Kitabı oku: «The Riddle of the Purple Emperor», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XIX
THE TWIN SCARVES

To say that the village went mad with excitement when the bodies of the two victims, man and woman, were laid side by side in the great ballroom of Cheyne Court was to underestimate the case altogether. The villagers were literally crazed for the time being, and when news reached them, as such news will, that an inquest was to be held in that identical spot in a day or two, daft was no name for their condition at all.

Cleek himself would have smiled at the rumours which were rife.

So a revolver had been found beside the body of the murdered man who had so successfully impersonated the Honourable Miss Cheyne herself, had it? And – what? No, it couldn't be possible! Mrs. So-and-So had whispered that that identical revolver was the property of Sir Edgar himself! It was too much to believe; too horrible to think about! That little Master Edgar whom they had watched grow up from a toddling babe of two, prattling to his nurse on their walks through the village, and winning their hearts with the sweetness of his manner, that that child should have grown up and become a murderer. The thought was impossible.

When the day of the inquest finally arrived, all Hampton turned out and put in an appearance at Cheyne Court.

To tell the exact truth, Cleek's own mind was suffused for the time being with something that closely resembled doubt as regards Sir Edgar's innocence in the whole awful affair. Circumstantial evidence he had always regarded as a spider's web of coincidence to be brushed aside with the broom of a man's reason. But, somehow, this was different.

He took his stand at the back of the great ballroom, and watched with keen eyes and saddened heart, while the coroner put forth the case in all its bald appallingness.

In a sort of dream he heard that gentleman impart to the jury gathered there for the purposes of justice the colossal fact that they were met together to inquire primarily into the death of an unknown man, whose identification, up to the present, they had wholly failed to establish.

Cleek shifted upon his feet and cast a quick glance over to the other side of the room, where Bobby Wynne and his sister Jennifer stood together, listening with unveiled interest. If they were in no way connected with it, their morbid curiosity in the affair sickened him. But if they were—

Watching the scene, as a mere spectator (he had particularly requested Mr. Narkom to make arrangements that he should not be called in any official capacity) Cleek felt that he could more clearly review the situation.

Constable Roberts was the first witness to be called. He told, briefly, of his encounter with the young "military gent," who had fetched him in a car at 10 o'clock on March 11th, and dragged him forth upon what proved eventually to be nothing more than a wild-goose chase. The lady whom the young gent had said was lying dead was alive, "and very much alive, sir!" added the constable with some conviction, "and 'e was as took in as wot I was meself."

Cleek nodded at this, and the little one-sided smile slid slowly up his face at this unconscious admission.

The coroner also nodded.

"Indeed," he said, in proper judicial manner, "and did you meet no one then upon the return journey, Mr. Roberts?"

"Er – er – " Roberts began, staring confusedly round the room, and turning red, "that is, no one as is any bearings upon the case, so to speak – not suspicious at all wasn't, sir, and – and – "

But the Coroner's voice broke in upon his flounderings with sharp incisiveness.

"That isn't altogether your affair, Mr. Roberts," he said, concisely, "the meting out of justice lies in other hands, and whether he was a suspicious character or not remains, of course, to be seen. The point is, who was it?"

A sort of grayness dropped down like a veil over the policeman's ruddy countenance, he drew in his breath with a little gasp, and passed a hand over his perspiring forehead.

"The gentleman wot I saw was Sir Edgar Brenton," he said, suddenly, in a strangled voice, "but what 'e 'as to do with it, beats me. For 'e was coming back from the station – "

"How do you know that?"

"Because 'e said so," responded the constable, decisively.

The simplicity of the statement, and the utter belief in the man's voice, brought a sudden look of sympathy flashing across Cleek's countenance. It was the finest tribute to the character of the young man that he could receive. The Coroner's voice broke in upon Cleek's thoughts.

"You may stand down," he said. And the Constable stood down with a look of relief upon his countenance.

The second witness was Dr. Verrall, pale-faced and calm, but with an odd look in his eyes that caused Cleek to watch him closely. Right through his evidence he gave the impression of saying only just as much as was absolutely necessary, and of keeping something back. But upon one point he was clear.

"Your first belief, then," the Coroner said, quietly, "was that the deceased was shot by the revolver at his side?"

"Yes."

"And afterward?"

"Afterward, unmistakable traces were pointed out by Inspector Headland who was on the scene when I arrived, and I came to the conclusion that he had undoubtedly been poisoned by prussic acid compressed into a tabloid by the use of magnesia."

A quiver of interest swept over the assembled audience. Poisoned! Then perhaps Sir Edgar —

"Was it possible for the man to have taken it himself; committed suicide, in fact?" put in the Coroner, breaking in upon the thought that was in every heart.

"No. There were finger-marks upon his neck showing that he had been seized, and the poisoned pellet pushed forcibly down his throat. Death must have taken place almost immediately."

The Coroner cleared his throat.

"Would it be possible to identify the finger-prints, Dr. Verrall?" he asked. For the fraction of a second there was no reply. The doctor hesitated, coughed affectedly, and passed his hand across his mouth. Then:

"Hardly," he responded in a cool, clear voice. "Death had taken place fully an hour or so before. They were evidently long, slender fingers, but that was all that could be gathered."

"H'mn! Slender, eh? A woman's possibly?"

Something like fear came into the doctor's face, and was gone again in a twinkling.

"Certainly not!" he snapped back with a sudden show of vehemence. "They were decidedly those of a man. Besides, there were the marks of a heavy seal ring upon the throat."

A seal ring? Like a flash the thought telegraphed itself over the long, crowded room. Cleek gave a hasty glance backward over his shoulder, and encountered the eye of Sir Edgar Brenton standing near the doorway, with his pale-faced mother beside him.

But other eyes than Cleek's were looking in his direction now. A seal ring? And Sir Edgar's seal had been upon his finger ever since he attained his majority! Every member of the village community recollected his delighted pleasure when that day came round… And there were marks of a seal ring upon the murdered man's throat.

"And where was the revolver found?" the Coroner inquired.

"Close by the dead man's side. He had been dead quite a long time before he was shot, and rigour mortis was already setting in. Whoever fired the shot sent it into a dead man's breast."

"Quite so… And I understand that this is the revolver in question." He held up a little dark metal object that caught the light in one vivid bar along its slim barrel.

Dr. Verrall bowed his head.

"That is so," he said, calmly.

"And do you know to whom it belongs?"

"I cannot say."

There was a hushed silence fraught with a sort of stalking terror that sent every heart beating and every pulse drumming with the awful thought of what might be.

Then:

"That will do for the present, Dr. Verrall. Thank you very much," came in the same clear tones and the crowd heaved a sigh of relief. Who would be the next to be called?

The next to be called proved to be no less a person than Mr. Maverick Narkom himself, who in his concise fashion related for the edification of all present how he and his colleague, Mr. George Headland, of Scotland Yard, had together discovered the body.

"Were there any signs of a struggle?" asked the Coroner, quietly, with a little added show of respect for the dignity of his witness's position.

"Yes," responded Mr. Narkom, excitedly. "Decidedly there were. That was evidenced by the scrap of torn lace found in the dead man's hand, and – "

"Torn lace?" echoed someone involuntarily aloud. Then there was a woman in it, after all!

Mr. Narkom mopped his forehead with a handkerchief and glanced about him.

"Yes, torn lace, gold lace," he reiterated.

"Can you identify it?"

There was a momentary hesitation; meanwhile, Cleek's eyes sought his and Cleek's lips seemed to say: "Be careful. Keep Lady Margaret out of it if you can," and Mr. Narkom responded to that appeal with surprising alacrity.

"I can't say that I can," he said with a slight smile and a shake of the head.

But the Coroner had not done with the subject yet. He held the little fragment of gold high above his head, and then handed it round the table.

"Can any one identify it?" he asked, and all eyes went instantly in its direction. There was no response, only, as Cleek looked, a queer, shocked sort of expression came over Sir Edgar's countenance.

Just as Cleek's face dropped into lines of concentrated thought there came the sound of a voice somewhat high-pitched and clear, with the carefully accurate accent of a foreigner. Cleek whipped round to see the slim, turbaned figure of Gunga Dall standing far back in the room.

"If I may be so permitted," he said in the bland, smooth fashion of his, as the crowd instinctively parted and made way for him to come to the front, "I should like to identify that scrap of gold lace."

Identify it? The hush that came over the room could almost be felt, it was so intense, so absolute.

"We shall be pleased to receive your evidence," broke in the Coroner, shortly; he, like Sir Edgar, had no partiality for "niggers."

There was a sort of polite regret upon Gunga Dall's dark features. He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands, with a little pucker of the lips that bespoke dislike of the task he had in hand.

"I am sorry to say that it is the property of Lady Margaret Cheyne," he said, serenely.

There was a moment of tense silence. You could have heard a pin drop in the ballroom.

Cleek sucked in his breath and stood a moment eyeing the Hindoo. If that were so – but the thought was too utterly horrible to be longer entertained.

There followed the sound of a little cry echoing across the crowded room. Cleek's eyes went in the direction of it, and saw that Lady Brenton had gone dead white, and that her lips were pinched and blue. Sir Edgar, in a sort of mad abandonment, was pushing his way up through the audience, his eyes flashing, his fists clenched, the red blood flaring in his face, and all his virile young manhood up in defence of the woman he loved.

"Say that again, you damned liar, and I'll thrash you within an inch of your precious life!" he shouted. "You can't prove it – you absolutely can't, I say! It isn't her scarf at all – "

"And I say it is!" responded Gunga Dall with an unpleasant little laugh. "Because I happened to have given it to her myself and – "

"You take care what you're saying," returned Sir Edgar in a passion of white heat. "You dare to suggest that you've given her presents."

The Coroner's upraised hand silenced him.

"If you please," he began, "permit Mr. Dall to continue with his evidence without interruption. This is hardly the time or the place, Sir Edgar, for the airing of one's particular – er – differences. You say the scarf belongs to Lady Margaret Cheyne, Mr. Dall?"

"I do. For I myself gave it to her. I met her on the journey over from Boulogne to Folkestone, and I happened to show the scarf to her. She admired it, and on the impulse of the moment I pressed her to accept it. It was one of a pair."

Of a pair, eh? So there was the loophole of escape for Lady Margaret after all. Cleek's head went up.

The coroner leant a little forward in his seat and stared up into the Hindoo's impassive countenance.

"And where, may I ask, is the other?" he inquired.

The blow fell unexpectedly, but with more force in consequence.

For even as Gunga Dall commenced to speak there followed a little commotion at the back of the room. Someone had fainted, there was a hushed call for smelling salts and brandy.

"The other scarf is, or was," said the Hindoo, quietly, "in the possession of Lady Brenton, to whom I gave it last week!"

It was like a thunderbolt in the quiet room. Cleek snatched up his hat and ran over to where Mr. Narkom stood.

"You've got to close this inquiry before it goes any further," he whispered, hurriedly. "We've got to make more investigations before that nigger's assertion is allowed to carry any weight with the evidence. We've got to close this inquiry at once, my friend!"

Mr. Narkom nodded, then crossed over to the Coroner and spoke to him in a low, hurried voice.

That gentleman seemed to acquiesce in whatever statement the Superintendent made, and shortly afterward declared the case postponed.

Slowly the people began to file out of the room in twos and threes, but even as they did so came the sound of a terrible moaning, the sound that Cleek had heard so many times before, but from whence it issued, was impossible to tell. Long drawn out and wailing as a dog's death-howl, it floated over the room, striking fear into every heart by its very ghastliness. What was it? What could it be?

Horrified, the listeners looked at one another in blank dismay. Even Mr. Narkom's usually ruddy countenance had undergone a change as the sound came to his ears. Supernatural or not it acted like a charm, for in another minute the room was cleared and Cleek, Mr. Narkom and the Coroner stood alone.

"Strange thing, isn't it?" said that gentleman, as he fetched his hat and moved over toward the door in the act of following upon the heels of his jury-men.

Mr. Narkom nodded.

"Very. Coming along, Headland?"

"No, not just for a moment or two. I want to look round for myself if you don't mind. Just an odd fancy, don't you know! But don't wait for me, Mr. Narkom. I'll see you later on."

Even as they left, once again there sounded that uncanny wail, seeming to come from the very depths of the earth. Cleek felt that he was alone in a haunted house.

CHAPTER XX
A TWISTED CLUE

Before another quarter of an hour had passed Cleek was the sole inmate of Cheyne Court. He sat with shoulders hunched up and head thrust forward, seeking to pierce the cloud that hung over the heads of the two young people to both of whom he had been undeniably attracted.

He was as anxious to restore Lady Margaret to the arms of her lover as Sir Edgar himself and it was only because he felt that the discovery of the Purple Emperor would be bound up in some inexplicable manner with the girl herself that he had striven to elucidate the puzzle.

He had contrived to get the inquest postponed for a week, for he felt instinctively that had the case been left to take its course, a verdict against Sir Edgar Brenton of wilful murder would have been the result. Like a flash had come back to him the words of Ailsa Lorne about Sir Edgar's purchase of prussic acid to poison an old dog. And after all, it had never been used; at least not for that purpose! Had it then been only a blind? Had the desperate lover conceived the plot to murder the woman whom he believed to stand in the way of his marriage with Lady Margaret? Impossible! Yet love is a strange madness. And what had he been doing with the revolver in his pocket on that first night? Where, too, did Miss Jennifer and her idiot of a brother come into the puzzle, and Lady Brenton? Cleek pinched up his chin and stood a moment looking out of the window across the stretch of straggling, unkempt lawn that lay beyond it. He was seated in the wide window seat of the ballroom that had been the scene of the dual tragedy. All at once his trained ears caught the sound of a footfall on the path outside the window. Not a man's foot, either! What woman was it that would remain behind in this place of ill omen? Noiselessly he raised his head and looked out of the window, but he was unable to see any one. He listened intently, then, of a sudden, twitched up his head with a jerk, and crouched forward.

For the woman's footfalls had ceased, brought to a stop by others heavier, yet light in themselves, padding swiftly along the path. No sooner had they got within hailing distance of the woman than the eager, frightened voice of Lady Brenton sounded across the silence of the deserted place.

"Mr. Dall," said that enlightening voice, with the catch of a half-sob in it. "Thank Heaven you have not gone! This is the only place where we can meet with safety. Why – oh, why did you mention about those lace scarves? You don't know how they will gossip now, all the narrow-minded, evil-thinking folk in the neighbourhood. Why did you want to see me here like this? Tell me quickly, for I am frightened to death of this place."

"Are you?" the Hindoo's voice was smooth, almost sneering. "My dear lady, why be more frightened by day than by night? You were not frightened when you fluttered in by that window barely a month ago. Did you kill the old lady? I wonder – why were you not honest with me?"

"Kill? Kill whom, Mr. Dall? My God, what are you talking about?"

The sneer in the Hindoo's voice was less veiled than ever.

"Why, the real Miss Cheyne, of course. Why didn't you leave that to me? I should have done it far better, believe me."

Cleek caught the sound of a strangled breath and his pulses drummed.

"Good Heavens, man!" came Lady Brenton's voice again, "are you mad to accuse me of such a thing? Why should I murder her, poor creature? And how?"

Came a cackle of harsh laughter like a shot on a tin roof.

"Well acted, my lady, but it won't work. Don't forget, I saw you in that very room, when, according to our old friend, Constable Roberts, Miss Cheyne was dead. Well, who killed her, I say? You did not know I saw you but I caught sight of your golden scarf as you bent over the body – "

Cleek sucked in his breath hard and a brighter sparkle shone in his half-shut eyes. So Lady Brenton was there, was she? If this were true, then Sir Edgar knew more than he professed, and he was shielding someone other than Lady Margaret – and that someone was his own mother!

Lady Brenton had remained perfectly still, as though dumbfounded at the charge made against her. Either that was it, or she was striving how best to free herself from the power of this man who held her guilty secret.

Then she spoke suddenly.

"You really mean that you think I killed that poor defenceless old woman?"

Cleek could fairly see the cynical smile that crept over the man's features, for the tones of his voice betrayed it.

"Dear lady," he answered, "it is what anybody would say if they had seen you, as I saw you, emerge from that room with a gold lace scarf round your face. I watched you cross that lawn and vanish in the darkness."

"That is not the truth," she flung back with a sudden awakening from the kind of stupor which up till now had overcome her. "I never wore that gold scarf for the simple reason I did not possess one at that time. I was never near Cheyne Court. If you say you saw me, you are saying what is absolutely untrue. And there is another thing, since you are so sure that I was responsible for that horrible deed, what were you doing at Cheyne Court that night at all?"

Gunga Dall's answer to Lady Brenton's question was given so quickly, even as Cleek himself echoed the thought in his own mind, that he might well have been forgiven in believing that it had been prepared beforehand.

"I followed you, my dear lady – "

"Followed me?" she repeated. "From where, pray? Oh, this is intolerable!"

"I saw you as I turned into the lane and I rather wondered, as was only natural, what you were doing at that unearthly hour and place."

"So I should think," responded Lady Brenton with a little sniff of disdain; "the same might apply to you, Mr. Dall."

That gentleman laughed softly.

"I came to see if I could speak to Lady Margaret Cheyne," he replied, "you must remember I had met her previously in Paris."

"I do remember, only too plainly, and how you gave me no peace till I had introduced you, but that is no reason why you should call upon her at night, after she had had a long journey. Besides, how did you know she was expected home? I hardly knew myself till quite late and by a chance word overheard from Miss Cheyne herself in the post office. How did you come to hear of it?"

That very idea was already formulating itself in Cleek's own mind at the same time. How, indeed? But Gunga Dall was evidently prepared for the question.

"In the same way as yourself, my dear lady," he returned, glibly, "the young lady at the office was busy talking about Lady Margaret's return and I made up my mind then to pay her a visit, but I had not intended to call at that hour. I just took a little walk and my steps led me by accident – or what you English people call Providence – past the house. Then I saw you, and you beckoned to me, so naturally I followed in your wake. I saw you enter the house, the front door was open, and I waited and waited, and at last out of curiosity I, too, went through the door, and closed it behind me.

"I tell you when I stood in that ballroom, and lit a match for a cigarette and saw that old woman dead, and you bending over her – "

"It is a lie!" threw in Lady Brenton, vehemently. "I was never there! Never!"

"But you were!" he repeated, emphatically. "What is the use of denying what we both know? At sight of you there I was staggered – is not that your word? – and turning on my heel I ran right out of the house. Then I remembered you were still in the place, and to try and help you, dear lady, I went back, and peered through that window. I could not have gone into it – no, not for a thousand rupees! The horror of it all was so strong! But fortunately you were gone, and so I have bided my time to tell you what I want, both from you and your interesting son Edgar."

All this time Lady Brenton had remained as if stupefied by this web that was being woven round her, but the sound of her beloved son's name aroused her.

"Edgar!" she cried in a high, shrill voice. "What has he got to do with it?"

"Everything, dear lady," was the smooth reply, "for when I came out of the grounds I walked nearly up against him, and he was in such a state of agitation that he never even noticed me till I spoke to him!"

"Edgar?" echoed Lady Brenton again, a note of fear as well as surprise in her voice. "Edgar in the grounds of Cheyne Court on that night?" and Cleek could have blessed her for the note of doubt which her tone held, for this was assuredly one of the points which he himself desired to have explained satisfactorily. "But what was Edgar doing at such an hour and in such a place? Why, he was at a public dinner, now I remember, so it is impossible!"

"Not so impossible, dear lady. Sir Edgar himself said that he had come to meet Lady Margaret."

In the shadow of the window curtain Cleek puckered up his brows and thoughtfully pinched his chin. So that was the young gentleman's explanation of his presence in the grounds, was it? Plausible enough, though it differed greatly from the explanation he had tendered to Lieutenant Deland. However, that was only to be expected… After all, it might be merely a red herring drawn across the path. Surely, the station was the right place to await a fiancée's return from abroad, not the grounds of her home – late at night! But then he had little belief in the young man's guilt, and there was every possibility that Sir Edgar had followed in his mother's footsteps with a view to finding out her purpose.

For that Lady Brenton had been in that vicinity, Cleek felt almost certain despite her vehement denial. The bond between mother and son was beyond all doubt a very close one. It might well be that the two had played at cross purposes and been bent on shielding one another. But he had not thought that Sir Edgar —

Gunga Dall's soft, purring voice broke in upon his thoughts, and Cleek pricked up his ears to listen.

"It was his mention of Lady Margaret that made me wonder whether you, too, had gone for that purpose," the Hindoo went on, "that's how I came to see you there, I suppose – "

"You did not see me there!" she flung back, indignantly. "Really, this is unbearable! I tell you I was not near Cheyne Court that night, Mr. Dall, and I will not stop another second to hear such abominable charges against me! No, please do not follow me, or speak to me, you have done me injury enough this morning with your foolish blundering remark about the scarves."

A moment she stood there irresolute, then turned and sped down the path across the lawn like a fleet shadow. As she went, Cleek heard the sound of a soft, throaty chuckle which came to him as he crouched in his hiding place. Then the padding footsteps followed in Lady Brenton's wake and died away into the silence of the deserted place.

For a moment Cleek sat there, lost in thought. There had been a certain note of truth in the voice of Gunga Dall which told him instinctively that Lady Brenton had been there on that night, deny it as she might, and Sir Edgar, too. That both would fight tooth and nail to keep their visit a secret to the world he felt no less assured.

But why had either of them – mother or son – been concealed in the house that night? Could it have been Lady Brenton whose figure had flitted across the lawn before his startled eyes? True, it had worn a gold scarf and, according to her ladyship, at that moment she had not possessed such an article. Still, there was more than one kind of gold scarf in the world, and even Indian ones were quite easily obtainable.

Then why had she been forced to introduce Gunga Dall to Lady Margaret when the child had been in Paris? Was there some power that the Hindoo possessed over the elder woman? All these thoughts raced through his mind – but —

And then of a sudden he became alert, for out of the silence of the night and in at the window again came the sound of footsteps tip-toeing softly by. Even as he stared out with sharp, discerning eyes, a figure flitted by. It was a figure that made Cleek's heart beat wildly for it was the figure of Sir Edgar Brenton himself!