Kitabı oku: «The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel», sayfa 6

CHAPTER IX
A DOUBLE TRAGEDY

Cleek sat forward in his seat suddenly, every nerve alert at this somewhat startling piece of news. Oho! So Ross Duggan was the only person possessing an air-pistol – and the laird had been killed by means of one, shot through the head in a dastardly fashion. Gad! it certainly wanted looking into! And the moment had been chosen with such precision that the alteration in that self-same will had never been made, and Ross Duggan still stood as chief heir to his father's estates!

That was a queer thing – a very queer thing! He flung up his eyebrows and twitched the corner of his mobile mouth.

"Your brother, Miss Duggan? I see. And how long ago was it that he bought that pistol, may I ask? And for what purpose?"

She gave an uneasy laugh which ended in a little sob that brought a look of pity to his eyes.

"Oh – ages and ages! Quite a couple of years ago, I think. Ross and a fellow-officer who was here for the fishing got it together. Ross had thought of a new idea for killing the big salmon after they had been played so long, and though exhausted were brought to shore alive. Everyone laughed at him, of course, and the thing never turned out to be anything; but Ross's idea was to shoot them as soon after swallowing the hook as was possible, and the soundless pistol wouldn't frighten the other fish. It was a ridiculous idea – but Ross imagined it would be more humane, though not nearly so much sport from the fisherman's point of view, as you know, Mr. Deland – and he tried it only once. He was teased out of it after that."

"And the pistol?"

"I really don't know … what became of it. I never saw it again, and, in fact, forgot all about it. But of course, Mr. Deland, Ross couldn't —couldn't!– oh, I beg of you, don't think of such a terrible thing for one instant! Ross adored his father always, in spite of the bad blood between them of later years."

"Quite so. Only, naturally, in the pursuit of duty one must ask all manner of irrelevant questions. You understand that, Miss Duggan, I hope? Of course your brother Ross would not think of such a thing. But if he is the only possessor of an air-pistol, well, naturally, circumstantial evidence will be rather unpleasant for him – unless something else turns up. I'd like to see your brother, if you please, and have a little chat with him. And then he will show me the – your father, and let me make a little perfunctory examination… By the way, how far away is the nearest police-station?"

"A matter of three miles. But the men have motorcycles, and should be here at any moment. Hark! that's Rhea's bell, isn't it? No doubt they have already come. Oh, Mr. Deland, what shall I say to them? I don't feel as though I could face a stranger now!"

Cleek laid his hand upon her shoulder as he rose to his feet.

"And you're not going to – have no fear of that," he replied kindly. "Remember, I represent Scotland Yard, Miss Duggan. This thing lies in my hands, and I am in command of it. I shall see the police-sergeant and make all necessary arrangements. The formalities will have to be observed, of course, for to-night, at any rate. No one must leave this house under any pretext whatever – neither servant nor guest. All doors and windows must be locked, and I shall set a guard about the place. But that will be my duty to attend to – not yours. So go and rest a little, if you can – and emulate your worthy stepmother (who, by the way, I want to see as soon as possible), after you have taken me to your brother, and we have had a little talk together… Would you mind conducting me to him now?"

She bowed her head dumbly, and passed out in front of him, down the long narrow passage with its armoured figures standing out in niches cut into the wall and its air of brooding mystery which so well fitted this tragic affair and lent still further colour to it. At last they reached the library. At the door of it she paused, hesitated, put her hand upon the handle of it, and then drew back with an involuntary shiver.

"I can't – I can't!" she said brokenly. "It's asking too much to go in and see him now – not until he has been placed as he ought to be, poor dear old Daddy! But Ross is in there with him, Mr. Deland. So if you just knock, and then enter, and tell him who you are, that will be all right… Those men are coming in, I know. I can hear them at the door now. Oh, please, please don't let me see them – I don't feel as if I could!"

"And you shan't – have no fear of that," he replied. "So be off with you as quick as you can, and lie down for half an hour, at any rate. And if I have need of you I'll send someone along with a message… Ah! they're coming… Good evening, Sergeant. You've been exceedingly prompt in coming along, I must say. And brought four men with you, too? That's good. We shall want 'em in this place. There's been a murder here – old Sir Andrew Duggan has been done to death in a mysterious manner – shot and stabbed at the same time. I've not yet looked at the body, but shall do so presently. Mr. Narkom will be down in the morning."

"Mr. Narkom? The Chief Superintendent, eh? Then – then may I ask who you are, sir?" responded Sergeant Campbell, in a deep, ringing voice which exactly fitted the huge figure of him.

Cleek bowed. He looked keenly into the gray eyes under the beetling brows, came to the rapid conclusion that here was a man who could keep his tongue in leash if required, and then with a glance over the four police-constables standing behind him, handed him a card upon which he had scribbled one word, and then watched the effect of it with dawning amusement as the knowledge soaked into the Inspector's consciousness.

"Name's Deland," he said with a knowing wink, speaking in the nick of time, before the Sergeant in his astonishment and admiration for this man who stood before him, and whose name was a household word upon the tongue of every policeman the world over, had quite given the show away to the rest of his followers. "Arthur Deland. You've probably heard of me, Sergeant, if you follow the doings of Scotland Yard at all. Came up here under Mr. Narkom's orders to handle another case, and then dropped —plop!– upon this one. Better come along now. I want you to set a couple of men before the library door, where the thing took place – nothing to be moved, of course, or touched in any way, until Mr. Narkom arrives – and then send another of your men back to fetch ten more reserves, and stand guard all round the house from the outside. Tell 'em to report to you every half hour, and if there's anything doing bring it along to me at once. You understand?"

"Yessir. Certainly, sir."

"Then come along."

He led the way through the long hall, past the gaping butler to whom this stranger, whom his master had entertained at lunch, and who was now so mysteriously in charge of affairs, seemed suddenly to have assumed a principal part in the affair, and to be showing his "nerve" in a good many ways; and with a quick order to him to see that all doors and windows were securely bolted and locked, so that no one could get in or out of the house save at the instigation of the Law and the Law's minions, Cleek passed on to that chamber of death where the old laird lay, and turning the handle softly, led the way in.

There was a light shining in the centre of the room from an old-fashioned lamp which stood upon the desk-top and sent a soft effulgence round and about it that lay like a halo upon the peace of that silent place. At the desk sat Ross Duggan, head in hands, shutting out the sight of the Thing that faced him in all the majesty of death, that Thing which so short a time back had been his own father, and now sat huddled forward in a fallen attitude in the swing-back office chair opposite Ross, transparent hands lying aimlessly upon the desk-top, head downthrown, jaw dropped, and with a little sinister blackened puncture in the temple telling the tale of the air-pistol's accurate aim only too well.

Cleek went up to the desk and laid his hand upon Ross's shoulder. In an instant the young man sprang to his feet, eyes ablaze, face chalk-white, startled and not a little displeased at this intrusion upon him and his dead by a man whom he had met only casually a few hours back, and who had witnessed that never-to-be-forgotten quarrel between him and his father which would sear his memory now forever.

"I – I – This is hardly the hour and the time, Mr. Deland," he began in a hushed voice; but Cleek silenced him, the queer little one-sided smile travelling up his cheek, and his eyes serious and not a little sad as they rested upon the haggard face of this heir to an unhappy inheritance.

"That's all right, my dear chap – really," he said in his clear, low-pitched voice. "You see, my profession happens to be that of a detective, and I stand at present as official representative of Scotland Yard. The Sergeant here has come to do his unpleasant duty, and place a guard over the body. It would be better for you, really, to go and lie down. After such a terrible shock…"

"I'll go, and gladly!" returned Ross with a grim nod of the head and a sudden warming of colour in the pale cheeks of him. "It's not been the pleasantest task sitting here with – him – like that, Mr. Deland. And as you happen to have jumped up from nowhere and taken matters so entirely in hand, I'll relinquish my trust. But I didn't somehow like to leave – him – alone. After what's happened – the strange method of his death – and all the rest of this ghastly affair, I meant to keep the rest of the world away from him, if possible, and if the murderer should chance to come back!" – a sudden light flashed into his eyes and involuntarily his body stiffened – "then I should be ready for him."

"Spoken like a soldier and a gentleman," said Cleek softly, with a nod of understanding. "Now I want to have a look at your father, Mr. Duggan. And I'd like it if you could just find it in your heart to stay here with me for a moment or two, and acquaint me with the facts. Your sister has told me the rough outline, and – "

"My sister?" His voice showed the surprise which this news elicited. "How did you see her, then?"

"That is a long story, which you shall hear some other time. At present she simply sent for me in a very quick and excellent manner, and I came at once. The worthy Sergeant and his men followed… Now, Sergeant, place your men as I told you, and I'll get on to the business of examination. I only want to get a rough idea of the true method of death, and glean what clues I can for Mr. Narkom, who will arrive in the morning… And, gad!" He glanced up at the huge clock which was ticking away the minutes and hours with sonorous voice. "It's getting on that way now. Now, Sergeant, if you can get one of your men to give me a hand with the body – "

Speaking, he moved it gently, until it lay half upon the pedestal desk-top, so that the light shone full upon the ghastly face, and rolled it tenderly over. There was a thin trickle of blood still oozing thickly from the left side of the breast, where the fine puncture of some almost needle-like instrument showed how successfully it had done its horrible duty. Cleek tore away the coat and waistcoat, stripped back the shirt from the frail body, and examined the wound through his little glass. In size it was no more than what might have been caused by a heavy bodkin, and in depth – so deep that it had no doubt punctured the inner walls of the heart, and, if successful in this method, caused immediate death to its victim.

He looked up quickly into Ross's downbent face, his own rather grim.

"A stiletto wound," he gave out in the sharp staccato of excitement. "See that fine, clean-cut edge? I've seen similar ones in Italy and in the southern parts of America. The blade's squarish, not flat as in the cases of most daggers. And it is amazingly sharp. That blow would cause a death-wound, undoubtedly. But I understand there was a shot fired as well – from an air-pistol, I imagine, as there was no sound. Now, the question is, where is that bullet, and from what direction was the shot fired? That'll tell us a lot."

Ross Duggan's face changed suddenly, as though a shadow had passed over it.

"That's the question, Mr. Deland," he replied in a tense voice. "If we could find out that, we could find out a good deal. But why this double crime should have been committed, Heaven alone can tell. My father had many enemies – but none who would have stooped to kill him – of that I am positive. And it is obvious that two have tried to do so. Look, here is the wound in the temple, just above the left eye. And it has gone clean through the head. Poor old Dad! Poor, misguided old Dad! How I hate that woman Paula and all her wiles and ways! If any one's at fault in this dastardly business, Mr. Deland, you can count upon her! Her father swung for a similar crime (she doesn't know I know that) and if she has done this terrible thing she, too, shall swing, as he did! Whoever has done this cruel, wicked thing, Mr. Deland, shall be brought to justice, if I have to scour the world over for the murderer."

"Ah – who? That is the question, my friend," returned Cleek quietly, stooping over the bowed white head with its thatch of snowy hair, and tracing the path of the bullet through it in his mind's eye. "H'm! Went through here and came out – Gad! here's the puncture! Right here! So that somewhere in this room that bullet has lodged itself, and when that is found we shall have our finger upon the pulse of this dreadful tragedy more surely than we know… Heigho! It's two-thirty, and in this semi-darkness little to be done until the morning sends us its kindly rays. So we must leave things as they are for the present, and later go over the whole thing with clear heads and rested minds… Sergeant, I put you in charge. A man outside of the window there, please, and another one in this room, and still another outside the door, and if any one tries to get in or out, blow your whistle and I'll be with you in a jiffy… Come, Mr. Duggan. You're looking terribly white and fagged. Let's have a whisky-and-soda – if you'd be so good as to extend your hospitality so far – and then I'll make myself a shake-down in the next room, if you've no objection. I've given orders for no one to be allowed to leave the house until morning and until parole is given to do so, so you need have no fear of one of the murderers escaping."

"I – I – What's that you say?" stammered out Ross, swinging round and looking at Cleek with drawn brows and flashing eyes. "You've given orders in my house! I say, you know, this is a bit thick; and – and who the dickens do you think would have done the thing in this place, may I ask? You're rather overstepping the bounds of common hospitality, Mr. Deland, in your role of private detective. And I must ask you to leave the ordering of things to me."

"And that, I am afraid, is exactly what I can't do, my friend," replied Cleek serenely, with a crooked smile. "Simply because, according to your somewhat one-eyed and one-sided English law, every one is a suspect until he is proved innocent. You, your sister, your stepmother, even your fiancée – who, I suppose, is spending the night here with her cousin Miss Dowd, under the present circumstances as my orders were issued a little earlier in the evening – every member of this household comes under the unwilling stigma of a possible perpetrator of this crime."

"Damn it! – I say – how dare you – "

"We policemen dare everything, Mr. Duggan, because that is our duty, you know," he responded smoothly. "And, besides, there's one thing more. Someone here has an air-pistol, and the owner of that has got to be found. I've an inkling, supplemented by a few words dropped by your sister, but we'll let that pass. Only, the owner of the air-gun is not going to escape this house to-night. That's all, I fancy. Sergeant, good-night. Or, rather, good morning. You'll call me if necessary, won't you? I shall be in the very next room. And – Mr. Duggan, if you don't happen to have that whisky handy, you needn't bother. I've a flask in my pocket."

CHAPTER X
THE WOMAN IN THE CASE?

There was no call during the long watches of the night, no untoward happenings of any sort. Cleek, sleeping with one eye open, rose now and again and crept silent-footed out into the passage, doing a little bit of listening in upon his own account. But nothing of any moment happened. And so when at length the house was astir, and the sound of servants with their brushes and brooms began to make their usual early-morning clamour, he shook himself awake, got to his feet, and went off into the bathroom, where Ross Duggan's safety-razor worked wonders with his over-night beard, and a wash under the cold-water tap still more.

Returning, he stopped at the door of that chamber of tragedy where the one-time master of all this vast inheritance of stone and moorland lay, Death wiping from his aged face every line and leaving it as smooth as a child's.

"I want to have a little poke round for myself," he told the constable on duty outside the door, who instantly let him in, as became a representative of Scotland Yard. "You might send someone up to the Inn of the Three Fishers with this note, and see that it gets delivered immediately into the hands of a chap named Dollops. It's important."

"Very good, sir."

"And in the meantime, I'll see that no one enters this room, I promise you. Inspector Petrie himself will be around presently. And Superintendent Narkom should be with us at twelve o'clock or thereabouts."

Left alone, therefore, in the early morning sunlight of that perfect June day, Cleek made his way into the still room, closed the door behind him, and then, glancing up, caught sight of the stolid back of the constable on duty outside of the courtyard window, and not being wishful to enter into conversation with him, began to poke about of his own accord.

But the room held little or no clues for him to go upon. Not in the first rough glance, at any rate. Over by the window, where it had stood upon the previous day, when Maud Duggan had shown it to him, stood the spinning wheel, innocently incongruous indeed in this room of Death. He gave it a casual glance, and then turned to the desk-top where a pile of papers lay scattered in some disarray upon its leather surface.

Cleek ran his fingers quickly through these, glancing at each of them in turn.

"He was just about to alter the will, was he? Well, if that were so, the will should be here now – and it isn't," he said to himself, with suddenly up – flung brows. "Queer thing! Unless someone put it away. I'll try the drawers. There should be no secrets from a detective, my poor misguided friend, and if the drawers don't answer to my fingers, I'm going to search your pockets for the key – though to steal from the dead is a ghoulish business at the best of times… Hello, hello! Locked, of course! Brrrh! I don't fancy the task at all, but I mean to have my little look-in before any of the other members of the family get downstairs for their breakfast. So here goes."

Still mentally talking to himself, Cleek went over to the Thing that had once been Sir Andrew Duggan, and plunged his hands in the trousers' pockets without more ado. A bunch of keys rewarded the search. He ran them over adroitly in his fingers; chose one which he thought would fit the lock of the drawers, found it didn't fit, chose another, and this time was more successful. For the top left-hand drawer of that handsomely carved desk slid noiselessly open for him, stopped automatically, and gave a funny little click. In a moment he had slid down on his knees beside that gruesome figure which so impeded his progress, and slipped his fingers up under the drawer (which was half full of papers and so allowed him to do so), touched something which felt like a button, and was a button. Then the drawer came forward in his hand, and revealed at back of it another one, which at a touch of that button had dropped its front panel so that it formed a pigeon-hole. As he peered into the recesses of this, he saw a bundle of yellowed papers tied about with a faded piece of pink ribbon, and immediately drew them forth into the light.

"Whew! What a beastly dust! Well, I've met this kind of a desk before, so fortunately you're no closed book to me, my friend," he apostrophized it, as a powder of dust flew over his fingers as he touched the packet. "Here's something which wants looking into, so I'll appropriate it now, and have a squint at it later. Secretive old chap he was, then! With his secret drawers and all! Looks like a bundle of old love-letters to all intents and purposes, but written on paper that one would hardly have called suitable for such tender epistles. Commonest kind of note-paper – village note-paper." He drew a sheet from the packet and held it up to the light. "And with a water-mark of a crown and anchor… Hello! bit of an illiterate lady, wasn't she, who penned these lines! For the spelling's pretty shaky. And signed Jeannette… H'm. Some pretty little amour which has held such savour as to be preserved in this form until after death – poor old fellow! Well, I'll look into it later. Couldn't have been from the first Lady Duggan, for her name was Edith. Miss Duggan herself told me that. And … Jeannette! Now, I wonder…"

But what he wondered was never recorded at that time, for just then came the sound of a soft footstep upon the hall without, the rattle of a door-handle and the gentle opening of the door itself; and Cleek had just time to whisk away the packet, and assume an appearance of stolid nonchalance, when someone came into the room on silently shod feet, stepped a few paces forward, and then, seeing him, gave out a little shriek and shut her two hands over her breast spasmodically.

"Oh! —how you startled me!" gave out Lady Paula breathlessly, as she recognized who the intruder was. "What can you be doing here, Mr. Deland? The police … this awful tragedy."

Cleek bowed and came toward her with outstretched hand.

"My dear Lady Paula," he said suavely, "I represent the police myself. I happen to have taken up criminology many years ago, and came up here to Scotland upon a little holiday. This terrible thing that has happened brought me immediately here to do my duty and to give what little help I could to you all in your bereavement. And so here I am. I beg of you, don't stay in this apartment now. It is no place for a lady – particularly a lady so highly strung and nervous as yourself."

"But how – did you ever – come to hear about it?" she demanded, stepping back a pace or two, with her eyes carefully avoiding that Thing which lay huddled there before them – mute reminder of all the terrors that had happened the night before. "How could you have known, Mr. Deland – "

"I mentioned the fact of my profession to your stepdaughter yesterday, and she immediately summoned me here. And, of course, I came. Anything which I can do…"

"Thank you. But there is nothing – nothing! I came in now because last night I – dropped my handkerchief, and it was one which I very much value, because my dear husband gave it to me upon the anniversary of our wedding-day. Duchesse lace, Mr. Deland, and with my name embroidered across the corner. And I knew, if the police found it, that I – I should never get it back again. Everything, you see, becomes a clue, doesn't it? But it seems not to be here."

Her agitation was very apparent, and Cleek mentally registered the fact that the excuse was a tame one, and utterly untrue.

"No," he said, "it isn't here, Lady Paula. And, as you say, if it were, I could not give it to you. Go back to your room, I beg, and lie down. You look ghastly pale; and after breakfast I shall have need of your help, believe me. So go, please. And leave me to this gruesome vigil alone… Oh, by the way, do you happen to remember, during last night's many and terrible happenings, whether the will which Sir Andrew was about to alter (I have the facts of the case, you see, from Miss Duggan herself) was put away by any member of the family? Because it isn't here, you know."

He swept his hand out across the desk-top in an expressive gesture. Her face flushed rosily, and something like a startled light, half of gladness, half of fear, showed in her wide, velvety eyes. But she shook her head.

"It was never touched – to my knowledge," she said emphatically. "And I happen to remember that fact, for in the confusion of everything that followed, when we were looking at my poor, poor husband, it fell to the ground, and Maud picked it up again and laid it over there, under those other things that my husband had been looking into. I noted the fact, even in my despair, as one does note these little trivial things in the midst of a great trouble, Mr. Deland. But it was there – I am positive. And you can't find it now?"

"No, Lady Paula."

"Oh! Then undoubtedly Maud has hidden it away somewhere, in case I might steal it, I suppose, and so do her precious brother out of his inheritance, if such a thing were possible."

The venom in her voice was like the bite of a serpent – positively poisonous, and Cleek gave her a quick, keen look.

"Hardly that, Lady Paula. And – well, I don't happen to be well up on these matters at all, the law, y'know, and all that – only the law of criminals, and that's an altogether different thing. No doubt one of the family has put it away. It will turn up in time. Now, please go away before the rest of the constables arrive. You will want every atom of your strength to see this appalling thing through, believe me, and therefore I insist that you harbour it."

She smiled up at him sadly, and turned upon her heel, her trailing pink negligée whisking across the thickly carpeted floor like the tail of some sinuous snake, weighted as it was with one heavy beaded tassel.

"Very well – if you wish," she said quietly, with an arch glance at him; but as she went something white fluttered to the ground in the wake of her, and Cleek, waiting until she had gone, closed the door softly, and then bent down and whisked it up.

It was a handkerchief – a mere wisp of gossamer, with Duchesse lace edge, and the name Paula written in embroidery across one corner of its fragile square.

A little twisted smile flitted across his face as he looked at it, and then suddenly his mouth went grim. This was obviously the handkerchief in question – and she had had it upon her person every moment of the time! So that excuse was a false one, from the start-out. Then, too, a woman who could look archly at another man over her own husband's dead body was surely no woman at all, but a harpy in woman's guise. It was ghoulish, horrible!.. And if the excuse were false, what did she come for – in the early hours of the morning, when servants were only just astir in the other wing of the house, and she knew that there was that dead Thing who had been her husband to be confronted? Would a woman face a murdered man for a mere handkerchief?.. She would lose a thousand such sooner, from what he knew of the feminine sex.

No, there was some other reason, and that a secret one. Was it the will? But that was already gone. Was it to remove some distinguishing clue which she feared might be found to connect her with this crime?

What was it?