off for week-day congregations—there is so
much indifference and so much _Protestantism_ about. There! I have
dropped a stitch. Provoking! Perhaps it was meant as a little reminder
to me not to think uncharitably about Protestants. All is well—I have
retrieved it. Were you thinking of taking a house, Miss Climpson?”
“I am not quite sure,” replied Miss Climpson. “Rents are so very high
nowadays, and I fear that to buy a house would be almost beyond my
means. I must look round very carefully, and view the question from _all
sides_. I should certainly _prefer_ to be in this parish—and close to
the Church, if possible. Perhaps the Vicar would know whether there is
likely to be anything suitable.”
“Oh, yes, he would doubtless be able to suggest something. It is such a
very nice, residential neighbourhood. I am sure you would like it. Let
me see—you are staying in Nelson Avenue, I think Mrs. Tredgold said?”
“Yes—with Mrs. Budge at Fairview.”
“I am sure she makes you comfortable. Such a nice woman, though I’m
afraid she never stops talking. Hasn’t she got any ideas on the subject?
I’m sure if there’s any news going about, Mrs. Budge never fails to get
hold of it.”
“Well,” said Miss Climpson, seizing the opening with a swiftness which
would have done credit to Napoleon, “she did say something about a house
in Wellington Avenue which she thought might be to let before long.”
“Wellington Avenue? You surprise me! I thought I knew almost everybody
there. Could it be the Parfitts—really moving at last! They have been
talking about it for at least seven years, and I really had begun to
think it was _all talk_. Mrs. Peasgood, do you hear that? Miss Climpson
says the Parfitts are really leaving that house at last!”
“Bless me,” cried Mrs. Peasgood, raising her rather prominent eyes from
a piece of plain needlework and focusing them on Miss Climpson like a
pair of opera-glasses. “Well, that _is_ news. It must be that brother of
hers who was staying with them last week. Possibly he is going to live
with them permanently, and that would clinch the matter, of course, for
they couldn’t get on without another bedroom when the girls come home
from school. A very sensible arrangement, I should think. I believe he
is quite well off, you know, and it will be a very good thing for those
children. I wonder where they will go. I expect it will be one of the
new houses out on the Winchester Road, though of course that would mean
keeping a car. Still, I expect he would want them to do that in any
case. Most likely he will have it himself, and let them have the use of
it.”
“I don’t think Parfitt was the name,” broke in Miss Climpson hurriedly,
“I’m sure it wasn’t. It was a Miss somebody—a Miss Whittaker, I think,
Mrs. Budge mentioned.”
“Miss Whittaker?” cried both the ladies in chorus. “Oh, no! _surely_
not?”
“I’m sure Miss Whittaker would have told me if she thought of giving up
her house,” pursued Miss Murgatroyd. “We are such great friends. I think
Mrs. Budge must have run away with a wrong idea. People do build up such
amazing stories out of nothing at all.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” put in Mrs. Peasgood, rebukingly. “There
_may_ be something in it. I know dear Miss Whittaker has sometimes
spoken to me about wishing to take up chicken-farming. I daresay she has
not mentioned the matter _generally_, but then she always confides in
_me_. Depend on it, that is what she intends to do.”
“Mrs. Budge didn’t actually say Miss Whittaker was moving,” interposed
Miss Climpson. “She said, I think, that Miss Whittaker had been left
alone by some relation’s death, and she wouldn’t be surprised if she
found the house lonely.”
“Ah! that’s Mrs. Budge all over!” said Mrs. Peasgood, nodding ominously.
“A most excellent woman, but she sometimes gets hold of the wrong end of
the stick. Not but what I’ve often thought the same thing myself. I said
to poor Mary Whittaker only the other day, ‘Don’t you find it very
lonely in that house, my dear, now that your poor dear Aunt is no more?’
I’m sure it would be a very good thing if she did move, or got someone
to live with her. It’s not a natural life for a young woman, all alone
like that, and so I told her. I’m one of those that believe in speaking
their mind, you know, Miss Climpson.”
“Well, now, so am I, Mrs. Peasgood,” rejoined Miss Climpson promptly,
“and that is what I said to Mrs. Budge at the time. I said, ‘Do I
understand that there was anything _odd_ about the old lady’s
death?’—because she had spoken of the _peculiar circumstances_ of the
case, and you know, I should not _at all like_ to live in a house which
could be called in any way _notorious_. I should really feel quite
_uncomfortable_ about it.” In saying which, Miss Climpson no doubt spoke
with perfect sincerity.
“But not at all—not at all,” cried Miss Murgatroyd, so eagerly that Mrs.
Peasgood, who had paused to purse up her face and assume an expression
of portentous secrecy before replying, was completely crowded out and
left at the post. “There never was a more wicked story. The death was
natural—perfectly natural, and a most happy release, poor soul, I’m
sure, for her sufferings at the last were truly terrible. It was all a
scandalous story put about by that young Dr. Carr (whom I’m sure I never
liked) simply to aggrandise himself. As though any doctor would
pronounce so definitely upon what exact date it would please God to call
a poor sufferer to Himself! Human pride and vanity make a most shocking
exhibition, Miss Climpson, when they lead us to cast suspicion on
innocent people, simply because we are wedded to our own presumptuous
opinions. Poor Miss Whittaker! She went through a most terrible time.
But it was proved—absolutely _proved_, that there was nothing in the
story at all, and I hope that young man was properly ashamed of
himself.”
“There may be two opinions about that, Miss Murgatroyd,” said Mrs.
Peasgood. “I say what I think, Miss Climpson, and in my opinion there
should have been an inquest. I try to be up-to-date, and I believe Dr.
Carr to have been a very able young man, though of course, he was not
the kind of old-fashioned family doctor that appeals to elderly people.
It was a great pity that nice Nurse Philliter was sent away—that woman
Forbes was no more use than a headache—to use my brother’s rather
vigorous expression. I don’t think she knew her job, and that’s a fact.”
“Nurse Forbes was a charming person,” snapped Miss Murgatroyd, pink with
indignation at being called elderly.
“That may be,” retorted Mrs. Peasgood, “but you can’t get over the fact
that she nearly killed herself one day by taking nine grains of calomel
by mistake for three. She told me that herself, and what she did in one
case she might do in another.”
“But Miss Dawson wasn’t given anything,” said Miss Murgatroyd, “and at
any rate, Nurse Forbes’ mind was on her patient, and not on flirting
with the doctor. I’ve always thought that Dr. Carr felt a spite against
her for taking his young woman’s place, and nothing would have pleased
him better than to get her into trouble.”
“You don’t mean,” said Miss Climpson, “that he would refuse a
certificate and cause all that trouble, just to annoy the nurse.
_Surely_ no doctor would dare to do that.”
“Of course not,” said Mrs. Peasgood, “and nobody with a grain of sense
would suppose it for a moment.”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Peasgood,” cried Miss Murgatroyd, “thank you
very much, I’m sure—”
“I say what I think,” said Mrs. Peasgood.
“Then I’m glad I haven’t such uncharitable thoughts,” said Miss
Murgatroyd.
“I don’t think your own observations are so remarkable for their
charity,” retorted Mrs. Peasgood.
Fortunately, at this moment Miss Murgatroyd, in her agitation, gave a
vicious tweak to the wrong needle and dropped twenty-nine stitches at
once. The Vicar’s wife, scenting battle from afar, hurried over with a
plate of scones, and helped to bring about a diversion. To her, Miss
Climpson, doggedly sticking to her mission in life, broached the subject
of the house in Wellington Avenue.
“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,” replied Mrs. Tredgold, “but there’s Miss
Whittaker just arrived. Come over to my corner and I’ll introduce her to
you, and you can have a nice chat about it. You will like each other so
much, she is such a keen worker. Oh! and Mrs. Peasgood, my husband is so
anxious to have a word with you about the choirboys’ social. He is
discussing it now with Mrs. Findlater. I wonder if you’d be so very good
as to come and give him your opinion? He values it so much.”
Thus tactfully the good lady parted the disputants and, having deposited
Mrs. Peasgood safely under the clerical wing, towed Miss Climpson away
to an arm-chair near the tea-table.
“Dear Miss Whittaker, I so want you to know Miss Climpson. She is a near
neighbour of yours—in Nelson Avenue, and I hope we shall persuade her to
make her home among us.”
“That will be delightful,” said Miss Whittaker.
The first impression which Miss Climpson got of Mary Whittaker was that
she was totally out of place among the tea-tables of S. Onesimus. With
her handsome, strongly-marked features and quiet air of authority, she
was of the type that “does well” in City offices. She had a pleasant and
self-possessed manner, and was beautifully tailored—not mannishly, and
yet with a severe fineness of outline that negatived the appeal of a
beautiful figure. With her long and melancholy experience of frustrated
womanhood, observed in a dreary succession of cheap boarding-houses,
Miss Climpson was able to dismiss one theory which had vaguely formed
itself in her mind. This was no passionate nature, cramped by
association with an old woman and eager to be free to mate before youth
should depart. _That_ look she knew well—she could diagnose it with
dreadful accuracy at the first glance, in the tone of a voice saying,
“How do you do?” But meeting Mary Whittaker’s clear, light eyes under
their well-shaped brows, she was struck by a sudden sense of
familiarity. She had seen that look before, though the where and the
when escaped her. Chatting volubly about her arrival in Leahampton, her
introduction to the Vicar and her approval of the Hampshire air and
sandy soil, Miss Climpson racked her shrewd brain for a clue. But the
memory remained obstinately somewhere at the back of her head. “It will
come to me in the night,” thought Miss Climpson, confidently, “and
meanwhile I won’t say anything about the house; it would seem so pushing
on a first acquaintance.”
Whereupon, fate instantly intervened to overthrow this prudent resolve,
and very nearly ruined the whole effect of Miss Climpson’s diplomacy at
one fell swoop.
The form which the avenging Erinyes assumed was that of the youngest
Miss Findlater—the gushing one—who came romping over to them, her hands
filled with baby-linen, and plumped down on the end of the sofa beside
Miss Whittaker.
“Mary my _dear_! Why didn’t you tell me? You really are going to start
your chicken-farming scheme at once. I’d no _idea_ you’d got on so far
with your plans. How _could_ you let me hear it first from somebody
else? You promised to tell me before anybody.”
“But I didn’t know it myself,” replied Miss Whittaker, coolly. “Who told
you this wonderful story?”
“Why, Mrs. Peasgood said that she heard it from . . .” Here Miss
Findlater was in a difficulty. She had not yet been introduced to Miss
Climpson and hardly knew how to refer to her before her face. “This
lady” was what a shop-girl would say; “Miss Climpson” would hardly do,
as she had, so to speak, no official cognisance of the name; “Mrs.
Budge’s new lodger” was obviously impossible in the circumstances. She
hesitated—then beamed a bright appeal at Miss Climpson, and said: “Our
new helper—may I introduce myself? I do _so_ detest formality, don’t
you, and to belong to the Vicarage work-party is a sort of introduction
in itself, don’t you think? Miss Climpson, I believe? How do you do? It
is true, isn’t it, Mary?—that you are letting your house to Miss
Climpson, and starting a poultry-farm at Alford.”
“Certainly not that I know of. Miss Climpson and I have only just met
one another.” The tone of Miss Whittaker’s voice suggested that the
first meeting might very willingly be the last so far as she was
concerned.
“Oh dear!” cried the youngest Miss Findlater, who was fair and bobbed
and rather coltish, “I believe I’ve dropped a brick. I’m _sure_ Mrs.
Peasgood understood that it was all settled.” She appealed to Miss
Climpson again.
“_Quite_ a mistake!” said that lady, energetically, “what _must_ you be
thinking of me, Miss Whittaker? _Of course_, I could not _possibly_ have
said such a thing. I only happened to mention—in the most _casual_ way,
that I was looking—that is, _thinking_ of looking about—for a house in
the neighbourhood of the Church—so convenient, you know, for _Early
Services_ and _Saints’ Days_—and it was suggested—just _suggested_, I
really forget by _whom_, that you _might_, just _possibly_, at _some_
time, consider letting your house. I assure you, that was _all_.” In
saying which, Miss Climpson was not wholly accurate or disingenuous, but
excused herself to her conscience on the rather jesuitical grounds that
where so much responsibility was floating about, it was best to pin it
down in the quarter which made for peace. “Miss Murgatroyd,” she added,
“put me right at once, for she said you were _certainly_ not thinking of
any such thing, or you would have told her before anybody else.”
Miss Whittaker laughed.
“But I shouldn’t,” she said, “I should have told my house-agent. It’s
quite true, I did have it in mind, but I certainly haven’t taken any
steps.”
“You really are thinking of doing it, then?” cried Miss Findlater. “I do
hope so—because, if you do, I mean to apply for a job on the farm! I’m
simply longing to get away from all these silly tennis-parties and
things, and live close to the Earth and the fundamental crudities. Do
you read Sheila Kaye-Smith?”
Miss Climpson said no, but she was very fond of Thomas Hardy.
“It really is terrible, living in a little town like this,” went on Miss
Findlater, “so full of aspidistras, you know, and small gossip. You’ve
no idea what a dreadfully gossipy place Leahampton is, Miss Climpson.
I’m sure, Mary dear, you must have had more than enough of it, with that
tiresome Dr. Carr and the things people said. I don’t wonder you’re
thinking of getting rid of that house. I shouldn’t think you could ever
feel comfortable in it again.”
“Why on earth not?” said Miss Whittaker, lightly. Too lightly? Miss
Climpson was startled to recognise in eye and voice the curious quick
defensiveness of the neglected spinster who cries out that she has no
use for men.
“Oh well,” said Miss Findlater, “I always think it’s a little sad,
living where people have died, you know. Dear Miss Dawson—though of
course it really was merciful that she should be released—all the same—”
Evidently, thought Miss Climpson, she was turning the matter off. The
atmosphere of suspicion surrounding the death had been in her mind, but
she shied at referring to it.
“There are very few houses in which somebody hasn’t died sometime or
other,” said Miss Whittaker. “I really can’t see why people should worry
about it. I suppose it’s just a question of not realising. We are not
sensitive to the past lives of people we don’t know. Just as we are much
less upset about epidemics and accidents that happen a long way off. Do
you really suppose, by the way, Miss Climpson, that this Chinese
business is coming to anything? Everybody seems to take it very
casually. If all this rioting and Bolshevism was happening in Hyde Park,
there’d be a lot more fuss made about it.”
Miss Climpson made a suitable reply. That night she wrote to Lord Peter:
Miss Whittaker has asked me to tea. She tells me that, _much as she
would enjoy_ an active, country life, with something definite to do,
she has a _deep affection_ for the house in Wellington Avenue, and
_cannot tear herself away_. She seems _very anxious_ to give this
impression. Would it be _fair_ for me to say “The lady doth protest
_too much_, methinks”? The _Prince of Denmark_ might even add: “Let
the galled jade wince”—if one can use that expression of a _lady_. How
wonderful Shakespeare is! One can _always_ find a phrase in his works
for _any_ situation!
CHAPTER VI
Found Dead
“_Blood, though it sleep a time, yet never dies._”
Chapman, _The Widow’s Tears_
“You know, Wimsey, I think you’ve found a mare’s nest,” objected Mr.
Parker. “I don’t believe there’s the slightest reason for supposing that
there was anything odd about the Dawson woman’s death. You’ve nothing to
go on but a conceited young doctor’s opinion and a lot of silly gossip.”
“You’ve got an official mind, Charles,” replied his friend. “Your
official passion for evidence is gradually sapping your brilliant
intellect and smothering your instincts. You’re over-civilised, that’s
your trouble. Compared with you, I am a child of nature. I dwell among
the untrodden ways beside the springs of Dove, a maid whom there are (I
am shocked to say) few to praise, likewise very few to love, which is
perhaps just as well. I _know_ there is something wrong about this
case.”
“How?”
“How?—well, just as I know there is something wrong about that case of
reputed Lafite ’76 which that infernal fellow Pettigrew-Robinson had the
nerve to try out on me the other night. It has a nasty flavour.”
“Flavour be damned. There’s no indication of violence or poison. There’s
no motive for doing away with the old girl. And there’s no possibility
of proving anything against anybody.”
Lord Peter selected a Villar y Villar from his case, and lighted it with
artistic care.
“Look here,” he said, “will you take a bet about it? I’ll lay you ten to
one that Agatha Dawson was murdered, twenty to one that Mary Whittaker
did it, and fifty to one that I bring it home to her within the year.
Are you on?”
Parker laughed. “I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” he temporised.
“There you are,” said Lord Peter, triumphantly, “you’re not comfortable
about it yourself. If you were, you’d have said, ‘It’s taking your
money, old chap,’ and closed like a shot, in the happy assurance of a
certainty.”
“I’ve seen enough to know that nothing is a certainty,” retorted the
detective, “but I’ll take you—in—half-crowns,” he added, cautiously.
“Had you said ponies,” replied Lord Peter, “I would have taken your
alleged poverty into consideration and spared you, but
seven-and-sixpence will neither make nor break you. Consequently, I
shall proceed to make my statements good.”
“And what step do you propose taking?” inquired Parker, sarcastically.
“Shall you apply for an exhumation order and search for poison,
regardless of the analyst’s report? Or kidnap Miss Whittaker and apply
the third-degree in the Gallic manner?”
“Not at all. I am more modern. I shall use up-to-date psychological
methods. Like the people in the Psalms, I lay traps; I catch men. I
shall let the alleged criminal convict herself.”
“Go on! You are a one, aren’t you?” said Parker, jeeringly.
“I am indeed. It is a well-established psychological fact that criminals
cannot let well alone. They—”
“Revisit the place of the crime?”
“Don’t interrupt, blast you. They take unnecessary steps to cover the
traces which they haven’t left, and so invite, seriatim, Suspicion,
Inquiry, Proof, Conviction and the Gallows. Eminent legal writers—no,
pax! don’t chuck that S. Augustine about, it’s valuable. Anyhow, not to
cast the jewels of my eloquence into the pig-bucket, I propose to insert
this advertisement in all the morning papers. Miss Whittaker must read
_some_ product of our brilliant journalistic age, I suppose. By this
means, we shall kill two birds with one stone.”
“Start two hares at once, you mean,” grumbled Parker. “Hand it over.”
“Bertha and Evelyn Gotobed, formerly in the service of Miss Agatha
Dawson, of ‘The Grove,’ Wellington Avenue, Leahampton, are requested
to communicate with J. Murbles, solicitor, of Staple Inn, when they
will hear of SOMETHING TO THEIR ADVANTAGE.”
“Rather good, I think, don’t you?” said Wimsey. “Calculated to rouse
suspicion in the most innocent mind. I bet you Mary Whittaker will fall
for that.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know. That’s what’s so interesting. I hope nothing unpleasant
will happen to dear old Murbles. I should hate to lose him. He’s such a
perfect type of the family solicitor. Still, a man in his profession
must be prepared to take risks.”
“Oh, bosh!” said Parker. “But I agree that it might be as well to get
hold of the girls, if you really want to find out about the Dawson
household. Servants always know everything.”
“It isn’t only that. Don’t you remember that Nurse Philliter said the
girls were sacked shortly before she left herself? Now, passing over the
odd circumstances of the Nurse’s own dismissal—the story about Miss
Dawson’s refusing to take food from her hands, which wasn’t at all borne
out by the old lady’s own attitude to her nurse—isn’t it worth
considerin’ that these girls should have been pushed off on some excuse
just about three weeks after one of those hysterical attacks of Miss
Dawson’s? Doesn’t it rather look as though everybody who was likely to
remember anything about that particular episode had been got out of the
way?”
“Well, there was a good reason for getting rid of the girls.”
“Crockery?—well, nowadays it’s not so easy to get good servants.
Mistresses put up with a deal more carelessness than they did in the
dear dead days beyond recall. Then, about that attack. Why did Miss
Whittaker choose just the very moment when the highly-intelligent Nurse
Philliter had gone for her walk, to bother Miss Dawson about signin’
some tiresome old lease or other? If business was liable to upset the
old girl, why not have a capable person at hand to calm her down?”
“Oh, but Miss Whittaker is a trained nurse. She was surely capable
enough to see to her aunt herself.”
“I’m perfectly sure she was a very capable woman indeed,” said Wimsey,
with emphasis.
“Oh, all right. You’re prejudiced. But stick the ad. in by all means. It
can’t do any harm.”
Lord Peter paused, in the very act of ringing the bell. His jaw
slackened, giving his long, narrow face a faintly foolish and hesitant
look, reminiscent of the heroes of Mr. P. G. Wodehouse.
“You don’t think—” he began. “Oh! rats!” He pressed the button. “It
_can’t_ do any harm, as you say. Bunter, see that this advertisement
appears in the personal columns of all this list of papers, every day
until further notice.”
The advertisement made its first appearance on the Tuesday morning.
Nothing of any note happened during the week, except that Miss Climpson
wrote in some distress to say that the youngest Miss Findlater had at
length succeeded in persuading Miss Whittaker to take definite steps
about the poultry farm. They had gone away together to look at a
business which they had seen advertised in the _Poultry News_, and
proposed to be away for some weeks. Miss Climpson feared that under the
circumstances she would not be able to carry on any investigations of
sufficient importance to justify her _far too generous_ salary. She had,
however, become friendly with Miss Findlater, who had promised to tell
her _all about_ their doings. Lord Peter replied in reassuring terms.
On the Tuesday following, Mr. Parker was just wrestling in prayer with
his charlady, who had a tiresome habit of boiling his breakfast kippers
till they resembled heavily pickled loofahs, when the telephone whirred
aggressively.
“Is that you, Charles?” asked Lord Peter’s voice. “I say, Murbles has
had a letter about that girl, Bertha Gotobed. She disappeared from her
lodgings last Thursday, and her landlady, getting anxious, and having
seen the advertisement, is coming to tell us all she knows. Can you come
round to Staple Inn at eleven?”
“Dunno,” said Parker, a little irritably. “I’ve got a job to see to.
Surely you can tackle it by yourself.”
“Oh, yes!” The voice was peevish. “But I thought you’d like to have some
of the fun. What an ungrateful devil you are. You aren’t taking the
faintest interest in this case.”
“Well—I don’t believe in it, you know. All right—don’t use language like
that—you’ll frighten the girl at the Exchange. I’ll see what I can do.
Eleven?—right!—Oh, I say!”
“Cluck!” said the telephone.
“Rung off,” said Parker, bitterly. “Bertha Gotobed. H’m! I could have
sworn—”
He reached across to the breakfast-table for the _Daily Yell_, which was
propped against the marmalade jar, and read with pursed lips a paragraph
whose heavily leaded headlines had caught his eye, just before the
interruption of the kipper episode.
“NIPPY” FOUND DEAD
IN EPPING FOREST
—
£5 Note in Hand-bag.
—
He took up the receiver again and asked for Wimsey’s number. The
man-servant answered him.
“His lordship is in his bath, sir. Shall I put you through?”
“Please,” said Parker.
The telephone clucked again. Presently Lord Peter’s voice came faintly,
“Hullo!”
“Did the landlady mention where Bertha Gotobed was employed?”
“Yes—she was a waitress at the Corner House. Why this interest all of a
sudden? You snub me in my bed, but you woo me in my bath. It sounds like
a music-hall song of the less refined sort. Why, oh why?”
“Haven’t you seen the papers?”
“No. I leave those follies till breakfast-time. What’s up? Are we
ordered to Shanghai? or have they taken sixpence off the income-tax?”
“Shut up, you fool, it’s serious. You’re too late.”
“What for?”
“Bertha Gotobed was found dead in Epping Forest this morning.”
“Good God! Dead? How? What of?”
“No idea. Poison or something. Or heart failure. No violence. No
robbery. No clue. I’m going down to the Yard about it now.”
“God forgive me, Charles. D’you know, I had a sort of awful feeling when
you said that ad. could do no harm. Dead. Poor girl! Charles, I feel
like a murderer. Oh, damn! and I’m all wet. It does make one feel so
helpless. Look here, you spin down to the Yard and tell ’em what you
know and I’ll join you there in half a tick. Anyway, there’s no doubt
about it now.”
“Oh, but, look here. It may be something quite different. Nothing to do
with your ad.”
“Pigs _may_ fly. Use your common sense. Oh! and Charles, does it mention
the sister?”
“Yes. There was a letter from her on the body, by which they identified
it. She got married last month and went to Canada.”
“That’s saved her life. She’ll be in absolutely horrible danger, if she
comes back. We must get hold of her and warn her. And find out what she
knows. Good-bye. I _must_ get some clothes on. Oh, hell!”
Cluck! the line went dead again, and Mr. Parker, abandoning the kippers
without regret, ran feverishly out of the house and down Lamb’s Conduit
Street to catch a diver tram to Westminster.
The Chief of Scotland Yard, Sir Andrew Mackenzie, was a very old friend
of Lord Peter’s. He received that agitated young man kindly and listened
with attention to his slightly involved story of cancer, wills,
mysterious solicitors and advertisements in the agony column.
“It’s a curious coincidence,” he said, indulgently, “and I can
understand your feeling upset about it. But you may set your mind at
rest. I have the police-surgeon’s report, and he is quite convinced that
the death was perfectly natural. No signs whatever of any assault. They
will make an examination, of course, but I don’t think there is the
slightest reason to suspect foul play.”
“But what was she doing in Epping Forest?”
Sir Andrew shrugged gently.
“That must be inquired into, of course. Still—young people _do_ wander
about, you know. There’s a fiancé somewhere. Something to do with the
railway, I believe. Collins has gone down to interview him. Or she may
have been with some other friend.”
“But if the death was natural, no one would leave a sick or dying girl
like that?”
“_You_ wouldn’t. But say there had been some running about—some
horse-play—and the girl fell dead, as these heart cases sometimes do.
The companion may well have taken fright and cleared out. It’s not
unheard of.”
Lord Peter looked unconvinced.
“How long has she been dead?”
“About five or six days, our man thinks. It was quite by accident that
she was found then at all; it’s quite an unfrequented part of the
Forest. A party of young people were exploring with a couple of
terriers, and one of the dogs nosed out the body.”
“Was it out in the open?”
“Not exactly. It lay among some bushes—the sort of place where a
frolicsome young couple might go to play hide-and-seek.”
“Or where a murderer might go to play hide and let the police seek,”
said Wimsey.
“Well, well. Have it your own way,” said Sir Andrew, smiling. “If it was
murder, it must have been a poisoning job, for, as I say, there was not
the slightest sign of a wound or a struggle. I’ll let you have the
report of the autopsy. In the meanwhile, if you’d like to run down there
with Inspector Parker, you can of course have any facilities you want.
And if you discover anything, let me know.”
Wimsey thanked him, and collecting Parker from an adjacent office,
rushed him briskly down the corridor.
“I don’t like it,” he said, “that is, of course, it’s very gratifying to
know that our first steps in psychology have led to action, so to speak,
but I wish to God it hadn’t been quite such decisive action. We’d better
trot down to Epping straight away, and see the landlady later. I’ve got
a new car, by the way, which you’ll like.”
Mr. Parker took one look at the slim black monster, with its long rakish
body and polished-copper twin exhausts, and decided there and then that
the only hope of getting down to Epping without interference was to look
as official as possible and wave his police authority under the eyes of
every man in blue along the route. He shoe-horned himself into his seat
without protest, and was more unnerved than relieved to find himself
shoot suddenly ahead of the traffic—not with the bellowing roar of the
ordinary racing engine, but in a smooth, uncanny silence.
“The new Daimler Twin-Six,” said Lord Peter, skimming dexterously round
a lorry without appearing to look at it. “With a racing body. Specially
built . . . useful . . . gadgets . . . no row—hate row . . . like Edmund
Sparkler . . . very anxious there should be no row . . . Little
Dorrit . . . remember . . . call her Mrs. Merdle . . . for that
reason . . . presently we’ll see what she can do.”
The promise was fulfilled before their arrival at the spot where the
body had been found. Their arrival made a considerable sensation among
the little crowd which business or curiosity had drawn to the spot. Lord
Peter was instantly pounced upon by four reporters and a synod of Press
photographers, whom his presence encouraged in the hope that the mystery
might turn out to be a three-column splash after all. Parker, to his
annoyance, was photographed in the undignified act of extricating
himself from “Mrs. Merdle.” Superintendent Walmisley came politely to
his assistance, rebuked the onlookers, and led him to the scene of
action.
The body had been already removed to the mortuary, but a depression in
the moist ground showed clearly enough where it had lain. Lord Peter
groaned faintly as he saw it.
“Damn this nasty warm spring weather,” he said, with feeling. “April
showers—sun and water—couldn’t be worse. Body much altered,
Superintendent?”
“Well, yes, rather, my lord, especially in the exposed parts. But
there’s no doubt about the identity.”
“I didn’t suppose there was. How was it lying?”
“On the back, quite quiet and natural-like. No disarrangement of
clothing, or anything. She must just have sat down when she felt herself
bad and fallen back.”
“M’m. The rain has spoilt any footprints or signs on the ground. And
it’s grassy. Beastly stuff, grass, eh, Charles?”
“Yes. These twigs don’t seem to have been broken at all,
Superintendent.”
“Oh, no,” said the officer, “no signs of a struggle, as I pointed out in
my report.”
“No—but if she’d sat down here and fallen back as you suggest, don’t you
think her weight would have snapped some of these young shoots?”
The Superintendent glanced sharply at the Scotland Yard man.
“You don’t suppose she was brought and put here, do you, sir?”
“I don’t suppose anything,” retorted Parker, “I merely drew attention to
a point which I think you should consider. What are these wheel-marks?”
“That’s our car, sir. We backed it up here and took her up that way.”
“And all this trampling is your men too, I suppose?”
“Partly that, sir, and partly the party as found her.”
“You noticed no other person’s tracks, I suppose?”
“No, sir. But it’s rained considerably this last week. Besides, the
rabbits have been all over the place, as you can see, and other
creatures too, I fancy. Weasels, or something of that sort.”
“Oh! Well, I think you’d better take a look round. There might be traces
of some kind a bit further away. Make a circle, and report anything you
see. And you oughtn’t to have let all that bunch of people get so near.
Put a cordon round and tell ’em to move on. Have you seen all you want,
Peter?”
Wimsey had been poking his stick aimlessly into the bole of an oak-tree
at a few yards’ distance. Now he stooped and lifted out a package which
had been stuffed into a cleft. The two policemen hurried forward with
eager interest, which evaporated somewhat at sight of the find—a ham
sandwich and an empty Bass bottle, roughly wrapped up in a greasy
newspaper.
“Picnickers,” said Walmisley, with a snort. “Nothing to do with the
body, I daresay.”
“I think you’re mistaken,” said Wimsey, placidly. “When did the girl
disappear, exactly?”
“Well, she went off duty at the Corner House at five a week ago
to-morrow, that’s Wednesday, 27th,” said Parker.
“And this is the _Evening Views_ of Wednesday, 27th,” said Wimsey. “Late
Final edition. Now that edition isn’t on the streets till about 6
o’clock. So unless somebody brought it down and had supper here, it was
probably brought by the girl herself or her companion. It’s hardly
likely anyone would come and picnic here afterwards, not with the body
there. Not that bodies need necessarily interfere with one’s enjoyment
of one’s food. À la guerre comme à la guerre. But for the moment there
isn’t a war on.”
“That’s true, sir. But you’re assuming the death took place on the
Wednesday or Thursday. She may have been somewhere else—living with
someone in town or anywhere.”
“Crushed again,” said Wimsey. “Still, it’s a curious coincidence.”
“It is, my lord, and I’m very glad you found the things. Will you take
charge of ’em, Mr. Parker, or shall I?”
“Better take them along and put them with the other things,” said
Parker, extending his hand to take them from Wimsey, whom they seemed to
interest quite disproportionately. “I fancy his lordship’s right and
that the parcel came here along with the girl. And that certainly looks
as if she didn’t come alone. Possibly that young man of hers was with
her. Looks like the old, old story. Take care of that bottle, old man,
it may have finger-prints on it.”
“You can have the bottle,” said Wimsey. “May we ne’er lack a friend or a
bottle to give him, as Dick Swiveller says. But I earnestly beg that
before you caution your respectable young railway clerk that anything he
says may be taken down and used against him, you will cast your eye, and
your nose, upon this ham sandwich.”
“What’s wrong with it?” inquired Parker.
“Nothing. It appears to be in astonishingly good preservation, thanks to
this admirable oak-tree. The stalwart oak—for so many centuries
Britain’s bulwark against the invader! Heart of oak are our ships—not
hearts, by the way, as it is usually misquoted. But I am puzzled by the
incongruity between the sandwich and the rest of the outfit.”
“It’s an ordinary ham sandwich, isn’t it?”
“Oh, gods of the wine-flask and the board, how long? how long?—it is a
ham sandwich, Goth, but not an ordinary one. Never did it see Lyons’
kitchen, or the counter of the multiple store or the delicatessen shop
in the back street. The pig that was sacrificed to make this dainty
titbit fattened in no dull style, never knew the daily ration of
pig-wash or the not unmixed rapture of the domestic garbage-pail.
Observe the hard texture, the deep brownish tint of the lean; the rich
fat, yellow as a Chinaman’s cheek; the dark spot where the black treacle
cure has soaked in, to make a dish fit to lure Zeus from Olympus. And
tell me, man of no discrimination and worthy to be fed on boiled cod all
the year round, tell me how it comes that your little waitress and her
railway clerk come down to Epping Forest to regale themselves on
sandwiches made from coal-black, treacle-cured Bradenham ham, which long
ago ran as a young wild boar about the woodlands, till death translated
it to an incorruptible and more glorious body? I may add that it costs
about 3s. a pound uncooked—an argument which you will allow to be
weighty.”
“That’s odd, certainly,” said Parker. “I imagine that only rich people—”
“Only rich people or people who understand eating as a fine art,” said
Wimsey. “The two classes are by no means identical, though they
occasionally overlap.”
“It may be very important,” said Parker, wrapping the exhibits up
carefully. “We’d better go along now and see the body.”
The examination was not a very pleasant matter, for the weather had been
damp and warm and there had certainly been weasels. In fact, after a
brief glance, Wimsey left the two policemen to carry on alone, and
devoted his attention to the dead girl’s handbag. He glanced through the
letter from Evelyn Gotobed—(now Evelyn Cropper)——and noted down the
Canadian address. He turned the cutting of his own advertisement out of
an inner compartment, and remained for some time in consideration of the
£5 note which lay, folded up, side by side with a 10_s._ Treasury note,
7_s._, 8_d._ in silver and copper, a latch-key and a powder compacte.
“You’re having this note traced, Walmisley, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, my lord, certainly.”
“And the latch-key, I imagine, belongs to the girl’s lodgings.”
“No doubt it does. We have asked her landlady to come and identify the
body. Not that there’s any doubt about it, but just as a matter of
routine. She may give us some help. Ah!”—the Superintendent peered out
of the mortuary door—“I think this must be the lady.”
The stout and motherly woman who emerged from a taxi in charge of a
youthful policeman identified the body without difficulty, and amid many
sobs, as that of Bertha Gotobed. “Such a nice young lady,” she mourned.
“What a terrible thing, oh, dear! who would go to do a thing like that?
I’ve been in such a state of worriment ever since she didn’t come home
last Wednesday. I’m sure many’s the time I’ve said to myself I wished
I’d had my tongue cut out before I ever showed her that wicked
advertisement. Ah, I see you’ve got it there, sir. A dreadful thing it
is that people should be luring young girls away with stories about
something to their advantage. A sinful old devil—calling himself a
lawyer, too! When she didn’t come back and didn’t come back I wrote to
the wretch, telling him I was on his track and was coming round to have
the law on him as sure as my name’s Dorcas Gulliver. He wouldn’t have
got round me—not that I’d be the bird he was looking for, being
sixty-one come Mid-Summer Day—and so I told him.”
Lord Peter’s gravity was somewhat upset by this diatribe against the
highly respectable Mr. Murbles of Staple Inn, whose own version of Mrs.
Gulliver’s communication had been decently expurgated. “How shocked the
old boy must have been,” he murmured to Parker. “I’m for it next time I
see him.”
Mrs. Gulliver’s voice moaned on and on.
“Such respectable girls, both of them, and Miss Evelyn married to that
nice young man from Canada. Deary me, it will be a terrible upset for
her. And there’s poor John Ironsides, was to have married Miss Bertha,
the poor lamb, this very Whitsuntide as ever is. A very steady,
respectable man—a clurk on the Southern, which he always used to say,
joking like, ‘Slow but safe, like the Southern—that’s me, Mrs. G.’ T’ch,
t’ch—who’d a’ believed it? And it’s not as if she was one of the flighty
sort. I give her a latch-key gladly, for she’d sometimes be on late
duty, but never any staying out after her time. That’s why it worried me
so, her not coming back. There’s many nowadays as would wash one’s hands
and glad to be rid of them, knowing what they might be up to. No. When
the time passed and she didn’t come back, I said, Mark my words, I said,
she’s bin kidnapped, I said, by that Murbles.”
“Had she been long with you, Mrs. Gulliver?” asked Parker.
“Not above a fifteen month or so, she hadn’t, but bless you, I don’t
have to know a young lady fifteen days to know if she’s a good girl or
not. You gets to know by the look of ’em almost, when you’ve ’ad my
experience.”
“Did she and her sister come to you together?”
“They did. They come to me when they was lookin’ for work in London. And
they could a’ fallen into a deal worse hands I can tell you, two young
things from the country, and them that fresh and pretty looking.”
“They were uncommonly lucky, I’m sure, Mrs. Gulliver,” said Lord Peter,
“and they must have found it a great comfort to be able to confide in
you and get your good advice.”
“Well, I think they did,” said Mrs. Gulliver, “not that young people
nowadays seems to want much guidance from them as is older. Train up a
child and away she go, as the Good Book says. But Miss Evelyn, that’s
now Mrs. Cropper—she’d had this London idea put into her head, and up
they comes with the idea of bein’ made ladies of, havin’ only been in
service before, though what’s the difference between serving in one of
them tea-shops at the beck of all the nasty tagrag and bobtail and
serving in a lady’s home, I _don’t_ see, except that you works harder
and don’t get your meals so comfortable. Still, Miss Evelyn, she was
always the go-ahead one of the two, and she did very well for herself, I
will say, meetin’ Mr. Cropper as used to take his breakfast regular at
the Corner House every morning and took a liking to the girl in the most
honourable way.”
“That was very fortunate. Have you any idea what gave them the notion of
coming to town?”
“Well, now, sir, it’s funny you should ask that, because it was a thing
I never could understand. The lady as they used to be in service with,
down in the country, she put it into Miss Evelyn’s head. Now, sir,
wouldn’t you think that with good service that ’ard to come by, she’d
have done all she could to keep them with her? But no! There was a bit
of trouble one day, it seems, over Bertha—this poor girl here, poor
lamb—it do break one’s ’eart to see her like that, don’t it, sir?—over
Bertha ’avin’ broke an old teapot—a very valuable one by all accounts,
and the lady told ’er she couldn’t put up with ’avin’ her things broke
no more. So she says: ‘You’ll ’ave to go,’ she says, ‘but,’ she says,
‘I’ll give you a very good character and you’ll soon get a good place.
And I expect Evelyn’ll want to go with you,’ she says, ‘so I’ll have to
find someone else to do for me,’ she says. ‘But,’ she says, ‘why not go
to London? You’ll do better there and have a much more interesting life
than what you would at home,’ she says. And the end of it was, she
filled ’em up so with stories of how fine a place London was and how
grand situations was to be had for the asking, that they was mad to go,
and she give them a present of money and behaved very handsome, take it
all round.”
“H’m,” said Wimsey, “she seems to have been very particular about her
teapot. Was Bertha a great crockery-breaker?”
“Well, sir, she never broke nothing of mine. But this Miss
Whittaker—that was the name—she was one of these opinionated ladies, as
will ’ave their own way in everythink. A fine temper she ’ad, or so poor
Bertha said, though Miss Evelyn—her as is now Mrs. Cropper—_she_ always
’ad an idea as there was somethink at the back of it. Miss Evelyn was
always the sharp one, as you might say. But there, sir, we all ’as our
peculiarities, don’t we? It’s my own belief as the lady had somebody of
her own choice as she wanted to put in the place of Bertha—that’s this
one—and Evelyn—as is now Mrs. Cropper, you understand me—and she jest
trampled up an excuse, as they say, to get rid of ’em.”
“Very possibly,” said Wimsey. “I suppose, Inspector, Evelyn Gotobed—”
“Now Mrs. Cropper,” put in Mrs. Gulliver with a sob.
“Mrs. Cropper, I should say—has been communicated with?”
“Oh, yes, my lord. We cabled her at once.”
“Good. I wish you’d let me know when you hear from her.”
“We shall be in touch with Inspector Parker, my lord, of course.”
“Of course. Well, Charles, I’m going to leave you to it. I’ve got a
telegram to send. Or will you come with me?”
“Thanks, no,” said Parker. “To be frank, I don’t like your methods of
driving. Being in the Force, I prefer to keep on the windy side of the
law.”
“Windy is the word for you,” said Peter. “I’ll see you in Town, then.”
CHAPTER VII
Ham and Brandy
“_Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are._”
Brillat-Savarin
“Well,” said Wimsey, as Parker was ushered in that same evening by
Bunter, “have you got anything fresh?”
“Yes, I’ve got a new theory of the crime, which knocks yours into a
cocked hat. I’ve got evidence to support it, too.”
“Which crime, by the way?”
“Oh, the Epping Forest business. I don’t believe the old Dawson person
was murdered at all. That’s just an idea of yours.”
“I see. And you’re now going to tell me that Bertha Gotobed was got hold
of by the White Slave people.”
“How did you know?” asked Parker, a little peevishly.
“Because Scotland Yard have two maggots which crop up whenever anything
happens to a young woman. Either it’s White Slavery or Dope
Dens—sometimes both. You are going to say it’s both.”
“Well, I was, as a matter of fact. It so often is, you know. We’ve
traced the £5 note.”
“That’s important, anyhow.”
“Yes. It seems to me to be the clue to the whole thing. It is one of a
series paid out to a Mrs. Forrest, living in South Audley Street. I’ve
been round to make some inquiries.”
“Did you see the lady?”
“No, she was out. She usually is, I’m told. In fact, her habits seem to
be expensive, irregular and mysterious. She has an elegantly furnished
flat over a flower-shop.”
“A service flat?”
“No. One of the quiet kind, with a lift you work yourself. She only
turns up occasionally, mostly in the evenings, spends a night or two and
departs. Food ordered in from Fortnum and Mason’s. Bills paid promptly
by note or cheque. Cleaning done by an elderly female who comes in about
eleven, by which time Mrs. Forrest has usually gone out.”
“Doesn’t anybody ever see her?”
“Oh dear, yes! The people in the flat below and the girl at the
flower-shop were able to give me quite a good description of her. Tall,
over-dressed, musquash and those abbreviated sort of shoes with jewelled
heels and hardly any uppers—you know the sort of thing. Heavily
peroxided; strong aroma of origan wafted out upon the passer-by; powder
too white for the fashion and mouth heavily obscured with sealing-wax
red; eyebrows painted black to startle, not deceive; finger-nails a
monument to Kraska—the pink variety.”
“I’d no idea you studied the Woman’s Page to such good purpose,
Charles.”
“Drives a Renault Four-seater, dark green with tapestry doings. Garages
just round the corner. I’ve seen the man, and he says the car was out on
the night of the 27th. Went out at 11:30. Returned about 8 the next
morning.”
“How much petrol had been used?”
“We worked that out. Just about enough for a run to Epping and back.
What’s more, the charwoman says that there had been supper for two in
the flat that night, and three bottles of champagne drunk. Also, there
is a ham in the flat.”
“A Bradenham ham?”
“How do you expect the charwoman to know that? But I think it probably
is, as I find from Fortnum & Mason’s that a Bradenham ham was delivered
to Mrs. Forrest’s address about a fortnight ago.”
“That sounds conclusive. I take it you think Bertha Gotobed was
inveigled there for some undesirable purpose by Mrs. Forrest, and had
supper with her—”
“No; I should think there was a man.”
“Yes, of course. Mrs. F. brings the parties together and leaves them to
it. The poor girl is made thoroughly drunk—and then something untoward
happens.”
“Yes—shock, perhaps, or a shot of dope.”
“And they bustle her off and get rid of her. It’s quite possible. The
post-mortem may tell us something about it. Yes, Bunter, what is it?”
“The telephone, my lord, for Mr. Parker.”
“Excuse me,” said Parker, “I asked the people at the flower-shop to ring
me up here, if Mrs. Forrest came in. If she’s there, would you like to
come round with me?”
“Very much.”
Parker returned from the telephone with an air of subdued triumph.
“She’s just gone up to her flat. Come along. We’ll take a taxi—not that
death-rattle of yours. Hurry up, I don’t want to miss her.”
The door of the flat in South Audley Street was opened by Mrs. Forrest
in person. Wimsey recognised her instantly from the description. On
seeing Parker’s card, she made no objection whatever to letting them in,
and led the way into a pink and mauve sitting-room, obviously furnished
by contract from a Regent Street establishment.
“Please sit down. Will you smoke? And your friend?”
“My colleague, Mr. Templeton,” said Parker, promptly.
Mrs. Forrest’s rather hard eyes appeared to sum up in a practised manner
the difference between Parker’s seven-guinea “fashionable lounge
suiting, tailored in our own workrooms, fits like a made-to-measure
suit,” and his “colleague’s” Savile Row outlines, but beyond a slight
additional defensiveness of manner she showed no disturbance. Parker
noted the glance. “She’s summing us up professionally,” was his mental
comment, “and she’s not quite sure whether Wimsey’s an outraged brother
or husband or what. Never mind. Let her wonder. We may get her rattled.”
“We are engaged, Madam,” he began, with formal severity, “on an inquiry
relative to certain events connected with the 26th of last month. I
think you were in Town at that time?”
Mrs. Forrest frowned slightly in the effort to recollect. Wimsey made a
mental note that she was not as young as her bouffant apple-green frock
made her appear. She was certainly nearing the thirties, and her eyes
were mature and aware.
“Yes, I think I was. Yes, certainly. I was in Town for several days
about that time. How can I help you?”
“It is a question of a certain bank-note which has been traced to your
possession,” said Parker, “a £5 note numbered x/y58929. It was issued to
you by Lloyds Bank in payment of a cheque on the 19th.”
“Very likely. I can’t say I remember the number, but I think I cashed a
cheque about that time. I can tell in a moment by my cheque-book.”
“I don’t think it’s necessary. But it would help us very much if you can
recollect to whom you paid it.”
“Oh, I see. Well, that’s rather difficult. I paid my dressmaker’s about
that time—no, that was by cheque. I paid cash to the garage, I know, and
I think there was a £5 note in that. Then I dined at Verry’s with a
woman friend—that took the second £5 note, I remember, but there was a
third. I drew out £25—three fives and ten ones. Where did the third note
go? Oh, of course, how stupid of me! I put it on a horse.”
“Through a Commission Agent?”
“No. I had nothing much to do one day, so I went down to Newmarket. I
put the £5 on some creature called Brighteye or Attaboy or some name
like that, at 50 to 1. Of course the wretched animal didn’t win, they
never do. A man in the train gave me the tip and wrote the name down for
me. I handed it to the nearest bookie I saw—a funny little grey-haired
man with a hoarse voice—and that was the last I saw of it.”
“Could you remember which day it was?”
“I think it was Saturday. Yes, I’m sure it was.”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Forrest. It will be a great help if we can
trace those notes. One of them has turned up since in—other
circumstances.”
“May I know what the circumstances are, or is it an official secret?”
Parker hesitated. He rather wished now, that he had demanded point-blank
at the start how Mrs. Forrest’s £5 note had come to be found on the dead
body of the waitress at Epping. Taken by surprise, the woman might have
got flustered. Now, he had let her entrench herself securely behind this
horse story. Impossible to follow up the history of a bank-note handed
to an unknown bookie at a race-meeting. Before he could speak, Wimsey
broke in for the first time, in a high, petulant voice which quite took
his friend aback.
“You’re not getting anywhere with all this,” he complained. “I don’t
care a continental curse about the beastly note, and I’m sure Sylvia
doesn’t.”
“Who is Sylvia?” demanded Mrs. Forrest with considerable amazement.
“Who is Sylvia? What is she?” gabbled Wimsey, irrepressibly.
“Shakespeare always has the right word, hasn’t he? But, God bless my
soul, it’s no laughing matter. It’s very serious and you’ve no business
to laugh at it. Sylvia is very much upset, and the doctor is afraid it
may have an effect on her heart. You may not know it, Mrs. Forrest, but
Sylvia Lyndhurst is my cousin. And what she wants to know, and what we
all want to know—don’t interrupt me, Inspector, all this
shilly-shallying doesn’t get us anywhere—I want to know, Mrs. Forrest,
who was it dining here with you on the night of April 26th. Who was it?
Who was it? Can you tell me that?”
This time, Mrs. Forrest was visibly taken aback. Even under the thick
coat of powder they could see the red flush up into her cheeks and ebb
away, while her eyes took on an expression of something more than
alarm—a kind of vicious fury, such as one may see in those of a cornered
cat.
“On the 26th?” she faltered. “I can’t—”
“I knew it!” cried Wimsey. “And that girl Evelyn was sure of it too. Who
was it, Mrs. Forrest? Answer me that!”
“There—there was no one,” said Mrs. Forrest, with a thick gasp.
“Oh, come, Mrs. Forrest, think again,” said Parker, taking his cue
promptly, “you aren’t going to tell us that you accounted by yourself
for three bottles of Veuve Clicquot and two people’s dinners.”
“Not forgetting the ham,” put in Wimsey, with fussy self-importance,
“the Bradenham ham specially cooked and sent up by Fortnum & Mason. Now,
Mrs. Forrest—”
“Wait a moment. Just a moment. I’ll tell you everything.”
The woman’s hands clutched at the pink silk cushions, making little hot,
tight creases. “I—would you mind getting me something to drink? In the
dining-room, through there—on the sideboard.”
Wimsey got up quickly and disappeared into the next room. He took rather
a long time, Parker thought. Mrs. Forrest was lying back in a collapsed
attitude, but her breathing was more controlled, and she was, he
thought, recovering her wits. “Making up a story,” he muttered savagely
to himself. However, he could not, without brutality, press her at the
moment.
Lord Peter, behind the folding doors, was making a good deal of noise,
chinking the glasses and fumbling about. However, before very long, he
was back.
“’Scuse my taking such a time,” he apologised, handing Mrs. Forrest a
glass of brandy and soda. “Couldn’t find the syphon. Always was a bit
wool-gathering, y’know. All my friends say so. Starin’ me in the face
all the time, what? And then I sloshed a lot of soda on the sideboard.
Hand shakin’. Nerves all to pieces and so on. Feelin’ better? That’s
right. Put it down. That’s the stuff to pull you together. How about
another little one, what? Oh, rot, it can’t hurt you. Mind if I have one
myself? I’m feelin’ a bit flustered. Upsettin’, delicate business and
all that. Just another spot. That’s the idea.”
He trotted out again, glass in hand, while Parker fidgeted. The presence
of amateur detectives was sometimes an embarrassment. Wimsey clattered
in again, this time, with more common sense, bringing decanter, syphon
and three glasses, bodily, on a tray.
“Now, now,” said Wimsey, “now we’re feeling better, do you think you can
answer our question, Mrs. Forrest?”
“May I know, first of all, what right you have to ask it?”
Parker shot an exasperated glance at his friend. This came of giving
people time to think.
“Right?” burst in Wimsey. “Right? Of course, we’ve a right. The police
have a right to ask questions when anything’s the matter. Here’s murder
the matter! Right, indeed?”
“Murder?”
A curious intent look came into her eyes. Parker could not place it, but
Wimsey recognised it instantly. He had seen it last on the face of a
great financier as he took up his pen to sign a contract. Wimsey had
been called to witness the signature, and had refused. It was a contract
that ruined thousands of people. Incidentally, the financier had been
murdered soon after, and Wimsey had declined to investigate the matter,
with a sentence from Dumas: “Let pass the justice of God.”
“I’m afraid,” Mrs. Forrest was saying, “that in that case I can’t help
you. I _did_ have a friend dining with me on the 26th, but he has not,
so far as I know, been murdered, nor has he murdered anybody.”
“It was a man, then?” said Parker.
Mrs. Forrest bowed her head with a kind of mocking ruefulness. “I live
apart from my husband,” she murmured.
“I am sorry,” said Parker, “to have to press for this gentleman’s name
and address.”
“Isn’t that asking rather much? Perhaps if you would give me further
details—”
“Well, you see,” cut in Wimsey again, “if we could just know for certain
it wasn’t Lyndhurst. My cousin is so frightfully upset, as I said, and
that Evelyn girl is making trouble. In fact—of course one doesn’t want
it to go any further—but actually Sylvia lost her head very completely.
She made a savage attack on poor old Lyndhurst—with a revolver, in fact,
only fortunately she is a shocking bad shot. It went over his shoulder
and broke a vase—most distressin’ thing—a Famille Rose jar, worth
thousands—and of course it was smashed to atoms. Sylvia is really hardly
responsible when she’s in a temper. And, we thought, as Lyndhurst was
actually traced to this block of flats—if you could give us definite
proof it wasn’t him, it might calm her down and prevent murder being
done, don’t you know. Because, though they might call it Guilty but
Insane, still, it would be awfully awkward havin’ one’s cousin in
Broadmoor—a first cousin, and really a very nice woman, when she’s not
irritated.”
Mrs. Forrest gradually softened into a faint smile.
“I think I understand the position, Mr. Templeton,” she said, “and if I
give you a name, it will be in strict confidence, I presume?”
“Of course, of course,” said Wimsey. “Dear me, I’m sure it’s uncommonly
kind of you.”
“You’ll swear you aren’t spies of my husband’s?” she said, quickly. “I
am trying to divorce him. How do I know this isn’t a trap?”
“Madam,” said Wimsey, with intense gravity, “I swear to you on my honour
as a gentleman that I have not the slightest connection with your
husband. I have never even heard of him before.”
Mrs. Forrest shook her head.
“I don’t think, after all,” she said, “it would be much good my giving
you the name. In any case, if you asked him whether he’d been here, he
would say no, wouldn’t he? And if you’ve been sent by my husband, you’ve
got all the evidence you want already. But I give you my solemn
assurance, Mr. Templeton, that I know nothing about your friend, Mr.
Lyndhurst—”
“Major Lyndhurst,” put in Wimsey, plaintively.
“And if Mrs. Lyndhurst is not satisfied, and likes to come round and see
me, I will do my best to satisfy her of the fact. Will that do?”
“Thank you very much,” said Wimsey. “I’m sure it’s as much as any one
could expect. You’ll forgive my abruptness, won’t you? I’m
rather—er—nervously constituted, and the whole business is exceedingly
upsetting. _Good_ afternoon. Come on, Inspector, it’s quite all
right—you see it’s quite all right. I’m really very much
obliged—uncommonly so. Please don’t trouble to see us out.”
He teetered nervously down the narrow hall-way, in his imbecile and
well-bred way, Parker following with a policeman-like stiffness. No
sooner, however, had the flat-door closed behind them than Wimsey seized
his friend by the arm and bundled him helter-skelter into the lift.
“I thought we should never get away,” he panted. “Now quick—how do we
get round to the back of these flats?”
“What do you want with the back?” demanded Parker, annoyed. “And I wish
you wouldn’t stampede me like this. I’ve no business to let you come
with me on a job at all, and if I do, you might have the decency to keep
quiet.”
“Right you are,” said Wimsey, cheerfully, “just let’s do this little bit
and you can get all the virtuous indignation off your chest later on.
Round here, I fancy, up this back alley. Step lively and mind the
dust-bin. One, two, three, four—here we are! Just keep a look-out for
the passing stranger, will you?”
Selecting a back window which he judged to belong to Mrs. Forrest’s
flat, Wimsey promptly grasped a drain-pipe and began to swarm up it with
the agility of a cat-burglar. About fifteen feet from the ground he
paused, reached up, and appeared to detach something with a quick jerk,
and then slid very gingerly to the ground again, holding his right hand
at a cautious distance from his body, as though it were breakable.
And indeed, to his amazement, Parker observed that Wimsey now held a
long-stemmed glass in his fingers, similar to those from which they had
drunk in Mrs. Forrest’s sitting-room.
“What on earth—?” said Parker.
“Hush! I’m Hawkshaw the detective—gathering finger-prints. Here we come
a-wassailing and gathering prints in May. That’s why I took the glass
back. I brought a different one in the second time. Sorry I had to do
this athletic stunt, but the only cotton-reel I could find hadn’t much
on it. When I changed the glass, I tip-toed into the bathroom and hung
it out of the window. Hope she hasn’t been in there since. Just brush my
bags down, will you, old man? Gently—don’t touch the glass.”
“What the devil do you want finger-prints for?”
“You’re a grateful sort of person. Why, for all you know, Mrs. Forrest
is someone the Yard has been looking for for years. And anyway, you
could compare the prints with those on the Bass bottle, if any. Besides,
you never know when finger-prints mayn’t come in handy. They’re
excellent things to have about the house. Coast clear? Right. Hail a
taxi, will you? I can’t wave my hand with this glass in it. Look so
silly, don’t you know. I say!”
“Well?”
“I saw something else. The first time I went out for the drinks, I had a
peep into her bedroom.”
“Yes?”
“What do you think I found in the wash-stand drawer?”
“What?”
“A hypodermic syringe!”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes, and an innocent little box of ampullæ, with a doctor’s
prescription headed ‘The injection, Mrs. Forrest. One to be injected
when the pain is very severe.’ What do you think of that?”
“Tell you when we’ve got the results of that post-mortem,” said Parker,
really impressed. “You didn’t bring the prescription, I suppose?”
“No, and I didn’t inform the lady who we were or what we were after or
ask her permission to carry away the family crystal. But I made a note
of the chemist’s address.”
“Did you?” ejaculated Parker. “Occasionally, my lad, you have some
glimmerings of sound detective sense.”
CHAPTER VIII
Concerning Crime
“_Society is at the mercy of a murderer who is remorseless,_
_who takes no accomplices and who keeps his head._”
Edmund Pearson, _Murder at Smutty Nose_
_Letter from Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson to Lord Peter Wimsey._
“Fair View,”
Nelson Avenue,
Leahampton.
12 May, 1927.
My dear Lord Peter,
I have not _yet_ been able to get ALL the information you ask for, as
Miss Whittaker has been away for some weeks, inspecting
_chicken-farms_!! With a view to purchase, I mean of course, and not
in any _sanitary capacity_(!). I _really think_ she means to set up
farming _with Miss Findlater_, though what Miss Whittaker can see in
that very gushing and really _silly_ young woman I cannot think.
However, Miss Findlater has evidently quite a “pash” (as we used to
call it at school) for Miss Whittaker, and I am afraid none of us are
being _flattered_ by such outspoken admiration. I must say, I think it
rather _unhealthy_—you may remember Miss Clemence Dane’s _very clever
book_ on the subject?—I have seen so _much_ of that kind of thing in
my rather WOMAN-RIDDEN existence! It has such a bad effect, as a rule,
upon the _weaker character_ of the two—But I must not take up your
time with my TWADDLE!!
Miss Murgatroyd, who was quite a friend of old _Miss Dawson_, however,
has been able to tell me a _little_ about her past life.
It seems that, until five years ago, Miss Dawson lived in Warwickshire
with her cousin, a Miss Clara Whittaker, Mary Whittaker’s great-aunt
on the _father’s_ side. This Miss Clara was evidently rather a
“character,” as my dear father used to call it. In her day she was
considered very “advanced” and _not quite nice_(!) because she
_refused_ several _good offers_, cut her hair short(!!) and set up in
business for herself as a HORSE-BREEDER!!! Of course, _nowadays_,
nobody would think anything of it, but _then_ the old lady—or _young_
lady as she was when she embarked on this _revolutionary_ proceeding,
was quite a PIONEER.
Agatha Dawson was a school-fellow of hers, and _deeply attached_ to
her. And as a result of this friendship, Agatha’s _sister_, Harriet,
married Clara Whittaker’s brother James! But _Agatha_ did not care
about marriage, any more than _Clara_, and the two ladies lived
together in a big old house, with immense stables, in a village in
Warwickshire—Crofton, I think the name was. Clara Whittaker turned out
to be a remarkably _good business woman_, and worked up a big
connection among the _hunting folk_ in those parts. Her hunters became
quite _famous_, and from a capital of a few thousand pounds with which
she started she made quite a _fortune_, and was a _very rich woman_
before her death! Agatha Dawson never had anything to do with the
_horsey_ part of the business. She was the “domestic” partner, and
looked after the _house_ and the _servants_.
When Clara Whittaker died, she left _all her money_ to Agatha, passing
over her _own family_, with whom she was _not on very good
terms_—owing to the narrow-minded attitude they had taken up about her
horse-dealing!! Her nephew, Charles Whittaker, who was a clergyman,
and the father of _our_ Miss Whittaker, resented very much not getting
the money, though, as he had kept up the feud in a very _un-Christian_
manner, he had really _no right_ to complain, especially as Clara had
built up her fortune _entirely_ by her own exertions. But, of course,
he inherited the _bad, old-fashioned_ idea that women _ought not_ to
be their own mistresses, or make money for themselves, or do what they
liked with their own!
He and his family were the only surviving Whittaker relations, and
when _he and his wife_ were killed in a motor-car accident, Miss
Dawson asked Mary to leave her work as a nurse and make her home with
her. So that, you see, Clara Whittaker’s money was destined to _come
back_ to James Whittaker’s daughter in the end!! Miss Dawson made it
_quite_ CLEAR that this was her intention, provided Mary would come
and _cheer the declining days_ of a lonely old lady!
Mary accepted, and as her aunt—or, to speak more _exactly_, her
great-aunt—had given up the big old Warwickshire house after Clara’s
death, they lived in London for a short time and then moved to
Leahampton. As you know, poor old Miss Dawson was then already
suffering from the _terrible disease_ of which she died, so that Mary
did not have to wait very long for Clara Whittaker’s money!!
I hope this information will be of some _use_ to you. Miss Murgatroyd
did not, of course, know anything about the rest of the family, but
she always understood that there were _no other_ surviving relatives,
either on the Whittaker or the Dawson side.
When Miss Whittaker returns, I hope to _see more_ of her. I enclose my
_account_ for expenses up to date. I do _trust_ you will not consider
it _extravagant_. How are your money-lenders progressing? I was sorry
not to see more of those _poor women_ whose cases I investigated—their
stories were _so_ PATHETIC!
I am,
Very sincerely yours,
Alexandra K. Climpson.
P.S.—I _forgot_ to say that Miss Whittaker has a little motor-car. I
do not, of course, know anything about these matters, but Mrs. Budge’s
maid tells me that Miss Whittaker’s maid says it is an Austin 7 (is
this right?). It is grey, and the number is XX9917.
Mr. Parker was announced, just as Lord Peter finished reading this
document, and sank rather wearily in a corner of the chesterfield.
“What luck?” inquired his lordship, tossing the letter over to him. “Do
you know, I’m beginning to think you were right about the Bertha Gotobed
business, and I’m rather relieved. I don’t believe one word of Mrs.
Forrest’s story, for reasons of my own, and I’m now hoping that the
wiping out of Bertha was a pure coincidence and nothing to do with my
advertisement.”
“Are you?” said Parker, bitterly, helping himself to whisky and soda.
“Well, I hope you’ll be cheered to learn that the analysis of the body
has been made, and that there is not the slightest sign of foul play.
There is no trace of violence or of poisoning. There was a heart
weakness of fairly long standing, and the verdict is syncope after a
heavy meal.”
“That doesn’t worry me,” said Wimsey. “We suggested shock, you know.
Amiable gentleman met at flat of friendly lady suddenly turns funny
after dinner and makes undesirable overtures. Virtuous young woman is
horribly shocked. Weak heart gives way. Collapse. Exit. Agitation of
amiable gentleman and friendly lady, left with corpse on their hands.
Happy thought motor-car; Epping Forest; _exeunt omnes_, singing and
washing their hands. Where’s the difficulty?”
“Proving it is the difficulty, that’s all. By the way, there were no
finger-marks on the bottle—only smears.”
“Gloves, I suppose. Which looks like camouflage, anyhow. An ordinary
picnicking couple wouldn’t put on gloves to handle a bottle of Bass.”
“I know. But we can’t arrest all the people who wear gloves.”
“I weep for you, the Walrus said, I deeply sympathise. I see the
difficulty, but it’s early days yet. How about those injections?”
“Perfectly O.K. We’ve interrogated the chemist and interviewed the
doctor. Mrs. Forrest suffers from violent neuralgic pains, and the
injections were duly prescribed. Nothing wrong there, and no history of
doping or anything. The prescription is a very mild one, and couldn’t
possibly be fatal to anybody. Besides, haven’t I told you that there was
no trace of morphia or any other kind of poison in the body?”
“Oh, well!” said Wimsey. He sat for a few minutes looking thoughtfully
at the fire.
“I see the case has more or less died out of the papers,” he resumed,
suddenly.
“Yes. The analysis has been sent to them, and there will be a paragraph
to-morrow and a verdict of natural death, and that will be the end of
it.”
“Good. The less fuss there is about it the better. Has anything been
heard of the sister in Canada?”
“Oh, I forgot. Yes. We had a cable three days ago. She’s coming over.”
“Is she? By Jove! What boat?”
“The _Star of Quebec_—due in next Friday.”
“H’m! We’ll have to get hold of her. Are you meeting the boat?”
“Good heavens, no! Why should I?”
“I think someone ought to. I’m reassured—but not altogether happy. I
think I’ll go myself, if you don’t mind. I want to get that Dawson
story—and this time I want to make sure the young woman doesn’t have a
heart attack before I interview her.”
“I really think you’re exaggerating, Peter.”
“Better safe than sorry,” said his lordship. “Have another peg, won’t
you? Meanwhile, what do you think of Miss Climpson’s latest?”
“I don’t see much in it.”
“No?”
“It’s a bit confusing, but it all seems quite straightforward.”
“Yes. The only thing we know now is that Mary Whittaker’s father was
annoyed about Miss Dawson’s getting his aunt’s money and thought it
ought to have come to him.”
“Well, you don’t suspect _him_ of having murdered Miss Dawson, do you?
He died before her, and the daughter’s got the money, anyhow.”
“Yes, I know. But suppose Miss Dawson had changed her mind? She might
have quarrelled with Mary Whittaker and wanted to leave her money
elsewhere.”
“Oh, I see—and been put out of the way before she could make a will?”
“Isn’t it possible?”
“Yes, certainly. Except that all the evidence we have goes to show that
will-making was about the last job anybody could persuade her to do.”
“True—while she was on good terms with Mary. But how about that morning
Nurse Philliter mentioned, when she said people were trying to kill her
before her time? Mary may really have been impatient with her for being
such an unconscionable time a-dying. If Miss Dawson became aware of
that, she would certainly have resented it and may very well have
expressed an intention of making her will in someone else’s favour—as a
kind of insurance against premature decease!”
“Then why didn’t she send for her solicitor?”
“She may have tried to. But after all, she was bed-ridden and helpless.
Mary may have prevented the message from being sent.”
“That sounds quite plausible.”
“Doesn’t it? That’s why I want Evelyn Cropper’s evidence. I’m perfectly
certain those girls were packed off because they had heard more than
they should. Or why such enthusiasm over sending them to London?”
“Yes. I thought that part of Mrs. Gulliver’s story was a bit odd. I say,
how about the other nurse?”
“Nurse Forbes? That’s a good idea. I was forgetting her. Think you can
trace her?”
“Of course, if you really think it important.”
“I do. I think it’s damned important. Look here, Charles, you don’t seem
very enthusiastic about this case.”
“Well, you know, I’m not so certain it is a case at all. What makes you
so fearfully keen about it? You seem dead set on making it a murder,
with practically nothing to go upon. Why?”
Lord Peter got up and paced the room. The light from the solitary
reading-lamp threw his lean shadow, diffused and monstrously elongated,
up to the ceiling. He walked over to a book-shelf, and the shadow
shrank, blackened, settled down. He stretched his hand, and the hand’s
shadow flew with it, hovering over the gilded titles of the books and
blotting them out one by one.
“Why?” repeated Wimsey. “Because I believe this is the case I have
always been looking for. The case of cases. The murder without
discernible means, or motive or clue. The norm. All these”—he swept his
extended hand across the book-shelf, and the shadow outlined a vaster
and more menacing gesture—“all these books on this side of the room are
books about crimes. But they only deal with the abnormal crimes.”
“What do you mean by abnormal crimes?”
“The failures. The crimes that have been found out. What proportion do
you suppose they bear to the successful crimes—the ones we hear nothing
about?”
“In this country,” said Parker, rather stiffly, “we manage to trace and
convict the majority of criminals—”
“My good man, I know that where a crime is known to have been committed,
you people manage to catch the perpetrator in at least sixty per cent of
the cases. But the moment a crime is even suspected, it falls, _ipso
facto_, into the category of failures. After that, the thing is merely a
question of greater or less efficiency on the part of the police. But
how about the crimes which are never even suspected?”
Parker shrugged his shoulders.
“How can anybody answer that?”
“Well—one may guess. Read any newspaper to-day. Read the _News of the
World_. Or, now that the Press has been muzzled, read the divorce court
lists. Wouldn’t they give you the idea that marriage is a failure? Isn’t
the sillier sort of journalism packed with articles to the same effect?
And yet, looking round among the marriages you know of personally,
aren’t the majority of them a success, in a hum-drum, undemonstrative
sort of way? Only you don’t hear of them. People don’t bother to come
into court and explain that they dodder along very comfortably on the
whole, thank you. Similarly, if you read all the books on this shelf,
you’d come to the conclusion that murder was a failure. But bless you,
it’s always the failures that make the noise. Successful murderers don’t
write to the papers about it. They don’t even join in imbecile symposia
to tell an inquisitive world ‘What Murder means to me,’ or ‘How I became
a Successful Poisoner.’ Happy murderers, like happy wives, keep quiet
tongues. And they probably bear just about the same proportion to the
failures as the divorced couples do to the happily mated.”
“Aren’t you putting it rather high?”
“I don’t know. Nor does anybody. That’s the devil of it. But you ask any
doctor, when you’ve got him in an unbuttoned, well-lubricated frame of
mind, if he hasn’t often had grisly suspicions which he could not and
dared not take steps to verify. You see by our friend Carr what happens
when one doctor is a trifle more courageous than the rest.”
“Well, he couldn’t prove anything.”
“I know. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be proved. Look at the
scores and scores of murders that have gone unproved and unsuspected
till the fool of a murderer went too far and did something silly which
blew up the whole show. Palmer, for instance. His wife and brother and
mother-in-law and various illegitimate children, all peacefully put
away—till he made the mistake of polishing Cook off in that spectacular
manner. Look at George Joseph Smith. Nobody’d have thought of bothering
any more about those first two wives he drowned. It was only when he did
it the third time that he aroused suspicion. Armstrong, too, is supposed
to have got away with many more crimes than he was tried for—it was
being clumsy over Martin and the Chocolates that stirred up the hornets’
nest in the end. Burke and Hare were convicted of murdering an old
woman, and then brightly confessed that they’d put away sixteen people
in two months and no one a penny the wiser.”
“But they _were_ caught.”
“Because they were fools. If you murder someone in a brutal, messy way,
or poison someone who had previously enjoyed rollicking health, or
choose the very day after a will’s been made in your favour to
extinguish the testator, or go on killing everyone you meet till people
begin to think you’re first cousin to a upas tree, naturally you’re
found out in the end. But choose somebody old and ill, in circumstances
where the benefit to yourself isn’t too apparent, and use a sensible
method that looks like natural death or accident, and don’t repeat your
effects too often, and you’re safe. I swear all the heart-diseases and
gastric enteritis and influenzas that get certified are not nature’s
unaided work. Murder’s so easy, Charles, so damned easy—even without
special training.”
Parker looked troubled.
“There’s something in what you say. I’ve heard some funny tales myself.
We all do, I suppose. But Miss Dawson—”
“Miss Dawson fascinates me, Charles. Such a beautiful subject. So old
and ill. So likely to die soon. Bound to die before long. No near
relations to make inquiries. No connections or old friends in the
neighbourhood. And so rich. Upon my soul, Charles, I lie in bed licking
my lips over ways and means of murdering Miss Dawson.”
“Well, anyhow, till you can think of one that defies analysis and
doesn’t seem to need a motive, you haven’t found the right one,” said
Parker, practically, rather revolted by this ghoulish conversation.
“I admit that,” replied Lord Peter, “but that only shows that as yet I’m
merely a third-rate murderer. Wait till I’ve perfected my method and
then I’ll show you—perhaps. Some wise old buffer has said that each of
us holds the life of one other person between his hands—but only one,
Charles, only one.”
CHAPTER IX
The Will
“_Our wills are ours to make them thine._”
Tennyson, _In Memoriam_
“Hullo! hullo—ullo! oh, operator, shall I call thee bird or but a
wandering voice? . . . Not at all, I had no intention of being rude, my
child, that was a quotation from the poetry of Mr. Wordsworth . . .
well, ring him again . . . thank you, is that Dr. Carr? . . . Lord Peter
Wimsey speaking . . . oh, yes . . . yes . . . aha! . . . not a bit of
it . . . We are about to vindicate you and lead you home, decorated with
triumphal wreaths of cinnamon and senna-pods . . . No, really. . . .
we’ve come to the conclusion that the thing is serious. . . . Yes. . . .
I want Nurse Forbes’ address. . . . Right, I’ll hold on. . . .
Luton? . . . oh, Tooting, yes, I’ve got that. . . . Certainly, I’ve no
doubt she’s a tartar, but I’m the Grand Panjandrum with the little round
button a-top. . . . Thanks awfully . . . cheer-frightfully-ho!—oh! I
say!—hullo!—I say, she doesn’t do maternity work, does she? Maternity
work?—M for Mother-in-law—Maternity?—No—You’re sure? . . . It would be
simply awful if she did and came along. . . . I couldn’t possibly
produce a baby for her. . . . As long as you’re quite sure. . . .
Right—right—yes—not for the world—nothing to do with you at all.
Good-bye, old thing, good-bye.”
Lord Peter hung up, whistling cheerfully, and called for Bunter.
“My lord?”
“What is the proper suit to put on, Bunter, when one is an expectant
father?”
“I regret, my lord, to have seen no recent fashions in paternity wear. I
should say, my lord, whichever suit your lordship fancies will induce a
calm and cheerful frame of mind in the lady.”
“Unfortunately I don’t know the lady. She is, in fact, only the figment
of an over-teeming brain. But I think the garments should express bright
hope, self-congratulations, and a tinge of tender anxiety.”
“A newly married situation, my lord, I take it. Then I would suggest the
lounge suit in pale grey—the willow-pussy cloth, my lord—with a dull
amethyst tie and socks and a soft hat. I would not recommend a bowler,
my lord. The anxiety expressed in a bowler hat would be rather of the
financial kind.”
“No doubt you are right, Bunter. And I will wear those gloves that got
so unfortunately soiled yesterday at Charing Cross. I am too agitated to
worry about a clean pair.”
“Very good, my lord.”
“No stick, perhaps.”
“Subject to your lordship’s better judgment, I should suggest that a
stick may be suitably handled to express emotion.”
“You are always right, Bunter. Call me a taxi, and tell the man to drive
to Tooting.”
Nurse Forbes regretted very much. She would have liked to oblige Mr.
Simms-Gaythorpe, but she never undertook maternity work. She wondered
who could have misled Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe by giving him her name.
“Well, y’know, I can’t say I was misled,” said Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe,
dropping his walking-stick and retrieving it with an ingenuous laugh.
“Miss Murgatroyd—you know Miss Murgatroyd of Leahampton, I
think—yes—she—that is, I heard about you through her” (this was a fact),
“and she said what a charming person—excuse my repeatin’ these personal
remarks, won’t you?—what a charmin’ person you were and all that, and
how nice it would be if we could persuade you to come, don’t you see.
But she said she was afraid perhaps you _didn’t_ do maternity work.
Still, y’know, I thought it was worth tryin’, what? Bein’ so anxious,
what?—about my wife, that is, you see. So necessary to have someone
young and cheery at these—er—critical times, don’t you know. Maternity
nurses often such ancient and ponderous sort of people—if you don’t mind
my sayin’ so. My wife’s highly nervous—naturally—first effort and all
that—doesn’t like middle-aged people tramplin’ round—you see the idea.”
Nurse Forbes, who was a bony woman of about forty, saw the point
perfectly, and was very sorry she really could not see her way to
undertaking the work.
“It was very kind of Miss Murgatroyd,” she said. “Do you know her well?
Such a delightful woman, is she not?”
The expectant father agreed.
“Miss Murgatroyd was so very much impressed by your sympathetic
way—don’t you know—of nursin’ that poor old lady, Miss Dawson, y’know.
Distant connection of my own as a matter of fact—er, yes—somewhere about
fifteenth cousin twelve times removed. So nervous, wasn’t she? A little
bit eccentric, like the rest of the family, but a charming old lady,
don’t you think?”
“I became very much attached to her,” said Nurse Forbes. “When she was
in full possession of her faculties, she was a most pleasant and
thoughtful patient. Of course, she was in great pain, and we had to keep
her under morphia a great part of the time.”
“Ah, yes! poor old soul! I sometimes think, Nurse, it’s a great pity we
aren’t allowed just to help people off, y’know, when they’re so far
gone. After all, they’re practically dead already, as you might say.
What’s the point of keepin’ them sufferin’ on like that?”
Nurse Forbes looked rather sharply at him.
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t do,” she said, “though one understands the lay
person’s point of view, of course. Dr. Carr was not of your opinion,”
she added, a little acidly.
“I think all that fuss was simply shockin’,” said the gentleman warmly.
“Poor old soul! I said to my wife at the time, why couldn’t they let the
poor old thing rest. Fancy cuttin’ her about, when obviously she’d just
mercifully gone off in a natural way! My wife quite agreed with me. She
was quite upset about it, don’t you know.”
“It was very distressing to everybody concerned,” said Nurse Forbes,
“and of course, it put me in a very awkward position. I ought not to
talk about it, but as you are one of the family, you will quite
understand.”
“Just so. Did it ever occur to you, Nurse”—Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe leaned
forward, crushing his soft hat between his hands in a nervous
manner—“that there might be something behind all that?”
Nurse Forbes primmed up her lips.
“You know,” said Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, “there _have_ been cases of
doctors tryin’ to get rich old ladies to make wills in their favour. You
don’t think—eh?”
Nurse Forbes intimated that it was not her business to think things.
“No, of course not, certainly not. But as man to man—I mean, between you
and me, what?—wasn’t there a little—er—friction, perhaps, about sending
for the solicitor-johnnie, don’t you know? Of course, my Cousin Mary—I
call her cousin, so to speak, but it’s no relation at all really—of
course, I mean, she’s an awfully nice girl and all that sort of thing,
but I’d got a sort of idea perhaps she wasn’t altogether keen on having
the will-making wallah sent for, what?”
“Oh, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, I’m sure you’re quite wrong there. Miss
Whittaker was most anxious that her aunt should have every facility in
that way. In fact—I don’t think I’m betraying any confidence in telling
you this—she said to me, ‘If at any time Miss Dawson should express a
wish to see a lawyer, be sure you send for him at once.’ And so, of
course, I did.”
“You did? And didn’t he come, then?”
“Certainly he came. There was no difficulty about it at all.”
“There! That just shows, doesn’t it? how wrong some of these gossipy
females can be! Excuse me, but y’know, I’d got absolutely the wrong
impression about the thing. I’m quite _sure_ Mrs. Peasgood said that no
lawyer had been sent for.”
“I don’t know what Mrs. Peasgood could have known about it,” said Nurse
Forbes with a sniff, “her permission was not asked in the matter.”
“Certainly not—but you know how these ideas get about. But, I say—if
there was a will, why wasn’t it produced?”
“I didn’t say that, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe. There was no will. The lawyer
came to draw up a power of attorney, so that Miss Whittaker could sign
cheques and so on for her aunt. That was very necessary, you know, on
account of the old lady’s failing powers.”
“Yes—I suppose she was pretty woolly towards the end.”
“Well, she was quite sensible when I took over from Nurse Philliter in
September, except, of course, for that fancy she had about poisoning.”
“She really was afraid of that?”
“She said once or twice, ‘I’m not going to die to please anybody,
Nurse.’ She had great confidence in me. She got on better with me than
with Miss Whittaker, to tell you the truth, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe. But
during October, her mind began to give way altogether, and she rambled a
lot. She used to wake up sometimes all in a fright and say, ‘Have they
passed it yet, Nurse?’—just like that. I’d say, ‘No, they haven’t got
that far yet,’ and that would quiet her. Thinking of her hunting days, I
expect she was. They often go back like that, you know, when they’re
being kept under drugs. Dreaming, like, they are, half the time.”
“Then in the last month or so, I suppose she could hardly have made a
will, even if she had wanted to.”
“No, I don’t think she could have managed it then.”
“But earlier on, when the lawyer was there, she could have done so if
she had liked?”
“Certainly she could.”
“But she didn’t?”
“Oh no. I was there with her all the time, at her particular request.”
“I see. Just you and Miss Whittaker.”
“Not even Miss Whittaker most of the time. I see what you mean, Mr.
Simms-Gaythorpe, but indeed you should clear your mind of any unkind
suspicions of Miss Whittaker. The lawyer and Miss Dawson and myself were
alone together for nearly an hour, while the clerk drew up the necessary
papers in the next room. It was all done then, you see, because we
thought that a second visit would be too much for Miss Dawson. Miss
Whittaker only came in quite at the end. If Miss Dawson had wished to
make a will, she had ample opportunity to do so.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” said Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, rising to go.
“These little doubts are so apt to make unpleasantness in families,
don’t you know. Well, I must be toddlin’ now. I’m frightfully sorry you
can’t come with us, Nurse—my wife will be so disappointed. I must try to
find somebody else equally charmin’ if possible. Good-bye.”
Lord Peter removed his hat in the taxi and scratched his head
thoughtfully.
“Another good theory gone wrong,” he murmured. “Well, there’s another
string to the jolly old bow yet. Cropper first and then Crofton—that’s
the line to take, I fancy.”
Part II
THE LEGAL PROBLEM
“_The gladsome light of jurisprudence._”
Sir Edward Coke
NOTE—A genealogical table is printed at the end of the book
CHAPTER X
The Will Again
“_The will! the will! We will hear Caesar’s will!_”
_Julius Caesar_
“Oh, Miss Evelyn, my dear, oh, poor dear!”
The tall girl in black started, and looked round.
“Why, Mrs. Gulliver—how very, very kind of you to come and meet me!”
“And glad I am to have the chance, my dear, all owing to these kind
gentlemen,” cried the landlady, flinging her arms round the girl and
clinging to her to the great annoyance of the other passengers pouring
off the gangway. The elder of the two gentlemen referred to gently put
his hand on her arm, and drew them out of the stream of traffic.
“Poor lamb!” mourned Mrs. Gulliver, “coming all this way by your
lonesome, and poor dear Miss Bertha in her grave and such terrible
things said, and her such a good girl always.”
“It’s poor Mother I’m thinking about,” said the girl. “I couldn’t rest.
I said to my husband, ‘I must go,’ I said, and he said, ‘My honey, if I
could come with you I would, but I can’t leave the farm, but if you feel
you ought to go, you shall,’ he said.”
“Dear Mr. Cropper—he was always that good and kind,” said Mrs. Gulliver,
“but here I am, forgittin’ all about the good gentlemen as brought me
all this way to see you. This is Lord Peter Wimsey, and this is Mr.
Murbles, as put in that unfortnit advertisement, as I truly believes was
the beginin’ of it all. ’Ow I wish I’d never showed it to your poor
sister, not but wot I believe the gentleman acted with the best
intentions, ’avin’ now seen ’im, which at first I thought ’e was a wrong
’un.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Mrs. Cropper, turning with the ready address
derived from service in a big restaurant. “Just before I sailed I got a
letter from poor Bertha enclosing your ad. I couldn’t make anything of
it, but I’d be glad to know anything which can clear up this shocking
business. What have they said it is—murder?”
“There was a verdict of natural death at the inquiry,” said Mr. Murbles,
“but we feel that the case presents some inconsistencies, and shall be
exceedingly grateful for your co-operation in looking into the matter,
and also in connection with another matter which may or may not have
some bearing upon it.”
“Righto,” said Mrs. Cropper. “I’m sure you’re proper gentlemen, if Mrs.
Gulliver answers for you, for I’ve never known her mistaken in a person
yet, have I, Mrs. G? I’ll tell you anything I know, which isn’t much,
for it’s all a horrible mystery to me. Only I don’t want you to delay
me, for I’ve got to go straight on down to Mother. She’ll be in a
dreadful way, so fond as she was of Bertha, and she’s all alone except
for the young girl that looks after her, and that’s not much comfort
when you’ve lost your daughter so sudden.”
“We shall not detain you a moment, Mrs. Cropper,” said Mr. Murbles. “We
propose, if you will allow us, to accompany you to London, and to ask
you a few questions on the way, and then—again with your permission—we
should like to see you safely home to Mrs. Gotobed’s house, wherever
that may be.”
“Christchurch, near Bournemouth,” said Lord Peter. “I’ll run you down
straight away, if you like. It will save time.”
“I say, you know all about it, don’t you?” exclaimed Mrs. Cropper with
some admiration. “Well, hadn’t we better get a move on, or we’ll miss
this train?”
“Quite right,” said Mr. Murbles. “Allow me to offer you my arm.”
Mrs. Cropper approving of this arrangement, the party made its way to
the station, after the usual disembarkation formalities. As they passed
the barrier on to the platform Mrs. Cropper gave a little exclamation
and leaned forward as though something had caught her eye.
“What is it, Mrs. Cropper?” said Lord Peter’s voice in her ear. “Did you
think you recognised somebody?”
“You’re a noticing one, aren’t you?” said Mrs. Cropper. “Make a good
waiter—you would—not meaning any offence, sir, that’s a real compliment
from one who knows. Yes, I did think I saw someone, but it couldn’t be,
because the minute she caught my eye she went away.”
“Who did you think it was?”
“Why, I thought it looked like Miss Whittaker, as Bertha and me used to
work for.”
“Where was she?”
“Just down by that pillar there, a tall dark lady in a crimson hat and
grey fur. But she’s gone now.”
“Excuse me.”
Lord Peter unhitched Mrs. Gulliver from his arm, hitched her smartly on
to the unoccupied arm of Mr. Murbles, and plunged into the crowd. Mr.
Murbles, quite unperturbed by this eccentric behaviour, shepherded the
two women into an empty first-class carriage which, Mrs. Cropper noted,
bore a large label, “Reserved for Lord Peter Wimsey and party.” Mrs.
Cropper made some protesting observation about her ticket, but Mr.
Murbles merely replied that everything was provided for, and that
privacy could be more conveniently secured in this way.
“Your friend’s going to be left behind,” said Mrs. Cropper as the train
moved out.
“That would be very unlike him,” replied Mr. Murbles, calmly unfolding a
couple of rugs and exchanging his old-fashioned top-hat for a curious
kind of travelling cap with flaps to it. Mrs. Cropper, in the midst of
her anxiety, could not help wondering where in the world he had
contrived to purchase this Victorian relic. As a matter of fact, Mr.
Murbles’ caps were specially made to his own design by an exceedingly
expensive West End hatter, who held Mr. Murbles in deep respect as a
real gentleman of the old school.
Nothing, however, was seen of Lord Peter for something like a quarter of
an hour, when he suddenly put his head in with an amiable smile and
said:
“One red-haired woman in a crimson hat; three dark women in black hats;
several nondescript women in those pull-on sort of dust-coloured hats;
old women with grey hair, various; sixteen flappers without hats—hats on
rack, I mean, but none of ’em crimson; two obvious brides in blue hats;
innumerable fair women in hats of all colours; one ash-blonde dressed as
a nurse, none of ’em our friend as far as I know. Thought I’d best just
toddle along the train to make sure. There’s just one dark sort of
female whose hat I can’t see because it’s tucked down beside her. Wonder
if Mrs. Cropper would mind doin’ a little stagger down the corridor to
take a squint at her.”
Mrs. Cropper, with some surprise, consented to do so.
“Right you are. ’Splain later. About four carriages along. Now, look
here, Mrs. Cropper, if it _should_ be anybody you know, I’d rather on
the whole she didn’t spot you watching her. I want you to walk along
behind me, just glancin’ into the compartments but keepin’ your collar
turned up. When we come to the party I have in mind, I’ll make a screen
for you, what?”
These manœuvres were successfully accomplished, Lord Peter lighting a
cigarette opposite the suspected compartment, while Mrs. Cropper viewed
the hatless lady under cover of his raised elbows. But the result was
disappointing. Mrs. Cropper had never seen the lady before, and a
further promenade from end to end of the train produced no better
results.
“We must leave it to Bunter, then,” said his lordship, cheerfully, as
they returned to their seats. “I put him on the trail as soon as you
gave me the good word. Now, Mrs. Cropper, we really get down to
business. First of all, we should be glad of any suggestions you may
have to make about your sister’s death. We don’t want to distress you,
but we have got an idea that there might, just possibly, be something
behind it.”
“There’s just one thing, sir—your lordship, I suppose I should say.
Bertha was a real good girl—I can answer for that absolutely. There
wouldn’t have been any carryings-on with her young man—nothing of that.
I know people have been saying all sorts of things, and perhaps, with
lots of girls as they are, it isn’t to be wondered at. But, believe me,
Bertha wouldn’t go for to do anything that wasn’t right. Perhaps you’d
like to see this last letter she wrote me. I’m sure nothing could be
nicer and properer from a girl just looking forward to a happy marriage.
Now, a girl as wrote like that wouldn’t be going larking about, sir,
would she? I couldn’t rest, thinking they was saying that about her.”
Lord Peter took the letter, glanced through it, and handed it reverently
to Mr. Murbles.
“We’re not thinking that at all, Mrs. Cropper, though of course we’re
very glad to have your point of view, don’t you see. Now, do you think
it possible your sister might have been—what shall I say?—got hold of by
some woman with a plausible story and all that, and—well—pushed into
some position which shocked her very much? Was she cautious and up to
the tricks of London people and all that?”
And he outlined Parker’s theory of the engaging Mrs. Forrest and the
supposed dinner in the flat.
“Well, my lord, I wouldn’t say Bertha was a very quick girl—not as quick
as me, you know. She’d always be ready to believe what she was told and
give people credit for the best. Took more after her father, like. I’m
Mother’s girl, they always said, and I don’t trust anybody further than
I can see them. But I’d warned her very careful against taking up with
women as talks to a girl in the street, and she did ought to have been
on her guard.”
“Of course,” said Peter, “it may have been somebody she’d got to know
quite well—say, at the restaurant, and she thought she was a nice lady
and there’d be no harm in going to see her. Or the lady might have
suggested taking her into good service. One never knows.”
“I think she’d have mentioned it in her letters if she’d talked to the
lady much, my lord. It’s wonderful what a lot of things she’d find to
tell me about the customers. And I don’t think she’d be for going into
service again. We got real fed up with service, down in Leahampton.”
“Ah, yes. Now that brings us to quite a different point—the thing we
wanted to ask you or your sister about before this sad accident took
place. You were in service with this Miss Whittaker whom you mentioned
just now. I wonder if you’d mind telling us just exactly why you left.
It was a good place, I suppose?”
“Yes, my lord, quite a good place as places go, though of course a girl
doesn’t get her freedom the way she does in a restaurant. And naturally
there was a good deal of waiting on the old lady. Not as we minded that,
for she was a very kind, good lady, and generous too.”
“But when she became so ill, I suppose Miss Whittaker managed
everything, what?”
“Yes, my lord; but it wasn’t a hard place—lots of the girls envied us.
Only Miss Whittaker was very particular.”
“Especially about the china, what?”
“Ah, they told you about that, then?”
“I told ’em, dearie,” put in Mrs. Gulliver. “I told ’em all about how
you come to leave your place and go to London.”
“And it struck us,” put in Mr. Murbles, “that it was, shall we say,
somewhat rash of Miss Whittaker to dismiss so competent and, if I may
put it so, so well-spoken and personable a pair of maids on so trivial a
pretext.”
“You’re right there, sir. Bertha—I told you she was the trusting one—she
was quite ready to believe as she done wrong, and thought how good it
was of Miss Whittaker to forgive her breaking the china, and take so
much interest in sending us to London, but I always thought there was
something more than met the eye. Didn’t I, Mrs. Gulliver?”
“That you did, dear; something more than meets the eye, that’s what you
says to me, and what I agrees with.”
“And did you, in your own mind,” pursued Mr. Murbles, “connect this
sudden dismissal with anything which had taken place?”
“Well, I did then,” replied Mrs. Cropper, with some spirit. “I said to
Bertha—but she would hear nothing of it, taking after her father as I
tell you—I said, ‘Mark my words,’ I said, ‘Miss Whittaker don’t care to
have us in the house after the row she had with the old lady.’”
“And what row was that?” inquired Mr. Murbles.
“Well, I don’t know as I ought rightly to tell you about it, seeing it’s
all over now and we promised to say nothing about it.”
“That, of course,” said Mr. Murbles, checking Lord Peter, who was about
to burst in impetuously, “depends upon your own conscience. But, if it
will be of any help to you in making up your mind, I think I may say, in
the strictest confidence, that this information may be of the utmost
importance to us—in a roundabout way which I won’t trouble you with—in
investigating a very singular set of circumstances which have been
brought to our notice. And it is just barely possible—again in a very
roundabout way—that it may assist us in throwing some light on the
melancholy tragedy of your sister’s decease. Further than that I cannot
go at the moment.”
“Well, now,” said Mrs. Cropper, “if that’s so—though, mind you, I don’t
see what connection there could be—but if you think that’s so, I reckon
I’d better come across with it, as my husband would say. After all, I
only promised I wouldn’t mention about it to the people in Leahampton,
as might have made mischief out of it—and a gossipy lot they is, and no
mistake.”
“We’ve nothing to do with the Leahampton crowd,” said his lordship, “and
it won’t be passed along unless it turns out to be necessary.”
“Righto. Well, I’ll tell you. One morning early in September Miss
Whittaker comes along to Bertha and I, and says, ‘I want you girls to be
just handy on the landing outside Miss Dawson’s bedroom,’ she says,
‘because I may want you to come in and witness her signature to a
document. We shall want two witnesses,’ she says, ‘and you’ll have to
see her sign; but I don’t want to flurry her with a lot of people in the
room, so when I give you the tip, I want you to come just inside the
door without making a noise, so that you can see her write her name, and
then I’ll bring it straight across to you and you can write your names
where I show you. It’s quite easy,’ she says, ‘nothing to do but just
put your names opposite where you see the word Witnesses.’
“Bertha was always a bit the timid sort—afraid of documents and that
sort of thing, and she tried to get out of it. ‘Couldn’t Nurse sign
instead of me?’ she says. That was Nurse Philliter, you know, the
red-haired one as was the doctor’s fiancée. She was a very nice woman,
and we liked her quite a lot. ‘Nurse has gone out for her walk,’ says
Miss Whittaker, rather sharp, ‘I want you and Evelyn to do it,’ meaning
me, of course. Well, we said we didn’t mind, and Miss Whittaker goes
upstairs to Miss Dawson with a whole heap of papers, and Bertha and I
followed and waited on the landing, like she said.”
“One moment,” said Mr. Murbles, “did Miss Dawson often have documents to
sign?”
“Yes, sir, I believe so, quite frequently, but they was usually
witnessed by Miss Whittaker or the nurse. There was some leases and
things of that sort, or so I heard. Miss Dawson had a little
house-property. And then there’d be the cheques for the housekeeping,
and some papers as used to come from the Bank, and be put away in the
safe.”
“Share coupons and so on, I suppose,” said Mr. Murbles.
“Very likely, sir, I don’t know much about those business matters. I did
have to witness a signature once, I remember, a long time back, but that
was different. The paper was brought down to me with the signature ready
wrote. There wasn’t any of this to-do about it.”
“The old lady was capable of dealing with her own affairs, I
understand?”
“Up till then, sir. Afterwards, as I understood, she made it all over to
Miss Whittaker—that was just before she got feeble-like, and was kept
under drugs. Miss Whittaker signed the cheques then.”
“The power of attorney,” said Mr. Murbles, with a nod. “Well now, did
you sign this mysterious paper?”
“No, sir, I’ll tell you how that was. When me and Bertha had been
waiting a little time, Miss Whittaker comes to the door and makes us a
sign to come in quiet. So we comes and stands just inside the door.
There was a screen by the head of the bed, so we couldn’t see Miss
Dawson nor she us, but we could see her reflection quite well in a big
looking-glass she had on the left side of the bed.”
Mr. Murbles exchanged a significant glance with Lord Peter.
“Now be sure you tell us every detail,” said Wimsey, “no matter how
small and silly it may sound. I believe this is goin’ to be very
excitin’.”
“Yes, my lord. Well, there wasn’t much else, except that just inside the
door, on the left-hand side as you went in, there was a little table,
where Nurse mostly used to set down trays and things that had to go
down, and it was cleared, and a piece of blotting-paper on it and an
inkstand and pen, all ready for us to sign with.”
“Could Miss Dawson see that?” asked Mr. Murbles.
“No, sir, because of the screen.”
“But it was inside the room.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We want to be quite clear about this. Do you think you could draw—quite
roughly—a little plan of the room, showing where the bed was and the
screen and the mirror, and so on?”
“I’m not much of a hand at drawing,” said Mrs. Cropper dubiously, “but
I’ll try.”
Mr. Murbles produced a notebook and fountain pen, and after a few false
starts, the following rough sketch was produced.
[Illustration: Miss Dawson’s bedroom]
“Thank you, that is very clear indeed. You notice, Lord Peter, the
careful arrangements to have the document signed in presence of the
witnesses, and witnessed by them in the presence of Miss Dawson and of
each other. I needn’t tell you for what kind of document that
arrangement is indispensable.”
“Was that it, sir? We couldn’t understand why it was all arranged like
that.”
“It might have happened,” explained Mr. Murbles, “that in case of some
dispute about this document, you and your sister would have had to come
into court and give evidence about it. And if so, you would have been
asked whether you actually saw Miss Dawson write her signature, and
whether you and your sister and Miss Dawson were all in the same room
together when you signed your names as witnesses. And if that had
happened, you could have said yes, couldn’t you, and sworn to it?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And yet, actually, Miss Dawson would have known nothing about your
being there.”
“No, sir.”
“That was it, you see.”
“I see now, sir, but at the time Bertha and me couldn’t make nothing of
it.”
“But the document, you say, was never signed.”
“No, sir. At any rate, we never witnessed anything. We saw Miss Dawson
write her name—at least, I suppose it was her name—to one or two papers,
and then Miss Whittaker puts another lot in front of her and says,
‘Here’s another little lot, auntie, some more of those income-tax
forms.’ So the old lady says, ‘What are they exactly, dear, let me see?’
So Miss Whittaker says, ‘Oh, only the usual things.’ And Miss Dawson
says, ‘Dear, dear, what a lot of them. How complicated they do make
these things to be sure.’ And we could see that Miss Whittaker was
giving her several papers, all laid on top of one another, with just the
places for the signatures left showing. So Miss Dawson signs the top
one, and then lifts up the paper and looks underneath at the next one,
and Miss Whittaker says, ‘They’re all the same,’ as if she was in a
hurry to get them signed and done with. But Miss Dawson takes them out
of her hand and starts looking through them, and suddenly she lets out a
screech, and says, ‘I won’t have it, I won’t have it! I’m not dying yet.
How dare you, you wicked girl! Can’t you wait till I’m dead?—you want to
frighten me into my grave before my time. Haven’t you got everything you
want?’ And Miss Whittaker says, ‘Hush, auntie, you won’t let me
explain—’ and the old lady says, ‘No, I won’t, I don’t want to hear
anything about it. I hate the thought of it. I won’t talk about it. You
leave me be. I can’t get better if you keep frightening me so.’ And then
she begins to take and carry on dreadful, and Miss Whittaker comes over
to us looking awful white and says, ‘Run along, you girls,’ she says,
‘my aunt’s taken ill and can’t attend to business. I’ll call you if I
want you,’ she says. And I said, ‘Can we help with her, miss?’ and she
says, ‘No, it’s quite all right. It’s just the pain come on again. I’ll
give her her injection and then she’ll be all right.’ And she pushes us
out of the room, and shuts the door, and we heard the poor old lady
crying fit to break anybody’s heart. So we went downstairs and met Nurse
just coming in, and we told her Miss Dawson was took worse again, and
she runs up quick without taking her things off. So we was in the
kitchen, just saying it seemed rather funny-like, when Miss Whittaker
comes down again and says, ‘It’s all right now, and auntie’s sleeping
quite peaceful, only we’ll have to put off business till another day.’
And she says, ‘Better not say anything about this to anybody, because
when the pain comes on Aunt gets frightened and talks a bit wild. She
don’t mean what she says, but if people was to hear about it they might
think it odd.’ So I up and says, ‘Miss Whittaker,’ I says, ‘me and
Bertha was never ones to talk’; rather stiff, I said it, because I don’t
hold by gossip and never did. And Miss Whittaker says, ‘That’s quite all
right,’ and goes away. And the next day she gives us an afternoon off
and a present—ten shillings each, it was, because it was her aunt’s
birthday, and the old lady wanted us to have a little treat in her
honour.”
“A very clear account indeed, Mrs. Cropper, and I only wish all
witnesses were as sensible and observant as you are. There’s just one
thing. Did you by any chance get a sight of this paper that upset Miss
Dawson so much?”
“No, sir—only from a distance, that is, and in the looking-glass. But I
think it was quite short—just a few lines of typewriting.”
“I see. Was there a typewriter in the house, by the way?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Miss Whittaker used one quite often for business letters
and so on. It used to stand in the sitting-room.”
“Quite so. By the way, do you remember Miss Dawson’s solicitor calling
shortly after this?”
“No, sir. It was only a little time later Bertha broke the teapot and we
left. Miss Whittaker gave her her month’s warning, but I said no. If she
could come down on a girl like that for a little thing, and her such a
good worker, Bertha should go at once and me with her. Miss Whittaker
said, ‘Just as you like,’ she said—she never was one to stand any
back-chat. So we went that afternoon. But afterwards I think she was
sorry, and came over to see us at Christchurch, and suggested why
shouldn’t we try for a better job in London. Bertha was a bit afraid to
go so far—taking after Father, as I mentioned, but Mother, as was always
the ambitious one, she says, ‘If the lady’s kind enough to give you a
good start, why not go? There’s more chances for a girl in Town.’ And I
said to Bertha, private-like, afterwards, I says, ‘Depend on it, Miss
Whittaker wants to see the back of us. She’s afraid we’ll get talking
about the things Miss Dawson said that morning. But,’ I says, ‘if she’s
willing to pay us to go, why not go,’ I says. ‘A girl’s got to look out
for herself these days, and if we go off to London she’ll give us a
better character than what she would if we stayed. And anyway,’ I said,
‘if we don’t like it we can always come home again.’ So the long and
short was, we came to Town, and after a bit we got good jobs with Lyons,
what with the good character Miss Whittaker gave us, and I met my
husband there and Bertha met her Jim. So we never regretted having taken
the chance—not till this dreadful thing happened to Bertha.”
The passionate interest with which her hearers had received this recital
must have gratified Mrs. Cropper’s sense of the dramatic. Mr. Murbles
was very slowly rotating his hands over one another with a dry, rustling
sound—like an old snake, gliding through the long grass in search of
prey.
“A little scene after your own heart, Murbles,” said Lord Peter, with a
glint under his dropped eyelids. He turned again to Mrs. Cropper.
“This is the first time you’ve told this story?”
“Yes—and I wouldn’t have said anything if it hadn’t been—”
“I know. Now, if you’ll take my advice, Mrs. Cropper, you won’t tell it
again. Stories like that have a nasty way of bein’ dangerous. Will you
consider it an impertinence if I ask you what your plans are for the
next week or two?”
“I’m going to see Mother and get her to come back to Canada with me. I
wanted her to come when I got married, but she didn’t like going so far
away from Bertha. She was always Mother’s favourite—taking so much after
Father, you see. Mother and me was always too much alike to get on. But
now she’s got nobody else, and it isn’t right for her to be all alone,
so I think she’ll come with me. It’s a long journey for an ailing old
woman, but I reckon blood’s thicker than water. My husband said, ‘Bring
her back first-class, my girl, and I’ll find the money.’ He’s a good
sort, is my husband.”
“You couldn’t do better,” said Wimsey, “and if you’ll allow me, I’ll
send a friend to look after you both on the train journey and see you
safe on to the boat. And don’t stop long in England. Excuse me buttin’
in on your affairs like this, but honestly I think you’d be safer
elsewhere.”
“You don’t think that Bertha—?”
Her eyes widened with alarm.
“I don’t like to say quite what I think, because I don’t know. But I’ll
see you and your mother are safe, whatever happens.”
“And Bertha? Can I do anything about that?”
“Well, you’ll have to come and see my friends at Scotland Yard, I think,
and tell them what you’ve told me. They’ll be interested.”
“And will something be done about it?”
“I’m sure, if we can prove there’s been any foul play, the police won’t
rest till it’s been tracked down to the right person. But the difficulty
is, you see, to prove that the death wasn’t natural.”
“I observe in to-day’s paper,” said Mr. Murbles, “that the local
superintendent is now satisfied that Miss Gotobed came down alone for a
quiet picnic and died of a heart attack.”
“That man would say anything,” said Wimsey. “We know from the
post-mortem that she had recently had a heavy meal—forgive these
distressin’ details, Mrs. Cropper’—so why the picnic?”
“I suppose they had the sandwiches and the beer-bottle in mind,” said
Mr. Murbles, mildly.
“I see. I suppose she went down to Epping alone with a bottle of Bass
and took out the cork with her fingers. Ever tried doing it, Murbles?
No? Well, when they find the corkscrew I’ll believe she went there
alone. In the meantime, I hope the papers will publish a few more
theories like that. Nothin’ like inspiring criminals with confidence,
Murbles—it goes to their heads, you know.”
CHAPTER XI
Cross-Roads
“_Patience—and shuffle the cards._”
_Don Quixote_
Lord Peter took Mrs. Cropper down to Christchurch and returned to town
to have a conference with Mr. Parker. The latter had just listened to
his recital of Mrs. Cropper’s story, when the discreet opening and
closing of the flat-door announced the return of Bunter.
“Any luck?” inquired Wimsey.
“I regret exceedingly to have to inform your lordship that I lost track
of the lady. In fact, if your lordship will kindly excuse the
expression, I was completely done in the eye.”
“Thank God, Bunter, you’re human after all. I didn’t know anybody could
do you. Have a drink.”
“I am much obliged to your lordship. According to instructions, I
searched the platform for a lady in a crimson hat and a grey fur, and at
length was fortunate enough to observe her making her way out by the
station entrance towards the big bookstall. She was some way ahead of
me, but the hat was very conspicuous, and, in the words of the poet, if
I may so express myself, I followed the gleam.”
“Stout fellow.”
“Thank you, my lord. The lady walked into the Station Hotel, which, as
you know, has two entrances, one upon the platform, and the other upon
the street. I hurried after her for fear she should give me the slip,
and made my way through the revolving doors just in time to see her back
disappearing into the Ladies’ Retiring Room.”
“Whither, as a modest man, you could not follow her. I quite
understand.”
“Quite so, my lord. I took a seat in the entrance hall, in a position
from which I could watch the door without appearing to do so.”
“And discovered too late that the place had two exits, I suppose.
Unusual and distressin’.”
“No, my lord. That was not the trouble. I sat watching for three
quarters of an hour, but the crimson hat did not reappear. Your lordship
will bear in mind that I had never seen the lady’s face.”
Lord Peter groaned.
“I foresee the end of this story, Bunter. Not your fault. Proceed.”
“At the end of this time, my lord, I felt bound to conclude either that
the lady had been taken ill or that something untoward had occurred. I
summoned a female attendant who happened to cross the hall and informed
her that I had been entrusted with a message for a lady whose dress I
described. I begged her to ascertain from the attendant in the Ladies’
Room whether the lady in question was still there. The girl went away
and presently returned to say that the lady had changed her costume in
the cloak-room and had gone out half an hour previously.”
“Oh, Bunter, Bunter. Didn’t you spot the suitcase or whatever it was
when she came out again?”
“Excuse me, my lord. The lady had come in earlier in the day and had
left an attaché-case in charge of the attendant. On returning, she had
transferred her hat and fur to the attaché-case and put on a small black
felt hat and a light-weight raincoat which she had packed there in
readiness. So that her dress was concealed when she emerged and she was
carrying the attaché-case, whereas, when I first saw her, she had been
empty-handed.”
“Everything foreseen. What a woman!”
“I made immediate inquiries, my lord, in the region of the hotel and the
station, but without result. The black hat and raincoat were entirely
inconspicuous, and no one remembered having seen her. I went to the
Central Station to discover if she had travelled by any train. Several
women answering to the description had taken tickets for various
destinations, but I could get no definite information. I also visited
all the garages in Liverpool, with the same lack of success. I am
greatly distressed to have failed your lordship.”
“Can’t be helped. You did everything you could do. Cheer up. Never say
die. And you must be tired to death. Take the day off and go to bed.”
“I thank your lordship, but I slept excellently in the train on the way
up.”
“Just as you like, Bunter. But I did hope you sometimes got tired like
other people.”
Bunter smiled discreetly and withdrew.
“Well, we’ve gained this much, anyhow,” said Parker. “We know now that
this Miss Whittaker has something to conceal, since she takes such
precautions to avoid being followed.”
“We know more than that. We know that she was desperately anxious to get
hold of the Cropper woman before anybody else could see her, no doubt to
stop her mouth by bribery or by worse means. By the way, how did she
know she was coming by that boat.”
“Mrs. Cropper sent a cable, which was read at the inquest.”
“Damn these inquests. They give away all the information one wants kept
quiet, and produce no evidence worth having.”
“Hear, hear,” said Parker, with emphasis, “not to mention that we had to
sit through a lot of moral punk by the Coroner, about the prevalence of
jazz and the immoral behaviour of modern girls in going off alone with
young men to Epping Forest.”
“It’s a pity these busy-bodies can’t be had up for libel. Never mind.
We’ll get the Whittaker woman yet.”
“Always provided it was the Whittaker woman. After all, Mrs. Cropper may
have been mistaken. Lots of people do change their hats in cloak-rooms
without any criminal intentions.”
“Oh, of course. Miss Whittaker’s supposed to be in the country with Miss
Findlater, isn’t she? We’ll get the invaluable Miss Climpson to pump the
girl when they turn up again. Meanwhile, what do you think of Mrs.
Cropper’s story?”
“There’s no doubt about what happened there. Miss Whittaker was trying
to get the old lady to sign a will without knowing it. She gave it to
her all mixed up with the income-tax papers, hoping she’d put her name
to it without reading it. It must have been a will, I think, because
that’s the only document I know of which is invalid unless it’s
witnessed by two persons in the presence of the testatrix and of each
other.”
“Exactly. And since Miss Whittaker couldn’t be one of the witnesses
herself, but had to get the two maids to sign, the will must have been
in Miss Whittaker’s favour.”
“Obviously. She wouldn’t go to all that trouble to disinherit herself.”
“But that brings us to another difficulty. Miss Whittaker, as next of
kin, would have taken all the old lady had to leave in any case. As a
matter of fact, she did. Why bother about a will?”
“Perhaps, as we said before, she was afraid Miss Dawson would change her
mind, and wanted to get a will made out before—no, that won’t work.”
“No—because, anyhow, any will made later would invalidate the first
will. Besides, the old lady sent for her solicitor some time later, and
Miss Whittaker put no obstacle of any kind in her way.”
“According to Nurse Forbes, she was particularly anxious that every
facility should be given.”
“Seeing how Miss Dawson distrusted her niece, it’s a bit surprising,
really, that she didn’t will the money away. Then it would have been to
Miss Whittaker’s advantage to keep her alive as long as possible.”
“I don’t suppose she really distrusted her—not to the extent of
expecting to be made away with. She was excited and said more than she
meant—we often do.”
“Yes, but she evidently thought there’d be other attempts to get a will
signed.”
“How do you make that out?”
“Don’t you remember the power of attorney? The old girl evidently
thought that out and decided to give Miss Whittaker authority to sign
everything for her so that there couldn’t possibly be any jiggery-pokery
about papers in future.”
“Of course. Cute old lady. How very irritating for Miss Whittaker. And
after that very hopeful visit of the solicitor, too. So disappointing.
Instead of the expected will, a very carefully planted spoke in her
wheel.”
“Yes. But we’re still brought up against the problem, why a will at
all?”
“So we are.”
The two men pulled at their pipes for some time in silence.
“The aunt evidently intended the money to go to Mary Whittaker all
right,” remarked Parker at last. “She promised it so often—besides, I
daresay she was a just-minded old thing, and remembered that it was
really Whittaker money which had come to her over the head of the Rev.
Charles, or whatever his name was.”
“That’s so. Well, there’s only one thing that could prevent that
happening, and that’s—oh, lord! old son. Do you know what it works out
at? The old, old story, beloved of novelists—the missing heir!”
“Good lord, yes, you’re right. Damn it all, what fools we were not to
think of it before. Mary Whittaker possibly found out that there was
some nearer relative left, who would scoop the lot. Maybe she was afraid
that if Miss Dawson got to know about it, she’d divide the money or
disinherit Mary altogether. Or perhaps she just despaired of hammering
the story into the old lady’s head, and so hit on the idea of getting
her to make the will unbeknownst to herself in Mary’s favour.”
“What a brain you’ve got, Charles. Or, see here, Miss Dawson may have
known all about it, sly old thing, and determined to pay Miss Whittaker
out for her indecent urgency in the matter of will-makin’ by just dyin’
intestate in the other chappie’s favour.”
“If she did, she deserved anything she got,” said Parker, rather
viciously. “After taking the poor girl away from her job under promise
of leaving her the dibs.”
“Teach the young woman not to be so mercenary,” retorted Wimsey, with
the cheerful brutality of the man who has never in his life been short
of money.
“If this bright idea is correct,” said Parker, “it rather messes up your
murder theory, doesn’t it? Because Mary would obviously take the line of
keeping her aunt alive as long as possible, in hopes she might make a
will after all.”
“That’s true. Curse you, Charles, I see that bet of mine going west.
What a blow for friend Carr, too. I did hope I was going to vindicate
him and have him played home by the village band under a triumphal arch
with ‘Welcome, Champion of Truth!’ picked out in red-white-and-blue
electric bulbs. Never mind. It’s better to lose a wager and see the
light than walk in ignorance bloated with gold.—Or stop!—why shouldn’t
Carr be right after all? Perhaps it’s just my choice of a murderer
that’s wrong. Aha! I see a new and even more sinister villain step upon
the scene. The new claimant, warned by his minions—”
“What minions?”
“Oh, don’t be so pernickety, Charles. Nurse Forbes, probably. I
shouldn’t wonder if she’s in his pay. Where was I? I wish you wouldn’t
interrupt.”
“Warned by his minions—” prompted Parker.
“Oh, yes—warned by his minions that Miss Dawson is hob-nobbing with
solicitors and being tempted into making wills and things, gets the said
minions to polish her off before she can do any mischief.”
“Yes, but how?”
“Oh, by one of those native poisons which slay in a split second and
defy the skill of the analyst. They are familiar to the meanest writer
of mystery stories. I’m not going to let a trifle like that stand in my
way.”
“And why hasn’t this hypothetical gentleman brought forward any claim to
the property so far?”
“He’s biding his time. The fuss about the death scared him, and he’s
lying low till it’s all blown over.”
“He’ll find it much more awkward to dispossess Miss Whittaker now she’s
taken possession. Possession is nine points of the law, you know.”
“I know, but he’s going to pretend he wasn’t anywhere near at the time
of Miss Dawson’s death. He only read about it a few weeks ago in a sheet
of newspaper wrapped round a salmon-tin, and now he’s rushing home from
his distant farm in thing-ma-jig to proclaim himself as the long-lost
Cousin Tom. . . . Great Scott! that reminds me.”
He plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a letter.
“This came this morning just as I was going out, and I met Freddy
Arbuthnot on the doorstep and shoved it into my pocket before I’d read
it properly. But I do believe there was something in it about a Cousin
Somebody from some god-forsaken spot. Let’s see.”
He unfolded the letter, which was written in Miss Climpson’s
old-fashioned flowing hand, and ornamented with such a variety of
underlinings and exclamation marks as to look like an exercise in
musical notation.
“Oh, lord!” said Parker.
“Yes, it’s worse than usual, isn’t it?—it must be of desperate
importance. Luckily it’s comparatively short.”
My dear Lord Peter,
I heard something this morning which MAY be of _use, so_ I HASTEN to
communicate it!! You remember I _mentioned before_ that Mrs. Budge’s
_maid_ is the SISTER of the _present_ maid at Miss _Whittaker’s_?
Well!!! The AUNT of these two girls came to _pay a visit_ to Mrs.
Budge’s girl this afternoon, and was _introduced to me_—of course, as
_boarder_ at Mrs. Budge’s I am naturally an _object of local
interest_—and, bearing _your instructions_ in mind, I _encourage_ this
to an extent I should not otherwise do!!
It appears that this _aunt_ was well acquainted with a _former
housekeeper_ of Miss Dawson’s—_before_ the time of the Gotobed girls,
I mean. The _aunt_ is a highly _respectable_ person of FORBIDDING
ASPECT!—with a _bonnet_(!) and to my mind, a most _disagreeable_
CENSORIOUS woman. However!—We got to speaking of Miss Dawson’s death,
and this aunt—her name is Timmins—_primmed_ up her mouth and said: “No
unpleasant scandal would surprise me about _that_ family, Miss
Climpson. They were _most_ UNDESIRABLY connected! You recollect, Mrs.
Budge, that I felt _obliged to leave_ after the appearance of that
_most_ EXTRAORDINARY person who announced himself as Miss Dawson’s
cousin.” Naturally, I asked _who_ this _might be_, not having heard of
any _other relations_! She said that this person, whom she described
as a _nasty_, DIRTY NIGGER(!!!) arrived one morning, dressed up as a
CLERGYMAN!!!—and sent her—Miss Timmins—to announce him to Miss Dawson
as her Cousin Hallelujah!!! Miss Timmins showed him up, _much against
her will_, she said, into the _nice_, CLEAN, drawing-room! Miss
Dawson, she said, actually _came down_ to see this “creature” instead
of sending him about his “black business”(!), and as a _crowning
scandal_, asked him to _stay to lunch_!—“with her niece there, too,”
Miss Timmins said, “and this horrible _blackamoor_ ROLLING his
dreadful eyes at her.” Miss Timmins said that it “regularly turned her
stomach”—that was her phrase, and I trust you will excuse it—I
understand that these _parts of the body_ are frequently referred to
in polite(!) society nowadays. In fact, it appears she _refused to
cook the lunch_ for the poor black man—(after all, even _blacks_ are
God’s _creatures_ and we might _all_ be _black_ OURSELVES if He had
not in His infinite kindness seen fit to _favour us_ with _white_
skins!!)—and walked straight out of the house!!! So that unfortunately
she cannot tell us anything _further_ about this _remarkable_
incident! She is _certain_, however, that the “nigger” had a
_visiting-card_, with the name “Rev. H. Dawson” upon it, and an
address in foreign parts. It does seem _strange_, does it not, but I
believe many of these _native preachers_ are called to do _splendid
work_ among their own people, and no doubt a _MINISTER_ is entitled to
have _visiting-card_, even when black!!!
In great haste,
Sincerely yours,
A. K. Climpson.
“God bless my soul,” said Lord Peter, when he had disentangled this
screed—“here’s our claimant ready made.”
“With a hide as black as his heart, apparently,” replied Parker. “I
wonder where the Rev. Hallelujah has got to—and where he came from.
He—er—he wouldn’t be in ‘Crockford,’ I suppose.”
“He would be, probably, if he’s Church of England,” said Lord Peter,
dubiously, going in search of that valuable work of reference.
“Dawson—Rev. George, Rev. Gordon, Rev. Gurney, Rev. Habbakuk, Rev.
Hadrian, Rev. Hammond—no, there’s no Rev. Hallelujah. I was afraid the
name hadn’t altogether an established sound. It would be easier if we
had an idea what part of the world the gentleman came from. ‘Nigger,’ to
a Miss Timmins, may mean anything from a high-caste Brahmin to Sambo and
Raustus at the Coliseum—it may even, at a pinch, be an Argentine or an
Esquimaux.”
“I suppose other religious bodies have their Crockfords,” suggested
Parker, a little hopelessly.
“Yes, no doubt—except perhaps the more exclusive sects—like the
Agapemonites and those people who gather together to say OM. Was it
Voltaire who said that the English had three hundred and sixty-five
religions and only one sauce?”
“Judging from the War Tribunals,” said Parker, “I should say that was an
under-statement. And then there’s America—a country, I understand,
remarkably well supplied with religions.”
“Too true. Hunting for a single dog-collar in the States must be like
the proverbial needle. Still, we could make a few discreet inquiries,
and meanwhile I’m going to totter up to Crofton with the jolly old
’bus.”
“Crofton?”
“Where Miss Clara Whittaker and Miss Dawson used to live. I’m going to
look for the man with the little black bag—the strange, suspicious
solicitor, you remember, who came to see Miss Dawson two years ago, and
was so anxious that she should make a will. I fancy he knows all there
is to know about the Rev. Hallelujah and his claim. Will you come too?”
“Can’t—not without special permission. I’m not officially on this case,
you know.”
“You’re on the Gotobed business. Tell the Chief you think they’re
connected. I shall need your restraining presence. No less ignoble
pressure than that of the regular police force will induce a smoke-dried
family lawyer to spill the beans.”
“Well, I’ll try—if you’ll promise to drive with reasonable precaution.”
“Be thou as chaste as ice and have a license as pure as snow, thou shalt
not escape calumny. I am _not_ a dangerous driver. Buck up and get your
leave. The snow-white horsepower foams and frets and the blue
bonnet—black in this case—is already, in a manner of speaking, over the
border.”
“You’ll drive me over the border one of these days,” grumbled Parker,
and went to the ’phone to call up Sir Andrew Mackenzie at Scotland Yard.
Crofton is a delightful little old-world village tucked away amid the
maze of criss-cross country roads which fills the triangle of which
Coventry, Warwick and Birmingham mark the angles. Through the falling
night, “Mrs. Merdle” purred her way delicately round hedge-blinded
corners and down devious lanes, her quest made no easier by the fact
that the Warwick County Council had pitched upon that particular week
for a grand repainting of signposts and had reached the preliminary
stage of laying a couple of thick coats of gleaming white paint over all
the lettering. At intervals the patient Bunter unpacked himself from the
back seat and climbed one of these uncommunicative guides to peer at its
blank surface with a torch—a process which reminded Parker of Alan
Quartermain trying to trace the features of the departed Kings of the
Kukuanas under their calcareous shrouds of stalactite. One of the posts
turned out to be in the wet-paint stage, which added to the depression
of the party. Finally, after several misdirections, blind alleys, and
reversings back to the main road, they came to a fourways. The signpost
here must have been in extra need of repairs, for its arms had been
removed bodily; it stood, stark and ghastly—a long, livid finger erected
in wild protest to the unsympathetic heavens.
“It’s starting to rain,” observed Parker, conversationally.
“Look here, Charles, if you’re going to bear up cheerfully and be the
life and soul of the expedition, say so and have done with it. I’ve got
a good, heavy spanner handy under the seat, and Bunter can help to bury
the body.”
“I think this must be Brushwood Cross,” resumed Parker, who had the map
on his knee. “If so, and if it’s not Covert Corner, which I thought we
passed half an hour ago, one of those roads leads directly to Crofton.”
“That would be highly encouraging if we only knew which road we were
on.”
“We can always try them in turn, and come back if we find we’re going
wrong.”
“They bury _suicides_ at cross-roads,” replied Wimsey, dangerously.
“There’s a man sitting under that tree,” pursued Parker. “We can ask
him.”
“He’s lost his way too, or he wouldn’t be sitting there,” retorted the
other. “People don’t sit about in the rain for fun.”
At this moment the man observed their approach and, rising, advanced to
meet them with raised, arresting hand.
Wimsey brought the car to a standstill.
“Excuse me,” said the stranger, who turned out to be a youth in
motor-cycling kit, “but could you give me a hand with my ’bus?”
“What’s the matter with her?”
“Well, she won’t go.”
“I guessed as much,” said Wimsey. “Though why she should wish to linger
in a place like this beats me.” He got out of the car, and the youth,
diving into the hedge, produced the patient for inspection.
“Did you tumble there or put her there?” inquired Wimsey, eyeing the
machine distastefully.
“I put her there. I’ve been kicking the starter for hours but nothing
happened, so I thought I’d wait till somebody came along.”
“I see. What is the matter, exactly?”
“I don’t know. She was going beautifully and then she conked out
suddenly.”
“Have you run out of petrol?”
“Oh, no. I’m sure there’s plenty in.”
“Plug all right?”
“I don’t know.” The youth looked unhappy. “It’s only my second time out,
you see.”
“Oh! well—there can’t be much wrong. We’ll just make sure about the
petrol first,” said Wimsey, more cheerfully. He unscrewed the filler-cap
and turned his torch upon the interior of the tank. “Seems all right.”
He bent over again, whistling, and replaced the cap. “Let’s give her
another kick for luck and then we’ll look at the plug.”
The young man, thus urged, grasped the handle-bars, and with the energy
of despair delivered a kick which would have done credit to an army
mule. The engine roared into life in a fury of vibration, racing
heart-rendingly.
“Good God!” said the youth, “it’s a miracle.”
Lord Peter laid a gentle hand on the throttle-lever and the shattering
bellow calmed into a grateful purr.
“What did you do to it?” demanded the cyclist.
“Blew through the filler-cap,” said his lordship with a grin. “Air-lock
in the feed, old son, that’s all.”
“I’m frightfully grateful.”
“That’s all right. Look here, can you tell us the way to Crofton?”
“Sure. Straight down here. I’m going there, as a matter of fact.”
“Thank Heaven. Lead and I follow, as Sir Galahad says. How far?”
“Five miles.”
“Decent inn?”
“My governor keeps the ‘Fox-and-Hounds.’ Would that do? We’d give you
awfully decent grub.”
“Sorrow vanquished, labour ended, Jordan passed. Buzz off, my lad. No,
Charles, I will _not_ wait while you put on a Burberry. Back and side go
bare, go bare, hand and foot go cold, so belly-god send us good ale
enough, whether it be new or old.”
The starter hummed—the youth mounted his machine and led off down the
lane after one alarming wobble—Wimsey slipped in the clutch and followed
in his wake.
The “Fox-and-Hounds” turned out to be one of those pleasant,
old-fashioned inns where everything is upholstered in horse-hair and it
is never too late to obtain a good meal of cold roast sirloin and
home-grown salad. The landlady, Mrs. Piggin, served the travellers
herself. She wore a decent black satin dress and a front of curls of the
fashion favoured by the Royal Family. Her round, cheerful face glowed in
the firelight, seeming to reflect the radiance of the scarlet-coated
huntsmen who galloped and leapt and fell on every wall through a series
of sporting prints. Lord Peter’s mood softened under the influence of
the atmosphere and the house’s excellent ale, and by a series of
inquiries directed to the hunting-season, just concluded, the
neighbouring families and the price of horseflesh, he dexterously led
the conversation round to the subject of the late Miss Clara Whittaker.
“Oh, dear, yes,” said Mrs. Piggin, “to be sure, we knew Miss Whittaker.
Everybody knew her in these parts. A wonderful old lady she was. There’s
a many of her horses still in the country. Mr. Cleveland, he bought the
best part of the stock, and is doin’ well with them. Fine honest stock
she bred, and they all used to say she was a woman of wonderful judgment
with a horse—or a man either. Nobody ever got the better of her twice,
and very few, once.”
“Ah!” said Lord Peter, sagaciously.
“I remember her well, riding to hounds when she was well over sixty,”
went on Mrs. Piggin, “and she wasn’t one to wait for a gap, neither. Now
Miss Dawson—that was her friend as lived with her—over at the Manor
beyond the stone bridge—she was more timid-like. She’d go by the gates,
and we often used to say she’d never be riding at all, but for bein’
that fond of Miss Whittaker and not wanting to let her out of her sight.
But there, we can’t all be alike, can we, sir?—and Miss Whittaker was
altogether out of the way. They don’t make them like that nowadays. Not
but what these modern girls are good goers, many of them, and does a lot
of things as would have been thought very fast in the old days, but Miss
Whittaker had the knowledge as well. Bought her own horses and physicked
’em and bred ’em, and needed no advice from anybody.”
“She sounds a wonderful old girl,” said Wimsey, heartily. “I’d have
liked to know her. I’ve got some friends who knew Miss Dawson quite
well—when she was living in Hampshire, you know.”
“Indeed, sir? Well, that’s strange, isn’t it? She was a very kind, nice
lady. We heard she’d died, too. Of this cancer, was it? That’s a
terrible thing, poor soul. And fancy you being connected with her, so to
speak. I expect you’d be interested in some of our photographs of the
Crofton Hunt. Jim?”
“Hullo!”
“Show these gentlemen the photographs of Miss Whittaker and Miss Dawson.
They’re acquainted with some friends of Miss Dawson down in Hampshire.
Step this way—if you’re sure you won’t take anything more, sir.”
Mrs. Piggin led the way into a cosy little private bar, where a number
of hunting-looking gentlemen were enjoying a final glass before
closing-time. Piggin, stout and genial as his wife, moved forward to do
the honours.
“What’ll you have, gentlemen?—Joe, two pints of the winter ale. And
fancy you knowing our Miss Dawson. Dear me, the world’s a very small
place, as I often says to my wife. Here’s the last group as was ever
took of them, when the meet was held at the Manor in 1918. Of course,
you’ll understand, it wasn’t a regular meet, like, owing to the War and
the gentlemen being away and the horses too—we couldn’t keep things up
regular like in the old days. But what with the foxes gettin’ so
terrible many, and the packs all going to the dogs—ha! ha!—that’s what I
often used to say in this bar—the ’ounds is going to the dogs, I says.
Very good, they used to think it. There’s many a gentleman has laughed
at me sayin’ that—the ’ounds, I says, is goin’ to the dogs—well, as I
was sayin’, Colonel Fletcher and some of the older gentlemen, they says,
we must carry on somehow, they says, and so they ’ad one or two scratch
meets as you might say, just to keep the pack from fallin’ to pieces, as
you might say. And Miss Whittaker, she says, ‘’Ave the meet at the
Manor, Colonel,’ she says, ‘it’s the last meet I’ll ever see, perhaps,’
she says. And so it was, poor lady, for she ’ad a stroke in the New
Year. She died in 1922. That’s ’er, sitting in the pony-carriage and
Miss Dawson beside ’er. Of course, Miss Whittaker ’ad ’ad to give up
riding to ’ounds some years before. She was gettin’ on, but she always
followed in the trap, up to the very last. ’Andsome old lady, ain’t she,
sir?”
Lord Peter and Parker looked with considerable interest at the rather
grim old woman sitting so uncompromisingly upright with the reins in her
hand. A dour, weather-beaten old face, but certainly handsome still,
with its large nose and straight, heavy eyebrows. And beside her,
smaller, plumper and more feminine, was the Agatha Dawson whose curious
death had led them to this quiet country place. She had a sweet, smiling
face—less dominating than that of her redoubtable friend, but full of
spirit and character. Without doubt they had been a remarkable pair of
old ladies.
Lord Peter asked a question or two about the family.
“Well, sir, I can’t say as I knows much about that. We always understood
as Miss Whittaker had quarrelled with her people on account of comin’
here and settin’ up for herself. It wasn’t usual in them days for girls
to leave home the way it is now. But if you’re particularly interested,
sir, there’s an old gentleman here as can tell you all about the
Whittakers and the Dawsons too, and that’s Ben Cobling. He was Miss
Whittaker’s groom for forty years, and he married Miss Dawson’s maid as
come with her from Norfolk. Eighty-six ’e was, last birthday, but a
grand old fellow still. We thinks a lot of Ben Cobling in these parts.
’Im and his wife lives in the little cottage what Miss Whittaker left
them when she died. If you’d like to go round and see them to-morrow,
sir, you’ll find Ben’s memory as good as ever it was. Excuse me, sir,
but it’s time. I must get ’em out of the bar.—Time, gentlemen, please!
Three and eightpence, sir, thank you, sir. Hurry up, gentlemen, please.
Now then, Joe, look sharp.”
“Great place, Crofton,” said Lord Peter, when he and Parker were left
alone in a great, low-ceilinged bedroom, where the sheets smelt of
lavender. “Ben Cobling’s sure to know all about Cousin Hallelujah. I’m
looking forward to Ben Cobling.”
CHAPTER XII
A Tale of Two Spinsters
“_The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the
most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it._”
Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution_
The rainy night was followed by a sun-streaked morning. Lord Peter,
having wrapped himself affectionately round an abnormal quantity of
bacon and eggs, strolled out to bask at the door of the
“Fox-and-Hounds.” He filled a pipe slowly and meditated. Within, a
cheerful bustle in the bar announced the near arrival of opening time.
Eight ducks crossed the road in Indian file. A cat sprang up upon the
bench, stretched herself, tucked her hind legs under her and coiled her
tail tightly round them as though to prevent them from accidentally
working loose. A groom passed, riding a tall bay horse and leading a
chestnut with a hogged mane; a spaniel followed them, running
ridiculously, with one ear flopped inside-out over his foolish head.
Lord Peter said, “Hah!”
The inn-door was set hospitably open by the barman, who said, “Good
morning, sir; fine morning, sir,” and vanished within again.
Lord Peter said, “Umph.” He uncrossed his right foot from over his left
and straddled happily across the threshold.
Round the corner by the church-yard wall a little bent figure hove into
sight—an aged man with a wrinkled face and legs incredibly bowed, his
spare shanks enclosed in leather gaiters. He advanced at a kind of brisk
totter and civilly bared his ancient head before lowering himself with
an audible creak on to the bench beside the cat.
“Good morning, sir,” said he.
“Good morning,” said Lord Peter. “A beautiful day.”
“That it be, sir, that it be,” said the old man, heartily. “When I sees
a beautiful May day like this, I pray the Lord He’ll spare me to live in
this wonderful world of His a few years longer. I do indeed.”
“You look uncommonly fit,” said his lordship, “I should think there was
every chance of it.”
“I’m still very hearty, sir, thank you, though I am eighty-seven next
Michaelmas.”
Lord Peter expressed a proper astonishment.
“Yes, sir, eighty-seven, and if it wasn’t for the rheumatics I’d have
nothin’ to complain on. I’m stronger maybe than what I look. I knows I’m
a bit bent, sir, but that’s the ’osses, sir, more than age. Regular
brought up with ’osses I’ve been all my life. Worked with ’em, slept
with ’em—lived in a stable, you might say, sir.”
“You couldn’t have better company,” said Lord Peter.
“That’s right, sir, you couldn’t. My wife always used to say she was
jealous of the ’osses. Said I preferred their conversation to hers.
Well, maybe she was right, sir. A ’oss never talks no foolishness, I
says to her, and that’s more than you can always say of women, ain’t it,
sir?”
“It is indeed,” said Wimsey. “What are you going to have?”
“Thank you, sir, I’ll have my usual pint of bitter. Jim knows. Jim!
Always start the day with a pint of bitter, sir. It’s ’olesomer than tea
to my mind and don’t fret the coats of the stomach.”
“I dare say you’re right,” said Wimsey. “Now you mention it, there is
something fretful about tea. Mr. Piggin, two pints of bitter, please,
and will you join us?”
“Thank you, my lord,” said the landlord. “Joe! Two large bitters and a
Guinness. Beautiful morning, my lord—’morning, Mr. Cobling—I see you’ve
made each other’s acquaintance already.”
“By Jove! So this is Mr. Cobling. I’m delighted to see you. I wanted
particularly to have a chat with you.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“I was telling this gentleman—Lord Peter Wimsey his name is—as you could
tell him all about Miss Whittaker and Miss Dawson. He knows friends of
Miss Dawson’s.”
“Indeed? Ah! There ain’t much I _couldn’t_ tell you about them ladies.
And proud I’d be to do it. Fifty years I was with Miss Whittaker. I come
to her as under-groom in old Johnny Blackthorne’s time, and stayed on as
headgroom after he died. A rare young lady she was in them days. Deary
me. Straight as a switch, with a fine, high colour in her cheeks and
shiny black hair—just like a beautiful two-year-old filly she was. And
very sperrited. Wonnerful sperrited. There was a many gentlemen as would
have been glad to hitch up with her, but she was never broke to harness.
Like dirt, she treated ’em. Wouldn’t look at ’em, except it might be the
grooms and stablehands in a matter of ’osses. And in the way of
business, of course. Well, there is some creatures like that. I ’ad a
terrier-bitch that way. Great ratter she was. But a business
woman—nothin’ else. I tried ’er with all the dogs I could lay ’and to,
but it weren’t no good. Bloodshed there was an’ sich a row—you never
’eard. The Lord makes a few on ’em that way to suit ’Is own purposes, I
suppose. There ain’t no arguin’ with females.”
Lord Peter said “Ah!”
The ale went down in silence.
Mr. Piggin roused himself presently from contemplation to tell a story
of Miss Whittaker in the hunting-field. Mr. Cobling capped this by
another. Lord Peter said “Ah!” Parker then emerged and was introduced,
and Mr. Cobling begged the privilege of standing a round of drinks. This
ritual accomplished, Mr. Piggin begged the company would be his guests
for a third round, and then excused himself on the plea of customers to
attend to.
He went in, and Lord Peter, by skilful and maddeningly slow degrees,
began to work his way back to the history of the Dawson family.
Parker—educated at Barrow-in-Furness grammar school and with his wits
further sharpened in the London police service—endeavoured now and again
to get matters along faster by a brisk question. The result, every time,
was to make Mr. Cobling lose the thread of his remarks and start him off
into a series of interminable side-tracks. Wimsey kicked his friend
viciously on the anklebone to keep him quiet, and with endless patience
worked the conversation back to the main road again.
At the end of an hour or so, Mr. Cobling explained that his wife could
tell them a great deal more about Miss Dawson than what he could, and
invited them to visit his cottage. This invitation being accepted with
alacrity, the party started off, Mr. Cobling explaining to Parker that
he was eighty-seven come next Michaelmas, and hearty still, indeed,
stronger than he appeared, bar the rheumatics that troubled him. “I’m
not saying as I’m not bent,” said Mr. Cobling, “but that’s more the work
of the ’osses. Regular lived with ’osses all my life—”
“Don’t look so fretful, Charles,” murmured Wimsey in his ear, “it must
be the tea at breakfast—it frets the coats of the stomach.”
Mrs. Cobling turned out to be a delightful old lady, exactly like a
dried-up pippin and only two years younger than her husband. She was
entranced at getting an opportunity to talk about her darling Miss
Agatha. Parker, thinking it necessary to put forward some reason for the
inquiry, started on an involved explanation, and was kicked again. To
Mrs. Cobling, nothing could be more natural than that all the world
should be interested in the Dawsons, and she prattled gaily on without
prompting.
She had been in the Dawson family service as a girl—almost born in it as
you might say. Hadn’t her mother been housekeeper to Mr. Henry Dawson,
Miss Agatha’s papa, and to his father before him? She herself had gone
to the big house as stillroom maid when she wasn’t but fifteen. That was
when Miss Harriet was only three years old—her as afterwards married Mr.
James Whittaker. Yes, and she’d been there when the rest of the family
was born. Mr. Stephen—him as should have been the heir—ah, dear! only
the trouble came and that killed his poor father and there was nothing
left. Yes, a sad business that was. Poor Mr. Henry speculated with
something—Mrs. Cobling wasn’t clear what, but it was all very wicked and
happened in London where there were so many wicked people—and the long
and the short was, he lost it all, poor gentleman, and never held up his
head again. Only fifty-four he was when he died; such a fine upright
gentleman with a pleasant word for everybody. And his wife didn’t live
long after him, poor lamb. She was a Frenchwoman and a sweet lady, but
she was very lonely in England, having no family and her two sisters
walled up alive in one of them dreadful Romish Convents.
“And what did Mr. Stephen do when the money went?” asked Wimsey.
“Him? Oh, he went into business—a strange thing that did seem, though I
have heard tell as old Barnabas Dawson, Mr. Henry’s grandfather that
was, was nought but a grocer or something of that—and they do say, don’t
they, that from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves is three generations?
Still, it was very hard on Mr. Stephen, as had always been brought up to
have everything of the best. And engaged to be married to a beautiful
lady, too, and a very rich heiress. But it was all for the best, for
when she heard Mr. Stephen was a poor man after all, she threw him over,
and that showed she had no heart in her at all. Mr. Stephen never
married till he was over forty, and then it was a lady with no family at
all—not lawful, that is, though she was a dear, sweet girl and made Mr.
Stephen a most splendid wife—she did indeed. And Mr. John, he was their
only son. They thought the world of him. It was a terrible day when the
news came that he was killed in the War. A cruel business that was, sir,
wasn’t it?—and nobody the better for it as I can see, but all these
shocking hard taxes, and the price of everything gone up so, and so many
out of work.”
“So he was killed? That must have been a terrible grief to his parents.”
“Yes, sir, terrible. Oh, it was an awful thing altogether, sir, for poor
Mr. Stephen, as had had so much trouble all his life, he went out of his
poor mind and shot hisself. Out of his mind he must have been, sir, to
do it—and what was more dreadful still, he shot his dear lady as well.
You may remember it, sir. There was pieces in the paper about it.”
“I seem to have some vague recollection of it,” said Peter, quite
untruthfully, but anxious not to seem to belittle the local tragedy.
“And young John—he wasn’t married, I suppose.”
“No, sir. That was very sad, too. He was engaged to a young lady—a nurse
in one of the English hospitals, as we understood, and he was hoping to
get back and be married to her on his next leave. Everything did seem to
go all wrong together them terrible years.”
The old lady sighed, and wiped her eyes.
“Mr. Stephen was the only son, then?”
“Well, not exactly, sir. There was the darling twins. Such pretty
children, but they only lived two days. They come four years after Miss
Harriet—her as married Mr. James Whittaker.”
“Yes, of course. That was how the families became connected.”
“Yes, sir. Miss Agatha and Miss Harriet and Miss Clara Whittaker was all
at the same school together, and Mrs. Whittaker asked the two young
ladies to go and spend their holidays with Miss Clara, and that was when
Mr. James fell in love with Miss Harriet. She wasn’t as pretty as Miss
Agatha, to my thinking, but she was livelier and quicker—and then, of
course, Miss Agatha was never one for flirting and foolishness. Often
she used to say to me, ‘Betty,’ she said, ‘I mean to be an old maid and
so does Miss Clara, and we’re going to live together and be ever so
happy, without any stupid, tiresome gentlemen.’ And so it turned out,
sir, as you know, for Miss Agatha, for all she was so quiet, was very
determined. Once she’d said a thing, you couldn’t turn her from it—not
with reasons, nor with threats, nor with coaxings—nothing! Many’s the
time I’ve tried when she was a child—for I used to give a little help in
the nursery sometimes, sir. You might drive her into a temper or into
the sulks, but you couldn’t make her change her little mind, even then.”
There came to Wimsey’s mind the picture of the stricken, helpless old
woman, holding to her own way in spite of her lawyer’s reasoning and her
niece’s subterfuge. A remarkable old lady, certainly, in her way.
“I suppose the Dawson family has practically died out, then,” he said.
“Oh, yes, sir. There’s only Miss Mary now—and she’s a Whittaker, of
course. She is Miss Harriet’s grand-daughter, Mr. Charles Whittaker’s
only child. She was left all alone, too, when she went to live with Miss
Dawson. Mr. Charles and his wife was killed in one of these dreadful
motors—dear, dear—it seemed we was fated to have nothing but one tragedy
after another. Just to think of Ben and me outliving them all.”
“Cheer up, Mother,” said Ben, laying his hand on hers. “The Lord have
been wonderful good to us.”
“That He have. Three sons we have, sir, and two daughters, and fourteen
grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Maybe you’d like to see
their pictures, sir.”
Lord Peter said he should like to very much, and Parker made
confirmatory noises. The life-histories of all the children and
descendants were detailed at suitable length. Whenever a pause seemed
discernible, Parker would mutter hopefully in Wimsey’s car, “How about
Cousin Hallelujah?” but before a question could be put, the interminable
family chronicle was resumed.
“And for God’s sake, Charles,” whispered Peter, savagely, when Mrs.
Cobling had risen to hunt for the shawl which Grandson William had sent
home from the Dardanelles, “don’t keep saying Hallelujah at me! I’m not
a revival meeting.”
The shawl being duly admired, the conversation turned upon foreign
parts, natives and black people generally, following on which, Lord
Peter added carelessly:
“By the way, hasn’t the Dawson family got some sort of connections in
those foreign countries, somewhere?”
Well, yes, said Mrs. Cobling, in rather a shocked tone. There had been
Mr. Paul, Mr. Henry’s brother. But he was not mentioned much. He had
been a terrible shock to his family. In fact—a gasp here, and a lowering
of the voice—he had _turned Papist_ and become—a monk! (Had he become a
murderer, apparently, he could hardly have done worse.) Mr. Henry had
always blamed himself very much in the matter.
“How was it his fault?”
“Well, of course, Mr. Henry’s wife—my dear mistress, you see, sir—she
was French, as I told you, and of course, _she_ was a Papist. Being
brought up that way, she wouldn’t know any better, naturally, and she
was very young when she was married. But Mr. Henry soon taught her to be
a Christian, and she put away her idolatrous ideas and went to the
parish church. But Mr. Paul, _he_ fell in love with one of her sisters,
and the sister had been vowed to religion, as they called it, and had
shut herself up in a nunnery.” And then Mr. Paul had broken his heart
and “gone over” to the Scarlet Woman and—again the pause and the
hush—become a monk. A terrible to-do it made. And he’d lived to be a
very old man, and for all Mrs. Cobling knew was living yet, still in the
error of his ways.
“If he’s alive,” murmured Parker, “he’s probably the real heir. He’d be
Agatha Dawson’s uncle and her nearest relation.”
Wimsey frowned and returned to the charge.
“Well, it couldn’t have been Mr. Paul I had in mind,” he said, “because
this sort of relation of Miss Agatha Dawson’s that I heard about was a
real foreigner—in fact, a very dark-complexioned man—almost a black man
or so I was told.”
“Black?” cried the old lady—“oh, no, sir—that couldn’t be. Unless—dear
Lord a’ mercy, it couldn’t be that, surely! Ben, do you think it could
be that?—Old Simon, you know?”
Ben shook his head. “I never heard tell much about him.”
“Nor nobody did,” replied Mrs. Cobling, energetically. “He was a long
way back, but they had tales of him in the family. ‘Wicked Simon,’ they
called him. He sailed away to the Indies, many years ago, and nobody
knew what became of him. Wouldn’t it be a queer thing, like, if he was
to have married a black wife out in them parts, and this was his—oh,
dear—his grandson it ’ud have to be, if not his great-grandson, for he
was Mr. Henry’s uncle, and that’s a long time ago.”
This was disappointing. A grandson of “old Simon’s” would surely be too
distant a relative to dispute Mary Whittaker’s title. However:
“That’s very interesting,” said Wimsey. “Was it the East Indies or the
West Indies he went to, I wonder?”
Mrs. Cobling didn’t know, but she believed it was something to do with
America.
“It’s a pity as Mr. Probyn ain’t in England any longer. He could have
told you more about the family than what I can. But he retired last year
and went away to Italy or some such place.”
“Who was he?”
“He was Miss Whittaker’s solicitor,” said Ben, “and he managed all Miss
Dawson’s business, too. A nice gentleman he was, but uncommon sharp—ha,
ha! Never gave nothing away. But that’s lawyers all the world over,”
added he, shrewdly, “take all and give nothing.”
“Did he live in Crofton?”
“No, sir, in Croftover Magna, twelve miles from here. Pointer & Winkin
have his business now, but they’re young men, and I don’t know much
about them.”
Having by this time heard all the Coblings had to tell, Wimsey and
Parker gradually disentangled themselves and took their leave.
“Well, Cousin Hallelujah’s a wash-out,” said Parker.
“Possibly—possibly not. There may be some connection. Still, I certainly
think the disgraceful and papistical Mr. Paul is more promising.
Obviously Mr. Probyn is the bird to get hold of. You realise who he is?”
“He’s the mysterious solicitor, I suppose.”
“Of course he is. He knows why Miss Dawson ought to have made her will.
And we’re going straight off to Croftover Magna to look up Messrs.
Pointer & Winkin, and see what they have to say about it.”
Unhappily, Messrs. Pointer & Winkin had nothing to say whatever. Miss
Dawson had withdrawn her affairs from Mr. Probyn’s hands and had lodged
all the papers with her new solicitor. Messrs. Pointer & Winkin had
never had any connection with the Dawson family. They had no objection,
however, to furnishing Mr. Probyn’s address—Villa Bianca, Fiesole. They
regretted that they could be of no further assistance to Lord Peter
Wimsey and Mr. Parker. Good morning.
“Short and sour,” was his lordship’s comment. “Well, well—we’ll have a
spot of lunch and write a letter to Mr. Probyn and another to my good
friend Bishop Lambert of the Orinoco Mission to get a line on Cousin
Hallelujah, Smile, smile, smile. As Ingoldsby says: ‘The breezes are
blowing a race, a race! The breezes are blowing—we near the chase!’ Do
ye ken John Peel? Likewise, know’st thou the land where blooms the
citron-flower? Well, never mind if you don’t—you can always look forward
to going there for your honeymoon.”
CHAPTER XIII
Hallelujah
“_Our ancestors are very good kind of folks, but they are the last
people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with._”
Sheridan, _The Rivals_
That excellent prelate, Bishop Lambert of the Orinoco Mission, proved to
be a practical and kind man. He did not personally know the Rev.
Hallelujah Dawson, but thought he might belong to the Tabernacle
Mission—a Nonconformist body which was doing a very valuable work in
those parts. He would himself communicate with the London Headquarters
of this community and let Lord Peter know the result. Two hours later,
Bishop Lambert’s secretary had duly rung up the Tabernacle Mission and
received the very satisfactory information that the Rev. Hallelujah
Dawson was in England, and, indeed, available at their Mission House in
Stepney. He was an elderly minister, living in very reduced
circumstances—in fact, the Bishop rather gathered that the story was a
sad one—Oh, not at all, pray, no thanks. The Bishop’s poor miserable
slave of a secretary did all the work. Very glad to hear from Lord
Peter, and was he being good? Ha, ha! and when was he coming to dine
with the Bishop?
Lord Peter promptly gathered up Parker and swooped down with him upon
the Tabernacle Mission, before whose dim and grim frontage Mrs. Merdle’s
long black bonnet and sweeping copper exhaust made an immense
impression. The small fry of the neighbourhood had clustered about her
and were practising horn solos almost before Wimsey had rung the bell.
On Parker’s threatening them with punishment and casually informing them
that he was a police officer, they burst into ecstasies of delight, and
joining hands, formed a ring-o’-roses round him, under the guidance of a
sprightly young woman of twelve years old or thereabouts. Parker made a
few harassed darts at them, but the ring only broke up, shrieking with
laughter, and reformed, singing. The Mission door opened at the moment,
displaying this undignified exhibition to the eyes of a lank young man
in spectacles, who shook a long finger disapprovingly and said, “Now,
you children,” without the slightest effect and apparently without the
faintest expectation of producing any.
Lord Peter explained his errand.
“Oh, come in, please,” said the young man, who had one finger in a book
of theology. “I’m afraid your friend—er—this is rather a noisy
district.”
Parker shook himself free from his tormentors, and advanced, breathing
threatenings and slaughter, to which the enemy responded by a derisive
blast of the horn.
“They’ll run those batteries down,” said Wimsey.
“You can’t do anything with the little devils,” growled Parker.
“Why don’t you treat them as human beings?” retorted Wimsey. “Children
are creatures of like passions with politicians and financiers. Here,
Esmeralda!” he added, beckoning to the ringleader.
The young woman put her tongue out and made a rude gesture, but
observing the glint of coin in the outstretched hand, suddenly
approached and stood challengingly before them.
“Look here,” said Wimsey, “here’s half a crown—thirty pennies, you know.
Any use to you?”
The child promptly proved her kinship with humanity. She became abashed
in the presence of wealth, and was silent, rubbing one dusty shoe upon
the calf of her stocking.
“You appear,” pursued Lord Peter, “to be able to keep your young friends
in order if you choose. I take you, in fact, for a woman of character.
Very well, if you keep them from touching my car while I’m in the house,
you get this half-crown, see? But if you let ’em blow the horn, I shall
hear it. Every time the horn goes, you lose a penny, got that? If the
horn blows six times, you only get two bob. If I hear it thirty times,
you don’t get anything. And I shall look out from time to time, and if I
see anybody mauling the car about or sitting in it, _then_ you don’t get
anything. Do I make myself clear?”
“I takes care o’ yer car fer ’arf a crahn. An’ ef the ’orn goes, you
docks a copper ’orf of it.”
“That’s right.”
“Right you are, mister. I’ll see none on ’em touches it.”
“Good girl. Now, sir.”
The spectacled young man led them into a gloomy little waiting-room,
suggestive of a railway station and hung with Old Testament prints.
“I’ll tell Mr. Dawson you’re here,” said he, and vanished, with the
volume of theology still clutched in his hand.
Presently a shuffling step was heard on the coconut matting, and Wimsey
and Parker braced themselves to confront the villainous claimant.
The door, however, opened to admit an elderly West Indian, of so humble
and inoffensive an appearance that the hearts of the two detectives sank
into their boots. Anything less murderous could scarcely be imagined, as
he stood blinking nervously at them from behind a pair of steel-rimmed
spectacles, the frames of which had at one time been broken and bound
with twine.
The Rev. Hallelujah Dawson was undoubtedly a man of colour. He had the
pleasant, slightly aquiline features and brown-olive skin of the
Polynesian. His hair was scanty and greyish—not woolly, but closely
curled. His stooping shoulders were clad in a threadbare clerical coat.
His black eyes, yellow about the whites and slightly protruding, rolled
amiably at them, and his smile was open and frank.
“You asked to see me?” he began, in perfect English, but with the soft
native intonation. “I think I have not the pleasure—?”
“How do you do, Mr. Dawson? Yes. We are—er—makin’ certain
inquiries—er—in connection with the family of the Dawsons of Crofton in
Warwickshire, and it has been suggested that you might be able to
enlighten us, what? as to their West Indian connections—if you would be
so good.”
“Ah, yes!” The old man drew himself up slightly. “I am myself—in a way—a
descendant of the family. Won’t you sit down?”
“Thank you. We thought you might be.”
“You do not come from Miss Whittaker?”
There was something eager, yet defensive in the tone. Wimsey, not quite
knowing what was behind it, chose the discreeter part.
“Oh, no. We are—preparin’ a work on County Families, don’t you know.
Tombstones and genealogies and that sort of thing.”
“Oh!—yes—I hoped perhaps—” The mild tones died away in a sigh. “But I
shall be very happy to help you in any way.”
“Well, the question now is, what became of Simon Dawson? We know that he
left his family and sailed for the West Indies in—ah!—in seventeen—”
“Eighteen hundred and ten,” said the old man, with surprising quickness.
“Yes. He got into trouble when he was a lad of sixteen. He took up with
bad men older than himself, and became involved in a very terrible
affair. It had to do with gaming, and a man was killed. Not in a duel—in
those days that would not have been considered disgraceful—though
violence is always displeasing to the Lord—but the man was foully
murdered and Simon Dawson and his friends fled from justice. Simon fell
in with the press-gang and was carried off to sea. He served fifteen
years and was then taken by a French privateer. Later on he escaped
and—to cut a long story short—got away to Trinidad under another name.
Some English people there were kind to him and gave him work on their
sugar plantation. He did well there and eventually became owner of a
small plantation of his own.”
“What was the name he went by?”
“Harkaway. I suppose he was afraid that they would get hold of him as a
deserter from the Navy if he went by his own name. No doubt he should
have reported his escape. Anyway, he liked plantation life and was quite
satisfied to stay where he was. I don’t suppose he would have cared to
go home, even to claim his inheritance. And then, there was always the
matter of the murder, you know—though I dare say they would not have
brought that trouble up against him, seeing he was so young when it
happened and it was not his hand that did the awful deed.”
“His inheritance? Was he the eldest son, then?”
“No. Barnabas was the eldest, but he was killed at Waterloo and left no
family. Then there was a second son, Roger, but he died of smallpox as a
child. Simon was the third son.”
“Then it was the fourth son who took the estate?”
“Yes, Frederick. He was Henry’s Dawson’s father. They tried, of course,
to find out what became of Simon, but in those days it was very
difficult, you understand, to get information from foreign places, and
Simon had quite disappeared. So they had to pass him over.”
“And what happened to Simon’s children?” asked Parker. “Did he have
any?”
The clergyman nodded, and a deep, dusky flush showed under his dark
skin.
“I am his grandson,” he said, simply. “That is why I came over to
England. When the Lord called me to feed His lambs among my own people,
I was in quite good circumstances. I had the little sugar plantation
which had come down to me through my father, and I married and was very
happy. But we fell on bad times—the sugar crop failed, and our little
flock became smaller and poorer and could not give so much support to
their minister. Besides, I was getting too old and frail to do my
work—and I have a sick wife, too, and God has blessed us with many
daughters, who needed our care. I was in great straits. And then I came
upon some old family papers belonging to my grandfather, Simon, and
learned that his name was not Harkaway but Dawson, and I thought, maybe
I had a family in England and that God would yet raise up a table in the
wilderness. Accordingly, when the time came to send a representative
home to our London Headquarters, I asked permission to resign my
ministry out there and come over to England.”
“Did you get into touch with anybody?”
“Yes. I went to Crofton—which was mentioned in my grandfather’s
letters—and saw a lawyer in the town there—a Mr. Probyn of Croftover.
You know him?”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Yes. He was very kind, and very much interested to see me. He showed me
the genealogy of the family, and how my grandfather should have been the
heir to the property.”
“But the property had been lost by that time, had it not?”
“Yes. And, unfortunately—when I showed him my grandmother’s marriage
certificate, he—he told me that it was no certificate at all. I fear
that Simon Dawson was a sad sinner. He took my grandmother to live with
him, as many of the planters did take women of colour, and he gave her a
document which was supposed to be a certificate of marriage signed by
the Governor of the country. But when Mr. Probyn inquired into it, he
found that it was all a sham, and no such governor had ever existed. It
was distressing to my feelings as a Christian, of course—but since there
was no property, it didn’t make any actual difference to us.”
“That was bad luck,” said Peter, sympathetically.
“I called resignation to my aid,” said the old Indian, with a dignified
little bow. “Mr. Probyn was also good enough to send me with a letter of
introduction to Miss Agatha Dawson, the only surviving member of our
family.”
“Yes, she lived at Leahampton.”
“She received me in the most charming way, and when I told her who I
was—acknowledging, of course, that I had not the slightest claim upon
her—she was good enough to make me an allowance of £100 a year, which
she continued till her death.”
“Was that the only time you saw her?”
“Oh, yes. I would not intrude upon her. It could not be agreeable to her
to have a relative of my complexion continually at her house,” said the
Rev. Hallelujah, with a kind of proud humility. “But she gave me lunch,
and spoke very kindly.”
“And—forgive my askin’—hope it isn’t impertinent—but does Miss Whittaker
keep up the allowance?”
“Well, no—I—perhaps I should not expect it, but it would have made a
great difference to our circumstances. And Miss Dawson rather led me to
hope that it might be continued. She told me that she did not like the
idea of making a will, but, she said, ‘It is not necessary at all,
Cousin Hallelujah, Mary will have all my money when I am gone, and she
can continue the allowance on my behalf.’ But perhaps Miss Whittaker did
not get the money after all?”
“Oh, yes, she did. It is very odd. She may have forgotten about it.”
“I took the liberty of writing her a few words of spiritual comfort when
her aunt died. Perhaps that did not please her. Of course, I did not
write again. Yet I am loath to believe that she has hardened her heart
against the unfortunate. No doubt there is some explanation.”
“No doubt,” said Lord Peter. “Well, I’m very grateful to you for your
kindness. That has quite cleared up the little matter of Simon and his
descendants. I’ll just make a note of the names and dates, if I may.”
“Certainly. I will bring you the paper which Mr. Probyn kindly made out
for me, showing the whole of the family. Excuse me.”
He was not gone long, and soon reappeared with a genealogy, neatly typed
out on a legal-looking sheet of blue paper.
Wimsey began to note down the particulars concerning Simon Dawson and
his son, Bosun, and his grandson, Hallelujah. Suddenly he put his finger
on an entry further along.
“Look here, Charles,” he said. “Here is our Father Paul—the bad boy who
turned R.C. and became a monk.”
“So he is. But—he’s dead, Peter—died in 1922, three years before Agatha
Dawson.”
“Yes. We must wash him out. Well, these little setbacks will occur.”
They finished their notes, bade farewell to the Rev. Hallelujah, and
emerged to find Esmeralda valiantly defending Mrs. Merdle against all
comers. Lord Peter handed over the half-crown and took delivery of the
car.
“The more I hear of Mary Whittaker,” he said, “the less I like her. She
might at least have given poor old Cousin Hallelujah his hundred quid.”
“She’s a rapacious female,” agreed Parker. “Well, anyway, Father Paul’s
safely dead, and Cousin Hallelujah is illegitimately descended. So
there’s an end of the long-lost claimant from overseas.”
“Damn it all!” cried Wimsey, taking both hands from the steering-wheel
and scratching his head, to Parker’s extreme alarm, “that strikes a
familiar chord. Now where in thunder have I heard those words before?”
CHAPTER XIV
Sharp Quillets of the Low
“_Things done without example—in their issue
Are to be feared._”
_Henry VIII_, 1, 2
“Murbles is coming round to dinner to-night, Charles,” said Wimsey. “I
wish you’d stop and have grub with us too. I want to put all this family
history business before him.”
“Where are you dining?”
“Oh, at the flat. I’m sick of restaurant meals. Bunter does a wonderful
bloody steak and there are new peas and potatoes and genuine English
grass. Gerald sent it up from Denver specially. You can’t buy it. Come
along. Ye olde English fare, don’t you know, and a bottle of what Pepys
calls Ho Bryon. Do you good.”
Parker accepted. But he noticed that, even when speaking on his beloved
subject of food, Wimsey was vague and abstracted. Something seemed to be
worrying at the back of his mind, and even when Mr. Murbles appeared,
full of mild legal humour, Wimsey listened to him with extreme courtesy
indeed, but with only half his attention.
They were partly through dinner when, a propos of nothing, Wimsey
suddenly brought his fist down on the mahogany with a crash that
startled even Bunter, causing him to jerk a great crimson splash of the
Haut Brion over the edge of the glass upon the tablecloth.
“Got it!” said Lord Peter.
Bunter in a low shocked voice begged his lordship’s pardon.
“Murbles,” said Wimsey, without heeding him, “isn’t there a new Property
Act?”
“Why, yes,” said Mr. Murbles, in some surprise. He had been in the
middle of a story when the interruption occurred, and was a little put
out.
“I knew I’d read that sentence somewhere—you know, Charles—about doing
away with the long-lost claimant from overseas. It was in some paper or
other about a couple of years ago, and it had to do with the new Act. Of
course, it said what a blow it would be to romantic novelists. Doesn’t
the Act wash out the claims of distant relatives, Murbles?”
“In a sense, it does,” replied the solicitor. “Not, of course, in the
case of entailed property, which has its own rules. But I understand you
to refer to ordinary personal property or real estate not entailed.”
“Yes—what happens to that, now, if the owner of the property dies
without making a will?”
“It is rather a complicated matter,” began Mr. Murbles.
“Well, look here, first of all—before the jolly old Act was passed, the
next-of-kin got it all, didn’t he—no matter if he was only a seventh
cousin fifteen times removed?”
“In a general way, that is correct. If there was a husband or wife—”
“Wash out the husband and wife. Suppose the person is unmarried and has
no near relations living. It would have gone—”
“To the next-of-kin, whoever that was, if he or she could be traced.”
“Even if you had to burrow back to William the Conqueror to get at the
relationship?”
“Always supposing you could get a clear record back to so very early a
date,” replied Mr. Murbles. “It is, of course, in the highest degree
improbable—”
“Yes, yes, I know, sir. But what happens now in such a case?”
“The new Act makes inheritance on intestacy very much simpler,” said Mr.
Murbles, setting his knife and fork together, placing both elbows on the
table and laying the index-finger of his right hand against his left
thumb in a gesture of tabulation.
“I bet it does,” interpolated Wimsey. “I know what an Act to make things
simpler means. It means that the people who drew it up don’t understand
it themselves and that every one of its clauses needs a law-suit to
disentangle it. But do go on.”
“Under the new Act,” pursued Mr. Murbles, “one half of the property goes
to the husband and wife, if living, and subject to his or her
life-interest, then all to the children equally. But if there be no
spouse and no children, then it goes to the father or mother of the
deceased. If the father and mother are both dead, then everything goes
to the brothers and sisters of the whole blood who are living at the
time, but if any brother or sister dies before the intestate, then to
his or her issue. In case there are no brothers or sisters of the—”
“Stop, stop! you needn’t go any further. You’re absolutely sure of that?
It goes to the brothers’ or sisters’ issue?”
“Yes. That is to say, if it were you that died intestate and your
brother Gerald and your sister Mary were already dead, your money would
be equally divided among your nieces and nephews.”
“Yes, but suppose they were already dead too—suppose I’d gone tediously
living on till I’d nothing left but great-nephews and great-nieces—would
they inherit?”
“Why—why, yes, I suppose they would,” said Mr. Murbles, with less
certainty, however. “Oh, yes, I think they would.”
“Clearly they would,” said Parker, a little impatiently, “if it says to
the issue of the deceased’s brothers and sisters.”
“Ah! but we must not be precipitate,” said Mr. Murbles, rounding upon
him. “To the lay mind, doubtless, the word ‘issue’ appears a simple one.
But in law”—(Mr. Murbles, who up till this point had held the
index-finger of the right hand poised against the ring-finger of the
left, in recognition of the claims of the brothers and sisters of the
half-blood, now placed his left palm upon the table and wagged his right
index-finger admonishingly in Parker’s direction)—“in _law_ the word may
bear one of two, or indeed several, interpretations according to the
nature of the document in which it occurs and the date of that
document.”
“But in the new Act—” urged Lord Peter.
“I am not, particularly,” said Mr. Murbles, “a specialist in the law
concerning property, and I should not like to give a decided opinion as
to its interpretation, all the more as, up to the present, no case has
come before the Courts bearing on the present issue—no pun intended, ha,
ha, ha! But my immediate and entirely tentative opinion—which, however,
I should advise you not to accept without the support of some weightier
authority—would be, I _think_, that issue in this case means issue _ad
infinitum_, and that therefore the great-nephews and great-nieces would
be entitled to inherit.”
“But there might be another opinion?”
“Yes—the question is a complicated one—”
“What did I tell you?” groaned Peter. “I _knew_ this simplifying Act
would cause a shockin’ lot of muddle.”
“May I ask,” said Mr. Murbles, “exactly why you want to know all this?”
“Why, sir,” said Wimsey, taking from his pocket-book the genealogy of
the Dawson family which he had received from the Rev. Hallelujah Dawson,
“here is the point. We have always talked about Mary Whittaker as Agatha
Dawson’s niece; she was always called so and she speaks of the old lady
as her aunt. But if you look at this, you will see that actually she was
no nearer to her than great-niece: she was the grand-daughter of
Agatha’s sister Harriet.”
“Quite true,” said Mr. Murbles, “but still, she was apparently the
nearest surviving relative, and since Agatha Dawson died in 1925, the
money passed without any question to Mary Whittaker under the old
Property Act. There’s no ambiguity there.”
“No,” said Wimsey, “none whatever, that’s the point. But—”
“Good God!” broke in Parker, “I see what you’re driving at. When did the
new Act come into force, sir?”
“In January, 1926,” replied Mr. Murbles.
“And Miss Dawson died, rather unexpectedly, as we know, in November,
1925,” went on Peter. “But supposing she had lived, as the doctor fully
expected her to do, till February or March, 1926—are you absolutely
positive, sir, that Mary Whittaker would have inherited then?”
Mr. Murbles opened his mouth to speak—and shut it again. He rubbed his
hands very slowly the one over the other. He removed his eyeglasses and
resettled them more firmly on his nose. Then:
“You are quite right, Lord Peter,” he said in a grave tone, “this is a
very serious and important point. Much too serious for me to give an
opinion on. If I understand you rightly, you are suggesting that any
ambiguity in the interpretation of the new Act might provide an
interested party with a very good and sufficient motive for hastening
the death of Agatha Dawson.”
“I do mean exactly that. Of course, if the great-niece inherits anyhow,
the old lady might as well die under the new Act as under the old. But
if there was any doubt about it—how tempting, don’t you see, to give her
a little push over the edge, so as to make her die in 1925. Especially
as she couldn’t live long anyhow, and there were no other relatives to
be defrauded.”
“That reminds me,” put in Parker, “suppose the great-niece is excluded
from the inheritance, where does the money go?”
“It goes to the Duchy of Lancaster—or in other words, to the Crown.”
“In fact,” said Wimsey, “to no one in particular. Upon my soul, I really
can’t see that it’s very much of a crime to bump a poor old thing off a
bit previously when she’s sufferin’ horribly, just to get the money she
intends you to have. Why the devil should the Duchy of Lancaster have
it? Who cares about the Duchy of Lancaster? It’s like defrauding the
Income Tax.”
“Ethically,” observed Mr. Murbles, “there may be much to be said for
your point of view. Legally, I am afraid, murder is murder, however
frail the victim or convenient the result.”
“And Agatha Dawson didn’t want to die,” added Parker, “she said so.”
“No,” said Wimsey, thoughtfully, “and I suppose she had a right to an
opinion.”
“I think,” said Mr. Murbles, “that before we go any further, we ought to
consult a specialist in this branch of the law. I wonder whether
Towkington is at home. He is quite the ablest authority I could name.
Greatly as I dislike that modern invention, the telephone, I think it
might be advisable to ring him up.”
Mr. Towkington proved to be at home and at liberty. The case of the
great-niece was put to him over the ’phone. Mr. Towkington, taken at a
disadvantage without his authorities, and hazarding an opinion on the
spur of the moment, thought that in all probability the great-niece
would be excluded from the succession under the new Act. But it was an
interesting point, and he would be glad of an opportunity to verify his
references. Would not Mr. Murbles come round and talk it over with him?
Mr. Murbles explained that he was at that moment dining with two friends
who were interested in the question. In that case, would not the two
friends also come round and see Mr. Towkington?
“Towkington has some very excellent port,” said Mr. Murbles, in a
cautious aside, and clapping his hand over the mouth-piece of the
telephone.
“Then why not go and try it?” said Wimsey, cheerfully.
“It’s only as far as Gray’s Inn,” continued Mr. Murbles.
“All the better,” said Lord Peter.
Mr. Murbles released the telephone and thanked Mr. Towkington. The party
would start at once for Gray’s Inn. Mr. Towkington was heard to say,
“Good, good,” in a hearty manner before ringing off.
On their arrival at Mr. Towkington’s chambers the oak was found to be
hospitably unsported, and almost before they could knock, Mr. Towkington
himself flung open the door and greeted them in a loud and cheerful
tone. He was a large, square man with a florid face and a harsh voice.
In court, he was famous for a way of saying, “Come now,” as a preface to
tying recalcitrant witnesses into tight knots, which he would then
proceed to slash open with a brilliant confutation. He knew Wimsey by
sight, expressed himself delighted to meet Inspector Parker, and bustled
his guests into the room with jovial shouts.
“I’ve been going into this little matter while you were coming along,”
he said. “Awkward, eh? ha! Astonishing thing that people can’t say what
they mean when they draw Acts, eh? ha! Why do you suppose it is, Lord
Peter, eh? ha! Come now!”
“I suspect it’s because Acts are drawn up by lawyers,” said Wimsey with
a grin.
“To make work for themselves, eh? I daresay you’re right. Even lawyers
must live, eh? ha! Very good. Well now, Murbles, let’s just have this
case again, in greater detail, d’you mind?”
Mr. Murbles explained the matter again, displaying the genealogical
table and putting forward the point as regards a possible motive for
murder.
“Eh, ha!” exclaimed Mr. Towkington, much delighted, “that’s good—very
good—your idea, Lord Peter? Very ingenious. Too ingenious. The dock at
the Old Bailey is peopled by gentlemen who are too ingenious. Ha! Come
to a bad end one of these days, young man. Eh! Yes—well, now, Murbles,
the question here turns on the interpretation of the word ‘issue’—you
grasp that, eh, ha! Yes. Well, _you_ seem to think it means issue _ad
infinitum_. How do you make that out, come now?”
“I didn’t say I thought it did; I said I thought it might,” remonstrated
Mr. Murbles, mildly. “The general intention of the Act appears to be to
exclude any remote kin where the common ancestor is further back than
the grandparents—not to cut off the descendants of the brothers and
sisters.”
“Intention?” snapped Mr. Towkington. “I’m astonished at you, Murbles!
The law has nothing to do with good intentions. What does the Act _say_?
It says, ‘To the brothers and sisters of the whole blood and their
issue.’ Now, in the absence of any new definition, I should say that the
word is here to be construed as before the Act it was construed on
intestacy—in so far, at any rate, as it refers to personal property,
which I understand the property in question to be, eh?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Murbles.
“Then I don’t see that you and your great-niece have a leg to stand
on—come now!”
“Excuse me,” said Wimsey, “but d’you mind—I know lay people are awful
ignorant nuisances—but if you _would_ be so good as to explain what the
beastly word did or does mean, it would be frightfully helpful, don’t
you know.”
“Ha! Well, it’s like this,” said Mr. Towkington, graciously. “Before
1837—”
“Queen Victoria, I know,” said Peter, intelligently.
“Quite so. At the time when Queen Victoria came to the throne, the word
‘issue’ had no legal meaning—no legal meaning at all.”
“You surprise me!”
“You are too easily surprised,” said Mr. Towkington. “Many words have no
legal meaning. Others have a legal meaning very unlike their ordinary
meaning. For example, the word ‘daffy-down-dilly.’ It is a criminal
libel to call a lawyer a daffy-down-dilly. Ha! Yes, I advise you _never_
to do such a thing. No, I certainly advise you never to do it. Then
again, words which are quite meaningless in your ordinary conversation
may have a meaning in law. For instance, I might say to a young man like
yourself, ‘You wish to leave such-and-such property to so-and-so.’ And
you would very likely reply, ‘Oh, yes, absolutely’—meaning nothing in
particular by that. But if you were to write in your will, ‘I leave
such-and-such property to so-and-so _absolutely_,’ then that word would
bear a definite legal meaning, and would condition your bequest in a
certain manner, and might even prove an embarrassment and produce
results very far from your actual intentions. Eh, ha! You see?”
“Quite.”
“Very well. Prior to 1837, the word ‘issue’ meant nothing. A grant ‘to
A. and his issue’ merely gave A. a life estate. Ha! But this was altered
by the Wills Act of 1837.”
“As far as a will was concerned,” put in Mr. Murbles.
“Precisely. After 1837, in a will, ‘issue’ meant ‘heirs of the
body’—that is to say, ‘issue _ad infinitum_.’ In a deed, on the other
hand, ‘issue’ retained its old meaning—or lack of meaning, eh, ha! You
follow?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Murbles, “and on intestacy of personal property—”
“I am coming to that,” said Mr. Towkington.
“—the word ‘issue’ continued to mean ‘heirs of the body,’ and that held
good till 1926.”
“Stop!” said Mr. Towkington, “issue of the child or children of the
deceased certainly meant ‘issue _ad infinitum’—but_—issue of any person
_not_ a child of the deceased only meant the child of that person and
did not include other descendants. And that undoubtedly held good till
think we must presume that it continues to hold good. Ha! Come now! In
the case before us, you observe that the claimant is _not_ the child of
the deceased nor issue of the child of the deceased; nor is she the
child of the deceased’s sister. She is merely the grandchild of the
deceased sister of the deceased. Accordingly, I think she is debarred
from inheriting under the new Act, eh? ha!”
“I see your point,” said Mr. Murbles.
“And moreover,” went on Mr. Towkington, “after 1925, ‘issue’ in a will
or deed does _not mean_ ‘issue _ad infinitum_.’ That at least is clearly
stated, and the Wills Act of 1837 is revoked on that point. Not that
that has any direct bearing on the question. But it may be an indication
of the tendency of modern interpretation, and might possibly affect the
mind of the court in deciding how the word ‘issue’ was to be construed
for the purposes of the new Act.”
“Well,” said Mr. Murbles, “I bow to your superior knowledge.”
“In any case,” broke in Parker, “any uncertainty in the matter would
provide as good a motive for murder as the certainty of exclusion from
inheritance. If Mary Whittaker only _thought_ she might lose the money
in the event of her great-aunt’s surviving into 1926, she might quite
well be tempted to polish her off a little earlier, and make sure.”
“That’s true enough,” said Mr. Murbles.
“Shrewd, very shrewd, ha!” added Mr. Towkington. “But you realise that
all this theory of yours depends on Mary Whittaker’s having known about
the new Act and its probable consequences as early as October, 1925, eh,
ha!”
“There’s no reason why she shouldn’t” said Wimsey. “I remember reading
an article in the _Evening Banner_, I think it was, some months
earlier—about the time when the Act was having its second reading.
That’s what put the thing into my head—I was trying to remember all
evening where I’d seen that thing about washing out the long-lost heir,
you know. Mary Whittaker may easily have seen it too.”
“Well, she’d probably have taken advice about it if she did,” said Mr.
Murbles. “Who is her usual man of affairs?”
Wimsey shook his head.
“I don’t think she’d have asked him,” he objected. “Not if she was wise,
that is. You see, if she did, and he said she probably wouldn’t get
anything unless Miss Dawson either made a will or died before January,
1926, and if after that the old lady did unexpectedly pop off in
October, 1925, wouldn’t the solicitor-johnnie feel inclined to ask
questions? It wouldn’t be safe, don’t y’know. I ’xpect she went to some
stranger and asked a few innocent little questions under another name,
what?”
“Probably,” said Mr. Towkington. “You show a remarkable disposition for
crime, don’t you, eh?”
“Well, if I did go in for it, I’d take reasonable precautions,” retorted
Wimsey. “’S wonderful, of course, the tomfool things murderers _do_ do.
But I have the highest opinion of Miss Whittaker’s brains. I bet she
covered her tracks pretty well.”
“You don’t think Mr. Probyn mentioned the matter,” suggested Parker,
“the time he went down and tried to get Miss Dawson to make her will.”
“I _don’t_,” said Wimsey, with energy, “but I’m pretty certain he tried
to explain matters to the old lady, only she was so terrified of the
very idea of a will she wouldn’t let him get a word in. But I fancy old
Probyn was too downy a bird to tell the heir that her only chance of
gettin’ the dollars was to see that her great-aunt died off before the
Act went through. Would _you_ tell anybody that, Mr. Towkington?”
“Not if I knew it,” said that gentleman, grinning.
“It would be highly undesirable,” agreed Mr. Murbles.
“Anyway,” said Wimsey, “we can easily find out. Probyn’s in Italy—I was
going to write to him, but perhaps you’d better do it, Murbles. And, in
the meanwhile, Charles and I will think up a way to find whoever it was
that did give Miss Whittaker an opinion on the matter.”
“You’re not forgetting, I suppose,” said Parker, rather dryly, “that
before pinning down a murder to any particular motive, it is usual to
ascertain that a murder has been committed? So far, all we know is that,
after a careful post-mortem analysis, two qualified doctors have agreed
that Miss Dawson died a natural death.”
“I wish you wouldn’t keep on saying the same thing, Charles. It bores me
so. It’s like the Raven never flitting which, as the poet observes,
still is sitting, still is sitting, inviting one to heave the pallid
bust of Pallas at him and have done with it. You wait till I publish my
epoch-making work: _The Murderer’s Vade-Mecum, or 101 Ways of Causing
Sudden Death_. That’ll show you I’m not a man to be trifled with.”
“Oh, well!” said Parker.
But he saw the Chief Commissioner next morning and reported that he was
at last disposed to take the Dawson case seriously.
CHAPTER XV
Temptation of St. Peter
Pierrot: “_Scaramel, I am tempted._”
Scaramel: “_Always yield to temptation._”
L. Housman, _Prunella_
As Parker came out from the Chief Commissioner’s room, he was caught by
an officer.
“There’s been a lady on the ’phone to you,” he said. “I told her to ring
up at 10:30. It’s about that now.”
“What name?”
“A Mrs. Forrest. She wouldn’t say what she wanted.”
“Odd,” thought Parker. His researches in the matter had been so
unfruitful that he had practically eliminated Mrs. Forrest from the
Gotobed mystery—merely keeping her filed, as it were, in the back of his
mind for future reference. It occurred to him, whimsically, that she had
at length discovered the absence of one of her wine-glasses and was
ringing him up in a professional capacity. His conjectures were
interrupted by his being called to the telephone to answer Mrs.
Forrest’s call.
“Is that Detective-Inspector Parker?—I’m so sorry to trouble you, but
could you give me Mr. Templeton’s address?”
“Templeton?” said Parker, momentarily puzzled.
“Wasn’t it Templeton—the gentleman who came with you to see me?”
“Oh, yes, of course—I beg your pardon—I—the matter had slipped my
memory. Er—you want his address?”
“I have some information which I think he will be glad to hear.”
“Oh, yes. You can speak quite freely to me, you know, Mrs. Forrest.”
“Not _quite_ freely,” purred the voice at the other end of the wire,
“you are rather official, you know. I should prefer just to write to Mr.
Templeton privately, and leave it to him to take up with you.”
“I see.” Parker’s brain worked briskly. It might be inconvenient to have
Mrs. Forrest writing to Mr. Templeton at 110A, Piccadilly. The letter
might not be delivered. Or, if the lady were to take it into her head to
call and discovered that Mr. Templeton was not known to the porter, she
might take alarm and bottle up her valuable information.
“I think,” said Parker, “I ought not, perhaps, to give you Mr.
Templeton’s address without consulting him. But you could ’phone him—”
“Oh, yes, that would do. Is he in the book?”
“No—but I can give you his private number.”
“Thank you very much. You’ll forgive my bothering you.”
“No trouble at all.” And he named Lord Peter’s number.
Having rung off, he waited a moment and then called the number himself.
“Look here, Wimsey,” he said, “I’ve had a call from Mrs. Forrest. She
wants to write to you. I wouldn’t give the address, but I’ve given her
your number, so if she calls and asks for Mr. Templeton, you will
remember who you are, won’t you?”
“Righty-ho! Wonder what the fair lady wants.”
“It’s probably occurred to her that she might have told a better story,
and she wants to work off a few additions and improvements on you.”
“Then she’ll probably give herself away. The rough sketch is frequently
so much more convincing than the worked-up canvas.”
“Quite so. I couldn’t get anything out of her myself.”
“No. I expect she’s thought it over and decided that it’s rather unusual
to employ Scotland Yard to ferret out the whereabouts of errant
husbands. She fancies there’s something up, and that I’m a nice
soft-headed imbecile whom she can easily pump in the absence of the
official Cerberus.”
“Probably. Well, you’ll deal with the matter. I’m going to make a search
for that solicitor.”
“Rather a vague sort of search, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’ve got an idea which may work out. I’ll let you know if I get
any results.”
Mrs. Forrest’s call duly came through in about twenty minutes’ time.
Mrs. Forrest had changed her mind. Would Mr. Templeton come round and
see her that evening—about 9 o’clock, if that was convenient? She had
thought the matter over and preferred not to put her information on
paper.
Mr. Templeton would be very happy to come round. He had no other
engagement. It was no inconvenience at all. He begged Mrs. Forrest not
to mention it.
Would Mr. Templeton be so very good as not to tell anybody about his
visit? Mr. Forrest and his sleuths were continually on the watch to get
Mrs. Forrest into trouble, and the decree absolute was due to come up in
a month’s time. Any trouble with the King’s Proctor would be positively
disastrous. It would be better if Mr. Templeton would come by
Underground to Bond Street, and proceed to the flats on foot, so as not
to leave a car standing outside the door or put a taxi-driver into a
position to give testimony against Mrs. Forrest.
Mr. Templeton chivalrously promised to obey these directions.
Mrs. Forrest was greatly obliged, and would expect him at nine o’clock.
“Bunter!”
“My lord.”
“I am going out to-night. I’ve been asked not to say where, so I won’t.
On the other hand, I’ve got a kind of feelin’ that it’s unwise to
disappear from mortal ken, so to speak. Anything might happen. One might
have a stroke, don’t you know. So I’m going to leave the address in a
sealed envelope. If I don’t turn up before to-morrow mornin’, I shall
consider myself absolved from all promises, what?”
“Very good, my lord.”
“And if I’m not to be found at that address, there wouldn’t be any harm
in tryin’—say Epping Forest, or Wimbledon Common.”
“Quite so, my lord.”
“By the way, you made the photographs of those finger-prints I brought
you some time ago?”
“Oh, yes, my lord.”
“Because possibly Mr. Parker may be wanting them presently for some
inquiries he will be making.”
“I quite understand, my lord.”
“Nothing whatever to do with my excursion to-night, you understand.”
“Certainly not, my lord.”
“And now you might bring me Christie’s catalogue. I shall be attending a
sale there and lunching at the club.”
And, detaching his mind from crime, Lord Peter bent his intellectual and
financial powers to outbidding and breaking a ring of dealers, an
exercise very congenial to his mischievous spirit.
Lord Peter duly fulfilled the conditions imposed upon him, and arrived
on foot at the block of flats in South Audley Street. Mrs. Forrest, as
before, opened the door to him herself. It was surprising, he
considered, that, situated as she was, she appeared to have neither maid
nor companion. But then, he supposed, a chaperon, however disarming of
suspicion in the eyes of the world, might prove venal. On the whole,
Mrs. Forrest’s principle was a sound one: no accomplices. Many
transgressors, he reflected, had
“_died because they never knew
These simple little rules and few._”
Mrs. Forrest apologised prettily for the inconvenience to which she was
putting Mr. Templeton.
“But I never know when I am not spied upon,” she said. “It is sheer
spite, you know. Considering how my husband has behaved to me, I think
it is monstrous—don’t you?”
Her guest agreed that Mr. Forrest must be a monster, jesuitically,
however, reserving the opinion that the monster might be a fabulous one.
“And now you will be wondering why I have brought you here,” went on the
lady. “Do come and sit on the sofa. Will you have whisky or coffee?”
“Coffee, please.”
“The fact is,” said Mrs. Forrest, “that I’ve had an idea since I saw
you. I—you know, having been much in the same position myself” (with a
slight laugh) “I felt _so much_ for your friend’s wife.”
“Sylvia,” put in Lord Peter with commendable promptitude. “Oh, yes.
Shocking temper and so on, but possibly some provocation. Yes, yes,
quite. Poor woman. Feels things—extra sensitive—highly-strung and all
that, don’t you know.”
“Quite so.” Mrs. Forrest nodded her fantastically turbanned head.
Swathed to the eyebrows in gold tissue, with only two flat crescents of
yellow hair plastered over her cheek-bones, she looked, in an exotic
smoking-suit of embroidered tissue, like a young prince out of the
Arabian Nights. Her heavily ringed hands busied themselves with the
coffee-cups.
“Well—I felt that your inquiries were really serious, you know, and
though, as I told you, it had nothing to do with me, I was interested
and mentioned the matter in a letter to—to my friend, you see, who was
with me that night.”
“Just so,” said Wimsey, taking the cup from her, “yes—er—that was
very—er—it was kind of you to be interested.”
“He—my friend—is abroad at the moment. My letter had to follow him, and
I only got his reply to-day.”
Mrs. Forrest took a sip or two of coffee as though to clear her
recollection.
“His letter rather surprised me. He reminded me that after dinner he had
felt the room rather close, and had opened the sitting-room window—that
window, there—which overlooks South Audley Street. He noticed a car
standing there—a small closed one, black or dark blue or some such
colour. And while he was looking idly at it—the way one does, you
know—he saw a man and woman come out of this block of flats—not this
door, but one or two along to the left—and get in and drive off. The man
was in evening dress and he thought it might have been your friend.”
Lord Peter, with his coffee-cup at his lips, paused and listened with
great attention.
“Was the girl in evening dress, too?”
“No—that struck my friend particularly. She was in just a plain little
dark suit, with a hat on.”
Lord Peter recalled to mind as nearly as possible Bertha Gotobed’s
costume. Was this going to be real evidence at last?
“Th—that’s very interesting,” he stammered. “I suppose your friend
couldn’t give any more exact details of the dress?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Forrest, regretfully, “but he said the man’s arm was
round the girl as though she was feeling tired or unwell, and he heard
him say, ‘That’s right—the fresh air will do you good.’ But you’re not
drinking your coffee.”
“I beg your pardon—” Wimsey recalled himself with a start. “I was
dreamin’—puttin’ two and two together, as you might say. So he was along
here at the time—the artful beggar. Oh, the coffee. D’you mind if I put
this away and have some without sugar?”
“I’m _so_ sorry. Men always seem to take sugar in black coffee. Give it
to me—I’ll empty it away.”
“Allow me.” There was no slop-basin on the little table, but Wimsey
quickly got up and poured the coffee into the window-box outside.
“That’s all right. How about another cup for you?”
“Thank you—I oughtn’t to take it really, it keeps me awake.”
“Just a drop.”
“Oh, well, if you like.” She filled both cups and sat sipping quietly.
“Well—that’s all, really, but I thought perhaps I ought to let you
know.”
“It was very good of you,” said Wimsey.
They sat talking a little longer—about plays in Town (“I go out very
little, you know, it’s better to keep oneself out of the limelight on
these occasions”), and books (“I adore Michael Arlen”). Had she read
_Young Men in Love_ yet? No—she had ordered it from the library.
Wouldn’t Mr. Templeton have something to eat or drink? Really? A brandy?
A liqueur?
No, thank you. And Mr. Templeton felt he really ought to be slippin’
along now.
“No—don’t go yet—I get so lonely, these long evenings.”
There was a desperate kind of appeal in her voice. Lord Peter sat down
again.
She began a rambling and rather confused story about her “friend.” She
had given up so much for the friend. And now that her divorce was really
coming off, she had a terrible feeling that perhaps the friend was not
as affectionate as he used to be. It was very difficult for a woman, and
life was very hard.
And so on.
As the minutes passed, Lord Peter became uncomfortably aware that she
was watching him. The words tumbled out—hurriedly, yet lifelessly, like
a set task, but her eyes were the eyes of a person who expects
something. Something alarming, he decided, yet something she was
determined to have. It reminded him of a man waiting for an
operation—keyed up to it—knowing that it will do him good—yet shrinking
from it with all his senses.
He kept up his end of the fatuous conversation. Behind a barrage of
small-talk, his mind ran quickly to and fro, analysing the position,
getting the range. . .
Suddenly he became aware that she was trying—clumsily, stupidly and as
though in spite of herself—to get him to make love to her.
The fact itself did not strike Wimsey as odd. He was rich enough,
well-bred enough, attractive enough and man of the world enough to have
received similar invitations fairly often in his thirty-seven years of
life. And not always from experienced women. There had been those who
sought experience as well as those qualified to bestow it. But so
awkward an approach by a woman who admitted to already possessing a
husband and a lover was a phenomenon outside his previous knowledge.
Moreover, he felt that the thing would be a nuisance. Mrs. Forrest was
handsome enough, but she had not a particle of attraction for him. For
all her make-up and her somewhat outspoken costume, she struck him as
spinsterish—even epicene. That was the thing which puzzled him during
their previous interview. Parker—a young man of rigid virtue and limited
worldly knowledge—was not sensitive to these emanations. But Wimsey had
felt her as something essentially sexless, even then. And he felt it
even more strongly now. Never had he met a woman in whom “the great It,”
eloquently hymned by Mrs. Elinor Glyn, was so completely lacking.
Her bare shoulder was against him now, marking his broadcloth with white
patches of powder.
Blackmail was the first explanation that occurred to him. The next move
would be for the fabulous Mr. Forrest, or someone representing him, to
appear suddenly in the doorway, aglow with virtuous wrath and outraged
sensibilities.
“A very pretty little trap,” thought Wimsey, adding aloud, “Well, I
really must be getting along.”
She caught him by the arm.
“Don’t go.”
There was no caress in the touch—only a kind of desperation.
He thought, “If she really made a practice of this, she would do it
better.”
“Truly,” he said, “I oughtn’t to stay longer. It wouldn’t be safe for
you.”
“I’ll risk it,” she said.
A passionate woman might have said it passionately. Or with a brave
gaiety. Or challengingly. Or alluringly. Or mysteriously.
She said it grimly. Her fingers dug at his arm.
“Well, damn it all, _I’ll_ risk it,” thought Wimsey. “I must and will
know what it’s all about.”
“Poor little woman.” He coaxed into his voice the throaty, fatuous tone
of the man who is preparing to make an amorous fool of himself.
He felt her body stiffen as he slipped his arm round her, but she gave a
little sigh of relief.
He pulled her suddenly and violently to him, and kissed her mouth with a
practised exaggeration of passion.
He knew then. No one who has ever encountered it can ever again mistake
that awful shrinking, that uncontrollable revulsion of the flesh against
a caress that is nauseous. He thought for a moment that she was going to
be actually sick.
He released her gently, and stood up—his mind in a whirl, but somehow
triumphant. His first instinct had been right, after all.
“That was very naughty of me,” he said, lightly. “You made me forget
myself. You will forgive me, won’t you?”
She nodded, shaken.
“And I really must toddle. It’s gettin’ frightfully late and all that.
Where’s my hat? Ah, yes, in the hall. Now, good-bye, Mrs. Forrest, an’
take care of yourself. An’ thank you ever so much for telling me about
what your friend saw.”
“You are really going?”
She spoke as though she had lost all hope.
“In God’s name,” thought Wimsey, “what does she want? Does she suspect
that Mr. Templeton is not everything that he seems? Does she want me to
stay the night so that she can get a look at the laundry-mark on my
shirt? Should I suddenly save the situation for her by offering her Lord
Peter Wimsey’s visiting-card?”
His brain toyed freakishly with the thought as he babbled his way to the
door. She let him go without further words.
As he stepped into the hall he turned and looked at her. She stood in
the middle of the room, watching him, and on her face was such a fury of
fear and rage as turned his blood to water.
CHAPTER XVI
A Cast-Iron Alibi
“_Oh, Sammy, Sammy, why vorn’t there an alleybi?_”
_Pickwick Papers_
Miss Whittaker and the youngest Miss Findlater had returned from their
expedition. Miss Climpson, most faithful of sleuths, and carrying Lord
Peter’s letter of instructions in the pocket of her skirt like a
talisman, had asked the youngest Miss Findlater to tea.
As a matter of fact, Miss Climpson had become genuinely interested in
the girl. Silly affectation and gush, and a parrot-repetition of the
shibboleths of the modern school were symptoms that the experienced
spinster well understood. They indicated, she thought, a real
unhappiness, a real dissatisfaction with the narrowness of life in a
country town. And besides this, Miss Climpson felt sure that Vera
Findlater was being “preyed upon,” as she expressed it to herself, by
the handsome Mary Whittaker. “It would be a mercy for the girl,” thought
Miss Climpson, “if she could form a genuine attachment to a young man.
It is natural for a schoolgirl to be _schwärmerisch_—in a young woman of
twenty-two it is thoroughly undesirable. That Whittaker woman encourages
it—she would, of course. She likes to have someone to admire her and run
her errands. And she prefers it to be a stupid person, who will not
compete with her. If Mary Whittaker were to marry, she would marry a
rabbit.” (Miss Climpson’s active mind quickly conjured up a picture of
the rabbit—fair-haired and a little paunchy, with a habit of saying,
“I’ll ask the wife.” Miss Climpson wondered why Providence saw fit to
create such men. For Miss Climpson, men were intended to be masterful,
even though wicked or foolish. She was a spinster made and not born—a
perfectly womanly woman.)
“But,” thought Miss Climpson, “Mary Whittaker is not of the marrying
sort. She is a professional woman by nature. She has a profession, by
the way, but she does not intend to go back to it. Probably nursing
demands too much sympathy—and one is under the authority of the doctors.
Mary Whittaker prefers to control the lives of chicken. ‘Better to reign
in hell than serve in heaven.’ Dear me! I wonder if it is uncharitable
to compare a fellow-being to Satan. Only in poetry, of course—I daresay
that makes it not so bad. At any rate, I am certain that Mary Whittaker
is doing Vera Findlater no good.”
Miss Climpson’s guest was very ready to tell about their month in the
country. They had toured round at first for a few days, and then they
had heard of a delightful poultry farm which was for sale, near
Orpington in Kent. So they had gone down to have a look at it, and found
that it was to be sold in about a fortnight’s time. It wouldn’t have
been wise, of course, to take it over without some inquiries, and by the
greatest good fortune they found a dear little cottage to let,
furnished, quite close by. So they had taken it for a few weeks, while
Miss Whittaker “looked round” and found out about the state of the
poultry business in that district, and so on. They _had_ enjoyed it so,
and it was delightful keeping house together, right away from all the
silly people at home.
“Of course, I don’t mean you, Miss Climpson. You come from London and
are so much more broadminded. But I simply can’t stick the Leahampton
lot, nor can Mary.”
“It is very delightful,” said Miss Climpson, “to be _free_ from the
conventions, I’m sure—especially if one is in company with a _kindred
spirit_.”
“Yes—of course Mary and I are tremendous friends, though she is so much
cleverer than I am. It’s absolutely settled that we’re to take the farm
and run it together. Won’t it be wonderful?”
“Won’t you find it rather dull and lonely—just you two girls together?
You mustn’t forget that you’ve been accustomed to see quite a lot of
young people in Leahampton. Shan’t you miss the tennis-parties, and the
young men, and so on?”
“Oh, no! If you only knew what a stupid lot they are! Anyway, I’ve no
use for men!” Miss Findlater tossed her head. “They haven’t got any
ideas. And they always look on women as sort of pets or playthings. As
if a woman like Mary wasn’t worth fifty of them! You should have heard
that Markham man the other day—talking politics to Mr. Tredgold, so that
nobody could get a word in edgeways, and then saying, ‘I’m afraid this
is a very dull subject of conversation for you, Miss Whittaker,’ in his
condescending way. Mary said in that quiet way of hers, ‘Oh, I think the
_subject_ is anything but dull, Mr. Markham.’ But he was so stupid, he
couldn’t even grasp that and said, ‘One doesn’t expect ladies to be
interested in politics, you know. But perhaps you are one of the modern
young ladies who want the flapper’s vote.’ Ladies, indeed! Why are men
so insufferable when they talk about ladies?”
“I think men are apt to be _jealous_ of women,” replied Miss Climpson,
thoughtfully, “and jealousy _does_ make people rather _peevish_ and
_ill-mannered_. I suppose that when one would _like_ to despise a set of
people and yet has a horrid suspicion that one _can’t_ genuinely despise
them, it makes one _exaggerate_ one’s contempt for them in conversation.
That is why, my dear, I am always _very_ careful not to speak sneeringly
about men—even though they _often deserve_ it, you know. But if I did,
everybody would think I was an _envious old maid_, wouldn’t they?”
“Well, I mean to be an old maid, anyhow,” retorted Miss Findlater. “Mary
and I have quite decided that. We’re interested in things, not in men.”
“You’ve made a good start at finding out how it’s going to work,” said
Miss Climpson. “Living with a person for a month is an _excellent_ test.
I suppose you had somebody to do the housework for you.”
“Not a soul. We did every bit of it, and it was great fun. I’m ever so
good at scrubbing floors and laying fires and things, and Mary’s a
simply marvellous cook. It was such a change from having the servants
always bothering round like they do at home. Of course, it was quite a
modern, labour-saving cottage—it belongs to some theatrical people, I
think.”
“And what did you do when you weren’t inquiring into the poultry
business?”
“Oh, we ran round in the car and saw places and attended markets.
Markets are frightfully amusing, with all the funny old farmers and
people. Of course, I’d often been to markets before, but Mary made it
all so interesting—and then, too, we were picking up hints all the time
for our own marketing later on.”
“Did you run up to Town at all?”
“No.”
“I should have thought you’d have taken the opportunity for a little
jaunt.”
“Mary hates Town.”
“I thought _you_ rather enjoyed a run up now and then.”
“I’m not keen. Not now. I used to think I was, but I expect that was
only the sort of spiritual restlessness one gets when one hasn’t an
object in life. There’s nothing in it.”
Miss Findlater spoke with the air of a disillusioned rake, who has
sucked life’s orange and found it dead sea fruit. Miss Climpson did not
smile. She was accustomed to the rôle of confidante.
“So you were together—just you two—all the time?”
“Every minute of it. And we weren’t bored with one another a bit.”
“I hope your experiment will prove very successful,” said Miss Climpson.
“But when you really start on your life together, don’t you think it
would be wise to arrange for a few _breaks_ in it? A little _change of
companionship_ is good for _everybody_. I’ve known so many _happy
friendships_ spoilt by people seeing _too much_ of one another.”
“They couldn’t have been _real_ friendships, then,” asserted the girl,
dogmatically. “Mary and I are _absolutely_ happy together.”
“Still,” said Miss Climpson, “if you don’t mind an _old woman_ giving
you a word of warning, I should be inclined not to keep the bow _always_
bent. Suppose Miss Whittaker, for instance, wanted to go off and have a
day in Town on her own, say—or go to stay with friends—you would have to
learn not to mind that.”
“Of course I shouldn’t mind. Why—” she checked herself. “I mean, I’m
quite sure that Mary would be every bit as loyal to me as I am to her.”
“That’s right,” said Miss Climpson. “The longer I live, my dear, the
more _certain_ I become that _jealousy_ is the most _fatal_ of feelings.
The Bible calls it ‘cruel as the grave,’ and I’m sure that is so.
_Absolute_ loyalty, without jealousy, is the essential thing.”
“Yes. Though naturally one would hate to think that the person one was
really friends with was putting another person in one’s place . . . Miss
Climpson, you do believe, don’t you, that a friendship ought to be
‘fifty-fifty’?”
“That is the ideal friendship, I suppose,” said Miss Climpson,
thoughtfully, “but I think it is a _very rare thing_. Among women, that
is. I doubt very much if I’ve ever seen an example of it. _Men_, I
believe, find it easier to give and take in that way—probably because
they have so many outside interests.”
“Men’s friendships—oh yes! I know one hears a lot about them. But half
the time, I don’t believe they’re _real_ friendships at all. Men can go
off for years and forget all about their friends. And they don’t really
confide in one another. Mary and I tell each other all our thoughts and
feelings. Men seem just content to think each other good sorts without
ever bothering about their inmost selves.”
“Probably that’s why their friendships last so well,” replied Miss
Climpson. “They don’t make such demands on one another.”
“But a great friendship does make demands,” cried Miss Findlater
eagerly. “It’s got to be just everything to one. It’s wonderful the way
it seems to colour all one’s thoughts. Instead of being centred in
oneself, one’s centred in the other person. That’s what Christian love
means—one’s ready to die for the other person.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Miss Climpson. “I once heard a sermon about
that from a most _splendid_ priest—and he said that that kind of love
might become _idolatry_ if one wasn’t very careful. He said that
Milton’s remark about Eve—you know, ‘he for God only, she for God in
him’—was not congruous with Catholic doctrine. One must get the
_proportions_ right, and it was _out of proportion_ to see everything
through the eyes of another fellow-creature.”
“One must put God first, of course,” said Miss Findlater, a little
formally. “But if the friendship is mutual—that was the point—quite
unselfish on both sides, it _must_ be a good thing.”
“Love is always good, when it’s the _right kind_,” agreed Miss Climpson,
“but I don’t think it ought to be too _possessive_. One has to _train_
oneself—” she hesitated, and went on courageously—“and in any case, my
dear, I cannot help feeling that it is more natural—more proper, in a
sense—for a man and woman to be all in all to one another than for two
persons of the same sex. Er—after all, it is a—a _fruitful_ affection,”
said Miss Climpson, boggling a trifle at this idea, “and—and all that,
you know, and I am sure that when the _right_ MAN comes along for you—”
“Bother the right man!” cried Miss Findlater, crossly. “I do hate that
kind of talk. It makes one feel dreadful—like a prize cow or something.
Surely, we have got beyond that point of view in these days.”
Miss Climpson perceived that she had let her honest zeal outrun her
detective discretion. She had lost the goodwill of her informant, and it
was better to change the conversation. However, she could assure Lord
Peter now of one thing. Whoever the woman was that Mrs. Cropper had seen
at Liverpool, it was not Miss Whittaker. The attached Miss Findlater,
who had never left her friend’s side, was sufficient guarantee of that.
CHAPTER XVII
The Country Lawyer’s Story
“_And he that gives us in these days new lords may give us new
laws._”
Wither, _Contented Man’s Morrice_
_Letter from Mr. Probyn, retired Solicitor, of Villa Bianca, Fiesole, to
Mr. Marbles, Solicitor, of Staple Inn._
_Private and confidential._
Dear Sir,
I was much interested in your letter relative to the death of Miss
Agatha Dawson, late of Leahampton, and will do my best to answer your
inquiries as briefly as possible, always, of course, on the
understanding that all information as to the affairs of my late client
will be treated as strictly confidential. I make an exception, of
course, in favor of the police officer you mention in connection with
the matter.
You wish to know (1) whether Miss Agatha Dawson was aware that it
might possibly prove necessary, under the provisions of the new Act,
for her to make a testamentary disposition, in order to ensure that
her great-niece, Miss Mary Whittaker, should inherit her personal
property. (2) Whether I ever urged her to make this testamentary
disposition and what her reply was. (3) Whether I had made Miss Mary
Whittaker aware of the situation in which she might be placed,
supposing her great-aunt to die intestate later than December 31,
1925.
In the course of the Spring of 1925, my attention was called by a
learned friend to the ambiguity of the wording of certain clauses in
the Act, especially in respect of the failure to define the precise
interpretation to be placed on the word “Issue.” I immediately passed
in review the affairs of my various clients, with a view to satisfying
myself that the proper dispositions had been made in each case to
avoid misunderstanding and litigation in case of intestacy. I at once
realised that Miss Whittaker’s inheritance of Miss Dawson’s property
entirely depended on the interpretation given to the clauses in
question. I was aware that Miss Dawson was extremely averse from
making a will, owing to that superstitious dread of decease which we
meet with so frequently in our profession. However, I thought it my
duty to make her understand the question and to do my utmost to get a
will signed. Accordingly, I went down to Leahampton and laid the
matter before her. This was on March the 14th, or thereabouts—I am not
certain to the precise day.
Unhappily, I encountered Miss Dawson at a moment when her opposition
to the obnoxious idea of making a will was at its strongest. Her
doctor had informed her that a further operation would become
necessary in the course of the next few weeks, and I could have
selected no more unfortunate occasion for intruding the subject of
death upon her mind. She resented any such suggestion—there was a
conspiracy, she declared, to frighten her into dying under the
operation. It appears that that very tactless practitioner of hers had
frightened her with a similar suggestion before her previous
operation. But she had come through that and she meant to come through
this, if only people would not anger and alarm her.
Of course, if she _had_ died under the operation, the whole question
would have settled itself and there would have been no need of any
will. I pointed out that the very reason why I was anxious for the
will to be made was that I fully expected her to live on into the
following years, and I explained the provisions of the Act once more,
as clearly as I could. She retorted that in that case I had no
business to come and trouble her about the question at all. It would
be time enough when the Act was passed.
Naturally, the fool of a doctor had insisted that she was not to be
told what her disease was—they always do—and she was convinced that
the next operation would make all right and that she would live for
years. When I ventured to insist—giving as my reason that we men of
laws always preferred to be on the safe and cautious side, she became
exceedingly angry with me, and practically ordered me out of the
house. A few days afterwards I received a letter from her, complaining
of my impertinence, and saying that she could no longer feel any
confidence in a person who treated her with such inconsiderate
rudeness. At her request, I forwarded all her private papers in my
possession to Mr. Hodgson, of Leahampton, and I have not held any
communication with any member of the family since that date.
This answers your first and second questions. With regard to the
third: I certainly did not think it proper to inform Miss Whittaker
that her inheritance might depend upon her great-aunt’s either making
a will or else dying before December 31, 1925. While I know nothing to
the young lady’s disadvantage, I have always held it inadvisable that
persons should know too exactly how much they stand to gain by the
unexpected decease of other persons. In case of any unforeseen
accident, the heirs may find themselves in an equivocal position,
where the fact of their possessing such knowledge might—if made
public—be highly prejudicial to their interests. The most that I
thought it proper to say was that if at any time Miss Dawson should
express a wish to see me, I should like to be sent for without delay.
Of course, the withdrawal of Miss Dawson’s affairs from my hands put
it out of my power to interfere any further.
In October 1925, feeling that my health was not what it had been, I
retired from business and came to Italy. In this country the English
papers do not always arrive regularly, and I missed the announcement
of Miss Dawson’s death. That it should have occurred so suddenly and
under circumstances somewhat mysterious, is certainly interesting.
You say further that you would be glad of my opinion on Miss Agatha
Dawson’s mental condition at the time when I last saw her. It was
perfectly clear and competent—in so far as she was ever competent to
deal with business. She was in no way gifted to grapple with legal
problems, and I had extreme difficulty in getting her to understand
what the trouble was with regard to the new Property Act. Having been
brought up all her life to the idea that property went of right to the
next of kin, she found it inconceivable that this state of things
should ever alter. She assured me that the law would never permit the
Government to pass such an Act. When I had reluctantly persuaded her
that it would, she was quite sure that no court would be wicked enough
to interpret the Act so as to give the money to anybody but Miss
Whittaker, when she was clearly the proper person to have it. “Why
should the Duchy of Lancaster have any right to it?” she kept on
saying. “I don’t even know the Duke of Lancaster.” She was not a
particularly sensible woman, and in the end I was not at all sure that
I had made her comprehend the situation—quite apart from the dislike
she had of pursuing the subject. However, there is no doubt that she
was then quite _compos mentis_. My reason for urging her to make the
will before her final operation was, of course, that I feared she
might subsequently lose the use of her faculties, or—which comes to
the same thing from a business point of view—might have to be kept
continually under the influence of opiates.
Trusting that you will find here the information you require,
I remain,
Yours faithfully,
Thos. Probyn.
Mr. Murbles read this letter through twice, very thoughtfully. To even
his cautious mind, the thing began to look like the makings of a case.
In his neat, elderly hand, he wrote a little note to Detective-Inspector
Parker, begging him to call at Staple Inn at his earliest convenience.
Mr. Parker, however, was experiencing nothing at that moment but
inconvenience. He had been calling on solicitors for two whole days, and
his soul sickened at the sight of a brass plate. He glanced at the long
list in his hand, and distastefully counted up the scores of names that
still remained unticked.
Parker was one of those methodical, painstaking people whom the world
could so ill spare. When he worked with Wimsey on a case, it was an
understood thing that anything lengthy, intricate, tedious and
soul-destroying was done by Parker. He sometimes felt that it was
irritating of Wimsey to take this so much for granted. He felt so now.
It was a hot day. The pavements were dusty. Pieces of paper blew about
the streets. Buses were grilling outside and stuffy inside. The Express
Dairy, where Parker was eating a hurried lunch, seemed full of the
odours of fried plaice and boiling tea-urns. Wimsey, he knew, was
lunching at his club, before running down with Freddy Arbuthnot to see
the New Zealanders at somewhere or other. He had seen him—a vision of
exquisite pale grey, ambling gently along Pall Mall. Damn Wimsey! Why
couldn’t he have let Miss Dawson rest quietly in her grave? There she
was, doing no harm to anybody—and Wimsey must insist on prying into her
affairs and bringing the inquiry to such a point that Parker simply had
to take official notice of it. Oh well! he supposed he must go on with
these infernal solicitors.
He was proceeding on a system of his own, which might or might not prove
fruitful. He had reviewed the subject of the new Property Act, and
decided that if and when Miss Whittaker had become aware of its possible
effect on her own expectations, she would at once consider taking legal
advice.
Her first thought would no doubt be to consult a solicitor in
Leahampton, and unless she already had the idea of foul play in her
mind, there was nothing to deter her from doing so. Accordingly,
Parker’s first move had been to run down to Leahampton and interview the
three firms of solicitors there. All three were able to reply quite
positively that they had never received such an inquiry from Miss
Whittaker, or from anybody, during the year 1925. One solicitor,
indeed—the senior partner of Hodgson & Hodgson, to whom Miss Dawson had
entrusted her affairs after her quarrel with Mr. Probyn—looked a little
oddly at Parker when he heard the question.
“I assure you, Inspector,” he said, “that if the point had been brought
to my notice in such a way, I should certainly have remembered it, in
the light of subsequent events.”
“The matter never crossed your mind, I suppose,” said Parker, “when the
question arose of winding up the estate and proving Miss Whittaker’s
claim to inherit?”
“I can’t say it did. Had there been any question of searching for
next-of-kin it might—I don’t say it would—have occurred to me. But I had
a very clear history of the family connections from Mr. Probyn, the
death took place nearly two months before the Act came into force, and
the formalities all went through more or less automatically. In fact, I
never thought about the Act one way or another in that connection.”
Parker said he was not surprised to hear it, and favoured Mr. Hodgson
with Mr. Towkington’s learned opinion on the subject, which interested
Mr. Hodgson very much. And that was all he got at Leahampton, except
that he fluttered Miss Climpson very much by calling upon her and
hearing all about her interview with Vera Findlater. Miss Climpson
walked to the station with him, in the hope that they might meet Miss
Whittaker—“I am sure you would be _interested_ to _see_ her”—but they
were unlucky. On the whole, thought Parker, it might be just as well.
After all, though he would like to see Miss Whittaker, he was not
particularly keen on her seeing him, especially in Miss Climpson’s
company. “By the way,” he said to Miss Climpson, “you had better explain
me in some way to Mrs. Budge, or she may be a bit inquisitive.”
“But I _have_,” replied Miss Climpson, with an engaging giggle, “when
Mrs. Budge said there was a Mr. Parker to see me, of course I realised
at _once_ that she mustn’t know _who_ you were, so I said, quite
quickly, ‘Mr. Parker! Oh, that must be my nephew Adolphus.’ You don’t
mind being Adolphus, do you? It’s funny, but that was the _only_ name
that came into my mind at the moment. I can’t _think_ why, for I’ve
never known an Adolphus.”
“Miss Climpson,” said Parker, solemnly, “you are a marvellous woman, and
I wouldn’t mind even if you’d called me Marmaduke.”
So here he was, working out his second line of inquiry. If Miss
Whittaker did not go to a Leahampton solicitor, to whom would she go?
There was Mr. Probyn, of course, but he did not think she would have
selected him. She would not have known him at Crofton, of course—she had
never actually lived with her great-aunts. She had met him the day he
came down to Leahampton to see Miss Dawson. He had not then taken her
into his confidence about the object of his visit, but she must have
known from what her aunt said that it had to do with the making of a
will. In the light of her new knowledge, she would guess that Mr. Probyn
had then had the Act in his mind, and had not thought fit to trust her
with the facts. If she asked him now, he would probably reply that Miss
Dawson’s affairs were no longer in his hands, and refer her to Mr.
Hodgson. And besides, if she asked the question and anything were to
happen—Mr. Probyn might remember it. No, she would not have approached
Mr. Probyn.
What then?
To the person who has anything to conceal—to the person who wants to
lose his identity as one leaf among the leaves of a forest—to the person
who asks no more than to pass by and be forgotten, there is one name
above others which promises a haven of safety and oblivion. London.
Where no one knows his neighbour. Where shops do not know their
customers. Where physicians are suddenly called to unknown patients whom
they never see again. Where you may lie dead in your house for months
together unmissed and unnoticed till the gas-inspector comes to look at
the meter. Where strangers are friendly and friends are casual. London,
whose rather untidy and grubby bosom is the repository of so many odd
secrets. Discreet, incurious and all-enfolding London.
Not that Parker put it that way to himself. He merely thought, “Ten to
one she’d try London. They mostly think they’re safer there.”
Miss Whittaker knew London, of course. She had trained at the Royal
Free. That meant she would know Bloomsbury better than any other
district. For nobody knew better than Parker how rarely Londoners move
out of their own particular little orbit. Unless, of course, she had at
some time during her time at the hospital been recommended to a
solicitor in another quarter, the chances were that she would have gone
to a solicitor in the Bloomsbury or Holborn district.
Unfortunately for Parker, this is a quarter which swarms with
solicitors. Gray’s Inn Road, Gray’s Inn itself, Bedford Row, Holborn,
Lincoln’s Inn—the brass plates grow all about as thick as blackberries.
Which was why Parker was feeling so hot, tired and fed-up that June
afternoon.
With an impatient grunt he pushed away his eggy plate,
paid-at-the-desk-please, and crossed the road towards Bedford Row, which
he had marked down as his portion for the afternoon.
He started at the first solicitor’s he came to, which happened to be the
office of one J. F. Trigg. He was lucky. The youth in the outer office
informed him that Mr. Trigg had just returned from lunch, was
disengaged, and would see him. Would he walk in?
Mr. Trigg was a pleasant, fresh-faced man in his early forties. He
begged Mr. Parker to be seated and asked what he could do for him.
For the thirty-seventh time, Parker started on the opening gambit which
he had devised to suit his purpose.
“I am only temporarily in London, Mr. Trigg, and finding I needed legal
advice, I was recommended to you by a man I met in a restaurant. He did
give me his name, but it has escaped me, and anyway, it’s of no great
importance, is it? The point is this. My wife and I have come up to Town
to see her great-aunt, who is in a very bad way. In fact, she isn’t
expected to live.
“Well, now, the old lady has always been fond of my wife, don’t you see,
and it has always been an understood thing that Mrs. Parker was to come
into her money when she died. It’s quite a tidy bit, and we have been—I
won’t say looking forward to it, but in a kind of mild way counting on
it as something for us to retire upon later on. You understand. There
aren’t any other relations at all, so, though the old lady has often
talked about making a will, we didn’t worry much, one way or the other,
because we took it for granted my wife would come in for anything there
was. But we were talking about it to a friend yesterday, and he took us
rather aback by saying that there was a new law or something, and that
if my wife’s great-aunt hadn’t made a will we shouldn’t get anything at
all. I think he said it would all go to the Crown. I didn’t think that
could be right and told him so, but my wife is a bit nervous—there are
the children to be considered, you see—and she urged me to get legal
advice, because her great-aunt may go off at any minute, and we don’t
know whether there is a will or not. Now, how does a great-niece stand
under the new arrangements?”
“The point has not been made very clear,” said Mr. Trigg, “but my advice
to you is, to find out whether a will has been made and if not, to get
one made without delay if the testatrix is capable of making one.
Otherwise I think there is a very real danger of your wife’s losing her
inheritance.”
“You seem quite familiar with the question,” said Parker, with a smile;
“I suppose you are always being asked it since this new Act came in?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘always.’ It is comparatively rare for a great-niece to
be left as sole next-of-kin.”
“Is it? Well, yes, I should think it must be. Do you remember being
asked that question in the summer of 1925, Mr. Trigg?”
A most curious expression came over the solicitor’s face—it looked
almost like alarm.
“What makes you ask that?”
“You need have no hesitation in answering,” said Parker, taking out his
official card. “I am a police officer and have a good reason for asking.
I put the legal point to you first as a problem of my own, because I was
anxious to have your professional opinion first.”
“I see. Well, Inspector, in that case I suppose I am justified in
telling you all about it. I _was_ asked that question in June, 1925.”
“Do you remember the circumstances?”
“Clearly. I am not likely to forget them—or rather, the sequel to them.”
“That sounds interesting. Will you tell the story in your own way and
with all the details you can remember?”
“Certainly. Just a moment.” Mr. Trigg put his head out into the outer
office. “Badcock, I am engaged with Mr. Parker and can’t see anybody.
Now, Mr. Parker, I am at your service. Won’t you smoke?”
Parker accepted the invitation and lit up his well-worn briar, while Mr.
Trigg, rapidly smoking cigarette after cigarette, unfolded his
remarkable story.
CHAPTER XVIII
The London Lawyer’s Story
“_I who am given to novel-reading, how often have I gone out with the
doctor when the stranger has summoned him to visit the unknown patient
in the lonely house. . . . This Strange Adventure may lead, in a later
chapter, to the revealing of a mysterious crime._”
_The Londoner_
“I think,” said Mr. Trigg, “that it was on the 15th, or 16th June, 1925,
that a lady called to ask almost exactly the same question that you have
done—only that she represented herself as inquiring on behalf of a
friend whose name she did not mention. Yes—I think I can describe her
pretty well. She was tall and handsome, with a very clear skin, dark
hair and blue eyes—an attractive girl. I remember that she had very fine
brows, rather straight, and not much colour in her face, and she was
dressed in something summery but very neat. I should think it would be
called an embroidered linen dress—I am not an expert on those things—and
a shady white hat of panama straw.”
“Your recollection seems very clear,” said Parker.
“It is; I have rather a good memory; besides, I saw her on other
occasions, as you shall hear.
“At this first visit she told me—much as you did—that she was only
temporarily in Town, and had been casually recommended to me. I told her
that I should not like to answer her question off-hand. The Act, you may
remember, had only recently passed its Final Reading, and I was by no
means up in it. Besides, from just skimming through it, I had convinced
myself that various important questions were bound to crop up.
“I told the lady—Miss Grant was the name she gave, by the way—that I
should like to take counsel’s opinion before giving her any advice, and
asked if she could call again the following day. She said she could,
rose and thanked me, offering me her hand. In taking it, I happened to
notice rather an odd scar, running across the backs of all the
fingers—rather as though a chisel or something had slipped at some time.
I noticed it quite idly, of course, but it was lucky for me I did.
“Miss Grant duly turned up the next day. I had looked up a very learned
friend in the interval, and gave her the same opinion that I gave you
just now. She looked rather concerned about it—in fact, almost more
annoyed than concerned.
“‘It seems rather unfair,’ she said, ‘that people’s family money should
go away to the Crown like that. After all, a great-niece is quite a near
relation, really.’
“I replied that, provided the great-niece could call witnesses to prove
that the deceased had always had the intention of leaving her the money,
the Crown would, in all probability, allot the estate, or a suitable
proportion of it, in accordance with the wishes of the deceased. It
would, however, lie entirely within the discretion of the court to do so
or not, and, of course, if there had been any quarrel or dispute about
the matter at any time, the judge might take an unfavourable view of the
great-niece’s application.’
“‘In any case,’ I added, ‘I don’t _know_ that the great-niece is
excluded under the Act—I only understand that she _may_ be. In any case,
there are still six months before the Act comes into force, and many
things may happen before then.’
“‘You mean that Auntie may die,’ she said, ‘but she’s not really
dangerously ill—only mental, as Nurse calls it.’
“Anyhow, she went away then after paying my fee, and I noticed that the
‘friend’s great-aunt’ had suddenly become ‘Auntie,’ and decided that my
client felt a certain personal interest in the matter.”
“I fancy she had,” said Parker. “When did you see her again?”
“Oddly enough, I ran across her in the following December. I was having
a quick and early dinner in Soho, before going on to a show. The little
place I usually patronise was very full, and I had to sit at a table
where a woman was already seated. As I muttered the usual formula about
‘Was anybody sitting there,’ she looked up, and I promptly recognised my
client.
“‘Why, how do you do, Miss Grant?’ I said.
“‘I beg your pardon,’ she replied, rather stiffly. ‘I think you are
mistaken.’
“‘I beg _your_ pardon,’ said I, stiffer still, ‘My name is Trigg, and
you came to consult me in Bedford Row last June. But if I am intruding,
I apologise and withdraw.’
“She smiled then, and said, ‘I’m sorry, I did not recognise you for the
moment.’
“I obtained permission to sit at her table.
“By way of starting a conversation, I asked whether she had taken any
further advice in the matter of the inheritance. She said no, she had
been quite content with what I had told her. Still to make conversation,
I inquired whether the great-aunt had made a will after all. She
replied, rather briefly, that it had not been necessary; the old lady
had died. I noticed that she was dressed in black, and was confirmed in
my opinion that she herself was the great-niece concerned.
“We talked for some time, Inspector, and I will not conceal from you
that I found Miss Grant a very interesting personality. She had an
almost masculine understanding. I may say I am not the sort of a man who
prefers women to be brainless. No, I am rather modern in that respect.
If ever I was to take a wife, Inspector, I should wish her to be an
intelligent companion.”
Parker said Mr. Trigg’s attitude did him great credit. He also made the
mental observation that Mr. Trigg would probably not object to marrying
a young woman who had inherited money and was unencumbered with
relations.
“It is rare,” went on Mr. Trigg, “to find a woman with a legal mind.
Miss Grant was unusual in that respect. She took a great interest in
some case or other that was prominent in the newspapers at the time—I
forget now what it was—and asked me some remarkably sensible and
intelligent questions. I must say that I quite enjoyed our conversation.
Before dinner was over, we had got on to more personal topics, in the
course of which I happened to mention that I lived in Golder’s Green.”
“Did she give you her own address?”
“She said she was staying at the Peveril Hotel in Bloomsbury, and that
she was looking for a house in Town. I said that I might possibly hear
of something out Hampstead way, and offered my professional services in
case she should require them. After dinner I accompanied her back to her
hotel, and bade her good-bye in the lounge.”
“She was really staying there, then?”
“Apparently. However, about a fortnight later, I happened to hear of a
house in Golder’s Green that had fallen vacant suddenly. It belonged, as
a matter of fact, to a client of mine. In pursuance of my promise, I
wrote to Miss Grant at the Peveril. Receiving no reply, I made inquiries
there, and found that she had left the hotel the day after our meeting,
leaving no address. In the hotel register, she had merely given her
address as Manchester. I was somewhat disappointed, but thought no more
about the matter.
“About a month later—on January 26th, to be exact, I was sitting at home
reading a book, preparatory to retiring to bed. I should say that I
occupy a flat, or rather maisonette, in a small house which has been
divided to make two establishments. The people on the ground floor were
away at that time, so that I was quite alone in the house. My
housekeeper only comes in by the day. The telephone rang—I noticed the
time. It was a quarter to eleven. I answered it, and a woman’s voice
spoke, begging me to come instantly to a certain house on Hampstead
Heath, to make a will for someone who was at the point of death.”
“Did you recognise the voice?”
“No. It sounded like a servant’s voice. At any rate, it had a strong
cockney accent. I asked whether to-morrow would not be time enough, but
the voice urged me to hurry or it might be too late. Rather annoyed, I
put my things on and went out. It was a most unpleasant night, cold and
foggy. I was lucky enough to find a taxi on the nearest rank. We drove
to the address, which we had great difficulty in finding, as everything
was pitch-black. It turned out to be a small house in a very isolated
position on the Heath—in fact, there was no proper approach to it. I
left the taxi on the road, about a couple of hundred yards off, and
asked the man to wait for me, as I was very doubtful of ever finding
another taxi in that spot at that time of night. He grumbled a good
deal, but consented to wait if I promised not to be very long.
“I made my way to the house. At first I thought it was quite dark, but
presently I saw a faint glimmer in a ground-floor room. I rang the bell.
No answer, though I could hear it trilling loudly. I rang again and
knocked. Still no answer. It was bitterly cold. I struck a match to be
sure I had come to the right house, and then I noticed that the front
door was ajar.
“I thought that perhaps the servant who had called me was so much
occupied with her sick mistress as to be unable to leave her to come to
the door. Thinking that in that case I might be of assistance to her, I
pushed the door open and went in. The hall was perfectly dark, and I
bumped against an umbrella-stand in entering. I thought I heard a faint
voice calling or moaning, and when my eyes had become accustomed to the
darkness, I stumbled forward, and saw a dim light coming from a door on
the left.”
“Was that the room which you had seen to be illumined from outside?”
“I think so. I called out, ‘May I come in?’ and a very low, weak voice
replied, ‘Yes, please.’ I pushed the door open and entered a room
furnished as a sitting-room. In one corner there was a couch, on which
some bed-clothes appeared to have been hurriedly thrown to enable it to
be used as a bed. On the couch lay a woman, all alone.
“I could only dimly make her out. There was no light in the room except
a small oil-lamp, with a green shade so tilted as to keep the light from
the sick woman’s eyes. There was a fire in the grate, but it had burnt
low. I could see, however, that the woman’s head and face were swathed
in white bandages. I put out my hand and felt for the electric switch,
but she called out:
“‘No light, please—it hurts me.’”
“How did she see you put your hand to the switch?”
“Well,” said Mr. Trigg, “that was an odd thing. She didn’t speak, as a
matter of fact, till I had actually clicked the switch down. But nothing
happened. The light didn’t come on.”
“Really?”
“No. I supposed that the bulb had been taken away or had gone phut.
However, I said nothing, and came up to the bed. She said in a sort of
half-whisper, ‘Is that the lawyer?’
“I said, ‘Yes,’ and asked what I could do for her.
“She said, ‘I have had a terrible accident. I can’t live. I want to make
my will quickly.’ I asked whether there was nobody with her. ‘Yes, yes,’
she said in a hurried way, ‘my servant will be back in a moment. She has
gone to look for a doctor.’ ‘But,’ I said, ‘couldn’t she have rung up?
You are not fit to be left alone.’ ‘We couldn’t get through to one,’ she
replied, ‘it’s all right. She will be here soon. Don’t waste time. I
must make my will.’ She spoke in a dreadful, gasping way, and I felt
that the best thing would be to do what she wanted, for fear of
agitating her. I drew a chair to the table where the lamp was, got out
my fountain pen and a printed will-form with which I had provided
myself, and expressed myself ready to receive her instructions.
“Before beginning, she asked me to give her a little brandy and water
from a decanter which stood on the table. I did so, and she took a small
sip, which seemed to revive her. I placed the glass near her hand, and
at her suggestion mixed another glass for myself. I was very glad of it,
for, as I said, it was a beast of a night, and the room was cold. I
looked round for some extra coals to put on the fire, but could see
none.”
“That,” said Parker, “is extremely interesting and suggestive.”
“I thought it queer at the time. But the whole thing was queer. Anyway,
I then said I was ready to begin. She said, ‘You may think I am a little
mad, because my head has been so hurt. But I am quite sane. But he
shan’t have a penny of the money.’ I asked her if someone had attacked
her. She replied, ‘My husband. He thinks he has killed me. But I am
going to live long enough to will the money away.’ She then said that
her name was Mrs. Marion Mead, and proceeded to make a will, leaving her
estate, which amounted to about £10,000, among various legatees,
including a daughter and three or four sisters. It was rather a
complicated will, as it included various devices for tying up the
daughter’s money in a trust, so as to prevent her from ever handing over
any of it to the father.”
“Did you make a note of the names and addresses of the people involved?”
“I did, but, as you will see later on, I could make no use of them. The
testatrix was certainly clear-headed enough about the provisions of the
will, though she seemed terribly weak, and her voice never rose above a
whisper after that one time when she had called to me not to turn on the
light.
“At length I finished my notes of the will, and started to draft it out
on to the proper form. There were no signs of the servant’s return, and
I began to be really anxious. Also the extreme cold—or something
else—added to the fact that it was now long past my bed-time, was making
me appallingly sleepy. I poured out another stiff little dose of the
brandy to warm me up, and went on writing out the will.
“When I had finished I said:
“‘How about signing this? We need another witness to make it legal.’
“She said, ‘My servant must be here in a minute or two. I can’t think
what has happened to her.’
“‘I expect she has missed her way in the fog,’ I said. ‘However, I will
wait a little longer. I can’t go and leave you like this.’
“She thanked me feebly, and we sat for some time in silence. As time
went on, I began to feel the situation to be increasingly uncanny. The
sick woman breathed heavily, and moaned from time to time. The desire
for sleep overpowered me more and more. I could not understand it.
“Presently it occurred to me, stupefied though I felt, that the most
sensible thing would be to get the taxi-man—if he was still there—to
come in and witness the will with me, and then to go myself to find a
doctor. I sat, sleepily revolving this in my mind, and trying to summon
energy to speak. I felt as though a great weight of inertia was pressing
down upon me. Exertion of any kind seemed almost beyond my powers.
“Suddenly something happened which brought me back to myself. Mrs. Mead
turned a little over upon the couch and peered at me intently, as it
seemed, in the lamp-light. To support herself, she put both her hands on
the edge of the table. I noticed, with a vague sense of something
unexpected, that the left hand bore no wedding-ring. And then I noticed
something else.
“Across the back of the fingers of the right hand went a curious scar—as
though a chisel or some such thing had slipped and cut them.”
Parker sat upright in his chair.
“Yes,” said Mr. Trigg, “that interests you. It startled me. Or rather,
startled isn’t quite the word. In my oppressed state, it affected me
like some kind of nightmare. I struggled upright in my chair, and the
woman sank back upon her pillows.
“At that moment there came a violent ring at the bell.”
“The servant?”
“No—thank Heaven it was my taxi-driver, who had become tired of waiting.
I thought—I don’t quite know what I thought—but I was alarmed. I gave
some kind of shout or groan, and the man came straight in. Happily, I
had left the door open as I had found it.
“I pulled myself together sufficiently to ask him to witness the will. I
must have looked queer and spoken in a strange way, for I remember how
he looked from me to the brandy-bottle. However, he signed the paper
after Mrs. Mead, who wrote her name in a weak, straggling hand as she
lay on her back.
“‘Wot next, guv’nor?’ asked the man, when this was done.
“I was feeling dreadfully ill by now. I could only say, ‘Take me home.’
“He looked at Mrs. Mead and then at me, and said, ‘Ain’t there nobody to
see to the lady, sir?’
“I said, ‘Fetch a doctor. But take me home first.’
“I stumbled out of the house on his arm. I heard him muttering something
about its being a rum start. I don’t remember the drive home. When I
came back to life, I was in my own bed, and one of the local doctors was
standing over me.
“I’m afraid this story is getting very long and tedious. To cut matters
short, it seems the taxi-driver, who was a very decent, intelligent
fellow, had found me completely insensible at the end of the drive. He
didn’t know who I was, but he hunted in my pocket and found my visiting
card and my latch-key. He took me home, got me upstairs and, deciding
that if I was drunk, I was a worse drunk that he had ever encountered in
his experience, humanely went round and fetched a doctor.
“The doctor’s opinion was that I had been heavily drugged with veronal
or something of that kind. Fortunately, if the idea was to murder me,
the dose had been very much under-estimated. We went into the matter
thoroughly, and the upshot was that I must have taken about 30 grains of
the stuff. It appears that it is a difficult drug to trace by analysis,
but that was the conclusion the doctor came to, looking at the matter
all round. Undoubtedly the brandy had been doped.
“Of course, we went round to look at the house next day. It was all shut
up, and the local milkman informed us that the occupiers had been away
for a week and were not expected home for another ten days. We got into
communication with them, but they appeared to be perfectly genuine,
ordinary people, and they declared they knew nothing whatever about it.
They were accustomed to go away every so often, just shutting the house
and not bothering about a caretaker or anything. The man came along at
once, naturally, to investigate matters, but couldn’t find that anything
had been stolen or disturbed, except that a pair of sheets and some
pillows showed signs of use, and a scuttle of coal had been used in the
sitting-room. The coal-cellar, which also contained the electric meter,
had been left locked and the meter turned off before the family
left—they apparently had a few grains of sense—which accounts for the
chill darkness of the house when I entered it. The visitor had
apparently slipped back the catch of the pantry window—one of the usual
gimcrack affairs—with a knife or something, and had brought her own
lamp, siphon and brandy. Daring, but not really difficult.
“No Mrs. Mead or Miss Grant was to be heard of anywhere, as I needn’t
tell you. The tenants of the house were not keen to start expensive
inquiries—after all, they’d lost nothing but a shilling’s worth of
coals—and on consideration, and seeing that I hadn’t actually been
murdered or anything, I thought it best to let the matter slide. It was
a most unpleasant adventure.”
“I’m sure it was. Did you ever hear from Miss Grant again?”
“Why, yes. She rang me up twice—once, after three months, and again only
a fortnight ago, asking for an appointment. You may think me cowardly,
Mr. Parker, but each time I put her off. I didn’t quite know what might
happen. As a matter of fact, the opinion I formed in my own mind was
that I had been entrapped into that house with the idea of making me
spend the night there and afterwards blackmailing me. That was the only
explanation I could think of which would account for the
sleeping-draught. I thought discretion was the better part of valour,
and gave my clerks and my housekeeper instructions that if Miss Grant
should call at any time I was out and not expected back.”
“H’m. Do you suppose she knew you had recognised the scar on her hand?”
“I’m sure she didn’t. Otherwise she would hardly have made advances to
me in her own name again.”
“No. I think you are right. Well, Mr. Trigg, I am much obliged to you
for this information, which may turn out to be very valuable. And if
Miss Grant should ring you up again—where did she call from, by the
way?”
“From call-boxes, each time. I know that, because the operator always
tells one when the call is from a public box. I didn’t have the calls
traced.”
“No, of course not. Well, if she does it again, will you please make an
appointment with her, and then let me know about it at once? A call to
Scotland Yard will always find me.”
Mr. Trigg promised that he would do this, and Parker took his leave.
“And now we know,” thought Parker as he returned home, “that somebody—an
odd unscrupulous somebody—was making inquiries about great-nieces in
whether Mary Whittaker has a scar on her right hand, or whether I’ve got
to hunt up any more solicitors.”
The hot streets seemed less oppressively oven-like than before. In fact,
Parker was so cheered by his interview that he actually bestowed a
cigarette-card upon the next urchin who accosted him.
Part III
THE MEDICO-LEGAL PROBLEM
“_There’s not a crime
But takes its proper change out still in crime
If once rung on the counter of this world._”
E. B. Browning, _Aurora Leigh_
CHAPTER XIX
Gone Away
“_There is nothing good or evil save in the will._”
Epictetus
“You will not, I imagine, deny,” observed Lord Peter, “that very odd
things seem to happen to the people who are in a position to give
information about the last days of Agatha Dawson. Bertha Gotobed dies
suddenly, under suspicious circumstances; her sister thinks she sees
Miss Whittaker lying in wait for her at Liverpool docks; Mr. Trigg is
inveigled into a house of mystery and is semi-poisoned. I wonder what
would have happened to Mr. Probyn, if he had been careless enough to
remain in England.”
“I deny nothing,” replied Parker. “I will only point out to you that
during the month in which these disasters occurred to the Gotobed
family, the object of your suspicions was in Kent with Miss Vera
Findlater, who never left her side.”
“As against that undoubted snag,” rejoined Wimsey, “I bring forward a
letter from Miss Climpson, in which—amid a lot of rigmarole with which I
will not trouble you—she informs me that upon Miss Whittaker’s right
hand there is a scar, precisely similar to the one which Mr. Trigg
describes.”
“Is there? That does seem to connect Miss Whittaker pretty definitely
with the Trigg business. But is it your theory that she is trying to
polish off all the people who know anything about Miss Dawson? Rather a
big job, don’t you think, for a single-handed female? And if so, why is
Dr. Carr spared? and Nurse Philliter? and Nurse Forbes? And the other
doctor chappie? And the rest of the population of Leahampton, if it
comes to that?”
“That’s an interesting point which had already occurred to me. I think I
know why. Up to the present, the Dawson case has presented two different
problems, one legal and one medical—the motive and the means, if you
like that better. As far as opportunity goes, only two people figure as
possibles—Miss Whittaker and Nurse Forbes. The Forbes woman had nothing
to gain by killin’ a good patient, so for the moment we can wash her
out.
“Well now, as to the medical problem—the means. I must say that up to
now that appears completely insoluble. I am baffled, Watson (said he,
his hawk-like eyes gleaming angrily from under the half-closed lids).
Even I am baffled. But not for long! (he cried, with a magnificent burst
of self-confidence). My Honour (capital H) is concerned to track this
Human Fiend (capitals) to its hidden source, and nail the whited
sepulchre to the mast even though it crush me in the attempt! Loud
applause. His chin sank broodingly upon his dressing-gown, and he
breathed a few guttural notes into the bass saxophone which was the
cherished companion of his solitary hours in the bathroom.”
Parker ostentatiously took up the book which he had laid aside on
Wimsey’s entrance.
“Tell me when you’ve finished,” he said, caustically.
“I’ve hardly begun. The means, I repeat, seems insoluble—and so the
criminal evidently thinks. There has been no exaggerated mortality among
the doctors and nurses. On that side of the business the lady feels
herself safe. No. The motive is the weak point—hence the hurry to stop
the mouths of the people who knew about the legal part of the problem.”
“Yes, I see. Mrs. Cropper has started back to Canada, by the way. She
doesn’t seem to have been molested at all.”
“No—and that’s why I still think there was somebody on the watch in
Liverpool. Mrs. Cropper was only worth silencing so long as she had told
nobody her story. That is why I was careful to meet her and accompany
her ostentatiously to Town.”
“Oh, rot, Peter! Even if Miss Whittaker had been there—which we know she
couldn’t have been—how was she to know that you were going to ask about
the Dawson business? She doesn’t know you from Adam.”
“She might have found out who Murbles was. The advertisement which
started the whole business was in his name, you know.”
“In that case, why hasn’t she attacked Murbles or you?”
“Murbles is a wise old bird. In vain are nets spread in his sight. He is
seeing no female clients, answering no invitations, and never goes out
without an escort.”
“I didn’t know he took it so seriously.”
“Oh, yes. Murbles is old enough to have learnt the value of his own
skin. As for me—have you noticed the remarkable similarity in some ways
between Mr. Trigg’s adventure and my own little adventurelet, as you
might say, in South Audley Street?”
“What, with Mrs. Forrest?”
“Yes. The secret appointment. The drink. The endeavour to get one to
stay the night at all costs. I’m positive there was something in that
sugar, Charles, that no sugar should contain—see Public Health
(Adulteration of Food) Acts, various.”
“You think Mrs. Forrest is an accomplice?”
“I do. I don’t know what she has to gain by it—probably money. But I
feel sure there is some connection. Partly because of Bertha Gotobed’s
£5 note; partly because Mrs. Forrest’s story was a palpable fake—I’m
certain the woman’s never had a lover, let alone a husband—you can’t
mistake real inexperience; and chiefly because of the similarity of
method. Criminals always tend to repeat their effects. Look at George
Joseph Smith and his brides. Look at Neill Cream. Look at Armstrong and
his tea-parties.”
“Well, if there’s an accomplice, all the better. Accomplices generally
end up by giving the show away.”
“True. And we are in a good position because up till now I don’t think
they know that we suspect any connection between them.”
“But I still think, you know, we ought to get some evidence that actual
crimes have been committed. Call me finicking, if you like. If you
_could_ suggest a means of doing away with these people so as to leave
no trace, I should feel happier about it.”
“The means, eh?—Well, we do know something about it.”
“As what?”
“Well—take the two victims—”
“Alleged.”
“All right, old particular. The two alleged victims and the two
(alleged) intended victims. Miss Dawson was ill and helpless; Bertha
Gotobed possibly stupefied by a heavy meal and an unaccustomed quantity
of wine; Trigg was given a sufficient dose of veronal to send him to
sleep, and I was offered something of probably the same kind—I wish I
could have kept the remains of that coffee. So we deduce from that,
what?”
“I suppose that it was a means of death which could only be used on
somebody more or less helpless or unconscious.”
“Exactly. As for instance, a hypodermic injection—only nothing appears
to have been injected. Or a delicate operation of some kind—if we could
only think of one to fit the case. Or the inhalation of something—such
as chloroform—only we could find no traces of suffocation.”
“Yes. That doesn’t get us very far, though.”
“It’s something. Then again, it may very well be something that a
trained nurse would have learnt or heard about. Miss Whittaker was
trained, you know—which, by the way, was what made it so easy for her to
bandage up her own head and provide a pitiful and unrecognisable
spectacle for the stupid Mr. Trigg.”
“It wouldn’t have to be anything very out of the way—nothing, I mean,
that only a trained surgeon could do, or that required very specialised
knowledge.”
“Oh, no. Probably something picked up in conversation with a doctor or
the other nurses. I say, how about getting hold of Dr. Carr again? Or,
no—if he’d got any ideas on the subject he’d have trotted ’em out before
now. I know! I’ll ask Lubbock, the analyst. He’ll do. I’ll get in touch
with him to-morrow.”
“And meanwhile,” said Parker, “I suppose we just sit round and wait for
somebody else to be murdered.”
“It’s beastly, isn’t it? I still feel poor Bertha Gotobed’s blood on my
head, so to speak. I say!”
“Yes?”
“We’ve practically got clear proof on the Trigg business. Couldn’t you
put the lady in quod on a charge of burglary while we think out the rest
of the dope? It’s often done. It _was_ a burglary, you know. She broke
into a house after dark and appropriated a scuttleful of coal to her own
use. Trigg could identify her—he seems to have paid the lady particular
attention on more than one occasion—and we could rake up his taxi-man
for corroborative detail.”
Parker pulled at his pipe for a few minutes.
“There’s something in that,” he said finally. “I think perhaps it’s
worth while putting it before the authorities. But we mustn’t be in too
much of a hurry, you know. I wish we were further ahead with our other
proofs. There’s such a thing as Habeas Corpus—you can’t hold on to
people indefinitely just on a charge of stealing coal—”
“There’s the breaking and entering, don’t forget that. It’s burglary,
after all. You can get penal servitude for life for burglary.”
“But it all depends on the view the law takes of the coal. It might
decide that there was no original intention of stealing coal, and treat
the thing as a mere misdemeanour or civil trespass. Anyhow, we don’t
really _want_ a conviction for stealing coal. But I’ll see what they
think about it at our place, and meanwhile I’ll get hold of Trigg again
and try and find the taxi-driver. And Trigg’s doctor. We might get it as
an attempt to murder Trigg, or at least to inflict grievous bodily harm.
But I should like some more evidence about—”
“Cuckoo! So should I. But I can’t manufacture evidence out of nothing.
Dash it all, be reasonable. I’ve built you up a case out of nothing.
Isn’t that handsome enough? Base ingratitude—that’s what’s the matter
with you.”
Parker’s inquiries took some time, and June lingered into its longest
days.
Chamberlin and Levine flew the Atlantic, and Segrave bade farewell to
Brooklands. The _Daily Yell_ wrote anti-Red leaders and discovered a
plot, somebody laid claim to a marquisate, and a Czecho-Slovakian
pretended to swim the Channel. Hammond out-graced Grace, there was an
outburst of murder at Moscow, Foxlaw won the Gold Cup and the earth
opened at Oxhey and swallowed up somebody’s front garden. Oxford decided
that women were dangerous, and the electric hare consented to run at the
White City. England’s supremacy was challenged at Wimbledon, and the
House of Lords made the gesture of stooping to conquer.
Meanwhile, Lord Peter’s projected _magnum opus_ on a-hundred-and-one
ways of causing sudden death had advanced by the accumulation of a mass
of notes which flowed all over the library at the flat, and threatened
to engulf Bunter, whose task it was to file and cross-reference and
generally to produce order from chaos. Oriental scholars and explorers
were button-holed in clubs and strenuously pumped on the subject of
abstruse native poisons; horrid experiments performed in German
laboratories were communicated in unreadable documents; and the life of
Sir James Lubbock, who had the misfortune to be a particular friend of
Lord Peter’s, was made a burden to him with daily inquiries as to the
post-mortem detection of such varying substances as chloroform, curate,
hydrocyanic acid gas and diethylsulphonmethylethylmetane.
“But surely there _must_ be something which kills without leaving a
trace,” pleaded Lord Peter, when at length informed that the persecution
must cease. “A thing in such universal demand—surely it is not beyond
the wit of scientists to invent it. It must exist. Why isn’t it properly
advertised? There ought to be a company to exploit it. It’s simply
ridiculous. Why, it’s a thing one might be wantin’ one’s self any day.”
“You don’t understand,” said Sir James Lubbock. “Plenty of poisons leave
no particular post-mortem appearances. And plenty of them—especially the
vegetable ones—are difficult to find by analysis, unless you know what
you are looking for. For instance, if you’re testing for arsenic, that
test won’t tell you whether strychnine is present or not. And if you’re
testing for strychnine, you won’t find morphia. You’ve got to try one
test after another till you hit the right one. And of course there are
certain poisons for which no recognised tests exist.”
“I know all that,” said Wimsey. “I’ve tested things myself. But these
poisons with no recognised test—how do you set about proving that
they’re there?”
“Well, of course, you’d take the symptoms into account, and so on. You
would look at the history of the case.”
“Yes—but I want a poison that doesn’t produce any symptoms. Except
death, of course—if you call that a symptom. Isn’t there a poison with
no symptoms and no test? Something that just makes you go off, Pouf!
like that?”
“Certainly not,” said the analyst, rather annoyed—for your medical
analyst lives by symptoms and tests, and nobody likes suggestions that
undermine the very foundations of his profession—“not even old age or
mental decay. There are always symptoms.”
Fortunately, before symptoms of mental decay could become too pronounced
in Lord Peter, Parker sounded the call to action.
“I’m going down to Leahampton with a warrant,” he said. “I may not use
it, but the chief thinks it might be worth while to make an inquiry.
What with the Battersea mystery and the Daniels business, and Bertha
Gotobed, there seems to be a feeling that there have been too many
unexplained tragedies this year, and the Press have begun yelping again,
blast them! There’s an article in _John Citizen_ this week, with a
poster: ‘Ninety-six Murderers at Large,’ and the _Evening Views_ is
starting its reports with ‘Six weeks have now passed, and the police are
no nearer the solution—’ you know the kind of thing. We’ll simply have
to get some sort of move on. Do you want to come?”
“Certainly—a breath of country air would do me good, I fancy. Blow away
the cobwebs, don’t you know. It might even inspire me to invent a good
way of murderin’ people. ‘O Inspiration, solitary child, warbling thy
native wood-notes wild—’ Did somebody write that, or did I invent it? It
sounds reminiscent, somehow.”
Parker, who was out of temper, replied rather shortly, and intimated
that the police car would be starting for Leahampton in an hour’s time.
“I will be there,” said Wimsey, “though, mind you, I hate being driven
by another fellow. It feels so unsafe. Never mind. I will be bloody,
bold and resolute, as Queen Victoria said to the Archbishop of
Canterbury.”
They reached Leahampton without any incident to justify Lord Peter’s
fears. Parker had brought another officer with him, and on the way they
picked up the Chief Constable of the County, who appeared very dubiously
disposed towards their errand. Lord Peter, observing their array of five
strong men, going out to seize upon one young woman, was reminded of the
Marquise de Brinvilliers—(“What! all that water for a little person like
me?”)—but this led him back to the subject of poison, and he remained
steeped in thought and gloom till the car drew up before the house in
Wellington Avenue.
Parker got out, and went up the path with the Chief Constable. The door
was opened to them by a frightened-looking maid, who gave a little
shriek at sight of them.
“Oh, sir! have you come to say something’s happened to Miss Whittaker?”
“Isn’t Miss Whittaker at home, then?”
“No, sir. She went out in the car with Miss Vera Findlater on
Monday—that’s four days back, sir, and she hasn’t come home, nor Miss
Findlater neither, and I’m frightened something’s happened to them. When
I see you, sir, I thought you was the police come to say there had been
an accident. I didn’t know what to do, sir.”
“Skipped, by God!” was Parker’s instant thought, but he controlled his
annoyance, and asked:
“Do you know where they were going?”
“Crow’s Beach, Miss Whittaker said, sir.”
“That’s a good fifty miles,” said the Chief Constable. “Probably they’ve
just decided to stay there a day or two.”
“More likely gone in the opposite direction,” thought Parker.
“They didn’t take no things for the night, sir. They went off about ten
in the morning. They said they was going to have lunch there and come
home in the evening. And Miss Whittaker hasn’t written nor nothing. And
her always so particular. Cook and me, we didn’t know what—”
“Oh, well, I expect it’s all right,” said the Chief Constable. “It’s a
pity, as we particularly wanted to see Miss Whittaker. When you hear
from her, you might say Sir Charles Pillington called with a friend.”
“Yes, sir. But please, sir, what ought we to do, sir?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry. I’ll have inquiries made. I’m the Chief
Constable, you know, and I can soon find out whether there’s been an
accident or anything. But if there had been, depend upon it we should
have heard about it. Come, my girl, pull yourself together, there’s
nothing to cry about. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.”
But Sir Charles looked disturbed. Coming on top of Parker’s arrival in
the district, the thing had an unpleasant look about it.
Lord Peter received the news cheerfully.
“Good,” said he, “joggle ’em up. Keep ’em moving. That’s the spirit.
Always like it when somethin’ happens. My worst suspicions are goin’ to
be justified. That always makes one feel so important and virtuous,
don’t you think? Wonder why she took the girl with her, though. By the
way, we’d better look up the Findlaters. They may have heard something.”
This obvious suggestion was acted upon at once. But at the Findlaters’
house they drew blank. The family were at the seaside, with the
exception of Miss Vera, who was staying in Wellington Avenue with Miss
Whittaker. No anxiety was expressed by the parlour-maid and none,
apparently, felt. The investigators took care not to arouse any alarm,
and, leaving a trivial and polite message from Sir Charles, withdrew for
a consultation.
“There’s nothing for it, so far as I can see,” said Parker, “but an
all-stations call to look out for the car and the ladies. And we must
put inquiries through to all the ports, of course. With four days’
start, they may be anywhere by now. I wish to Heaven I’d risked a bit
and started earlier, approval or no approval. What’s this Findlater girl
like? I’d better go back to the house and get photographs of her and the
Whittaker woman. And, Wimsey, I wish you’d look in on Miss Climpson and
see if she has any information.”
“And you might tell ’em at the Yard to keep an eye on Mrs. Forrest’s
place,” said Wimsey. “When anything sensational happens to a criminal
it’s a good tip to watch the accomplice.”
“I feel sure you are both quite mistaken about this,” urged Sir Charles
Pillington. “Criminal—accomplice—bless me! I have had considerable
experience in the course of a long life—longer than either of yours—and
I really feel convinced that Miss Whittaker, whom I know quite well, is
as good and nice a girl as you could wish to find. But there has
undoubtedly been an accident of some kind, and it is our duty to make
the fullest investigation. I will get on to Crow’s Beach police
immediately, as soon as I know the description of the car.”
“It’s an Austin Seven and the number is XX9917,” said Wimsey, much to
the Chief Constable’s surprise. “But I doubt very much whether you’ll
find it at Crow’s Beach, or anywhere near it.”
“Well, we’d better get a move on,” snapped Parker. “We’d better
separate. How about a spot of lunch in an hour’s time at the George?”
Wimsey was unlucky. Miss Climpson was not to be found. She had had her
lunch early and gone out, saying she felt that a long country walk would
do her good. Mrs. Budge was rather afraid she had had some bad news—she
had seemed so upset and worried since yesterday evening.
“But indeed, sir,” she added, “if you was quick, you might find her up
at the church. She often drops in there to say her prayers like. Not a
respectful way to approach a place of worship to my mind, do you think
so yourself, sir? Popping in and out on a week-day, the same as if it
was a friend’s house. And coming home from Communion as cheerful as
anything and ready to laugh and make jokes. I don’t see as how we was
meant to make an ordinary thing of religion that way—so disrespectful
and nothing uplifting to the ’art about it. But there! we all ’as our
failings, and Miss Climpson is a nice lady and that I must say, even if
she is a Roaming Catholic or next door to one.”
Lord Peter thought that Roaming Catholic was rather an appropriate name
for the more ultramontane section of the High Church party. At the
moment, however, he felt he could not afford time for religious
discussion, and set off for the church in quest of Miss Climpson.
The doors of S. Onesimus were hospitably open, and the red Sanctuary
lamp made a little spot of welcoming brightness in the rather dark
building. Coming in from the June sunshine, Wimsey blinked a little
before he could distinguish anything else. Presently he was able to make
out a dark, bowed figure kneeling before the lamp. For a moment he hoped
it was Miss Climpson, but presently saw to his disappointment that it
was merely a Sister in a black habit, presumably taking her turn to
watch before the Host. The only other occupant of the church was a
priest in a cassock, who was busy with the ornaments on the High Altar.
It was the Feast of S. John, Wimsey remembered suddenly. He walked up
the aisle, hoping to find his quarry hidden in some obscure corner. His
shoes squeaked. This annoyed him. It was a thing which Bunter never
permitted. He was seized with a fancy that the squeak was produced by
diabolic possession—a protest against a religious atmosphere on the part
of his own particular besetting devil. Pleased with this thought, he
moved forward more confidently.
The priest’s attention was attracted by the squeak. He turned and came
down towards the intruder. No doubt, thought Wimsey, to offer his
professional services to exorcise the evil spirit.
“Were you looking for anybody?” inquired the priest, courteously.
“Well, I was looking for a lady,” began Wimsey. Then it struck him that
this sounded a little odd under the circumstances, and he hastened to
explain more fully, in the stifled tones considered appropriate to
consecrated surroundings.
“Oh, yes,” said the priest, quite unperturbed, “Miss Climpson was here a
little time ago, but I fancy she has gone. Not that I usually keep tabs
on my flock,” he added, with a laugh, “but she spoke to me before she
went. Was it urgent? What a pity you should have missed her. Can I give
any kind of message or help you in any way?”
“No, thanks,” said Wimsey. “Sorry to bother you. Unseemly to come and
try to haul people out of church, but—yes, it was rather important. I’ll
leave a message at the house. Thanks frightfully.”
He turned away; then stopped and came back.
“I say,” he said, “you give advice on moral problems and all that sort
of thing, don’t you?”
“Well, we’re supposed to try,” said the priest. “Is anything bothering
you in particular?”
“Ye-es,” said Wimsey, “nothing religious, I don’t mean—nothing about
infallibility or the Virgin Mary or anything of that sort. Just
something I’m not comfortable about.”
The priest—who was, in fact, the vicar, Mr. Tredgold—indicated that he
was quite at Lord Peter’s service.
“It’s very good of you. Could we come somewhere where I didn’t have to
whisper so much. I never can explain things in a whisper. Sort of
paralyses one, don’t you know.”
“Let’s go outside,” said Mr. Tredgold.
So they went out and sat on a flat tombstone.
“It’s like this,” said Wimsey. “Hypothetical case, you see, and so on.
S’posin’ one knows somebody who’s very, very ill and can’t last long
anyhow. And they’re in awful pain and all that, and kept under
morphia—practically dead to the world, you know. And suppose that by
dyin’ straight away they could make something happen which they really
wanted to happen and which couldn’t happen if they lived on a little
longer (I can’t explain exactly how, because I don’t want to give
personal details and so on)—you get the idea? Well, supposin’ somebody
who knew all that was just to give ’em a little push off so to
speak—hurry matters on—why should that be a very dreadful crime?”
“The law—” began Mr. Tredgold.
“Oh, the law says it’s a crime, fast enough,” said Wimsey. “But do you
honestly think it’s very bad? I know you’d call it a sin, of course, but
why is it so very dreadful? It doesn’t do the person any harm, does it?”
“We can’t answer that,” said Mr. Tredgold, “without knowing the ways of
God with the soul. In those last weeks or hours of pain and
unconsciousness, the soul may be undergoing some necessary part of its
pilgrimage on earth. It isn’t our business to cut it short. Who are we
to take life and death into our hands?”
“Well, we do it all day, one way and another.
Juries—soldiers—doctors—all that. And yet I do feel, somehow, that it
isn’t a right thing in this case. And yet, by interfering—finding things
out and so on—one may do far worse harm. Start all kinds of things.”
“I think,” said Mr. Tredgold, “that the sin—I won’t use that word—the
damage to Society, the wrongness of the thing lies much more in the harm
it does the killer than in anything it can do to the person who is
killed. Especially, of course, if the killing is to the killer’s own
advantage. The consequence you mention—this thing which the sick person
wants done—does the other person stand to benefit by it, may I ask?”
“Yes. That’s just it. He—she—they do.”
“That puts it at once on a different plane from just hastening a
person’s death out of pity. Sin is in the intention, not the deed. That
is the difference between divine law and human law. It is bad for a
human being to get to feel that he has any right whatever to dispose of
another person’s life to his own advantage. It leads him to think
himself above all laws—Society is never safe from the man who has
deliberately committed murder with impunity. That is why—or one reason
why—God forbids private vengeance.”
“You mean that one murder leads to another.”
“Very often. In any case it leads to a readiness to commit others.”
“It has. That’s the trouble. But it wouldn’t have if I hadn’t started
trying to find things out. Ought I to have left it alone?”
“I see. That is very difficult. Terrible, too, for you. You feel
responsible.”
“Yes.”
“You yourself are not serving a private vengeance?”
“Oh, no. Nothing really to do with me. Started in like a fool to help
somebody who’d got into trouble about the thing through having
suspicions himself. And my beastly interference started the crimes all
over again.”
“I shouldn’t be too troubled. Probably the murderer’s own guilty fears
would have led him into fresh crimes even without your interference.”
“That’s true,” said Wimsey, remembering Mr. Trigg.
“My advice to you is to do what you think is right, according to the
laws which we have been brought up to respect. Leave the consequences to
God. And try to think charitably, even of wicked people. You know what I
mean. Bring the offender to justice, but remember that if we all got
justice, you and I wouldn’t escape either.”
“I know. Knock the man down but don’t dance on the body. Quite. Forgive
my troublin’ you—and excuse my bargin’ off, because I’ve got a date with
a friend. Thanks so much. I don’t feel quite so rotten about it now. But
I was gettin’ worried.”
Mr. Tredgold watched him as he trotted away between the graves. “Dear,
dear,” he said, “how nice they are. So kindly and scrupulous and so
vague outside their public-school code. And much more nervous and
sensitive than people think. A very difficult class to reach. I must
make a special intention for him at Mass to-morrow.”
Being a practical man, Mr. Tredgold made a knot in his handkerchief to
remind himself of this pious resolve.
“The problem—to interfere or not to interfere—God’s law and Cæsar’s.
Policemen, now—it’s no problem to them. But for the ordinary man—how
hard to disentangle his own motives. I wonder what brought him here.
Could it possibly be—No!” said the vicar, checking himself, “I have no
right to speculate.” He drew out his handkerchief again and made another
mnemonic knot as a reminder against his next confession that he had
fallen into the sin of inquisitiveness.
CHAPTER XX
Murder
Siegfried: “_What does this mean?_”
Isbrand: “_A pretty piece of kidnapping, that’s all._”
Beddoes, _Death’s Jest-Book_
Parker, too, had spent a disappointing half-hour. It appeared that Miss
Whittaker not only disliked having her photograph taken, but had
actually destroyed all the existing portraits she could lay hands on,
shortly after Miss Dawson’s death. Of course, many of Miss Whittaker’s
friends might be in possession of one—notably, of course, Miss
Findlater. But Parker was not sure that he wanted to start a local
hue-and-cry at the moment. Miss Climpson might be able to get one, of
course. He went round to Nelson Avenue. Miss Climpson was out; there had
been another gentleman asking for her. Mrs. Budge’s eyes were beginning
to bulge with curiosity—evidently she was becoming dubious about Miss
Climpson’s “nephew” and his friends. Parker then went to the local
photographers. There were five. From two of them he extracted a number
of local groups, containing unrecognisable portraits of Miss Whittaker
at church bazaars and private theatricals. She had never had a studio
portrait made in Leahampton.
Of Miss Findlater, on the other hand, he got several excellent
likenesses—a slight, fair girl, with a rather sentimental look—plump and
prettyish. All these he despatched to Town, with directions that they
should be broadcast to the police, together with a description of the
girl’s dress when last seen.
The only really cheerful members of the party at the “George” were the
second policeman, who had been having a pleasant gossip with various
garage-proprietors and publicans, with a view to picking up information,
and the Chief Constable, who was vindicated and triumphant. He had been
telephoning to various country police-stations, and had discovered that
XX9917 had actually been observed on the previous Monday by an A.A.
scout on the road to Crow’s Beach. Having maintained all along that the
Crow’s Beach excursion was a genuine one, he was inclined to exult over
the Scotland Yard man. Wimsey and Parker dispiritedly agreed that they
had better go down and make inquiries at Crow’s Beach.
Meanwhile, one of the photographers, whose cousin was on the staff of
the _Leahampton Mercury_, had put a call through to the office of that
up-to-date paper, which was just going to press. A stop-press
announcement was followed by a special edition; somebody rang up the
London _Evening Views_ which burst out into a front-page scoop; the fat
was in the fire, and the _Daily Yell_, _Daily Views_, _Daily Wire_ and
_Daily Tidings_, who were all suffering from lack of excitement, came
brightly out next morning with bold headlines about disappearing young
women.
Crow’s Beach, indeed, that pleasant and respectable watering-place, knew
nothing of Miss Whittaker, Miss Findlater, or car XX9917. No hotel had
received them; no garage had refuelled or repaired them; no policeman
had observed them. The Chief Constable held to his theory of an
accident, and scouting parties were sent out. Wires arrived at Scotland
Yard from all over the place. They had been seen at Dover, at Newcastle,
at Sheffield, at Winchester, at Rugby. Two young women had had tea in a
suspicious manner at Folkestone; a car had passed noisily through
Dorchester at a late hour on Monday night; a dark-haired girl in an
“agitated condition” had entered a public-house in New Alresford just
before closing-time and asked the way to Hazelmere. Among all these
reports, Parker selected that of a boy-scout, who reported on the
Saturday morning that he had noticed two ladies with a car having a
picnic on the downs on the previous Monday, not far from Shelly Head.
The car was an Austin Seven—he knew that, because he was keen on motors
(an unanswerable reason for accuracy in a boy of his age), and he had
noticed that it was a London number, though he couldn’t say positively
what the number was.
Shelly Head lies about ten miles along the coast from Crow’s Beach, and
is curiously lonely, considering how near it lies to the watering-place.
Under the cliffs is a long stretch of clear sandy beach, never visited,
and overlooked by no houses. The cliffs themselves are chalk, and
covered with short turf, running back into a wide expanse of downs,
covered with gorse and heather. Then comes a belt of pine-trees, beyond
which is a steep, narrow and rutty road, leading at length into the
tarmac high-road between Ramborough and Ryders Heath. The downs are by
no means frequented, though there are plenty of rough tracks which a car
can follow, if you are not particular about comfort or fussy over your
springs.
Under the leadership of the boy-scout, the police-car bumped
uncomfortably over these disagreeable roads. It was hopeless to look for
any previous car-tracks, for the chalk was dry and hard, and the grass
and heath retained no marks. Everywhere, little dells and hollows
presented themselves—all exactly alike, and many of them capable of
hiding a small car, not to speak of the mere signs and remains of a
recent picnic. Having arrived at what their guide thought to be
approximately the right place, they pulled up and got out. Parker
quartered the ground between the five of them and they set off.
Wimsey took a dislike to gorse-bushes that day. There were so many of
them and so thick. Any of them might hold a cigarette package or a
sandwich paper or a scrap of cloth or a clue of some kind. He trudged
along unhappily, back bent and eyes on the ground, over one ridge and
down into the hollow—then circling to right and to left, taking his
bearings by the police-car; over the next ridge and down into the next
hollow; over the next ridge—
Yes. There was something in the hollow.
He saw it first sticking out round the edge of a gorse-bush. It was
light in colour, and pointed, rather like a foot.
He felt a little sick.
“Somebody has gone to sleep here,” he said aloud.
Then he thought:
“Funny—it’s always the feet they leave showing.”
He scrambled down among the bushes, slipping on the short turf and
nearly rolling to the bottom. He swore irritably.
The person was sleeping oddly. The flies must be a nuisance all over her
head like that.
It occurred to him that it was rather early in the year for flies. There
had been an advertising rhyme in the papers. Something about “Each fly
you swat now means, remember, Three hundred fewer next September.” Or
was it a thousand fewer? He couldn’t get the metre quite right.
Then he pulled himself together and went forward. The flies rose up in a
little cloud.
It must have been a pretty heavy blow, he thought, to smash the back of
the skull in like that. The shingled hair was blonde. The face lay
between the bare arms.
He turned the body on its back.
Of course, without the photograph, he could not—he need not—be certain
that this was Vera Findlater.
All this had taken him perhaps thirty seconds.
He scrambled up to the rim of the hollow and shouted.
A small black figure at some distance stopped and turned. He saw its
face as a white spot with no expression on it. He shouted again, and
waved his arms in wide gestures of explanation. The figure came running;
it lurched slowly and awkwardly over the heathy ground. It was the
policeman—a heavy man, not built for running in the heat. Wimsey shouted
again, and the policeman shouted too. Wimsey saw the others closing in
upon him. The grotesque figure of the boy-scout topped a ridge, waving
its staff—then disappeared again. The policeman was quite near now. His
bowler hat was thrust back on his head, and there was something on his
watch-chain that glinted in the sun as he ran. Wimsey found himself
running to meet him and calling—explaining at great length. It was too
far off to make himself heard, but he explained, wordily, with emphasis,
pointing, indicating. He was quite breathless when the policeman and he
came together. They were both breathless. They wagged their heads and
gasped. It was ludicrous. He started running again, with the man at his
heels. Presently they were all there, pointing, measuring, taking notes,
grubbing under the gorse-bushes. Wimsey sat down. He was dreadfully
tired.
“Peter,” said Parker’s voice, “come and look at this.”
He got up wearily.
There were the remains of a picnic lunch a little farther down the
hollow. The policeman had a little bag in his hand—he had taken it from
under the body, and was now turning over the trifles it contained. On
the ground, close to the dead girl’s head, was a thick, heavy
spanner—unpleasantly discoloured and with a few fair hairs sticking to
its jaws. But what Parker was calling his attention to was none of
these, but a man’s mauve-grey cap.
“Where did you find that?” asked Wimsey.
“Alf here picked it up at the top of the hollow,” said Parker.
“Tumbled off into the gorse it was,” corroborated the scout, “just up
here, lying upside down just as if it had fallen off somebody’s head.”
“Any footmarks?”
“Not likely. But there’s a place where the bushes are all trodden and
broken. Looks as if there’d been some sort of struggle. What’s become of
the Austin? Hi! don’t touch that spanner, my lad. There may be
finger-prints on it. This looks like an attack by some gang or other.
Any money in that purse? Ten-shilling note, sixpence and a few
coppers—oh! Well, the other woman may have had more on her. She’s very
well off, you know. Held up for ransom, I shouldn’t wonder.” Parker bent
down and very gingerly enfolded the spanner in a silk handkerchief,
carrying it slung by the four corners. “Well, we’d better spread about
and have a look for the car. Better try that belt of trees over there.
Looks a likely spot. And, Hopkins—I think you’d better run back with our
car to Crow’s Beach and let ’em know at the station, and come back with
a photographer. And take this wire and send it to the Chief Commissioner
at Scotland Yard, and find a doctor and bring him along with you. And
you’d better hire another car while you’re about it, in case we don’t
find the Austin—we shall be too many to get away in this one. Take Alf
back with you if you’re not sure of finding the place again. Oh! and
Hopkins, fetch us along something to eat and drink, will you, we may be
at it a long time. Here’s some money—that enough?”
“Yes, thank you, sir.”
The constable went off, taking Alf, who was torn between a desire to
stay and do some more detecting, and the pride and glory of being first
back with the news. Parker gave a few words of praise for his valuable
assistance which filled him with delight, and then turned to the Chief
Constable.
“They obviously went off in this direction. Would you bear away to the
left, sir, and enter the trees from that end, and Peter, will you bear
to the right and work through from the other end, while I go straight up
the middle?”
The Chief Constable, who seemed a good deal shaken by the discovery of
the body, obeyed without a word. Wimsey caught Parker by the arm.
“I say,” he said, “have you looked at the wound? Something funny, isn’t
there? There ought to be more mess, somehow. What do you think?”
“I’m not thinking anything for the moment,” said Parker, a little
grimly. “We’ll wait for the doctor’s report. Come on, Steve! We want to
dig out that car.”
“Let’s have a look at the cap. H’m. Sold by a gentleman, resident in
Stepney. Almost new. Smells strongly of California Poppy—rather a swell
sort of gangsman, apparently. Quite one of the lads of the village.”
“Yes—we ought to be able to trace that. Thank Heaven, they always
overlook something. Well, we’d better get along.”
The search for the car presented no difficulties. Parker stumbled upon
it almost as soon as he got in under the trees. There was a clearing,
with a little rivulet of water running through it, beside which stood
the missing Austin. There were other trees here, mingled with the pines,
and the water made an elbow and spread into a shallow pool, with a kind
of muddy beach.
The hood of the car was up, and Parker approached with an uncomfortable
feeling that there might be something disagreeable inside, but it was
empty. He tried the gears. They were in neutral and the handbrake was
on. On the seat was a handkerchief—a large linen handkerchief, very
grubby and with no initials or laundry-mark. Parker grunted a little
over the criminal’s careless habit of strewing his belongings about. He
came round in front of the car and received immediate further proof of
carelessness. For on the mud there were footmarks—two men’s and a
woman’s, it seemed.
The woman had got out of the car first—he could see where the left heel
had sunk heavily in as she extricated herself from the low seat. Then
the right foot—less heavily—then she had staggered a little and started
to run. But one of the men had been there to catch her. He had stepped
out of the bracken in shoes with new rubbers on them, and there were
some scuffling marks as though he had held her and she had tried to
break away. Finally, the second man, who seemed to possess rather narrow
feet and to wear the long-toed boots affected by town boys of the louder
sort—had come after her from the car—the marks of his feet were clear,
crossing and half-obliterating hers. All three had stood together for a
little. Then the tracks moved away, with those of the woman in the
middle, and led up to where the mark of a Michelin balloon tyre showed
clearly. The tyres of the Austin were ordinary Dunlops—besides, this was
obviously a bigger car. It had apparently stood there for some little
time, for a little pool of engine-oil had dripped from the crank-case.
Then the bigger car had moved off, down a sort of ride that led away
through the trees. Parker followed it for a little distance, but the
tracks soon became lost in a thick carpet of pine-needles. Still, there
was no other road for a car to take. He turned to the Austin to
investigate further. Presently shouts told him that the other two were
converging upon the centre of the wood. He called back and before long
Wimsey and Sir Charles Pillington came crashing towards him through the
bracken which fringed the pines.
“Well,” said Wimsey, “I imagine we may put down this elegant bit of
purple headgear to the gentleman in the slim boots. Bright yellow, I
fancy, with buttons. He must be lamenting his beautiful cap. The woman’s
footprints belong to Mary Whittaker, I take it.”
“I suppose so. I don’t see how they can be the Findlater girl’s. This
woman went or was taken off in the car.”
“They are certainly not Vera Findlater’s—there was no mud on her shoes
when we found her.”
“Oh! you were taking notice, then. I thought you were feeling a bit dead
to the world.”
“So I was, old dear, but I can’t help noticin’ things, though moribund.
Hullo! what’s this?”
He put his hand down behind the cushions of the car and pulled out an
American magazine—that monthly collection of mystery and sensational
fiction published under the name of _The Black Mask_.
“Light reading for the masses,” said Parker.
“Brought by the gentleman in the yellow boots, perhaps,” suggested the
Chief Constable.
“More likely by Miss Findlater,” said Wimsey.
“Hardly a lady’s choice,” said Sir Charles, in a pained tone.
“Oh, I dunno. From all I hear, Miss Whittaker was dead against
sentimentality and roses round the porch, and the other poor girl copied
her in everything. They might have a boyish taste in fiction.”
“Well, it’s not important,” said Parker.
“Wait a bit. Look at this. Somebody’s been making marks on it.”
Wimsey held out the cover for inspection. A thick pencil-mark had been
drawn under the first two words of the title.
“Do you think it’s some sort of message? Perhaps the book was on the
seat, and she contrived to make the marks unnoticed and shove it away
here before they transferred her to the other car.”
“Ingenious,” said Sir Charles, “but what does it mean? The Black. It
makes no sense.”
“Perhaps the long-toed gentleman was a black man,” suggested Parker. “Or
possibly a Hindu or Parsee of sorts.”
“God bless my soul,” said Sir Charles, horrified, “an English girl in
the hands of a black man. How abominable!”
“Well, we’ll hope it isn’t so. Shall we follow the road out or wait for
the doctor to arrive?”
“Better go back to the body, I think,” said Parker. “They’ve got a long
start of us, and half an hour more or less in following them up won’t
make much odds.”
They turned from the translucent cool greenness of the little wood back
on to the downs. The streamlet clacked merrily away over the pebbles,
running out to the southwest on its way to the river and the sea.
“It’s all very well your chattering,” said Wimsey to the water. “Why
can’t you say what you’ve seen?”
CHAPTER XXI
By What Means?
“_Death hath so many doors to let out life._”
Beaumont and Fletcher, _Custom of the Country_
The doctor turned out to be a plumpish, fussy man—and what Wimsey
impatiently called a “Tutster.” He tutted over the mangled head of poor
Vera Findlater as though it was an attack of measles after a party or a
self-provoked fit of the gout.
“Tst, tst, tst. A terrible blow. How did we come by that, I wonder? Tst,
tst. Life extinct? Oh, for several days, you know. Tst, tst—which makes
it so much more painful, of course. Dear me, how shocking for her poor
parents. And her sisters. They are very agreeable girls; you know them,
of course, Sir Charles. Yes. Tst, tst.”
“There is no doubt, I suppose,” said Parker, “that it is Miss
Findlater.”
“None whatever,” said Sir Charles.
“Well, as you can identify her, it may be possible to spare the
relatives the shock of seeing her like this. Just a moment, doctor—the
photographer wants to record the position of the body before you move
anything. Now, Mr.—Andrews?—yes—have you ever done any photographs of
this kind before? No?—well, you mustn’t be upset by it! I know it’s
rather unpleasant. One from here, please, to show the position of the
body—now from the top of the bank—that’s right—now one of the wound
itself—a close-up view, please. Yes. Thank you. Now, doctor, you can
turn her over, please—I’m sorry, Mr. Andrews—I know exactly how you are
feeling, but these things have to be done. Hullo! look how her arms are
all scratched about. Looks as if she’d put up a bit of a fight. The
right wrist and left elbow—as though someone had been trying to hold her
down. We must have a photograph of the marks, Mr. Andrews—they may be
important. I say, doctor, what do you make of this on the face?”
The doctor looked as though he would have preferred not to make so much
as an examination of the face. However, with many tuts he worked himself
up to giving an opinion.
“As far as one can tell, with all these post-mortem changes,” he
ventured, “it looks as though the face had been roughened or burnt about
the nose and lips. Yet there is no appearance of the kind on the bridge
of the nose, neck or forehead. Tst, tst—otherwise I should have put it
down to severe sunburn.”
“How about chloroform burns?” suggested Parker.
“Tst, tst,” said the doctor, annoyed at not having thought of this
himself—“I wish you gentlemen of the police force would not be quite so
abrupt. You want everything decided in too great a hurry. I was about to
remark—if you had not anticipated me—that since I could _not_ put the
appearance down to sunburn, there remains some such possibility as you
suggest. I can’t possibly say that it is the result of
chloroform—medical pronouncements of that kind cannot be hastily made
without cautious investigation—but I was about to remark that it _might_
be.”
“In that case,” put in Wimsey, “could she have died from the effects of
the chloroform? Supposing she was given too much or that her heart was
weak?”
“My good sir,” said the doctor, deeply offended this time, “look at that
blow upon the head, and ask yourself whether it is necessary to suggest
any other cause of death. Moreover, if she had died of the chloroform,
where would be the necessity for the blow?”
“That is exactly what I was wondering,” said Wimsey.
“I suppose,” went on the doctor, “you will hardly dispute my medical
knowledge?”
“Certainly not,” said Wimsey, “but as you say, it is unwise to make any
medical pronouncement without cautious investigation.”
“And this is not the place for it,” put in Parker, hastily. “I think we
have done all there is to do here. Will you go with the body to the
mortuary, doctor. Mr. Andrews, I shall be obliged if you will come and
take a few photographs of some footmarks and so on up in the wood. The
light is bad, I’m afraid, but we must do our best.”
He took Wimsey by the arm.
“The man is a fool, of course,” he said, “but we can get a second
opinion. In the meantime, we had better let it be supposed that we
accept the surface explanation of all this.”
“What is the difficulty?” asked Sir Charles, curiously.
“Oh, nothing much,” replied Parker. “All the appearances are in favour
of the girls having been attacked by a couple of ruffians, who have
carried Miss Whittaker off with a view to ransom, after brutally
knocking Miss Findlater on the head when she offered resistance.
Probably that is the true explanation. Any minor discrepancies will
doubtless clear themselves up in time. We shall know better when we have
had a proper medical examination.”
They returned to the wood, where photographs were taken and careful
measurements made of the footprints. The Chief Constable followed these
activities with intense interest, looking over Parker’s shoulder as he
entered the particulars in his notebook.
“I say,” he said, suddenly, “isn’t it rather odd—”
“Here’s somebody coming,” broke in Parker.
The sound of a motor-cycle being urged in second gear over the rough
ground proved to be the herald of a young man armed with a camera.
“Oh, God!” groaned Parker. “The damned Press already.”
He received the journalist courteously enough, showing him the
wheel-tracks and the footprints, and outlining the kidnapping theory as
they walked back to the place where the body was found.
“Can you give us any idea, Inspector, of the appearance of the two
wanted men?”
“Well,” said Parker, “one of them appears to be something of a dandy; he
wears a loathsome mauve cap and narrow pointed shoes, and, if those
marks on the magazine cover mean anything, one or other of the men may
possibly be a coloured man of some kind. Of the second man, all we can
definitely say is that he wears number 10 shoes, with rubber heels.”
“I was going to say,” said Pillington, “that, à propos de bottes, it is
rather remarkable—”
“And this is where we found the body of Miss Findlater,” went on Parker,
ruthlessly. He described the injuries and the position of the body, and
the journalist gratefully occupied himself with taking photographs,
including a group of Wimsey, Parker and the Chief Constable standing
among the gorse-bushes, while the latter majestically indicated the
fatal spot with his walking-stick.
“And now you’ve got what you want, old son,” said Parker, benevolently,
“buzz off, won’t you, and tell the rest of the boys. You’ve got all we
can tell you, and we’ve got other things to do beyond granting special
interviews.”
The reporter asked no better. This was tantamount to making his
information exclusive, and no Victorian matron could have a more
delicate appreciation of the virtues of exclusiveness than a modern
newspaper man.
“Well now, Sir Charles,” said Parker, when the man had happily chugged
and popped himself away, “what were you about to say in the matter of
the footprints?”
But Sir Charles was offended. The Scotland Yard man had snubbed him and
thrown doubt on his discretion.
“Nothing,” he replied. “I feel sure that my conclusions would appear
very elementary to you.”
And he preserved a dignified silence throughout the return journey.
The Whittaker case had begun almost imperceptibly, in the overhearing of
a casual remark dropped in a Soho restaurant; it ended amid a roar of
publicity that shook England from end to end and crowded even Wimbledon
into the second place. The bare facts of the murder and kidnapping
appeared exclusively that night in a Late Extra edition of the _Evening
Views_. Next morning it sprawled over the Sunday papers with photographs
and full details, actual and imaginary. The idea of two English
girls—the one brutally killed, the other carried off for some end
unthinkably sinister, by a black man—aroused all the passion of horror
and indignation of which the English temperament is capable. Reporters
swarmed down upon Crow’s Beach like locusts—the downs near Shelly Head
were like a fair with motors, bicycles and parties on foot, rushing out
to spend a happy week-end amid surroundings of mystery and bloodshed.
Parker, who with Wimsey had taken rooms at the Green Lion, sat answering
the telephone and receiving the letters and wires which descended upon
him from all sides, with a stalwart policeman posted at the end of the
passage to keep out all intruders.
Wimsey fidgeted about the room, smoking cigarette after cigarette in his
excitement.
“This time we’ve got them,” he said. “They’ve overreached themselves,
thank God!”
“Yes. But have a little patience, old man. We can’t lose them—but we
must have all the facts first.”
“You’re sure those fellows have got Mrs. Forrest safe?”
“Oh, yes. She came back to the flat on Monday night—or so the garage man
says. Our men are shadowing her continually and will let us know the
moment anybody comes to the flat.”
“Monday night!”
“Yes. But that’s no proof in itself. Monday night is quite a usual time
for week-enders to return to Town. Besides, I don’t want to frighten her
till we know whether she’s the principal or merely the accomplice. Look
here, Peter, I’ve had a message from another of our men. He’s been
looking into the finances of Miss Whittaker and Mrs. Forrest. Miss
Whittaker has been drawing out big sums, ever since last December year
in cheques to Self, and these correspond almost exactly, amount for
amount, with sums which Mrs. Forrest has been paying into her own
account. That woman has had a big hold over Miss Whittaker, ever since
old Miss Dawson died. She’s in it up to the neck, Peter.”
“I knew it. She’s been doing the jobs while the Whittaker woman held
down her alibi in Kent. For God’s sake, Charles, make no mistake.
Nobody’s life is safe for a second while either of them is at large.”
“When a woman is wicked and unscrupulous,” said Parker, sententiously,
“she is the most ruthless criminal in the world—fifty times worse than a
man, because she is always so much more single-minded about it.”
“They’re not troubled with sentimentality, that’s why,” said Wimsey,
“and we poor mutts of men stuff ourselves up with the idea that they’re
romantic and emotional. All punk, my son. Damn that ’phone!”
Parker snatched up the receiver.
“Yes—yes—speaking. Good God, you don’t say so. All right. Yes. Yes, of
course you must detain him. I think myself it’s a plant, but he must be
held and questioned. And see that all the papers have it. Tell ’em
you’re sure he’s the man. See? Soak it well into ’em that that’s the
official view. And—wait a moment—I want photographs of the cheque and of
any finger-prints on it. Send ’em down immediately by a special
messenger. It’s genuine, I suppose? The Bank people say it is? Good!
What’s his story? . . . Oh! . . . any envelope?—Destroyed?—Silly devil.
Right. Right. Good-bye.”
He turned to Wimsey with some excitement.
“Hallelujah Dawson walked into Lloyds Bank in Stepney yesterday morning
and presented Mary Whittaker’s cheque for £10,000, drawn on their
Leahampton branch to Bearer, and dated Friday 24th. As the sum was such
a large one and the story of the disappearance was in Friday night’s
paper, they asked him to call again. Meanwhile, they communicated with
Leahampton. When the news of the murder came out yesterday evening, the
Leahampton manager remembered about it and ’phoned the Yard, with the
result that they sent round this morning and had Hallelujah up for a few
inquiries. His story is that the cheque arrived on Saturday morning, all
by itself in an envelope, without a word of explanation. Of course the
old juggins chucked the envelope away, so that we can’t verify his tale
or get a line on the post-mark. Our people thought the whole thing
looked a bit fishy, so Hallelujah is detained pending investigation—in
other words, arrested for murder and conspiracy!”
“Poor old Hallelujah! Charles, this is simply devilish! That innocent,
decent old creature, who couldn’t harm a fly.”
“I know. Well, he’s in for it and will have to go through with it. It’s
all the better for us. Hell’s bells, there’s somebody at the door. Come
in.”
“It’s Dr. Faulkner to see you, sir,” said the constable, putting his
head in.
“Oh, good. Come in, doctor. Have you made your examination?”
“I have, Inspector. Very interesting. You were quite right. I’ll tell
you that much straight away.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Sit down and tell us all about it.”
“I’ll be as brief as possible,” said the doctor. He was a London man,
sent down by Scotland Yard, and accustomed to police work—a lean, grey
badger of a man, business-like and keen-eyed, the direct opposite of the
“tutster” who had annoyed Parker the evening before.
“Well, first of all, the blow on the head had, of course, nothing
whatever to do with the death. You saw yourself that there had been next
to no bleeding. The wound was inflicted some time after death—no doubt
to create the impression of an attack by a gang. Similarly with the cuts
and scratches on the arms. They are the merest camouflage.”
“Exactly. Your colleague—”
“My colleague, as you call him, is a fool,” snorted the doctor. “If
that’s a specimen of his diagnosis, I should think there would be a high
death-rate in Crow’s Beach. That’s by the way. You want the cause of
death?”
“Chloroform?”
“Possibly. I opened the body but found no special symptoms suggestive of
poisoning or anything. I have removed the necessary organs and sent them
to Sir James Lubbock for analysis at your suggestion, but candidly I
expect nothing from that. There was no odour of chloroform on opening
the thorax. Either the time elapsed since the death was too long, as is
very possible, seeing how volatile the stuff is, or the dose was too
small. I found no indications of any heart weakness, so that, to produce
death in a healthy young girl, chloroform would have had to be
administered over a considerable time.”
“Do you think it was administered at all?”
“Yes, I think it was. The burns on the face certainly suggest it.”
“That would also account for the handkerchief found in the car,” said
Wimsey.
“I suppose,” pursued Parker, “that it would require considerable
strength and determination to administer chloroform to a strong young
woman. She would probably resist strenuously.”
“She would,” said the doctor, grimly, “But the odd thing is, she didn’t.
As I said before, all the marks of violence were inflicted post-mortem.”
“Suppose she had been asleep at the time,” suggested Wimsey, “couldn’t
it have been done quietly then?”
“Oh, yes—easily. After a few long breaths of the stuff she would become
semi-conscious and then could be more firmly dealt with. It is quite
possible, I suppose, that she fell asleep in the sunshine, while her
companion wandered off and was kidnapped, and that the kidnappers then
came along and got rid of Miss Findlater.”
“That seems a little unnecessary,” said Parker. “Why come back to her at
all?”
“Do you suggest that they both fell asleep and were both set on and
chloroformed at the same time? It sounds rather unlikely.”
He outlined the history of their suspicions about Mary Whittaker, to
which the doctor listened in horrified amazement.
“What happened,” said Parker, “as we think, is this. We think that for
some reason Miss Whittaker had determined to get rid of this poor girl
who was so devoted to her. She arranged that they should go off for a
picnic and that it should be known where they were going to. Then, when
Vera Findlater was dozing in the sunshine, our theory is that she
murdered her—either with chloroform or—more likely, I fancy—by the same
method that she used upon her other victims, whatever that was. Then she
struck her on the head and produced the other appearances suggestive of
a struggle, and left on the bushes a cap which she had previously
purchased and stained with brilliantine. I am, of course, having the cap
traced. Miss Whittaker is a tall, powerful woman—l don’t think it would
be beyond her strength to inflict that blow on an unresisting body.”
“But how about those footmarks in the wood?”
“I’m coming to that. There are one or two very odd things about them. To
begin with, if this was the work of a secret gang, why should they go
out of their way to pick out the one damp, muddy spot in twenty miles of
country to leave their footprints in, when almost anywhere else they
could have come and gone without leaving any recognisable traces at
all?”
“Good point,” said the doctor. “And I add to that, that they must have
noticed they’d left a cap behind. Why not come back and remove it?”
“Exactly. Then again. Both pairs of shoes left prints entirely free from
the marks left by wear and tear. I mean that there were no signs of the
heels or soles being worn at all, While the rubbers on the larger pair
were obviously just out of the shop. We shall have the photographs here
in a moment, and you will see. Of course, it’s not impossible that both
men should be wearing brand new shoes, but on the whole it’s unlikely.”
“It is,” agreed the doctor.
“And now we come to the most suggestive thing of all. One of the
supposed men had very much bigger feet than the other, from which you
would expect a taller and possibly heavier man with a longer stride. But
on measuring the footprints, what do we find? In all three cases—the big
man, the little man and the woman—we have exactly the same length of
stride. Not only that, but the footprints have sunk into the ground to
precisely the same depth, indicating that all three people were of the
same weight. Now, the other discrepancies might pass, but that is
absolutely beyond the reach of coincidence.”
Dr. Faulkner considered this for a moment.
“You’ve proved your point,” he said at length. “I consider that
absolutely convincing.”
“It struck even Sir Charles Pillington, who is none too bright,” said
Parker. “I had the greatest difficulty in preventing him from blurting
out the extraordinary agreement of the measurements to that _Evening
Views_ man.”
“You think, then, that Miss Whittaker had come provided with these shoes
and produced the tracks herself.”
“Yes, returning each time through the bracken. Cleverly done. She had
made no mistake about superimposing the footprints. It was all worked
out to a nicety—each set over and under the two others, to produce the
impression that three people had been there at the same time. Intensive
study of the works of Mr. Austin Freeman, I should say.”
“And what next?”
“Well, I think we shall find that this Mrs. Forrest, who we think has
been her accomplice all along, had brought her car down—the big car,
that is—and was waiting there for her. Possibly she did the making of
the footprints while Mary Whittaker was staging the assault. Anyhow, she
probably arrived there after Mary Whittaker and Vera Findlater had left
the Austin and departed to the hollow on the downs. When Mary Whittaker
had finished her part of the job, they put the handkerchief and the
magazine called _The Black Mask_ into the Austin and drove off in Mrs.
Forrest’s car. I’m having the movements of the car investigated,
naturally. It’s a dark blue Renault fourseater, with Michelin
balloon-tyres, and the number is X04247. We know that it returned to
Mrs. Forrest’s garage on the Monday night with Mrs. Forrest in it.”
“But where is Miss Whittaker?”
“In hiding somewhere. We shall get her all right. She can’t get money
from her own bank—they’re warned. If Mrs. Forrest tries to get money for
her, she will be followed. So if the worst comes to the worst, we can
starve her out in time with any luck. But we’ve got another clue. There
has been a most determined attempt to throw suspicion on an unfortunate
relative of Miss Whittaker’s—a black Nonconformist parson, with the
remarkable name of Hallelujah Dawson. He has certain pecuniary claims on
Miss Whittaker—not legal claims, but claims which any decent and humane
person should have respected. She didn’t respect them, and the poor old
man might very well have been expected to nurse a grudge against her.
Yesterday morning he tried to cash a Bearer cheque of hers for £10,000,
with a lame-sounding story to the effect that it had arrived by the
first post, without explanation, in an envelope. So, of course, he’s had
to be detained as one of the kidnappers.”
“But that is very clumsy, surely. He’s almost certain to have an alibi.”
“I fancy the story will be that he hired some gangsters to do the job
for him. He belongs to a Mission in Stepney—where that mauve cap came
from—and no doubt there are plenty of tough lads in his neighbourhood.
Of course we shall make close inquiries and publish details broadcast in
all the papers.”
“And then?”
“Well then, I fancy, the idea is that Miss Whittaker will turn up
somewhere in an agitated condition with a story of assault and holding
to ransom made to fit the case. If Cousin Hallelujah has not produced a
satisfactory alibi, we shall learn that he was on the spot directing the
murderers. If he has definitely shown that he wasn’t there, his name
will have been mentioned, or he will have turned up at some time which
the poor dear girl couldn’t exactly ascertain, in some dreadful den to
which she was taken in a place which she won’t be able to identify.”
“What a devilish plot.”
“Yes. Miss Whittaker is a charming young woman. If there’s anything
she’d stop at, I don’t know what it is. And the amiable Mrs. Forrest
appears to be another of the same kidney. Of course, doctor, we’re
taking you into our confidence. You understand that our catching Mary
Whittaker depends on her believing that we’ve swallowed all these false
clues of hers.”
“I’m not a talker,” said the doctor. “Gang you call it, and gang it is,
as far as I’m concerned. And Miss Findlater was hit on the head and died
of it. I only hope my colleague and the Chief Constable will be equally
discreet. I warned them, naturally, after what you said last night.”
“It’s all very well,” said Wimsey, “but what positive evidence have we,
after all, against this woman? A clever defending counsel would tear the
whole thing to rags. The only thing we can absolutely _prove_ her to
have done is the burgling that house on Hampstead Heath and stealing the
coal. The other deaths were returned natural deaths at the inquest. And
as for Miss Findlater—even if we show it to be chloroform—well,
chloroform isn’t difficult stuff to get hold of—it’s not arsenic or
cyanide. And even if there were finger-prints on the spanner—”
“There were not,” said Parker, gloomily. “This girl knows what she’s
about.”
“What did she want to kill Vera Findlater for, anyway?” asked the
doctor, suddenly. “According to you, the girl was the most valuable bit
of evidence she had. She was the one witness who could prove that Miss
Whittaker had an alibi for the other crimes—if they were crimes.”
“She may have found out too much about the connection between Miss
Whittaker and Mrs. Forrest. My impression is that she had served her
turn and become dangerous. What we’re hoping to surprise now is some
communication between Forrest and Whittaker. Once we’ve got that—”
“Humph!” said Dr. Faulkner. He had strolled to the window. “I don’t want
to worry you unduly, but I perceive Sir Charles Pillington in conference
with the Special Correspondent of the _Wire_. The _Yell_ came out with
the gang story all over the front page this morning, and a patriotic
leader about the danger of encouraging coloured aliens. I needn’t remind
you that the _Wire_ would be ready to corrupt the Archangel Gabriel in
order to kill the _Yell’s_ story.”
“Oh, hell!” said Parker, rushing to the window.
“Too late,” said the doctor. “The _Wire_ man has vanished into the post
office. Of course, you can ’phone up and try to stop it.”
Parker did so, and was courteously assured by the editor of the _Wire_
that the story had not reached him, and that if it did, he would bear
Inspector Parker’s instructions in mind.
The editor of the _Wire_ was speaking the exact truth. The story had
been received by the editor of the _Evening Banner_, sister paper to the
_Wire_. In times of crisis, it is sometimes convenient that the left
hand should not know what the right hand does. After all, it was an
exclusive story.
CHAPTER XXII
A Case of Conscience
_“I know thou art religious,_
_And hast a thing within thee called conscience,_
_With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies_
_Which I have seen thee careful to observe.”_
_Titus Andronicus_
Thursday, June 23rd, was the Eve of S. John. The sober green workaday
dress in which the church settles down to her daily duties after the
bridal raptures of Pentecost, had been put away, and the altar was white
and shining once again. Vespers were over in the Lady Chapel at S.
Onesimus—a faint reek of incense hung cloudily under the dim beams of
the roof. A very short acolyte with a very long brass extinguisher
snuffed out the candles, adding the faintly unpleasant yet sanctified
odour of hot wax. The small congregation of elderly ladies rose up
lingeringly from their devotions and slipped away in a series of deep
genuflections. Miss Climpson gathered up a quantity of little manuals,
and groped for her gloves. In doing so, she dropped her office-book. It
fell, annoyingly, behind the long kneeler, scattering as it went a small
pentecostal shower of Easter cards, book-markers, sacred pictures, dried
palms and Ave Marias into the dark corner behind the confessional.
Miss Climpson gave a little exclamation of wrath as she dived after
them—and immediately repented this improper outburst of anger in a
sacred place. “Discipline,” she murmured, retrieving the last lost sheep
from under a hassock, “discipline. I must learn self-control.” She
crammed the papers back into the office-book, grasped her gloves and
handbag, bowed to the Sanctuary, dropped her bag, picked it up this time
in a kind of glow of martyrdom, bustled down the aisle and across the
church to the south door, where the sacristan stood, key in hand,
waiting to let her out. As she went, she glanced up at the High Altar,
unlit and lonely, with the tall candles like faint ghosts in the
twilight of the apse. It had a grim and awful look she thought,
suddenly.
“Good night, Mr. Stanniforth,” she said, quickly.
“Good night, Miss Climpson, good night.”
She was glad to come out of the shadowy porch into the green glow of the
June evening. She had felt a menace. Was it the thought of the stern
Baptist, with his call to repentance? the prayer for grace to speak the
truth and boldly rebuke vice? Miss Climpson decided that she would hurry
home and read the Epistle and Gospel—curiously tender and comfortable
for the festival of that harsh and uncompromising Saint. “And I can tidy
up these cards at the same time,” she thought.
Mrs. Budge’s first-floor front seemed stuffy after the scented
loveliness of the walk home. Miss Climpson flung the window open and sat
down by it to rearrange her sanctified oddments. The card of the Last
Supper went in at the Prayer of Consecration; the Fra Angelico
Annunciation had strayed out of the office for March 25th and was
wandering among the Sundays after Trinity; the Sacred Heart with its
French text belonged to Corpus Christi; the. . . “Dear me!” said Miss
Climpson, “I must have picked this up in church.”
Certainly the little sheet of paper was not in her writing. Somebody
must have dropped it. It was natural to look and see whether it was
anything of importance.
Miss Climpson was one of those people who say: “I am not the kind of
person who reads other people’s postcards.” This is clear notice to all
and sundry that they are, precisely, that kind of person. They are not
untruthful; the delusion is real to them. It is merely that Providence
has provided them with a warning rattle, like that of the rattlesnake.
After that, if you are so foolish as to leave your correspondence in
their way, it is your own affair.
Miss Climpson perused the paper.
In the manuals for self-examination issued to the Catholic-minded, there
is often included an unwise little paragraph which speaks volumes for
the innocent unworldliness of the compilers. You are advised, when
preparing for confession, to make a little list of your misdeeds, lest
one or two peccadilloes should slip your mind. It is true that you are
cautioned against writing down the names of other people or showing your
list to your friends, or leaving it about. But accidents may happen—and
it may be that this recording of sins is contrary to the mind of the
church, who bids you whisper them with fleeting breath into the ear of a
priest and bids him, in the same moment that he absolves, forget them as
though they had never been spoken.
At any rate, somebody had been recently shriven of the sins set forth
upon the paper—probably the previous Saturday—and the document had
fluttered down unnoticed between the confession-box and the hassock,
escaping the eye of the cleaner. And here it was—the tale that should
have been told to none but God—lying open upon Mrs. Budge’s round
mahogany table under the eye of a fellow-mortal.
To do Miss Climpson justice, she would probably have destroyed it
instantly unread, if one sentence had not caught her eye:
“The lies I told for M. W.’s sake.”
At the same moment she realised that this was Vera Findlater’s
handwriting, and it “came over her like a flash”—as she explained
afterwards, exactly what the implication of the words was.
For a full half-hour Miss Climpson sat alone, struggling with her
conscience. Her natural inquisitiveness said “Read”; her religious
training said, “You must not read”; her sense of duty to Wimsey, who
employed her, said, “Find out”; her own sense of decency said, “Do no
such thing”; a dreadful, harsh voice muttered gratingly, “Murder is the
question. Are you going to be the accomplice of Murder?” She felt like
Lancelot Gobbo between conscience and the fiend—but which was the fiend
and which was conscience?
“To speak the truth and boldly rebuke vice.”
Murder.
There was a real possibility now.
But _was_ it a possibility? Perhaps she had read into the sentence more
than it would bear.
In that case, was it not—almost—a duty to read further and free her mind
from this horrible suspicion?
She would have liked to go to Mr. Tredgold and ask his advice. Probably
he would, tell her to burn the paper promptly and drive suspicion out of
her mind with prayer and fasting.
She got up and began searching for the match-box. It would be better to
get rid of the thing quickly.
What, exactly, was she about to do?—To destroy the clue to the discovery
of a Murder?
Whenever she thought of the word, it wrote itself upon her brain in
large capitals, heavily underlined. MURDER—like a police-bill.
Then she had an idea. Parker was a policeman—and probably also he had no
particular feelings about the sacred secrecy of the Confessional. He had
a Protestant appearance—or possibly he thought nothing of religion one
way or the other. In any case, he would put his professional duty before
everything. Why not send him the paper, without reading it, briefly
explaining how she had come upon it? Then the responsibility would be
his.
On consideration, however, Miss Climpson’s innate honesty scouted this
scheme as jesuitical. Secrecy was violated by this open publication as
much as if she had read the thing—or more so. The old Adam, too, raised
his head at this point, suggesting that if anybody was going to see the
confession, she might just as well satisfy her own reasonable curiosity.
Besides—suppose she was quite mistaken. After all, the “lies” might have
nothing whatever to do with Mary Whittaker’s alibi. In that case, she
would have betrayed another person’s secret wantonly, and to no purpose.
If she _did_ decide to show it, she was bound to read it first—in
justice to all parties concerned.
Perhaps—if she just glanced at another word or two, she would see that
it had nothing to do with—MURDER—and then she could destroy it and
forget it. She knew that if she destroyed it unread she never would
forget it, to the end of her life. She would always carry with her that
grim suspicion. She would think of Mary Whittaker as—perhaps—a
Murderess. When she looked into those hard blue eyes, she would be
wondering what sort of expression they had when the soul behind them was
plotting—MURDER. Of course, the suspicions had been there before,
planted by Wimsey, but now they were her own suspicions. They
crystallised—became real to her.
“What shall I do?”
She gave a quick, shamefaced glance at the paper again. This time she
saw the word “London.”
Miss Climpson gave a kind of little gasp, like a person stepping under a
cold shower-bath.
“Well,” said Miss Climpson, “if this is a sin I am going to do it, and
may I be forgiven.”
With a red flush creeping over her cheeks as though she were stripping
something naked, she turned her attention to the paper.
The jottings were brief and ambiguous. Parker might not have made much
of them, but to Miss Climpson, trained in this kind of devotional
shorthand, the story was clear as print.
“Jealousy”—the word was written large and underlined. Then there was a
reference to a quarrel, to wicked accusations and angry words and to a
pre-occupation coming between the penitent’s soul and God. “Idol”—and a
long dash.
From these few fossil bones, Miss Climpson had little difficulty in
reconstructing one of those hateful and passionate “scenes” of slighted
jealousy with which a woman-ridden life had made her only too familiar.
“I do everything for you—you don’t care a bit for me—you treat me
cruelly—you’re simply sick of me, that’s what it is!” And “Don’t be so
ridiculous. Really, I can’t stand this. Oh, stop it, Vera! I hate being
slobbered over.” Humiliating, degrading, exhausting, beastly scenes.
Girls’ school, boarding-house, Bloomsbury-flat scenes. Damnable
selfishness wearying of its victim. Silly _schwärmerei_ swamping all
decent self-respect. Barren quarrels ending in shame and hatred.
“Beastly, blood-sucking woman,” said Miss Climpson, viciously. “It’s too
bad. She’s only making use of the girl.”
But the self-examiner was now troubled with a more difficult problem.
Piecing the hints together, Miss Climpson sorted it out with practised
ease. Lies had been told—that was wrong, even though done to help a
friend. Bad confessions had been made, suppressing those lies. This
ought to be confessed and put right. But (the girl asked herself) had
she come to this conclusion out of hatred of the lies or out of spite
against the friend? Difficult, this searching of the heart. And ought
she, not content with confessing the lies to the priest, also to tell
the truth to the world?
Miss Climpson had here no doubt what the priest’s ruling would be. “You
need not go out of your way to betray your friend’s confidence. Keep
silent if you can, but if you speak you must speak the truth. You must
tell your friend that she is not to expect any more lying from you. She
is entitled to ask for secrecy—no more.”
So far, so good. But there was a further problem.
“Ought I to connive at her doing what is wrong?”—and then a sort of
explanatory aside—“the man in South Audley Street.”
This was a little mysterious. . . No!—on the contrary, it explained the
whole mystery, jealousy, quarrel and all.
In those weeks of April and May, when Mary Whittaker had been supposed
to be all the time in Kent with Vera Findlater, she had been going up to
London. And Vera had promised to say that Mary was with her the whole
time. And the visits to London had to do with a man in South Audley
Street, and there was something sinful about it. That probably meant a
love-affair. Miss Climpson pursed her lips virtuously, but she was more
surprised than shocked. Mary Whittaker! she would never have suspected
it of her, somehow. But it so explained the jealousy and the quarrel—the
sense of desertion. But how had Vera found out? Had Mary Whittaker
confided in her?—No; that sentence again, under the heading
“Jealousy”—what was it—“following M. W to London.” She had followed
then, and seen. And then, at some moment, she had burst out with her
knowledge—reproached her friend. Yet this expedition to London must have
happened before her own conversation with Vera Findlater, and the girl
had then seemed so sure of Mary’s affection. Or had it been that she was
trying to persuade herself, with determined self-deception, that there
was “nothing in” this business about the man? Probably. And probably
some brutality of Mary’s had brought all the miserable suspicions
boiling to the surface, vocal, reproachful and furious. And so they had
gone on to the row and the break.
“Queer,” thought Miss Climpson, “that Vera has never come and told me
about her trouble. But perhaps she is ashamed, poor child. I haven’t
seen her for nearly a week. I think I’ll call and see her and perhaps
she’ll tell me all about it. In which case”—cried Miss Climpson’s
conscience, suddenly emerging with a bright and beaming smile from under
the buffets of the enemy—“in which case I shall know the whole history
of it legitimately and can _quite honourably_ tell Lord Peter about it.”
The next day—which was the Friday—she woke, however, with an unpleasant
ache in the conscience. The paper—still tucked into the
office-book—worried her. She went round early to Vera Findlater’s house,
only to hear that she was staying with Miss Whittaker. “Then I suppose
they’ve made it up,” she said. She did not want to see Mary Whittaker,
whether her secret was murder or mere immorality; but she was tormented
by the desire to clear up the matter of the alibi for Lord Peter.
In Wellington Avenue she was told that the two girls had gone away on
the Monday and had not yet returned. She tried to reassure the maid, but
her own heart misgave her. Without any real reason, she was uneasy. She
went round to the church and said her prayers, but her mind was not on
what she was saying. On an impulse, she caught Mr. Tredgold as he
pottered in and out of the Sacristy, and asked if she might come the
next evening to lay a case of conscience before him. So far, so good,
and she felt that a “good walk” might help to clear the cob-webs from
her brain.
So she started off, missing Lord Peter by a quarter of an hour, and took
the train to Guildford and then walked and had lunch in a wayside
tea-shop and walked back into Guildford and so came home, where she
learnt that “Mr. Parker and ever so many gentlemen had been asking for
her all day, and what a dreadful thing, miss, here was Miss Whittaker
and Miss Findlater disappeared and the police out looking for them, and
them motor-cars was such dangerous things, miss, wasn’t they? It was to
be hoped there wasn’t an accident.”
And into Miss Climpson’s mind there came, like an inspiration, the
words, “South Audley Street.”
Miss Climpson did not, of course, know that Wimsey was at Crow’s Beach.
She hoped to find him in Town. For she was seized with a desire, which
she could hardly have explained even to herself, to go and look at South
Audley Street. What she was to do when she got there she did not know,
but go there she must. It was the old reluctance to make open use of
that confession paper. Vera Findlater’s story at first hand—that was the
idea to which she obscurely clung. So she took the first train to
Waterloo, leaving behind her, in case Wimsey or Parker should call
again, a letter so obscure and mysterious and so lavishly underlined and
interlined that it was perhaps fortunate for their reason that they were
never faced with it.
In Piccadilly she saw Bunter, and learned that his lordship was at
Crow’s Beach with Mr. Parker, where he, Bunter, was just off to join
him. Miss Climpson promptly charged him with a message to his employer
slightly more involved and mysterious than her letter, and departed for
South Audley Street. It was only when she was walking up it that she
realised how vague her quest was and how little investigation one can do
by merely walking along a street. Also, it suddenly occurred to her that
if Miss Whittaker was carrying on anything of a secret nature in South
Audley Street, the sight of an acquaintance patrolling the pavement
would put her on her guard. Much struck by this reflection, Miss
Climpson plunged abruptly into a Chemist’s shop and bought a toothbrush,
by way of concealing her movements and gaining time. One can while away
many minutes comparing the shapes, sizes and bristles of toothbrushes,
and sometimes chemists will be nice and gossipy.
Looking round the shop for inspiration, Miss Climpson observed a tin of
nasal snuff labelled with the chemist’s own name.
“I will take a tin of that, too, please,” she said. “What _excellent_
stuff it is—quite _wonderful_. I have used it for _years_ and am really
_delighted_ with it. I recommend it to all my friends, particularly for
_hay fever_. In fact, there’s a friend of mine who often passes your
shop, who told me only _yesterday_ what a _martyr_ she was to that
complaint. ‘My dear,’ I said to her, ‘you have only to get a tin of this
_splendid_ stuff and you will be _quite_ all right _all_ summer.’ She
was so _grateful_ to me for telling her about it. Has she been in for it
yet?” And she described Mary Whittaker closely.
It will be noticed, by the way, that in the struggle between Miss
Climpson’s conscience and what Wilkie Collins calls “detective fever,”
conscience was getting the worst of it and was winking at an amount of
deliberate untruth which a little time earlier would have staggered it.
The chemist, however, had seen nothing of Miss Climpson’s friend.
Nothing, therefore, was to be done but to retire from the field and
think what was next to be done. Miss Climpson left, but before leaving
she neatly dropped her latchkey into a large basket full of sponges
standing at her elbow. She felt she might like to have an excuse to
visit South Audley Street again.
Conscience sighed deeply, and her guardian angel dropped a tear among
the sponges.
Retiring into the nearest tea-shop she came to, Miss Climpson ordered a
cup of coffee and started to think out a plan for honey-combing South
Audley Street. She needed an excuse—and a disguise. An adventurous
spirit was welling up in her elderly bosom, and her first dozen or so
ideas were more lurid than practical.
At length a really brilliant notion occurred to her. She was (she did
not attempt to hide it from herself) precisely the type and build of
person one associates with the collection of subscriptions. Moreover,
she had a perfectly good and genuine cause ready to hand. The church
which she attended in London ran a slum mission, which was badly in need
of funds, and she possessed a number of collecting cards, bearing full
authority to receive subscriptions on its behalf. What more natural than
that she should try a little house-to-house visiting in a wealthy
quarter?
The question of disguise, also, was less formidable than it might
appear. Miss Whittaker had only known her well-dressed and affluent in
appearance. Ugly, clumping shoes, a hat of virtuous ugliness, a
shapeless coat and a pair of tinted glasses would disguise her
sufficiently at a distance. At close quarters, it would not matter if
she was recognised, for if once she got to close quarters with Mary
Whittaker, her job was done and she had found the house she wanted.
Miss Climpson rose from the table, paid her bill and hurried out to buy
the glasses, remembering that it was Saturday. Having secured a pair
which hid her eyes effectively without looking exaggeratedly mysterious,
she made for her rooms in St. George’s Square, to choose suitable
clothing for her adventure. She realised, of course, that she could
hardly start work till Monday—Saturday afternoon and Sunday are hopeless
from the collector’s point of view.
The choice of clothes and accessories occupied her for the better part
of the afternoon. When she was at last satisfied she went downstairs to
ask her landlady for some tea.
“Certainly, miss,” said the good woman. “Ain’t it awful, miss, about
this murder?”
“What murder?” asked Miss Climpson, vaguely.
She took the _Evening Views_ from her landlady’s hand, and read the
story of Vera Findlater’s death.
Sunday was the most awful day Miss Climpson had ever spent. An active
woman, she was condemned to inactivity, and she had time to brood over
the tragedy. Not having Wimsey’s or Parker’s inside knowledge, she took
the kidnapping story at its face value. In a sense, she found it
comforting, for she was able to acquit Mary Whittaker of any share in
this or the previous murders. She put them down—except, of course, in
the case of Miss Dawson, and that might never have been a murder after
all—to the mysterious man in South Audley Street. She formed a nightmare
image of him in her mind—blood-boltered, sinister, and—most horrible of
all—an associate and employer of debauched and brutal assassins. To Miss
Climpson’s credit be it said that she never for one moment faltered in
her determination to track the monster to his lurking-place.
She wrote a long letter to Lord Peter, detailing her plans. Bunter, she
knew, had left 110A Piccadilly, so, after considerable thought, she
addressed it to Lord Peter Wimsey, c/o Inspector Parker, The
Police-Station, Crow’s Beach. There was, of course, no Sunday post from
Town. However, it would go with the midnight collection.
On the Monday morning she set out early, in her old clothes and her
spectacles, for South Audley Street. Never had her natural
inquisitiveness and her hard training in third-rate boarding-houses
stood her in better stead. She had learned to ask questions without
heeding rebuffs—to be persistent, insensitive and observant. In every
flat she visited she acted her natural self, with so much sincerity and
such limpet-like obstinacy that she seldom came away without a
subscription and almost never without some information about the flat
and its inmates.
By tea-time, she had done one side of the street and nearly half the
other, without result. She was just thinking of going to get some food,
when she caught sight of a woman, about a hundred yards ahead, walking
briskly in the same direction as herself.
Now it is easy to be mistaken in faces, but almost impossible not to
recognise a back. Miss Climpson’s heart gave a bound. “Mary Whittaker!”
she said to herself, and started to follow.
The woman stopped to look into a shop window. Miss Climpson hesitated to
come closer. If Mary Whittaker was at large, then—why then the
kidnapping had been done with her own consent. Puzzled, Miss Climpson
determined to play a waiting game. The woman went into the shop. The
friendly chemist’s was almost opposite. Miss Climpson decided that this
was the moment to reclaim her latchkey. She went in and asked for it. It
had been put aside for her and the assistant produced it at once. The
woman was still in the shop over the way. Miss Climpson embarked upon a
long string of apologies and circumstantial details about her
carelessness. The woman came out. Miss Climpson gave her a longish
start, brought the conversation to a close, and fussed out again,
replacing the glasses which she had removed for the chemist’s benefit.
The woman walked on without stopping, but she looked into the shop
windows from time to time. A man with a fruiterer’s barrow removed his
cap as she passed and scratched his head. Almost at once, the woman
turned quickly and came back. The fruiterer picked up the handles of his
barrow and trundled it away into a side street. The woman came straight
on, and Miss Climpson was obliged to dive into a doorway and pretend to
be tying a bootlace, to avoid a face to face encounter.
Apparently the woman had only forgotten to buy cigarettes. She went into
a tobacconist’s and emerged again in a minute or two, passing Miss
Climpson again. That lady had dropped her bag and was agitatedly sorting
its contents. The woman passed her without a glance and went on. Miss
Climpson, flushed from stooping, followed again. The woman turned in at
the entrance to a block of flats next door to a florist’s. Miss Climpson
was hard on her heels now, for she was afraid of losing her.
Mary Whittaker—if it was Mary Whittaker—went straight through the hall
to the lift, which was one of the kind worked by the passenger. She
stepped in and shot up. Miss Climpson—gazing at the orchids and roses in
the florist’s window—watched the lift out of sight. Then, with her
subscription card prominently in her hand, she too entered the flats.
There was a porter on duty in a little glass case. He at once spotted
Miss Climpson as a stranger and asked politely if he could do anything
for her. Miss Climpson, selecting a name at random from the list of
occupants in the entrance, asked which was Mrs. Forrest’s flat. The man
replied that it was on the fourth floor, and stepped forward to bring
the lift down for her. A man, to whom he had been chatting, moved
quietly from the glass case and took up a position in the doorway. As
the lift ascended, Miss Climpson noticed that the fruiterer had
returned. His barrow now stood just outside.
The porter had come up with her, and pointed out the door of Mrs.
Forrest’s flat. His presence was reassuring. She wished he would stay
within call till she had concluded her search of the building. However,
having asked for Mrs. Forrest, she must begin there. She pressed the
bell.
At first she thought the flat was empty, but after ringing a second time
she heard footsteps. The door opened, and a heavily over-dressed and
peroxided lady made her appearance, whom Lord Peter would at once—and
embarrassingly—have recognised.
“I have come,” said Miss Climpson, wedging herself briskly in at the
doorway with the skill of the practised canvasser, “to try if I can
enlist your help for our Mission Settlement. May I come in? I am sure
you—”
“No thanks,” said Mrs. Forrest, shortly, and in a hurried, breathless
tone, as if there was somebody behind her who she was anxious should not
overhear her, “I’m not interested in Missions.”
She tried to shut the door. But Miss Climpson had seen and heard enough.
“Good gracious!” she cried, staring, “why, it’s—”
“Come in.” Mrs. Forrest caught her by the arm almost roughly and pulled
her over the threshold, slamming the door behind them.
“How extraordinary!” said Miss Climpson, “I hardly recognised you, Miss
Whittaker, with your hair like that.”
“You!” said Mary Whittaker. “You—of all people!” They sat facing one
another in the sitting-room with its tawdry pink silk cushions. “I knew
you were a meddler. How did you get here? Is there anyone with you?”
“No—yes—I just happened,” began Miss Climpson vaguely. One thought was
uppermost in her mind. “How did you get free? What happened? Who killed
Vera?” She knew she was asking her questions crudely and stupidly. “Why
are you disguised like that?”
“Who sent you?” reiterated Mary Whittaker.
“Who is the man with you?” pursued Miss Climpson. “Is he here? Did he do
the murder?”
“What man?”
“The man Vera saw leaving your flat. Did he—?”
“So that’s it. Vera told you. The liar. I thought I had been quick
enough.”
Suddenly, something which had been troubling Miss Climpson for weeks
crystallised and became plain to her. The expression in Mary Whittaker’s
eyes. A long time ago, Miss Climpson had assisted a relative to run a
boarding-house, and there had been a young man who paid his bill by
cheque. She had had to make a certain amount of unpleasantness about the
bill, and he had written the cheque unwillingly, sitting, with her eye
upon him, at the little plush-covered table in the drawing-room. Then he
had gone away—slinking out with his bag when no one was about. And the
cheque had come back, like the bad penny that it was. A forgery. Miss
Climpson had had to give evidence. She remembered now the odd, defiant
look with which the young man had taken up his pen for his first plunge
into crime. And to-day she was seeing it again—an unattractive mingling
of recklessness and calculation. It was with the look which had once
warned Wimsey and should have warned her. She breathed more quickly.
“Who was the man?”
“The man?” Mary Whittaker laughed suddenly. “A man called Templeton—no
friend of mine. It’s really funny that you should think he was a friend
of mine. I would have killed him if I could.”
“But where is he? What are you doing? Don’t you know that everybody is
looking for you? Why don’t you—?”
“That’s why!”
Mary Whittaker flung her ten o’clock edition of the _Evening Banner_,
which was lying on the sofa. Miss Climpson read the glaring headlines.
AMAZING NEW DEVELOPMENTS
IN CROW’S BEACH CRIME.
——
WOUNDS ON BODY INFLICTED AFTER DEATH.
——
FAKED FOOTPRINTS.
——
Miss Climpson gasped with amazement, and bent over the smaller type.
“How extraordinary!” she said, looking up quickly.
Not quite quickly enough. The heavy brass lamp missed her head indeed,
but fell numbingly on her shoulder. She sprang to her feet with a loud
shriek, just as Mary Whittaker’s strong white hands closed upon her
throat.
CHAPTER XXIII
—And Smote Him, Thus
“_’Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door;_
_but ’tis enough, ’twill serve._”
_Romeo and Juliet_
Lord Peter missed both Miss Climpson’s communications. Absorbed in the
police inquiry, he never thought to go back to Leahampton. Bunter had
duly arrived with “Mrs. Merdle” on the Saturday evening. Immense police
activity was displayed in the neighbourhood of the downs, and at
Southampton and Portsmouth, in order to foster the idea that the
authorities supposed the “gang” to be lurking in those districts.
Nothing, as a matter of fact, was farther from Parker’s thoughts. “Let
her think she is safe,” he said, “and she’ll come back. It’s the
cat-and-mouse act for us, old man.” Wimsey fretted. He wanted the
analysis of the body to be complete and loathed the thought of the long
days he had to wait. And he had small hope of the result.
“It’s all very well sitting round with your large disguised policemen
outside Mrs. Forrest’s flat,” he said irritably, over the bacon and eggs
on Monday morning, “but you do realise, don’t you, that we’ve still got
no proof of murder. Not in one single case.”
“That’s so,” replied Parker, placidly.
“Well, doesn’t it make your blood boil?” said Wimsey.
“Hardly,” said Parker. “This kind of thing happens too often. If my
blood boiled every time there was a delay in getting evidence, I should
be in a perpetual fever. Why worry? It may be that perfect crime you’re
so fond of talking about—the one that leaves no trace. You ought to be
charmed with it.”
“Oh, I daresay. O Turpitude, where are the charms that sages have seen
in thy face? Time’s called at the Criminals’ Arms, and there isn’t a
drink in the place. Wimsey’s Standard Poets, with emendations by
Thingummy. As a matter of fact, I’m not at all sure that Miss Dawson’s
death _wasn’t_ the perfect crime—if only the Whittaker girl had stopped
at that and not tried to cover it up. If you notice, the deaths are
becoming more and more violent, elaborate and unlikely in appearance.
Telephone again. If the Post Office accounts don’t show a handsome
profit on telephones this year it won’t be your fault.”
“It’s the cap and shoes,” said Parker, mildly. “They’ve traced them.
They were ordered from an outfitter’s in Stepney, to be sent to the Rev.
H. Dawson, Peveril Hotel, Bloomsbury, to await arrival.”
“The Peveril again!”
“Yes. I recognise the hand of Mr. Trigg’s mysterious charmer. The Rev.
Hallelujah Dawson’s card, with message ‘Please give parcel to bearer,’
was presented by a District Messenger next day, with a verbal
explanation that the gentleman found he could not get up to Town after
all. The messenger, obeying instructions received by telephone, took the
parcel to a lady in a nurse’s dress on the platform at Charing Cross.
Asked to describe the lady, he said she was tall and wore blue glasses
and the usual cloak and bonnet. So that’s that.”
“How were the goods paid for?”
“Postal order, purchased at the West Central office at the busiest
moment of the day.”
“And when did all this happen?”
“That’s the most interesting part of the business. Last month, shortly
before Miss Whittaker and Miss Findlater returned from Kent. This plot
was well thought out beforehand.”
“Yes. Well, that’s something more for you to pin on to Mrs. Forrest. It
looks like proof of conspiracy, but whether it’s proof of murder—”
“It’s _meant_ to look like a conspiracy of Cousin Hallelujah’s, I
suppose. Oh, well, we shall have to trace the letters and the typewriter
that wrote them and interrogate all these people, I suppose. God! what a
grind! Hullo! Come in! Oh, it’s you, doctor?”
“Excuse my interrupting your breakfast,” said Dr. Faulkner, “but early
this morning, while lying awake, I was visited with a bright idea. So I
had to come and work it off on you while it was fresh. About the blow on
the head and the marks on the arms, you know. Do you suppose they served
a double purpose? Besides making it look like the work of a gang, could
they be hiding some other, smaller mark? Poison, for instance, could be
injected, and the mark covered up by scratches and cuts inflicted after
death.”
“Frankly,” said Parker, “I wish I could think it. It’s a very sound idea
and may be the right one. Our trouble is, that in the two previous
deaths which we have been investigating, and which we are inclined to
think form a part of the same series as this one, there have been no
signs or traces of poison discoverable in the bodies at all by any
examination or analysis that skill can devise. In fact, not only no
proof of poison, but no proof of anything but natural death.”
And he related the cases in fuller detail.
“Odd,” said the doctor. “And you think this may turn out the same way.
Still, in this case the death can’t very well have been natural—or why
these elaborate efforts to cover it up?”
“It wasn’t,” said Parker; “the proof being that—as we now know—the plot
was laid nearly two months ago.”
“But the method!” cried Wimsey, “the method! Hang it all—here are all we
people with our brilliant brains and our professional reputations—and
this half-trained girl out of a hospital can beat the lot of us. How was
it done?”
“It’s probably something so simple and obvious that it’s never occurred
to us,” said Parker. “The sort of principle you learn when you’re in the
fourth form and never apply to anything. Rudimentary. Like that
motor-cycling imbecile we met up at Crofton, who sat in the rain and
prayed for help because he’d never heard of an air-lock in his feed. Now
I daresay that boy had learnt—What’s the matter with you?”
“My God!” cried Wimsey. He smashed his hand down among the breakfast
things, upsetting his cup. “My God! But that’s it! You’ve got it—you’ve
done it—Obvious? God Almighty—it doesn’t need a doctor. A garage hand
could have told you. People die of it every day. Of course, it was an
air-lock in the feed.”
“Bear up, doctor,” said Parker, “he’s always like this when he gets an
idea. It wears off in time. D’you mind explaining yourself, old thing?”
Wimsey’s pallid face was flushed. He turned on the doctor.
“Look here,” he said, “the body’s a pumping engine, isn’t it? The jolly
old heart pumps the blood round the arteries and back through the veins
and so on, doesn’t it? That’s what keeps things working, what? Round and
home again in two minutes—that sort of thing?”
“Certainly.”
“Little valve to let the blood out; ’nother little valve to let it
in—just like an internal combustion engine, which it is?”
“Of course.”
“And s’posin’ that stops?”
“You die.”
“Yes. Now, look here. S’posin’ you take a good big hypodermic, empty,
and dig it into one of the big arteries and push the handle—what would
happen? What would happen, doctor? You’d be pumpin’ a big air-bubble
into your engine feed, wouldn’t you? What would become of your
circulation, then?”
“It would stop it,” said the doctor, without hesitation. “That is why
nurses have to be particular to fill the syringe properly, especially
when doing an intra-venous injection.”
“I _knew_ it was the kind of thing you learnt in the fourth form. Well,
go on. Your circulation would stop—it would be like an embolism in its
effect, wouldn’t it?”
“Only if it was in a main artery, of course. In a small vein the blood
would find a way round. That is why” (this seemed to be the doctor’s
favourite opening) “that is why it is so important that
embolisms—blood-clots—should be dispersed as soon as possible and not
left to wander about the system.”
“Yes—yes—but the air-bubble, doctor—in a main artery—say the femoral or
the big vein in the bend of the elbow—that would stop the circulation,
wouldn’t it? How soon?”
“Why, at once. The heart would stop beating.”
“And then?”
“You would die.”
“With what symptoms?”
“None to speak of. Just a gasp or two. The lungs would make a desperate
effort to keep things going. Then you’d just stop. Like heart failure.
It would _be_ heart failure.”
“How well I know it. . . That sneeze in the carburettor—a gasping, as
you say. And what would be the post-mortem symptoms?”
“None. Just the appearances of heart failure. And, of course, the little
mark of the needle, if you happened to be looking for it.”
“You’re sure of all this, doctor?” said Parker.
“Well, it’s simple, isn’t it? A plain problem in mechanics. Of course
that would happen. It must happen.”
“Could it be proved?” insisted Parker.
“That’s more difficult.”
“We must try,” said Parker. “It’s ingenious, and it explains a lot of
things. Doctor, will you go down to the mortuary again and see if you
can find any puncture mark on the body. I really think you’ve got the
explanation of the whole thing, Peter. Oh, dear! Who’s on the ’phone
now? . . . What?—_what?_—oh, hell!—Well, that’s torn it. She’ll never
come back now. Warn all the ports—send out an all-stations call—watch
the railways and go through Bloomsbury with a toothcomb—that’s the part
she knows best. I’m coming straight up to Town now—yes, immediately.
Right you are.” He hung up the receiver with a few brief, choice
expressions.
“That adjectival imbecile, Pillington, has let out all he knows. The
whole story is in the early editions of the _Banner_. We’re doing no
good here. Mary Whittaker will know the game’s up, and she’ll be out of
the country in two twos, if she isn’t already. Coming back to Town,
Wimsey?”
“Naturally. Take you up in the car. Lose no time. Ring the bell for
Bunter, would you? Oh, Bunter, we’re going up to Town. How soon can we
start?”
“At once, my lord. I have been holding your lordship’s and Mr. Parker’s
things ready packed from hour to hour, in case a hurried adjournment
should be necessary.”
“Good man.”
“And there is a letter for you, Mr. Parker, sir.”
“Oh, thanks. Ah, yes. The finger-prints off the cheque. H’m. Two sets
only—besides those of the cashier, of course—Cousin Hallelujah’s and a
female set, presumably those of Mary Whittaker. Yes, obviously—here are
the four fingers of the left hand, just as one would place them to hold
the cheque flat while signing.
“Pardon me, sir—but might I look at that photograph?”
“Certainly. Take a copy for yourself. I know it interests you as a
photographer. Well, cheerio, doctor. See you in Town some time. Come on,
Peter.”
Lord Peter came on. And that, as Dr. Faulkner would say, was why Miss
Climpson’s second letter was brought up from the police-station too late
to catch him.
They reached Town at twelve—owing to Wimsey’s brisk work at the
wheel—and went straight to Scotland Yard, dropping Bunter, at his own
request, as he was anxious to return to the flat. They found the Chief
Commissioner in rather a brusque mood—angry with the _Banner_ and
annoyed with Parker for having failed to muzzle Pillington.
“God knows where she will be found next. She’s probably got a disguise
and a get-away all ready.”
“Probably gone already,” said Wimsey. “She could easily have left
England on the Monday or Tuesday and nobody a penny the wiser. If the
coast had seemed clear, she’d have come back and taken possession of her
goods again. Now she’ll stay abroad. That’s all.”
“I’m very much afraid you’re right,” agreed Parker, gloomily.
“Meanwhile, what is Mrs. Forrest doing?”
“Behaving quite normally. She’s been carefully shadowed, of course, but
not interfered with in any way. We’ve got three men out there now—one as
a coster—one as a dear friend of the hall-porter’s who drops in every so
often with racing tips, and an odd-job man doing a spot of work in the
back-yard. They report that she has been in and out, shopping and so on,
but mostly having her meals at home. No one has called. The men deputed
to shadow her away from the flat have watched carefully to see if she
speaks to anyone or slips money to anyone. We’re pretty sure the two
haven’t met yet.”
“Excuse me, sir.” An officer put his head in at the door. “Here’s Lord
Peter Wimsey’s man, sir, with an urgent message.”
Bunter entered, trimly correct in bearing, but with a glitter in his
eye. He laid down two photographs on the table.
“Excuse me, my lord and gentlemen, but would you be so good as to cast
your eyes on these two photographs?”
“Finger-prints?” said the chief, interrogatively.
“One of them is our own official photograph of the prints on the £10,000
cheque,” said Parker. “The other—where did you get this, Bunter? It
looks like the same set of prints, but it’s not one of ours.”
“They appeared similar, sir, to my uninstructed eye. I thought it better
to place the matter before you.”
“Send Dewsby here,” said the Chief Commissioner.
Dewsby was the head of the fingerprint department, and he had no
hesitation at all.
“They are undoubtedly the same prints,” he said.
A light was slowly breaking in on Wimsey.
“Bunter—did these come off that wine-glass?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“But they are Mrs. Forrest’s!”
“So I understood you to say, my lord, and I have filed them under that
name.”
“Then, if the signature on the cheque is genuine—”
“We haven’t far to look for our bird,” said Parker, brutally. “A double
identity; damn the woman, she’s made us waste a lot of time. Well, I
think we shall get her now, on the Findlater murder at least, and
possibly on the Gotobed business.”
“But I understood there was an alibi for that,” said the Chief.
“There was,” said Parker, grimly, “but the witness was the girl that’s
just been murdered. Looks as though she had made up her mind to split
and was got rid of.”
“Looks as though several people had had a near squeak of it,” said
Wimsey.
“Including you. That yellow hair was a wig, then.”
“Probably. It never looked natural, you know. When I was there that
night she had on one of those close turban affairs—she might have been
bald for all one could see.”
“Did you notice the scar on the fingers of the right hand?”
“I did not—for the very good reason that her fingers were stiff with
rings to the knuckles. There was pretty good sense behind her ugly bad
taste. I suppose I was to be drugged—or, failing that, caressed into
slumber and then—shall we say, put out of circulation! Highly
distressin’ incident. Amorous clubman dies in a flat. Relations very
anxious to hush matter up. I was selected, I suppose, because I was seen
with Evelyn Cropper at Liverpool. Bertha Gotobed got the same sort of
dose, too, I take it. Met by old employer, accidentally, on leaving
work—£5 note and nice little dinner—lashings of champagne—poor kid as
drunk as a blind fiddler—bundled into the car—finished off there and
trundled out to Epping in company with a ham sandwich and a bottle of
Bass. Easy, ain’t it—when you know how?”
“That being so,” said the Chief Commissioner, “the sooner we get hold of
her the better. You’d better go at once, Inspector; take a warrant for
Whittaker or Forrest—and any help you may require.”
“May I come?” asked Wimsey, when they were outside the building.
“Why not? You may be useful. With the men we’ve got there already we
shan’t need any extra help.”
The car whizzed swiftly through Pall Mall, up St. James’s Street and
along Piccadilly. Half-way up South Audley Street they passed the
fruit-seller, with whom Parker exchanged an almost imperceptible signal.
A few doors below the entrance to the flats they got out and were almost
immediately joined by the hall-porter’s sporting friend.
“I was just going out to call you up,” said the latter. “She’s arrived.”
“What, the Whittaker woman?”
“Yes. Went up about two minutes ago.”
“Is Forrest there too?”
“Yes. She came in just before the other woman.”
“Queer,” said Parker. “Another good theory gone west. Are you sure it’s
Whittaker?”
“Well, she’s made up with old-fashioned clothes and greyish hair and so
on. But she’s the right height and general appearance. And she’s running
the old blue spectacle stunt again. I think it’s the right one—though of
course I didn’t get close to her, remembering your instructions.”
“Well, we’ll have a look, anyhow. Come along.”
The coster had joined them now, and they all entered together.
“Did the old girl go up to Forrest’s flat all right?” asked the third
detective of the porter.
“That’s right. Went straight to the door and started something about a
subscription. Then Mrs. Forrest pulled her in quick and slammed the
door. Nobody’s come down since.”
“Right. We’ll take ourselves up—and mind you don’t let anybody give us
the slip by the staircase. Now then, Wimsey, she knows you as Templeton,
but she may still not know for certain that you’re working with us. Ring
the bell, and when the door’s opened, stick your foot inside. We’ll
stand just round the corner here and be ready to rush.”
This manœuvre was executed. They heard the bell trill loudly.
Nobody came to answer it, however. Wimsey rang again, and then bent his
ear to the door.
“Charles,” he cried suddenly, “there’s something going on here.” His
face was white. “Be quick! I couldn’t stand _another_—!”
Parker hastened up and listened. Then he caught Peter’s stick and
hammered on the door, so that the hollow liftshaft echoed with the
clamour.
“Come on there—open the door—this is the police.”
And all the time, a horrid, stealthy thumping and gurgling sounded
inside—dragging of something heavy and a scuffling noise. Then a loud
crash, as though a piece of furniture had been flung to the floor—and
then a loud hoarse scream, cut brutally off in the middle.
“Break in the door,” said Wimsey, the sweat pouring down his face.
Parker signalled to the heavier of the two policemen. He came along,
shoulder first, lunging. The door shook and cracked. They stamped and
panted in the narrow space.
The door gave way, and they tumbled into the hall. Everything was
ominously quiet.
“Oh, quick!” sobbed Peter.
A door on the right stood open. A glance assured them that there was
nothing there. They sprang to the sitting-room door and pushed it. It
opened about a foot. Something bulky impeded its progress. They shoved
violently and the obstacle gave. Wimsey leapt over it—it was a tall
cabinet, fallen, with broken china strewing the floor. The room bore
signs of a violent struggle—tables flung down, a broken chair, a smashed
lamp. He dashed for the bedroom, with Parker hard at his heels.
The body of a woman lay limply on the bed. Her long, grizzled hair hung
in a dark rope over the pillow and blood was on her head and throat. But
the blood was running freely, and Wimsey could have shouted for joy at
the sight. Dead men do not bleed.
Parker gave only one glance at the injured woman. He made promptly for
the dressing-room beyond. A shot sang past his head—there was a snarl
and a shriek—and the episode was over. The constable stood shaking his
bitten hand, while Parker put the come-along-o’-me grip on the quarry.
He recognised her readily, though the peroxide wig had fallen awry and
the blue eyes were bleared with terror and fury.
“That’ll do,” said Parker, quietly, “the game’s up. It’s not a bit of
use. Come, be reasonable. You don’t want us to put the bracelets on, do
you? Mary Whittaker, alias Forrest, I arrest you on the charge—” he
hesitated for a moment and she saw it.
“On what charge? What have you got against me?”
“Of attempting to murder this lady, for a start,” said Parker.
“The old fool!” she said, contemptuously, “she forced her way in here
and attacked me. Is that all?”
“Very probably not,” said Parker. “I warn you that anything you say may
be taken down and used in evidence at your trial.”
Indeed, the third officer had already produced a notebook and was
imperturbably writing down: “When told the charge, the prisoner said ‘Is
that all?’” The remark evidently struck him as an injudicious one, for
he licked his pencil with an air of satisfaction.
“Is the lady all right—who is it?” asked Parker, coming back to a survey
of the situation.
“It’s Miss Climpson—God knows how she got here. I think she’s all right,
but she’s had a rough time.”
He was anxiously sponging her head as he spoke, and at that moment her
eyes opened.
“Help!” said Miss Climpson, confusedly. “The syringe—you shan’t—oh!” She
struggled feebly, and then recognised Wimsey’s anxious face. “Oh, dear!”
she exclaimed, “Lord Peter. Such an upset. Did you get my letter? Is it
all right? . . . Oh, dear! What a state I’m in. I—that woman—”
“Now, don’t worry, Miss Climpson,” said Wimsey, much relieved,
“everything’s quite all right and you mustn’t talk. You must tell us
about it later.”
“What was that about a syringe?” said Parker, intent on his case.
“She’d got a syringe in her hand,” panted Miss Climpson, trying to sit
up, and fumbling with her hands over the bed. “I fainted, I think—such a
struggle—and something hit me on the head. And I saw her coming at me
with the thing. And I knocked it out of her hand and I can’t remember
what happened afterwards. But I have _remarkable_ vitality,” said Miss
Climpson, cheerfully. “My dear father always used to say ‘Climpsons take
a lot of killing’!”
Parker was groping on the floor.
“Here you are,” said he. In his hand was a hypodermic syringe.
“She’s mental, that’s what she is,” said the prisoner. “That’s only the
hypodermic I use for my injections when I get neuralgia. There’s nothing
in that.”
“That is quite correct,” said Parker, with a significant nod at Wimsey.
“There is—nothing in it.”
On the Tuesday night, when the prisoner had been committed for trial on
the charges of murdering Bertha Gotobed and Vera Findlater, and
attempting to murder Alexandra Climpson, Wimsey dined with Parker. The
former was depressed and nervous.
“The whole thing’s been beastly,” he grumbled. They had sat up
discussing the case into the small hours.
“Interesting,” said Parker, “interesting. I owe you seven and six, by
the way. We ought to have seen through that Forrest business earlier,
but there seemed no real reason to suspect the Findlater girl’s word as
to the alibi. These mistaken loyalties make a lot of trouble.
“I think the thing that put us off was that it all started so early.
There seemed no reason for it, but looking back on Trigg’s story it’s as
plain as a pike-staff. She took a big risk with that empty house, and
she couldn’t always expect to find empty houses handy to do away with
people in. The idea was, I suppose, to build up a double identity, so
that, if Mary Whittaker was ever suspected of anything, she could
quietly disappear and become the frail but otherwise innocent Mrs.
Forrest. The real slip-up was forgetting to take back that £5 note from
Bertha Gotobed. If it hadn’t been for that, we might never have known
anything about Mrs. Forrest. It must have rattled her horribly when we
turned up there. After that, she was known to the police in both her
characters. The Findlater business was a desperate attempt to cover up
her tracks—and it was bound to fail, because it was so complicated.”
“Yes. But the Dawson murder was beautiful in its ease and simplicity.”
“If she had stuck to that and left well alone, we could never have
proved anything. We can’t prove it now, which is why I left it off the
charge-sheet. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more greedy and heartless
murderer. She probably really thought that anyone who inconvenienced her
had no right to exist.”
“Greedy and malicious. Fancy tryin’ to shove the blame on poor old
Hallelujah. I suppose he’d committed the unforgivable sin of askin’ her
for money.”
“Well, he’ll get it, that’s one good thing. The pit digged for Cousin
Hallelujah has turned into a gold-mine. That £10,000 cheque has been
honoured. I saw to that first thing, before Whittaker could remember to
try and stop it. Probably she couldn’t have stopped it anyway, as it was
duly presented last Saturday.”
“Is the money legally hers?”
“Of course it is. We know it was gained by a crime, but we haven’t
charged her with the crime, so that legally no such crime was committed.
I’ve not said anything to Cousin Hallelujah, of course, or he mightn’t
like to take it. He thinks it was sent him in a burst of contrition,
poor old dear.”
“So Cousin Hallelujah and all the little Hallelujahs will be rich.
That’s splendid. How about the rest of the money? Will the Crown get it
after all?”
“No. Unless she wills it to someone, it will go to the Whittaker
next-of-kin—a first cousin, I believe, called Allcock. A very decent
fellow, living in Birmingham. That is,” he added, assailed by sudden
doubt, “if first cousins _do_ inherit under this confounded Act.”
“Oh, I think first cousins are safe,” said Wimsey, “though nothing seems
safe nowadays. Still, dash it all, some relations must still be allowed
a look-in, or what becomes of the sanctity of family life? If so, that’s
the most cheering thing about the beastly business. Do you know, when I
rang up that man Carr and told him all about it, he wasn’t a bit
interested or grateful. Said he’d always suspected something like that,
and he hoped we weren’t going to rake it all up again, because he’d come
into that money he told us about and was setting up for himself in
Harley Street, so he didn’t want any more scandals.”
“I never did like that man. I’m sorry for Nurse Philliter.”
“You needn’t be. I put my foot in it again over that. Carr’s too grand
to marry a nurse now—at least, I fancy that’s what it is. Anyway, the
engagement’s off. And I was so pleased at the idea of playing Providence
to two deserving young people,” added Wimsey, pathetically.
“Dear, dear! Well, the girl’s well out of it. Hullo! there’s the ’phone.
Who on earth—? Some damned thing at the Yard, I suppose. At three ack
emma! Who’d be a policeman?—Yes?—Oh!—right, I’ll come round. The case
has gone west, Peter.”
“How?”
“Suicide. Strangled herself with a sheet. I’d better go round, I
suppose.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“An evil woman, if ever there was one,” said Parker, softly, as they
looked at the rigid body, with its swollen face and the deeper, red ring
about the throat.
Wimsey said nothing. He felt cold and sick. While Parker and the
Governor of the prison made the necessary arrangements and discussed the
case, he sat hunched unhappily upon his chair. Their voices went on and
on interminably. Six o’clock had struck some time before they rose to
go. It reminded him of the eight strokes of the clock which announce the
running-up of the black and hideous flag.
As the gate clanged open to let them out, they stepped into a wan and
awful darkness. The June day had risen long ago, but only a pale and
yellowish gleam lit the half-deserted streets. And it was bitterly cold
and raining.
“What is the matter with the day?” said Wimsey. “Is the world coming to
an end?”
“No,” said Parker, “it is the eclipse.”
Transcriber’s Notes
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HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged. | null |
The Adventure of the Creeping Man | Arthur Conan Doyle | 18 | ['Professor Presbury'] |
Mr. Sherlock Holmes was always of opinion that I should publish the
singular facts connected with Professor Presbury, if only to dispel
once for all the ugly rumours which some twenty years ago agitated the
University and were echoed in the learned societies of London. There
were, however, certain obstacles in the way, and the true history of
this curious case remained entombed in the tin box which contains so
many records of my friend's adventures. Now we have at last obtained
permission to ventilate the facts which formed one of the very last
cases handled by Holmes before his retirement from practice. Even now
a certain reticence and discretion have to be observed in laying the
matter before the public.
It was one Sunday evening early in September of the year 1903 that I
received one of Holmes's laconic messages: "Come at once if
convenient--if inconvenient come all the same.--S.H." The relations
between us in those latter days were peculiar. He was a man of habits,
narrow and concentrated habits, and I had become one of them. As an
institution I was like the violin, the shag tobacco, the old black
pipe, the index books, and others perhaps less excusable. When it was
a case of active work and a comrade was needed upon whose nerve he
could place some reliance, my role was obvious. But apart from this I
had uses. I was a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him. He liked
to think aloud in my presence. His remarks could hardly be said to be
made to me--many of them would have been as appropriately addressed to
his bedstead--but none the less, having formed the habit, it had become
in some way helpful that I should register and interject. If I
irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that
irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and
impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble
role in our alliance.
When I arrived at Baker Street I found him huddled up in his arm-chair
with updrawn knees, his pipe in his mouth and his brow furrowed with
thought. It was clear that he was in the throes of some vexatious
problem. With a wave of his hand he indicated my old arm-chair, but
otherwise for half an hour he gave no sign that he was aware of my
presence. Then with a start he seemed to come from his reverie, and,
with his usual whimsical smile, he greeted me back to what had once
been my home.
"You will excuse a certain abstraction of mind, my dear Watson," said
he. "Some curious facts have been submitted to me within the last
twenty-four hours, and they in turn have given rise to some
speculations of a more general character. I have serious thoughts of
writing a small monograph upon the uses of dogs in the work of the
detective."
"But surely, Holmes, this has been explored," said I.
"Bloodhounds--sleuth-hounds----"
"No, no, Watson; that side of the matter is, of course, obvious. But
there is another which is far more subtle. You may recollect that in
the case which you, in your sensational way, coupled with the Copper
Beeches, I was able, by watching the mind of the child, to form a
deduction as to the criminal habits of the very smug and respectable
father."
"Yes, I remember it well."
"My line of thoughts about dogs is analogous. A dog reflects the
family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog
in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people
have dangerous ones. And their passing moods may reflect the passing
moods of others."
I shook my head. "Surely, Holmes, this is a little far-fetched," said
I.
He had refilled his pipe and resumed his seat, taking no notice of my
comment.
"The practical application of what I have said is very close to the
problem which I am investigating. It is a tangled skein, you
understand, and I am looking for a loose end. One possible loose end
lies in the question: Why does Professor Presbury's faithful
wolf-hound, Roy, endeavour to bite him?"
I sank back in my chair in some disappointment. Was it for so trivial
a question as this that I had been summoned from my work? Holmes
glanced across at me.
"The same old Watson!" said he. "You never learn that the gravest
issues may depend upon the smallest things. But is it not on the face
of it strange that a staid, elderly philosopher--you've heard of
Presbury, of course, the famous Camford physiologist?--that such a man,
whose friend has been his devoted wolf-hound, should now have been
twice attacked by his own dog? What do you make of it?"
"The dog is ill."
"Well, that has to be considered. But he attacks no one else, nor does
he apparently molest his master, save on very special occasions.
Curious, Watson--very curious. But young Mr. Bennett is before his
time, if that is his ring. I had hoped to have a longer chat with you
before he came."
There was a quick step on the stairs, a sharp tap at the door, and a
moment later the new client presented himself. He was a tall, handsome
youth about thirty, well dressed and elegant, but with something in his
bearing which suggested the shyness of the student rather than the
self-possession of the man of the world. He shook hands with Holmes,
and then looked with some surprise at me.
"This matter is very delicate, Mr. Holmes," he said. "Consider the
relation in which I stand to Professor Presbury, both privately and
publicly. I really can hardly justify myself if I speak before any
third person."
"Have no fear, Mr. Bennett. Dr. Watson is the very soul of discretion,
and I can assure you that this is a matter in which I am very likely to
need an assistant."
"As you like, Mr. Holmes. You will, I am sure, understand my having
some reserves in the matter."
"You will appreciate it, Watson, when I tell you that this gentleman,
Mr. Trevor Bennett, is professional assistant to the great scientist,
lives under his roof, and is engaged to his only daughter. Certainly
we must agree that the Professor has every claim upon his loyalty and
devotion. But it may best be shown by taking the necessary steps to
clear up this strange mystery."
"I hope so, Mr. Holmes. That is my one object. Does Dr. Watson know
the situation?"
"I have not had time to explain it."
"Then perhaps I had better go over the ground again before explaining
some fresh developments."
"I will do so myself," said Holmes, "in order to show that I have the
events in their due order. The Professor, Watson, is a man of European
reputation. His life has been academic. There has never been a breath
of scandal. He is a widower with one daughter, Edith. He is, I
gather, a man of very virile and positive, one might almost say
combative, character. So the matter stood until a very few months ago.
"Then the current of his life was broken. He is sixty-one years of
age, but he became engaged to the daughter of Professor Morphy, his
colleague in the chair of Comparative Anatomy. It was not, as I
understand, the reasoned courting of an elderly man, but rather the
passionate frenzy of youth, for no one could have shown himself a more
devoted lover. The lady, Alice Morphy, was a very perfect girl both in
mind and body, so that there was every excuse for the Professor's
infatuation. Nonetheless, it did not meet with full approval in his
own family."
"We thought it rather excessive," said our visitor.
"Exactly. Excessive and a little violent and unnatural. Professor
Presbury was rich, however, and there was no objection upon the part of
the father. The daughter, however, had other views, and there were
already several candidates for her hand, who, if they were less
eligible from a worldly point of view, were at least more of an age.
The girl seemed to like the Professor in spite of his eccentricities.
It was only age which stood in the way.
"About this time a little mystery suddenly clouded the normal routine
of the Professor's life. He did what he had never done before. He
left home and gave no indication where he was going. He was away a
fortnight, and returned looking rather travel-worn. He made no
allusion to where he had been, although he was usually the frankest of
men. It chanced, however, that our client here, Mr. Bennett, received
a letter from a fellow-student in Prague, who said that he was glad to
have seen Professor Presbury there, although he had not been able to
talk to him. Only in this way did his own household learn where he had
been.
"Now comes the point. From that time onwards a curious change came
over the Professor. He became furtive and sly. Those around him had
always the feeling that he was not the man that they had known, but
that he was under some shadow which had darkened his higher qualities.
His intellect was not affected. His lectures were as brilliant as
ever. But always there was something new, something sinister and
unexpected. His daughter, who was devoted to him, tried again and
again to resume the old relations and to penetrate this mask which her
father seemed to have put on. You, sir, as I understand, did the
same--but all was in vain. And now, Mr. Bennett, tell in your own
words the incident of the letters."
"You must understand, Dr. Watson, that the Professor had no secrets
from me. If I were his son or his younger brother, I could not have
more completely enjoyed his confidence. As his secretary I handled
every paper which came to him, and I opened and subdivided his letters.
Shortly after his return all this was changed. He told me that certain
letters might come to him from London which would be marked by a cross
under the stamp. These were to be set aside for his own eyes only. I
may say that several of these did pass through my hands, that they had
the E.C. mark, and were in an illiterate handwriting. If he answered
them at all the answers did not pass through my hands nor into the
letter-basket in which our correspondence was collected."
"And the box," said Holmes.
"Ah, yes, the box. The Professor brought back a little wooden box from
his travels. It was the one thing which suggested a Continental tour,
for it was one of those quaint carved things which one associates with
Germany. This he placed in his instrument cupboard. One day, in
looking for a cannula, I took up the box. To my surprise he was very
angry, and reproved me in words which were quite savage for my
curiosity. It was the first time such a thing had happened and I was
deeply hurt. I endeavoured to explain that it was a mere accident that
I had touched the box, but all the evening I was conscious that he
looked at me harshly and that the incident was rankling in his mind."
Mr. Bennett drew a little diary book from his pocket. "That was on
July 2," said he.
"You are certainly an admirable witness," said Holmes. "I may need
some of these dates which you have noted."
"I learned method among other things from my great teacher. From the
time that I observed abnormality in his behaviour I felt that it was my
duty to study his case. Thus I have it here that it was on that very
day, July 2, that Roy attacked the Professor, as he came from his study
into the hall. Again on July 11, there was a scene of the same sort
and then I have a note of yet another upon July 20. After that we had
to banish Roy to the stables. He was a dear, affectionate animal--but
I fear I weary you."
Mr. Bennett spoke in a tone of reproach, for it was very clear that
Holmes was not listening. His face was rigid and his eyes gazed
abstractedly at the ceiling. With an effort he recovered himself.
"Singular! Most singular!" he murmured. "These details were new to
me, Mr. Bennett. I think we have now fairly gone over the old ground,
have we not? But you spoke of some fresh developments."
The pleasant, open face of our visitor clouded over, shadowed by some
grim remembrance. "What I speak of occurred the night before last,"
said he. "I was lying awake about two in the morning, when I was aware
of a dull muffled sound coming from the passage. I opened my door and
peeped out. I should explain that the Professor sleeps at the end of
the passage----"
"The date being----?" asked Holmes.
Our visitor was clearly annoyed at so irrelevant an interruption.
"I have said, sir, that it was the night before last--that is,
September 4."
Holmes nodded and smiled.
"Pray continue," said he.
"He sleeps at the end of the passage, and would have to pass my door in
order to reach the staircase. It was a really terrifying experience,
Mr. Holmes. I think that I am as strong-nerved as my neighbours, but I
was shaken by what I saw. The passage was dark save that one window
half-way along it threw a patch of light. I could see that something
was coming along the passage, something dark and crouching. Then
suddenly it emerged into the light, and I saw that it was he. He was
crawling, Mr. Holmes--crawling! He was not quite on his hands and
knees. I should rather say on his hands and feet, with his face sunk
between his hands. Yet he seemed to move with ease. I was so
paralysed by the sight that it was not until he had reached my door
that I was able to step forward and ask if I could assist him. His
answer was extraordinary. He sprang up, spat out some atrocious word
at me, and hurried on past me, and down the staircase. I waited about
for an hour, but he did not come back. It must have been daylight
before he regained his room."
"Well, Watson, what make you of that?" asked Holmes, with the air of
the pathologist who presents a rare specimen.
"Lumbago, possibly. I have known a severe attack make a man walk in
just such a way, and nothing would be more trying to the temper."
"Good, Watson! You always keep us flat-footed on the ground. But we
can hardly accept lumbago, since he was able to stand erect in a
moment."
"He was never better in health," said Bennett. "In fact, he is
stronger than I have known him for years. But there are the facts, Mr.
Holmes. It is not a case in which we can consult the police, and yet
we are utterly at our wits' end as to what to do, and we feel in some
strange way that we are drifting towards disaster. Edith--Miss
Presbury--feels as I do, that we cannot wait passively any longer."
"It is certainly a very curious and suggestive case. What do you
think, Watson?"
"Speaking as a medical man," said I, "it appears to be a case for an
alienist. The old gentleman's cerebral processes were disturbed by the
love affair. He made a journey abroad in the hope of breaking himself
of the passion. His letters and the box may be connected with some
other private transaction--a loan, perhaps, or share certificates,
which are in the box."
"And the wolf-hound no doubt disapproved of the financial bargain. No,
no, Watson, there is more in it than this. Now, I can only suggest----"
What Sherlock Holmes was about to suggest will never be known, for at
this moment the door opened and a young lady was shown into the room.
As she appeared Mr. Bennett sprang up with a cry and ran forward with
his hands out to meet those which she had herself outstretched.
"Edith, dear! Nothing the matter, I hope?"
"I felt I must follow you. Oh, Jack, I have been so dreadfully
frightened! It is awful to be there alone."
"Mr. Holmes, this is the young lady I spoke of. This is my fiancée."
"We were gradually coming to that conclusion, were we not, Watson?"
Holmes answered, with a smile. "I take it, Miss Presbury, that there
is some fresh development in the case, and that you thought we should
know?"
Our new visitor, a bright, handsome girl of a conventional English
type, smiled back at Holmes as she seated herself beside Mr. Bennett.
"When I found Mr. Bennett had left his hotel I thought I should
probably find him here. Of course, he had told me that he would
consult you. But, oh, Mr. Holmes, can you do nothing for my poor
father?"
"I have hopes, Miss Presbury, but the case is still obscure. Perhaps
what you have to say may throw some fresh light upon it."
"It was last night, Mr. Holmes. He had been very strange all day. I
am sure that there are times when he has no recollection of what he
does. He lives as in a strange dream. Yesterday was such a day. It
was not my father with whom I lived. His outward shell was there, but
it was not really he."
"Tell me what happened."
"I was awakened in the night by the dog barking most furiously. Poor
Roy, he is chained now near the stable. I may say that I always sleep
with my door locked; for, as Jack--as Mr. Bennett--will tell you, we
all have a feeling of impending danger. My room is on the second
floor. It happened that the blind was up in my window, and there was
bright moonlight outside. As I lay with my eyes fixed upon the square
of light, listening to the frenzied barkings of the dog, I was amazed
to see my father's face looking in at me. Mr. Holmes, I nearly died of
surprise and horror. There it was pressed against the window-pane, and
one hand seemed to be raised as if to push up the window. If that
window had opened, I think I should have gone mad. It was no delusion,
Mr. Holmes. Don't deceive yourself by thinking so. I dare say it was
twenty seconds or so that I lay paralysed and watched the face. Then
it vanished, but I could not--I could not spring out of bed and look
out after it. I lay cold and shivering till morning. At breakfast he
was sharp and fierce in manner, and made no allusion to the adventure
of the night. Neither did I, but I gave an excuse for coming to
town--and here I am."
Holmes looked thoroughly surprised at Miss Presbury's narrative.
"My dear young lady, you say that your room is on the second floor. Is
there a long ladder in the garden?"
"No, Mr. Holmes; that is the amazing part of it. There is no possible
way of reaching the window--and yet he was there."
"The date being September 5," said Holmes. "That certainly complicates
matters."
It was the young lady's turn to look surprised. "This is the second
time that you have alluded to the date, Mr. Holmes," said Bennett. "Is
it possible that it has any bearing upon the case?"
"It is possible--very possible--and yet I have not my full material at
present."
"Possibly you are thinking of the connection between insanity and
phases of the moon?"
"No, I assure you. It was quite a different line of thought. Possibly
you can leave your notebook with me and I will check the dates. Now I
think, Watson, that our line of action is perfectly clear. This young
lady has informed us--and I have the greatest confidence in her
intuition--that her father remembers little or nothing which occurs
upon certain dates. We will therefore call upon him as if he had given
us an appointment upon such a date. He will put it down to his own
lack of memory. Thus we will open our campaign by having a good close
view of him."
"That is excellent," said Mr. Bennett. "I warn you, however, that the
Professor is irascible and violent at times."
Holmes smiled. "There are reasons why we should come at once--very
cogent reasons if my theories hold good. To-morrow, Mr. Bennett, will
certainly see us in Camford. There is, if I remember right, an inn
called the 'Chequers' where the port used to be above mediocrity, and
the linen was above reproach. I think, Watson, that our lot for the
next few days might lie in less pleasant places."
Monday morning found us on our way to the famous University town--an
easy effort on the part of Holmes, who had no roots to pull up, but one
which involved frantic planning and hurrying on my part, as my practice
was by this time not inconsiderable. Holmes made no allusion to the
case until after we had deposited our suit-cases at the ancient hostel
of which he had spoken.
"I think, Watson, that we can catch the Professor just before lunch.
He lectures at eleven, and should have an interval at home."
"What possible excuse have we for calling?"
Holmes glanced at his notebook.
"There was a period of excitement upon August 26. We will assume that
he is a little hazy as to what he does at such times. If we insist
that we are there by appointment I think he will hardly venture to
contradict us. Have you the effrontery necessary to put it through?"
"We can but try."
"Excellent, Watson! Compound of the Busy Bee and Excelsior. We can
but try--the motto of the firm. A friendly native will surely guide
us."
Such a one on the back of a smart hansom swept us past a row of ancient
colleges, and finally turning into a tree-lined drive pulled up at the
door of a charming house, girt round with lawns and covered with purple
wistaria. Professor Presbury was certainly surrounded with every sign
not only of comfort but of luxury. Even as we pulled up a grizzled
head appeared at the front window, and we were aware of a pair of keen
eyes from under shaggy brows which surveyed us through large horn
glasses. A moment later we were actually in his sanctum, and the
mysterious scientist, whose vagaries had brought us from London, was
standing before us. There was certainly no sign of eccentricity either
in his manner or appearance, for he was a portly, large-featured man,
grave, tall, and frock-coated, with the dignity of bearing which a
lecturer needs. His eyes were his most remarkable feature, keen,
observant, and clever to the verge of cunning.
He looked at our cards. "Pray sit down, gentlemen. What can I do for
you?"
Mr. Holmes smiled amiably.
"It was the question which I was about to put to you, Professor."
"To me, sir!"
"Possibly there is some mistake. I heard through a second person that
Professor Presbury of Camford had need of my services."
"Oh, indeed!" It seemed to me that there was a malicious sparkle in
the intense grey eyes. "You heard that, did you? May I ask the name
of your informant?"
"I am sorry, Professor, but the matter was rather confidential. If I
have made a mistake there is no harm done. I can only express my
regret."
"Not at all. I should wish to go further into this matter. It
interests me. Have you any scrap of writing, any letter or telegram,
to bear out your assertion?"
"No, I have not."
"I presume that you do not go so far as to assert that I summoned you?"
"I would rather answer no questions," said Holmes.
"No, I dare say not," said the Professor, with asperity. "However,
that particular one can be answered very easily without your aid."
He walked across the room to the bell. Our London friend, Mr. Bennett,
answered the call.
"Come in, Mr. Bennett. These two gentlemen have come from London under
the impression that they have been summoned. You handle all my
correspondence. Have you a note of anything going to a person named
Holmes?"
"No, sir," Bennett answered, with a flush.
"That is conclusive," said the Professor, glaring angrily at my
companion. "Now, sir"--he leaned forward with his two hands upon the
table--"it seems to me that your position is a very questionable one."
Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
"I can only repeat that I am sorry that we have made a needless
intrusion."
"Hardly enough, Mr. Holmes!" the old man cried, in a high screaming
voice, with extraordinary malignancy upon his face. He got between us
and the door as he spoke, and he shook his two hands at us with furious
passion. "You can hardly get out of it so easily as that." His face
was convulsed and he grinned and gibbered at us in his senseless rage.
I am convinced that we should have had to fight our way out of the room
if Mr. Bennett had not intervened.
"My dear Professor," he cried, "consider your position! Consider the
scandal at the University! Mr. Holmes is a well-known man. You cannot
possibly treat him with such discourtesy."
Sulkily our host--if I may call him so--cleared the path to the door.
We were glad to find ourselves outside the house, and in the quiet of
the tree-lined drive. Holmes seemed greatly amused by the episode.
"Our learned friend's nerves are somewhat out of order," said he.
"Perhaps our intrusion was a little crude, and yet we have gained that
personal contact which I desired. But, dear me, Watson, he is surely
at our heels. The villain still pursues us."
There were the sounds of running feet behind, but it was, to my relief,
not the formidable Professor but his assistant who appeared round the
curve of the drive. He came panting up to us.
"I am so sorry, Mr. Holmes. I wished to apologize."
"My dear sir, there is no need. It is all in the way of professional
experience."
"I have never seen him in a more dangerous mood. But he grows more
sinister. You can understand now why his daughter and I are alarmed.
And yet his mind is perfectly clear."
"Too clear!" said Holmes. "That was my miscalculation. It is evident
that his memory is much more reliable than I had thought. By the way,
can we, before we go, see the window of Miss Presbury's room?"
Mr. Bennett pushed his way through some shrubs and we had a view of the
side of the house.
"It is there. The second on the left."
"Dear me, it seems hardly accessible. And yet you will observe that
there is a creeper below and a water-pipe above which give some
foothold."
"I could not climb it myself," said Mr. Bennett.
"Very likely. It would certainly be a dangerous exploit for any normal
man."
"There was one other thing I wished to tell you, Mr. Holmes. I have
the address of the man in London to whom the Professor writes. He
seems to have written this morning and I got it from his
blotting-paper. It is an ignoble position for a trusted secretary, but
what else can I do?"
Holmes glanced at the paper and put it into his pocket.
"Dorak--a curious name. Slavonic, I imagine. Well, it is an important
link in the chain. We return to London this afternoon, Mr. Bennett. I
see no good purpose to be served by our remaining. We cannot arrest
the Professor, because he has done no crime, nor can we place him under
constraint, for he cannot be proved to be mad. No action is as yet
possible."
"Then what on earth are we to do?"
"A little patience, Mr. Bennett. Things will soon develop. Unless I
am mistaken next Tuesday may mark a crisis. Certainly we shall be in
Camford on that day. Meanwhile, the general position is undeniably
unpleasant, and if Miss Presbury can prolong her visit----"
"That is easy."
"Then let her stay till we can assure her that all danger is past.
Meanwhile, let him have his way and do not cross him. So long as he is
in a good humour all is well."
"There he is!" said Bennett, in a startled whisper. Looking between
the branches we saw the tall, erect figure emerge from the hall door
and look around him. He stood leaning forward, his hands swinging
straight before him, his head turning from side to side. The secretary
with a last wave slipped off among the trees, and we saw him presently
rejoin his employer, the two entering the house together in what seemed
to be animated and even excited conversation.
"I expect the old gentleman has been putting two and two together,"
said Holmes, as we walked hotelwards. "He struck me as having a
particularly clear and logical brain, from the little I saw of him.
Explosive, no doubt, but then from his point of view he has something
to explode about if detectives are put on his track and he suspects his
own household of doing it. I rather fancy that friend Bennett is in
for an uncomfortable time."
Holmes stopped at a post office and sent off a telegram on our way.
The answer reached us in the evening, and he tossed it across to me.
"Have visited the Commercial Road and seen Dorak. Suave person,
Bohemian, elderly. Keeps large general store.--Mercer."
"Mercer is since your time," said Holmes. "He is my general utility
man who looks up routine business. It was important to know something
of the man with whom our Professor was so secretly corresponding. His
nationality connects up with the Prague visit."
"Thank goodness that something connects with something," said I. "At
present we seem to be faced by a long series of inexplicable incidents
with no bearing upon each other. For example, what possible connection
can there be between an angry wolf-hound and a visit to Bohemia, or
either of them with a man crawling down a passage at night? As to your
dates, that is the biggest mystification of all."
Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands. We were, I may say, seated in the
old sitting-room of the ancient hotel, with a bottle of the famous
vintage of which Holmes had spoken on the table between us.
"Well, now, let us take the dates first," said he, his finger-tips
together and his manner as if he were addressing a class. "This
excellent young man's diary shows that there was trouble upon July 2,
and from then onwards it seems to have been at nine-day intervals,
with, so far as I remember, only one exception. Thus the last outbreak
upon Friday was on September 3, which also falls into the series, as
did August 26, which preceded it. The thing is beyond coincidence."
I was forced to agree.
"Let us, then, form the provisional theory that every nine days the
Professor takes some strong drug which has a passing but highly
poisonous effect. His naturally violent nature is intensified by it.
He learned to take this drug while he was in Prague, and is now
supplied with it by a Bohemian intermediary in London. This all hangs
together, Watson!"
"But the dog, the face at the window, the creeping man in the passage?"
"Well, well, we have made a beginning. I should not expect any fresh
developments until next Tuesday. In the meantime we can only keep in
touch with friend Bennett and enjoy the amenities of this charming
town."
In the morning Mr. Bennett slipped round to bring us the latest report.
As Holmes had imagined, times had not been easy with him. Without
exactly accusing him of being responsible for our presence, the
Professor had been very rough and rude in his speech, and evidently
felt some strong grievance. This morning he was quite himself again,
however, and had delivered his usual brilliant lecture to a crowded
class. "Apart from his queer fits," said Bennett, "he has actually
more energy and vitality than I can ever remember, nor was his brain
ever clearer. But it's not he--it's never the man whom we have known."
"I don't think you have anything to fear now for a week at least,"
Holmes answered. "I am a busy man, and Dr. Watson has his patients to
attend to. Let us agree that we meet here at this hour next Tuesday,
and I shall be surprised if before we leave you again we are not able
to explain, even if we cannot perhaps put an end to, your troubles.
Meanwhile, keep us posted in what occurs."
I saw nothing of my friend for the next few days, but on the following
Monday evening I had a short note asking me to meet him next day at the
train. From what he told me as we travelled up to Camford all was
well, the peace of the Professor's house had been unruffled, and his
own conduct perfectly normal. This also was the report which was given
us by Mr. Bennett himself when he called upon us that evening at our
old quarters in the "Chequers." "He heard from his London
correspondent to-day. There was a letter and there was a small packet,
each with the cross under the stamp which warned me not to touch them.
There has been nothing else."
"That may prove quite enough," said Holmes grimly. "Now, Mr. Bennett,
we shall, I think, come to some conclusion to-night. If my deductions
are correct we should have an opportunity of bringing matters to a
head. In order to do so it is necessary to hold the Professor under
observation. I would suggest, therefore, that you remain awake and on
the look out. Should you hear him pass your door do not interrupt him,
but follow him as discreetly as you can. Dr. Watson and I will not be
far off. By the way, where is the key of that little box of which you
spoke?"
"Upon his watch-chain."
"I fancy our researches must lie in that direction. At the worst the
lock should not be very formidable. Have you any other able-bodied man
on the premises?"
"There is the coachman, Macphail."
"Where does he sleep?"
"Over the stables."
"We might possibly want him. Well, we can do no more until we see how
things develop. Good-bye--but I expect that we shall see you before
morning."
It was nearly midnight before we took our station among some bushes
immediately opposite the hall door of the Professor. It was a fine
night, but chilly, and we were glad of our warm overcoats. There was a
breeze, and clouds were scudding across the sky, obscuring from time to
time the half-moon. It would have been a dismal vigil were it not for
the expectation and excitement which carried us along, and the
assurance of my comrade that we had probably reached the end of the
strange sequence of events which had engaged our attention.
"If the cycle of nine days holds good then we shall have the Professor
at his worst to-night," said Holmes. "The fact that these strange
symptoms began after his visit to Prague, that he is in secret
correspondence with a Bohemian dealer in London, who presumably
represents someone in Prague, and that he received a packet from him
this very day, all point in one direction. What he takes and why he
takes it are still beyond our ken, but that it emanates in some way
from Prague is clear enough. He takes it under definite directions
which regulate this ninth-day system, which was the first point which
attracted my attention. But his symptoms are most remarkable. Did you
observe his knuckles?"
I had to confess that I did not.
"Thick and horny in a way which is quite new in my experience. Always
look at the hands first, Watson. Then cuffs, trouser-knees, and boots.
Very curious knuckles which can only be explained by the mode of
progression observed by----" Holmes paused, and suddenly clapped his
hand to his forehead. "Oh, Watson, Watson, what a fool I have been!
It seems incredible, and yet it must be true. All points in one
direction. How could I miss seeing the connection of ideas? Those
knuckles--how could I have passed those knuckles? And the dog! And
the ivy! It's surely time that I disappeared into that little farm of
my dreams. Look out, Watson! Here he is! We shall have the chance of
seeing for ourselves."
The hall door had slowly opened, and against the lamp-lit background we
saw the tall figure of Professor Presbury. He was clad in his
dressing-gown. As he stood outlined in the doorway he was erect but
leaning forward with dangling arms, as when we saw him last.
Now he stepped forward into the drive, and an extraordinary change came
over him. He sank down into a crouching position, and moved along upon
his hands and feet, skipping every now and then as if he were
overflowing with energy and vitality. He moved along the face of the
house and then round the corner. As he disappeared Bennett slipped
through the hall door and softly followed him.
"Come, Watson, come!" cried Holmes, and we stole as softly as we could
through the bushes until we had gained a spot whence we could see the
other side of the house, which was bathed in the light of the
half-moon. The Professor was clearly visible crouching at the foot of
the ivy-covered wall. As we watched him he suddenly began with
incredible agility to ascend it. From branch to branch he sprang, sure
of foot and firm of grasp, climbing apparently in mere joy at his own
powers, with no definite object in view. With his dressing-gown
flapping on each side of him he looked like some huge bat glued against
the side of his own house, a great square dark patch upon the moonlit
wall. Presently he tired of this amusement, and, dropping from branch
to branch, he squatted down into the old attitude and moved towards the
stables, creeping along in the same strange way as before. The
wolf-hound was out now, barking furiously, and more excited than ever
when it actually caught sight of its master. It was straining on its
chain, and quivering with eagerness and rage. The Professor squatted
down very deliberately just out of reach of the hound, and began to
provoke it in every possible way. He took handfuls of pebbles from the
drive and threw them in the dog's face, prodded him with a stick which
he had picked up, flicked his hands about only a few inches from the
gaping mouth, and endeavoured in every way to increase the animal's
fury, which was already beyond all control. In all our adventures I do
not know that I have ever seen a more strange sight than this impassive
and still dignified figure crouching frog-like upon the ground and
goading to a wilder exhibition of passion the maddened hound, which
ramped and raged in front of him, by all manner of ingenious and
calculated cruelty.
And then in a moment it happened! It was not the chain that broke, but
it was the collar that slipped, for it had been made for a thick-necked
Newfoundland. We heard the rattle of falling metal, and the next
instant dog and man were rolling on the ground together, the one
roaring in rage, the other screaming in a strange shrill falsetto of
terror. It was a very narrow thing for the Professor's life. The
savage creature had him fairly by the throat, its fangs had bitten
deep, and he was senseless before we could reach them and drag the two
apart. It might have been a dangerous task for us, but Bennett's voice
and presence brought the great wolf-hound instantly to reason. The
uproar had brought the sleepy and astonished coachman from his room
above the stables. "I'm not surprised," said he, shaking his head.
"I've seen him at it before. I knew the dog would get him sooner or
later."
The hound was secured, and together we carried the Professor up to his
room, where Bennett, who had a medical degree, helped me to dress his
torn throat. The sharp teeth had passed dangerously near the carotid
artery, and the hemorrhage was serious. In half an hour the danger was
past, I had given the patient an injection of morphia, and he had sunk
into deep sleep. Then, and only then, were we able to look at each
other and to take stock of the situation.
"I think a first-class surgeon should see him," said I.
"For God's sake, no!" cried Bennett. "At present the scandal is
confined to our own household. It is safe with us. If it gets beyond
these walls it will never stop. Consider his position at the
University, his European reputation, the feelings of his daughter."
"Quite so," said Holmes. "I think it may be quite possible to keep the
matter to ourselves, and also to prevent its recurrence now that we
have a free hand. The key from the watch-chain, Mr. Bennett. Macphail
will guard the patient and let us know if there is any change. Let us
see what we can find in the Professor's mysterious box."
There was not much, but there was enough--an empty phial, another
nearly full, a hypodermic syringe, several letters in a crabbed,
foreign hand. The marks on the envelopes showed that they were those
which had disturbed the routine of the secretary, and each was dated
from the Commercial Road and signed "A. Dorak." They were mere
invoices to say that a fresh bottle was being sent to Professor
Presbury, or receipts to acknowledge money. There was one other
envelope, however, in a more educated hand and bearing the Austrian
stamp with the postmark of Prague. "Here we have our material!" cried
Holmes, as he tore out the enclosure.
"HONOURED COLLEAGUE," it ran. "Since your esteemed visit I have
thought much of your case, and though in your circumstances there are
some special reasons for the treatment, I would none the less enjoin
caution, as my results have shown that it is not without danger of a
kind.
"It is possible that the Serum of Anthropoid would have been better. I
have, as I explained to you, used black-faced Langur because a specimen
was accessible. Langur is, of course, a crawler and climber, while
Anthropoid walks erect, and is in all ways nearer.
"I beg you to take every possible precaution that there be no premature
revelation of the process. I have one other client in England, and
Dorak is my agent for both.
"Weekly reports will oblige.
"Yours with high esteem,
"H. LOWENSTEIN."
Lowenstein! The name brought back to me the memory of some snippet
from a newspaper which spoke of an obscure scientist who was striving
in some unknown way for the secret of rejuvenescence and the elixir of
life. Lowenstein of Prague! Lowenstein with the wondrous
strength-giving serum, tabooed by the profession because he refused to
reveal its source. In a few words I said what I remembered. Bennett
had taken a manual of Zoology from the shelves. "'Langur,'" he read,
"'the great black-faced monkey of the Himalayan slopes, biggest and
most human of climbing monkeys.' Many details are added. Well, thanks
to you, Mr. Holmes, it is very clear that we have traced the evil to
its source."
"The real source," said Holmes, "lies, of course, in that untimely love
affair which gave our impetuous Professor the idea that he could only
gain his wish by turning himself into a younger man. When one tries to
rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it. The highest type of
man may revert to the animal if he leaves the straight road of
destiny." He sat musing for a little with the phial in his hand,
looking at the clear liquid within. "When I have written to this man
and told him that I hold him criminally responsible for the poisons
which he circulates, we will have no more trouble. But it may recur.
Others may find a better way. There is danger there--a very real
danger to humanity. Consider, Watson, that the material, the sensual,
the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual
would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival
of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world
become?" Suddenly the dreamer disappeared, and Holmes, the man of
action, sprang from his chair. "I think there is nothing more to be
said, Mr. Bennett. The various incidents will now fit themselves
easily into the general scheme. The dog, of course, was aware of the
change far more quickly than you. His smell would ensure that. It was
the monkey, not the Professor, whom Roy attacked, just as it was the
monkey who teased Roy. Climbing was a joy to the creature, and it was
a mere chance, I take it, that the pastime brought him to the young
lady's window. There is an early train to town, Watson, but I think we
shall just have time for a cup of tea at the 'Chequers' before we catch
it."
IX
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