Kitabı oku: «The Riddle of the Mysterious Light», sayfa 5

CHAPTER IX
A FAINTLY FAMILIAR FACE

Different men view things from a different standpoint. It was clearly evident that Mr. Overton was moved by this announcement of the unhappy termination of Captain Sandringham's life, but he did not show such great elation as Carstairs displayed. His countenance, as he took the paper which the vicar extended, was grave rather than gay, and there was a troubled expression in his kindly eyes.

"Mind reading it aloud, sir?" suggested Cleek. "The reverend gentleman spoke as though it was something as had to do with the duke."

"So it has. Captain Sandringham was his heir. But pardon. Mr. Saintly, this is Mr. George Headland, a detective His Grace had sent down from Scotland Yard to look into the matter of the bells and the murder of young Tom Davis last night."

"Pleased to meet you, sir," said Cleek. "This will be my mate, Jim Markham. Yessir, a queer business and an ugly one, as you say, sir. Ought to get at the bottom of it in a week or so, however. Still, you never know."

The vicar gave Mr. Overton a puzzled glance. It was evident that he was no more favourably impressed by these two "specimens of the police" than the land-steward had been. Then, too, one of them had not bothered to take even the slightest notice of the introduction to him.

"Mr. Markham is rather deaf," volunteered Overton, in explanation of the omission; and it may be that it was because of the blank wonder in the vicar's eyes at this announcement that Carstairs so far forgot himself as to titter. Still, as it was a very mild titter, it apparently did not reach Cleek's ears, so there was no harm done; and Mr. Overton proceeded to read the article in the paper aloud.

That it was a thoroughly authentic one there could be no doubt, for, after giving the fullest details of the affair and stating that he himself had seen the body of the victim, whom he had long known by sight as well as by reputation – a fact which utterly precluded the possibility of its being that of anybody merely resembling the captain and not actually the captain himself – the writer proceeded to sign the article with a name which was known to be that of one of the most reliable, careful, and conscientious of special newspaper correspondents. Beyond all question the report was true. Cleek was as convinced of Captain Paul Sandringham's death as if he had stood by and seen him killed.

"It will be a great relief to the duke, there can be no denying that, Vicar," declared Overton as he finished reading the report; "but, all the same, I can't help thinking that it's a sad business, sir, for a human creature to go out of the world like that and with never a chance to repent. I saw him once – quite by accident – when I went over to Ostend a year ago, on business for the estate, and a fine, upstanding, splendid-looking fellow he was, too. He might have made much of his life had he only tried. But to be shot down like a dog! It's too awful, sir, too awful."

"Your sentiments do you credit, Mr. Overton; but they are no more than I should have expected of you," declared the vicar. "Carstairs here is less thoughtful, I fear."

"What would be the sense of wasting tears over such a man, sir?" replied Carstairs, emphatically. "It is enough for me to remember that a load has been lifted from the shoulders of the best master I ever had. Besides, sir, there are bad men enough in the world without grieving over a thinning out of the ranks. There'll be one the less to reckon with, that's all!"

Cleek began to smoke furiously. Mr. Narkom, twitching round an inquiring eye, saw that his attention had fallen suddenly upon something across the road, and was not at all surprised when he abruptly walked over and, leaving the vicar to lecture Carstairs, began to examine a particularly thrifty wild rose whose branches were smothered with delicate bloom. But of a sudden he gave his shoulders a shrug and came back.

"False alarm!" he said, quietly. "I thought I'd stumbled on a find, Mr. Overton, but it's only a common brier, after all. But hadn't we better be moving? I won't be half sorry to sit down a bit. Much farther to the house where your young lady's folks live, Mr. Carstairs?"

"No; not very. Another ten minutes' walk will do it easily."

"Good business. Don't mind telling you that I am tired and shan't be none too sorry to get some food. My mate here, he's about done for, I reckon; and Mr. Overton, he must be a bit done up, too. I say, wot price letting him stand here and talk with the vicar for a time while you show us the rest of the way? You look as fresh as paint. Anyway, I reckon the young lady will be gladder to see us fetching you with us than if we was piloted by Mr. Overton here."

"Good idea that, Carstairs – act on it," put in the land-steward with a laugh. "You've got plenty of time before you need think of dinner; and I dare say that Emmy Costivan won't be sorry to have a few extra words with you on her own account."

Apparently Carstairs himself wouldn't be sorry for the opportunity either, for he fell in with the suggestion with alacrity, and with a farewell salute to the vicar and a "So long, sir, see you again," to the land-steward, Cleek and Mr. Narkom surrendered themselves to the leadership of this new guide and fared forth in his company to the abode of the Costivans.

"Can't stand that Overton," volunteered Carstairs, as soon as they were at a safe distance from the vicarage gate. "Always poking his blessed 'humanity' ideas down a man's throat and snivelling over people's souls."

"Just so. Quite agree with you, Mr. Carstairs."

"Fancy his wasting pity on a bounder like Captain Paul Sandringham! I don't hold with any such nonsense."

"And, as you very properly said, it makes one the less to reckon with. My sentiments exactly, Mr. Carstairs. It will be a welcome bit of news to the duke, I take it; and he's got enough worry on his mind over this business."

"More than enough. Ghastly sort of business, isn't it? Formed any sort of an idea, Mr. Headland?"

"None worth speaking of. Hasn't been time. I should have said it was boys up to a lark, if it hadn't been for the killing of that chap Davis last night. Wish I'd been somewhere about then, or could meet with somebody who heard the sounds of the struggle. Don't happen to know of anybody that did, do you?"

"That I don't. As a matter of fact, I don't think anybody did hear a blessed thing of it. Nobody had the least idea that anything had really happened to him until the vicar found the body at the foot of that accursed bell-tower this morning. Of course, if anybody was likely to have heard anything, he would be the one – the vicarage is so near, you know. But he never heard a sound."

"Heavy sleeper, I suppose."

"On the contrary, according to Mrs. Marden, his housekeeper, he's an exceedingly light one. Even lighter than herself, she says, and it's her boast that an owl flying past would wake her."

"She hear anything last night, then?"

"Not a sound – beyond the clanging of the bells. But she's getting used to them. Besides, they don't last long, you know. Just off and on now and again, and never later than eleven or twelve o'clock. Last night, however, they started earlier than they ever did before – about ten, I believe, and they never sounded a solitary peal after half-past."

"H'm! maybe the murder was committed whilst they were pealing, then. That would account for her not hearing the struggle, of course."

"She says not, though. Constable suggested that first thing. Says she's become so used to the bells they don't affect her hearing of other things at all – that she could hear any other sound that there might be right through the pealing of them. She called vicar to prove that one night last week she cried out to him while the things were ringing to say that she believed he must have left the door of the stable open, as she could hear a scratching noise in there. Vicar dressed and ran out, and sure enough he had left the door open and there was an old dog fox in the place trying to scratch his way through to the fowl-house. If she could have heard that through the sound of the bells it's pretty certain she could have heard Davis putting up a fight if he had been attacked by anything human. But he wasn't! You take my word for it, Mr. Headland, devils are at the bottom of this business, and the thing will never be stopped until that dead Johnnie's body is dug up out of the churchyard and carried out to sea and chucked overboard."

Cleek had no opportunity to reply, for at that moment the quiet of the country was suddenly broken by the sharp Honk! honk! of a motor-horn, and round the bend of the road swung a high-powered car, driven by a liveried chauffeur, and containing an overdressed gentleman of a dark, Hebraic cast of countenance.

"That will be Sir Julius Solinski, the great company promoter," explained Carstairs, offhandedly. "Got a fine place over Framleigh way. Motors through here every day about this time. Same old course, without a break or a change – down here, round the curve, past the cottage where those Hurdon people live, and then down behind the grounds of the Castle and off Willowby Old Church way. Should think he'd be about fed up with it by this time."

"Ever stop anywhere on the road?"

"Not that I know of. Never seen him do so, at all events. Still, of course, he might, you know, without – Here we are at last. This is where you and your friend are to put up, Mr. Headland. Come in."

Cleek had merely time to remark that the cottage was a thatched one with a goodly allowance of garden surrounding it on all sides, and that the tops of tall trees were visible in the rear, showing that it was close to the adjacent woodland, when following Carstairs' lead, he walked inside. He was at once presented to a young, dark-haired, exceedingly pretty girl whose bright eyes impressed him with an odd sense of familiarity. Somewhere, somehow, he said to himself, he had certainly seen someone who bore a very marked resemblance to Miss Emmy Costivan.

CHAPTER X
A WALK IN THE GARDEN

"Here you are, Emmy. These are the gentlemen you are expecting," announced Carstairs, cheerily.

Miss Costivan – who was about four-and-twenty – said she was pleased to meet them, and then turned to call through an open door, "Mother, the London gentlemen have come. Luke's just fetched 'em."

Immediately the sound of someone making vigorous use of a washboard, which all along had been issuing from the door, came to an abrupt end; a pair of clogs clattered noisily across a tiled floor, and there issued from the scullery a tall, gaunt, black-haired, somewhat slatternly female whose cast of features was so strongly suggestive of the Romany race that one might well have suspected her of having more than a mere dash of gypsy blood in her veins.

She advanced into the room, drying her hands on her apron, and welcomed the newcomers heartily. Cleek decided that never in his life had he seen a mother and daughter who bore so little resemblance to each other.

"I'll have the kettle on and some tea ready in a very few minutes, gentlemen," declared Mrs. Costivan, with an odd use of certain words which was not lost upon Cleek. "But maylike you'd be glad to run up to your room and wash a bit, the whiles the kittle's boilin'? Luke, lad, show the way, there's a bonny. Old Man's not home from the fields yet. They've a power o' hay to get under cover over at Mason's before the weather breaks." By which it was clear to Cleek that the good lady wished her visitors to understand that her husband was a field hand on one of the outlying farms.

Carstairs announced his readiness to perform the suggested office, and called on the two "London gentlemen" to follow him – an act which pulled Cleek up with a jerk, for he had fallen into a state of abstraction born of a sudden realization of the peculiar character of the wet marks Mrs. Costivan had left upon her apron when she dried her hands.

He had never heard of anybody washing things in mustard water – things which required hard rubbing on a laundry board. Yet, if the yellow stain left by drying her hands on her apron suggested anything, it certainly suggested that.

Here, catching the sound of Carstairs' voice, Cleek turned, and together with Mr. Narkom, followed him up the stairs to an airy, double-bedded room overlooking the garden in the rear.

Here Carstairs, after looking to see that there were towels on the rack and soap in the dish, left them and went below. Presently they could hear his voice and Emmy Costivan's blent in half-subdued laughter.

Cleek, leaving the door partly open and signalling to Narkom to place himself so that he could see if anybody started to come upstairs, went to the open window, looked out across the neglected garden to the belt of woodland beyond it and, putting up his hand, tilted his hat to one side and began reflectively to scratch his head. Immediately, a bare branch moved above the level of a thick clump of wild elder bushes just by the broken paling which marked the rear boundary of the garden. It remained stationary for an instant, and then dropped out of sight again.

"All right, Narkom, they are there!" he said in a swift whisper. "Sit tight a minute and don't speak."

Then he slopped a quantity of water out of the jug into the wash-basin, plunged his hands into it, then rubbed them along the window-sill. After which he partially rinsed them and then dried them off on first one towel and then the other – all the while moving up and down the floor and whistling contentedly.

"All right," he announced, presently. "Needn't do sentry duty any more. Leave the door wide open. I don't think our friend Carstairs will be quite such an idiot as to waste his time in sneaking up; but if he should the open door will be enough for him and, at the same time, give us a chance to see him. A bad egg, that gentleman. He is pretty deeply involved in this little business unless I miss my guess."

"I thought you suspected him of something when you crossed over to that wild rose bush."

"What! Am I dropping into the habit of giving signs, then?" exclaimed Cleek. "I wonder if our friend the vicar noticed, too? I caught his eye fixed upon me more than once."

"The vicar! Good heavens, man, you don't mean that you suspect – ?"

"Ch't! Not so loud, or I shall wish I had made you a dumb man as well as a deaf one. Sh-h! Nothing now – your time is coming. We have dawdled to the end of the dawdling period, and come to the active one. You shall have speech and excitement enough the minute the darkness falls."

"You have an idea, then?" murmured Mr. Narkom. "You have really picked up a clue?"

"I have picked up many. They may be good and they may be bad, I can decide only when St. Saviour's bells start ringing to-night."

"You have a clue to that, then?"

"Not I. They will be the last on my list for investigation. At present I am principally concerned with the astonishing circumstance regarding the noise of that fellow Davis's death struggle."

"But, man alive, he didn't make any."

"Precisely. That's the astonishing circumstance to which I allude!" said Cleek. The queer one-sided smile travelled slowly up his cheek.

Midway down the neglected garden Mrs. Costivan was engaged in the task of hanging up a pair of wet gray overalls, and along the path beside her a stream of yellowish water from a recently emptied washtub was trickling down the drain.

"Mr. Narkom!"

"Yes."

"Essex is your native county, I believe, so naturally you ought to be an authority on it. Tell me something. Is it a peculiarity of Essex hay, then, to give off a deep yellowish stain?"

"Hay? Hay stain? What confounded nonsense!"

"Precisely. That's how I feel about it myself. And as between Mrs. Hurdon and Mrs. Costivan – Come along, let's get down and eat. I hope the fair Emmy will give us something good. I'm famished."

The "fair Emmy" did, presiding over the tea-pot herself, and laying out such a tempting spread that even Carstairs was prevailed upon to join with the others and to defer his departure for another half-hour or so.

But finally he had to go, and Emmy, excusing herself, rose to see him as far as the door. And it was only then, as she looked round over her shoulder at leaving, and a flash of alertness came into her eyes, that Cleek was able to put his finger on a point which heretofore had baffled him. He had wondered from the first whose eyes hers reminded him of; now, when he saw them with that expression in them and accompanied by a certain twitching movement of the head, he knew!

Carstairs went his way, and Emmy returned to set about making matters as pleasant for the visitors as she knew how. Then, after a time, Emmy's father having come home and had his meal in the kitchen, and gone "straightaway up to bed, poor lad! the sun havin' give him a splittin' headache." Mrs. Costivan, too, came in while Emmy went out to wash up the dishes. It soon became very apparent to the two "London gentlemen" that they were not going to be allowed to get out of the sight of one or other of the occupants of this house for so much as one minute if the thing could be avoided.

Meantime, night was drawing in and Cleek, borrowing a sheet of paper and an envelope, sat down to "drop a line to my missus before I turn in." Mr. Narkom, taking his cue from this, slipped down in his chair and began to snore softly.

Cleek wrote on until darkness fell and the moon rose and all the tree-tops beyond the garden were picked out in silver; then sealed the letter in its envelope and put it into his pocket. He rose then, stretching and yawning, from his chair. Mr. Narkom, hearing him, opened a pair of blinking eyes and looked up.

"Bedtime?" he inquired, sleepily.

"'Most," said Cleek. "Feel like having a pipe and a toddle up and down the garden before turning in? Come along then, old sport. Mind our going through the kitchen, missus?"

Mrs. Costivan did not; but for fear they should not quite know the way, piloted them, and as they stepped out into the shadowy darkness and lighted up they were conscious of the fact that, as soon as she put out the kitchen light, she sat down beside the window and kept watch of them.

The flare of the lighted match had done more than merely supply fire for their pipes. They knew that it would; but they were in no haste. Time must be given and – they gave it. Three times they made the journey up and down the garden's length, smoking and chatting away now and again, before Cleek, coming abreast of the broken palings and the clump of elder bushes, ventured to say in a whisper, "Next time down be ready to grab the pipes!" and they faced round and strolled back toward the cottage again.

It was the fourth time down the garden that the thing was done. Suddenly both men gave a jump, Cleek shouting excitedly, "A hare, by Jove! Grab it!" Then both plunged into the elder bushes. A voice said, "Missed it! Lord, didn't the beggar bolt?" Then Hammond took Narkom's place and Petrie took Cleek's, and Mrs. Costivan, who had just started to run down to the spot where she had seen them dive out of sight, suddenly saw that they had come back laughing and twitting each other over their failure to catch the hare, and were again walking up and down the garden and smoking. And the good lady slipped back into the darkness again. And so it fell out that when the pipes were finished and the smokers tired enough to go to bed, it was Petrie and Hammond who slept that night under the thatch of the Costivan cottage.

CHAPTER XI
CLUES FROM A DEAD BODY

At a point just off the road, and where the thick trees hid it, the big car waited, with lights hooded and Lennard on watch. Narkom was the first to wriggle through the broken palings and make his way to it; a short time afterward Cleek, who had lingered to make sure that everything was safe, came up and joined him.

"They'll eat the beggars out of house and home, that pair, and lead them the devil's own game of follow-my-leader to-morrow," laughed the Superintendent. "And now then – what next?"

"What I told you back there, Mr. Narkom – the beginning of action. The race now will be to the swift. Lennard, hand me out that bag of fullers' earth. Look sharp! Thanks. Mr. Narkom, take this letter; I think you must have understood that I was writing it to you. Read it, then hop into the car and act upon it at once. No questions now, please – there isn't time. Simply go. Arrange things – you can change back to your own dapper self on the way – and then get back here as soon as you can. I shall be waiting for you at this spot. That's all."

It was – it had to be; for in an instant he had swung the bag up over his shoulder, moved away, and disappeared in the darkness of the woodland.

When, at the end of half an hour, however, Narkom returned from his errand, there Cleek stood again, leaning against a tree, with arms folded, his chin on his breast, and his forehead puckered thoughtfully.

"You are just one minute too soon, Mr. Narkom," he said, with a sort of sigh as the limousine halted and the Superintendent jumped out. "I was just working out a little question in mental arithmetic, and in another sixty seconds I should have had the answer. Look here: Given a space of two hundred and eighty feet in length by about, say, three feet in breadth, and intervals of probably three and a half yards between each balk, how many cubic feet of timber, one and a half inches thick and six inches broad, do you think it would take to – Oh! let it go! There isn't time at present. I'll work it out to-morrow. Come along – quick! We've plenty to do before those bells set up their peal to-night."

Here he sprang past the Superintendent and got briskly into the limousine. By the time Mr. Narkom joined him he was stripping off his coat.

"Now, then, down with the curtains and up with the light," he said, as Narkom shut the door and the car took the dark road at a lively clip. "Thanks very much. Sit this side, please, and let me get at the locker, and we'll dig up our old friend 'Mr. Philip Barch' for the rest of the game."

It still wanted some few minutes of ten o'clock when the limousine, panting up to the Valehampton almshouses, swung round the angle of the buildings and made its way to the small detached one which served the double purpose of isolation hospital and, when occasion demanded, morgue.

Here, in a small, brightly lighted anteroom, Cleek and Mr. Narkom found four persons waiting to receive them: Mr. Bevington Howard, the local justice of the peace; Mr. Hamish, the master of the almshouses; Mr. Naylor, the chief constable of the district; and a certain Dr. Alexander Forsyth.

They all rose as the Superintendent and his famous ally came in, and two of them at least – Mr. Howard and Mr. Naylor – regarded Cleek with deep-seated earnestness.

"Mr. Cleek, this is a pleasure and a privilege," said Howard. "I have long desired to meet you."

"Will you forget that you have done so, Mr. Howard, until after this Valehampton business is settled? It may hamper me somewhat if my identity is known too soon. I shall be obliged if you will think of me until then as one 'Philip Barch,' an ordinary civilian. And now, if you please, may I not see the body of Davis at once?"

Together the six men passed into the adjoining apartment, carrying with them the lamps which Mr. Hamish had supplied for the purpose, and in a minute's time all were standing round the bier upon which the dead man lay.

The body was that of a well-developed, muscular fellow, of about thirty years of age, big-framed, and in the very pink of physical condition, who in life must have been as strong as an ox and as difficult to handle in a rough-and-tumble fight as man could well be. Yet here he now lay, the whole back of his head crushed in, yet his face expressing no sign of any such agony as one would have thought must have convulsed it as the result of an injury so appalling. Instead, its expression was rather peaceful than otherwise. The features of a man who had died in his sleep could not have been more placid.

The curious, one-sided smile curved the corner of Cleek's mouth, and beckoning Mr. Narkom to hold the light closer, he bent down over the body, and with the aid of his lens minutely examined the ghastly wound. From that he went, in turn, to other points. With his thumb and forefinger he uncovered the dead eyes and studied the condition of cornea and pupil; from thence he turned to the lips – inspecting them with the glass, touching them, smelling them – then went to fingertips and the cuticular folds of the nails. At the end of five minutes he put his glass in his pocket and rose.

"Gentlemen," he said, gravely, "I think I shall be fairly correct in asserting that the wound on the back of this poor fellow's head was made by a sledge-hammer which had previously been used in demolishing an ordinary house wall of lath and plaster. There are distinct traces of both mortar and lime, and very minute particles of what, for want of a better term, one might call old wood dust, in the hair – those atoms which the blow of a heavy instrument upon wood that is in the primary stages of dry rot would cause to rise like dust. The man, having been addicted to the use of pomade for the hair, has furnished a very useful adhesive for the collection and retention of those particles.

"From the first, gentlemen, it has been a matter of great surprise to me that such an injury could be inflicted upon such a man without a terrific struggle and a very considerable uproar. It is a surprise to me no longer. I shall be something more than astonished if that blow was not delivered after death, and decidedly not at the place where the body was subsequently found."

"You think it was carried to the bell-tower, then?"

"Yes, Mr. Howard, I do. It was taken to that spot and left there for just such a purpose as it has served – namely, to divert every atom of suspicion from channels which might lead to the identification of the murderer and still further to strike terror into the minds of the ignorant and superstitious. If this man had carried into effect what he set out to accomplish last night, somebody stood to lose a pretty high stake. It was, therefore, to the interest of that somebody to prevent his doing it, and as this poor fellow was not the kind that could be coaxed or bribed or cajoled into a crooked course, the only preventive was the desperate one of death."

Here he turned to Doctor Forsyth and addressed him personally.

"Doctor," he said, "you may have wondered why the request was made to you to bring your surgical instruments and to meet these gentlemen here in the interests of science and the law. Let me confess that I made that request merely upon the off-chance of a theory of my own proving correct and requiring such services at your hands. I am now pretty thoroughly convinced that it is correct, and that this man's death is the direct result of poison."

"Poison, sir, poison?"

"Yes, Mr. Naylor, poison. Accepting, on the evidence of that fearful injury to the head, the cause of death as being the result of a blow, you would not, of course, look for any other in the face of a thing so apparent. It was quite natural. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the man was poisoned, and that that poison was administered through the medium of drink. There is a distinct odour of alcohol still clinging about the mouth, so there can hardly be a question that death must have ensued soon after the taking of a drink, and that the man neither smoked nor ate afterward. In the presence of these witnesses, Doctor Forsyth, have the goodness to perform an autopsy and to subject the contents of the stomach to chemical analysis. I'll lay my life that if you do – I know my man! That's all for the present, gentlemen. I will leave you to witness the autopsy, and will call for the result to-morrow. My compliments to you all; good-night!"

He turned and, beckoning Mr. Narkom to follow, walked out of the building and returned to the waiting limousine.

"Where now, sir?" questioned Lennard, as he appeared.

"To the River Colne," he replied. "Drive like the devil, and follow the river's course till I tell you to stop."

The limousine took the angle of the building with a rush and went racing off through the moonlight at a mile-a-minute clip.