Kitabı oku: «The Riddle of the Night», sayfa 8

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A CLEW FROM THE AIR

Cleek did not have to wait for his answer.

"Yes, certainly I will," said Geoff instantly. "If there's nothing more than that behind it, I'll give you my word of honour and go this moment if you want me to do so."

"And you will say nothing, absolutely nothing, to any living soul about this – about me – about anything that has happened here?"

Young Clavering gave his promise promptly; and, with equal promptness, Cleek walked forward, unlocked the handcuff, and set him free, leading him back along the passage to the stone steps, and being careful as they passed through the cell where the murdered Common keeper's clothing lay that no ray from the torch should disclose his ghastly find. At the foot of the stone staircase he came to a halt.

"Now go," he said, "and remember that I trust you. Come back when you like to-morrow and make what explanation you please regarding your absence. I've trusted you with one or two secrets, and I will trust you with another: there's good proof, my lad, that what you said about Lady Katharine Fordham being at Gleer Cottage last night is the truth in spite of her denial. She dropped the scent capsule from her bracelet there, and I found it a few minutes before my boy Dollops found you hiding in the hollow tree. No, no, no! Don't get excited. There's nothing in that discovery to prove the lady guilty of any part in this abominable crime. Last night I was inclined to think that that little golden globe pointed toward her having been at least a confederate; to-day I have changed my mind, and since I overheard that conversation between you two, I have come to the conclusion that it proves her absolutely innocent of any complicity whatsoever."

"But how, Mr. Barch? – I mean Cleek. You know that she was there; you know that I, too, was there. It's no use denying that since you're 'Monsieur de Lesparre' as well as what you are. You heard her deny her presence. You heard her say that she did not show me into the room where De Louvisan's body was. But she did; as God hears me, she did, though I'll never believe her guilty" – this in a last wild effort to divert suspicion from her – "whatever I might have said, whatever you may have discovered against her."

"I have just said there is nothing against her," said Cleek, with one of his curious smiles. "I have come to the conclusion that she is not a criminal, but a martyr. I don't believe she has any more idea of who murdered De Louvisan, or why, than has a child in its cradle. I know you say that she showed you into the room where the dead man's body was; but I don't believe, my friend, that she was there. I don't believe she ever saw him again after she left Clavering Close, and I do not believe that she had the slightest idea that the man – either living or dead – was in Gleer Cottage when she led you into it."

"Then why did she lead me into it? Why did she run away and leave me there with his dead body? Where did she go? What did she mean by saying what she did about showing me something that would light the way back to the land of happiness?"

"I hope to be able to tell you all that to-morrow, my friend," replied Cleek. "Indeed, I may be able to tell it this very night; for if there is anything in the Loisette theory of recurring events acting upon a weary brain and producing similar results when – No matter, we shall know all about that later. In spite of the fact that that scent capsule was dropped in the room where the murder was committed, and dropped before you were shown in there, as proved by the fact that you crushed it beneath your feet and carried the odour of it from the house with you, I do not believe that Lady Katharine knew one word of De Louvisan's death until the news of it was carried to her this morning. There! That's the last 'secret' I am going to let you into for the present. Now, then, off with you; and not a word to anybody before to-morrow. But one last thing" – this as Geoffrey began to run up the steps toward the open trapdoor – "if you should happen by any chance to catch a glimpse of Mr. Harry Raynor while you are in town to-night, keep an eye on him – see whom he meets, see where he goes, and mind that he does not see you."

"Harry Raynor? I say" – eagerly – "do you think it possible that that bounder – "

"No, I don't! A worm and a snake are two entirely different things. That young gentleman never killed anything but time and the respect of decent men in all the days of his worthless life. He hasn't the necessary grit. But watch him if you run foul of him. He may know something that is worth while finding out; and, besides that, somebody or something called him away very suddenly this afternoon before I could get a chance to sound him on a most important subject. He knows a person who is very likely to be somewhere at the bottom of this case, that's all. Good-bye. And – oh, stop a bit! Just one more word: Happen to know anybody besides Mr. Harry Raynor who is addicted to the use of black cosmetic for the moustache?"

"Yes," said Geoffrey, pausing halfway up the staircase, and caught by the artfulness of this apparently artless question. "Know two other men. Why?"

"Oh, nothing in particular; only that I'd like to borrow some. Who are the two men in question?"

"Lord St. Ulmer, for one."

"Lord St. – Hum-m-m! Just so! Just so! And the other; who's he?"

"Why, my dad. Used it for years, bless his bully old heart!"

"Your – Good-bye!" said Cleek with a curious "snap" in his voice; then he faced round suddenly and walked back down the underground passage and left Geoff to go his way.

But if he said nothing his thoughts were busy; and this new move in the game, this new fish in the net, troubled him a great deal. He could not but remember that Sir Philip Clavering was this young man's adoring father; that he was also Lady Clavering's husband, who, as he had just heard from her stepson, was an Austrian; that the pseudo Count de Louvisan was also an Austrian, and after his unexpected appearance at Clavering Close last night Lady Clavering had had a sudden attack of illness, had left her guests at supper and retired to her own room, and afterward had gone out on the Common and had bribed the keeper not to mention having seen her.

Why did she go out? Of course that was all nonsense about her being anxious over Geoff; but, still – why? To meet some one? You never could be quite sure, quite safe, in dealing with those Continental women. After all, morality is merely a question of geography. Suppose – simply by way of argument, you know, nothing more – suppose the lady had had a love affair years before Sir Philip Clavering had met and married her? Suppose when De Louvisan turned up she had recognized in him, and he had recognized in her – Quite so! Quite so! De Louvisan, an adventurer pure and simple, would be likely to make capital out of a hold obtained over the wife of an English millionaire. It would be imperative for her to see him at once and buy his silence if she could. Of course! Of course! Gleer Cottage was within easy reaching distance; Gleer Cottage was known to be absolutely deserted; and if one wanted to have a secret interview – And to carry the hypothesis further, suppose Sir Philip Clavering, anxious over his wife's condition, should run up to her room to inquire about her, and, finding her gone, should trace her movements, go out after her, follow until he came to Gleer Cottage; and as soon as she and De Louvisan had parted – Well, there you are! Then, too, Sir Philip Clavering was addicted to the use of black cosmetic! And the marks on the dead man's shirt front were – Heigho! You never know! You never know! But for the boy's sake and for the sake of Narkom's fondness for both —

His thoughts dropped off. He had come again to the cell where the murdered keeper's clothes lay, just where he had flung them down when the coming of Geoff and Lady Katharine had attracted his attention and turned his interest in another direction. Now he had time to turn to them again.

If, by any chance, it really had been Sir Philip Clavering, how came these clothes buried in the grounds of Wuthering Grange? Of course the General's "ruin" was famous all over the district; and, naturally, if a man of Sir Philip Clavering's keen wits were the assassin, he would take means to get the things hidden away as expeditiously as possible, and as far away from his own place as circumstances would permit. He wouldn't know, of course, that circumstances would arise that would point to an occupant of Wuthering Grange – Lady Katharine – being implicated and any search of the place result, and he would be quite free from wishing to lead the trail in that direction. Of course, when he learned that he had done so – as learn everybody must in a day or two – he would do his best to get rid of the things, and when that happened – Ah, well! poor devil, it would be the end of one rope and the beginning of another.

It was an old, old trick of the assassin's, this burying things and then harking back to the spot either to remove them or to see if they were safe; and this assassin, whosoever he might prove to be, would be sure to follow the universal precedent. When he did – ! Cleek bundled the clothing back into the hole, took up the spade, shovelled back the earth, and made the spot look as nearly as possible as it had been when he stumbled upon it.

"A little bit of spy work for Dollops," was his unspoken thought. "He can spend a few days down here very profitably, and be ready to give the signal when the man comes."

He put the spade back in the place where he had found it, and, facing about, went up the stone steps, and after replacing the movable slab, made his way out of the ruin; for it was now time to be about the task of dressing for dinner and what promised to be an eventful evening.

Should he take Miss Lorne into his confidence or not? Yes, he fancied that he would. For one thing, she knew Lady Clavering and he did not, and as it would be necessary for him to get out after dark and prowl about the Common to learn if her ladyship did or did not join in the search for the missing Geoff – Hullo! What the dickens was that?

A very simple thing, indeed, when he came to investigate it. By this time he had come abreast of the house itself, and was moving along under the shadow of the deepening twilight when the circumstances which sent his thoughts off from the plans he was mapping out occurred. It was nothing more nor less than the fluttering down through the still air of a soft flaky substance, which struck him in the face and then dropped softly upon his sleeve – a small charred scrap of burnt paper. He looked up, and saw that it had fallen from other charred scraps that clung to the prickly branches of a huge monkey-puzzle tree close to the angle where a recently added wing joined the main structure of the house.

A window was above that tree, and a chimney was above that window. Hum-m-m! Second window from the angle – Lord St. Ulmer's room. What was Lord St. Ulmer burning papers for? What sort of papers had he that it was necessary for him – a supposed invalid – to get out of bed and destroy? And why in the world should he choose this particular day to do it? And a lot of paper, too, by George! judging from the quantity of charred scraps clinging to that monkey-puzzle. What an ass the man was to burn things when there was no wind to carry off the ashes and when – He looked down and saw one or two half-burned discs of paper, which had escaped entire destruction, lying upon the gravel of the path.

He stooped and picked one up. It was a circular white label, printed on one side and gummed on the other, just the sort of label which chemists and proprietors of patent ointments use to affix to the lids of the round tin boxes containing their wares. The thing was partly burnt away until, from being originally a complete circle, it was now merely a "half moon" of white paper with charred fragments clinging to the fire-bitten gap in it.

He turned the thing over and looked at its printed side. Part of that printing had been destroyed, but there was still enough of it to show for what the label had been prepared.

Evidently Lord St. Ulmer had been engaged in burning labels, unused labels, that had been prepared for boxes containing a patent blacking for boots, shoes, and leather goods generally.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A BOLD STROKE

Cleek stood a moment holding the burnt label between his thumb and forefinger and regarding it silently, his face a blank as far as any expression of his feelings was concerned. Then, of a sudden, his gaze transferred itself to one of the two other labels which, like this one, had escaped entire destruction by the fire; and carefully picking them up, he laid them inside his pocket notebook, gave a casual, offhand sort of glance at the windows of Lord St. Ulmer's room, and then quietly resumed his sauntering walk in the direction of the house.

The twilight was now so rapidly fading that it might be said to be all but dark when he reached the main entrance to the building and found one of the footmen busily engaged in lighting up the huge electric chandelier which served to illuminate the broad hallway of the Grange. But neither the General nor any of the ladies was visible, all, as he correctly surmised, being engaged in the matter of dressing for dinner.

"Pardon me, sir," said the footman, turning at the sound of his step as he came in, "I was just about to step out into the grounds to ascertain if you might not, by chance, have lost yourself or failed to hear the dressing gong, sir. It is quite half an hour since Miss Lorne requested me to be on the lookout for you, and I was getting anxious."

"Extremely kind of you, I must say," said Cleek serenely. "But never give yourself any uneasiness upon my account so long as I remain here. I am given to taking my time on all occasions, my man. I think out all the plots of my novels prowling about in silence and alone, and an interruption is apt to destroy a train of thought forever." And having thus given the man an idea that he was an author – and accounted beforehand for any possible need for prowling about the place when the others were asleep – he went further, and gave him half a crown to salve his injured feelings, and won in return for it something which he would have held cheaply bought at a sovereign.

"Now tell me," he went on, "why did Miss Lorne ask you to be 'on the lookout' for me? Has anything extraordinary occurred?"

"Oh, no indeed, sir," replied the footman with a full half-crown's worth of urbanity; the generosity of the gentleman had touched him on his weakest part. "You see, sir, it being the butler's evening off, and Mr. Harry having been called away before any arrangements were made with regard to your sleeping quarters, sir, Miss Lorne requested me to say that she had spoken to mistress, and you were to have any vacant suite in the house which might best meet your pleasure, sir. I was to wait here and conduct you through all the unoccupied ones in the house."

Cleek smiled. Oho! That was it, eh? Well, there was a thoughtful ally and no mistake! Knowing full well that it would be awkward for him to be put off into some inconvenient wing of the house, should he have cause to leave it secretly and to communicate with Dollops and Narkom at any time, she had taken this step to serve and to assist him. What a woman! What a gem of a woman she was!

His thoughts worked rapidly, and his mind was made up in a twinkling.

"Quite so, quite so! Very kind and very thoughtful," he said composedly. "I always prefer the second story of a building – it's a fad of mine, and Miss Lorne recollects it. So if there are any rooms vacant upon the second floor – "

"Only one, sir, and it's the least comfortable one in the house, I'm afraid, being next to that occupied by Lord St. Ulmer."

"Lord St. – oh, ah – yes! That's the gentleman who is ill, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. That's why I spoke of it as being uncomfortable. Butler says he's a very crochety gentleman. But sick folk are always that, sir; so maybe you'd be disturbed a deal in the night."

"Hum-m-m! Yes, that is a drawback, certainly. Might take it into his head to get up and wander about during the night, and so keep one awake. Does he?"

"I couldn't say, sir; never set eyes on him since he arrived. Nobody in the house has except master and butler. Don't think he would be likely to move about much, though, sir, for I've heard his ankle's sprained and he can't put a foot to the ground. Butler always carries up his meals; at least, he has done it so far, his lordship having arrived only the night before last. Like as not I'll have to carry up his dinner to-night, this being, as I've said, sir, butler's evening off."

Cleek made a mental tally. Then if none of the servants at the Grange had seen his lordship, with the single exception of Johnston, the butler – Quite so, quite so! His lordship wouldn't know what the other servants were like, so, of course – He glanced at the footman out of the tail of his eye. Livery, dark bottle-green – almost black; would pass for black in anything but a brilliant light. Waistcoat, narrow black and yellow stripes. No cords, no silver buttons. Hum-m-m! With a black-and-yellow striped waistcoat and in a none too brilliantly lighted room – and a sickroom was not likely to be anything else unless the man was too much of an ass to keep up the illusion by attending to details – an ordinary suit of evening clothes would do the trick. And he wouldn't have a doctor and wouldn't see any outsiders, this Lord St. Ulmer, eh? Oh, well – you never know your luck, my lord; you never do!

Mental processes are more rapid in the action than in the recording. Not ten seconds had passed from the time the footman ceased speaking when Cleek answered him.

"Oh, well, if it's a case like that, and his lordship isn't likely to disturb me by wandering round his room in the night, I dare say I can risk the rest, as I'm a very sound sleeper. The room's on the second floor; that's the main thing," he said offhandedly. "So you may show me to it at once."

"Very good, sir; this way if you please, sir," the footman replied, and forthwith led him to the room in question.

It was one immediately adjoining that occupied by Lord St. Ulmer, but unfortunately, having no connection with it, the wall which divided the two was quite solid. Had there been a door – But there was not. Cleek saw at a glance that matters were not to be simplified in that way; whoever might wish to see into that room must first get into it: there was no other way.

"All right, this will do; you may go," he said as soon as he was shown to the place he had chosen; and taking him at his word, the footman gently closed the door and disappeared. Cleek gave him but a minute or two to get below stairs, then slipped out on tiptoe and followed, getting out of the house unseen and running at all speed in the direction of the stables.

At the angle of the wall he stopped suddenly, and began to whistle "Kathleen Mavourneen." He hadn't rounded off the third bar before the wall door clicked and swung open, and Dollops was beside him.

"Kit bag – quick!" whispered Cleek. "Need an evening suit, and the chap who was going to lend me one went off and forgot all about it. Move sharp, I'm in a hurry."

"Right ho!" said Dollops, and vanished like a blown-out light. In half a minute's time he was back again, and the kit bag with him.

"Here you are, gov'ner. Shall I get out the evenin' clothes, and put the bag back under the hedge, or will you take it with you?"

"I'll take it. There are other things I shall want. Where's Mr. Narkom?"

"Gone back to town, sir – to the Yard. Want him?"

"No, not yet; maybe not to-night at all. Nip off and get yourself something to eat and be back here by nine o'clock at the latest. I shall very likely need you. Cut along!" Then he caught up the kit bag, whisked away with it into the darkness, and five minutes later stood again in the room which he had so recently left.

Accustomed to rapid dressing, he got into his evening clothes in less time than it would have taken most men to unpack and lay them out ready for use when required; and then, taking the half-burnt labels from his pocketbook, carried them to the light and studied them closely. None was so big as the one which he had first inspected nor bore so much printed matter; but fortunately one was a fragment of the exactly opposite side, so that by joining the two together he was able to make out the greater part of it.

Clearly, then, the original label, making allowance for what had been totally destroyed by the flames, must have read:

JETANOLA

AN UNRIVALLED PREPARATION

For Boots, Shoes, and All Leather

Goods

MANUFACTURED SOLELY BY

FERDINAND LOVETSKI

63 ESSEX ROW

SOHO

After all, the imaginative reporter had not been so far out when he figured those mysterious markings upon the dead man's shirt bosom to read "63 Essex Row," an address where one Ferdinand Lovetski once did manufacture a certain kind of blacking for boots, shoes, etc. Not that they really did stand for that, of course, or that this ingenious person had done anything more than work out as a solution to the riddle of the marks a name and an address that were eventually to come into the case – as they now had done – but in a totally different manner from what the author of the theory intended or supposed.

Of two things Cleek was certain beyond all question of error. First: that the dead man was not Ferdinand Lovetski – not in any way connected with Ferdinand Lovetski to be precise; second: that the markings on the shirt were not made with "Jetanola" or any other kind of blacking; and ingenious as the theory was, he was willing to stake his life that those marks no more stood for 63 Essex Row than they did for 21 Park Lane. For one thing, what would be the sense of smearing them on the dead man's shirt bosom if they merely stood for that? It was all very well for that imaginative reporter to suggest that it was a sign given by the assassin to the whole anarchistical brotherhood that a debt of vengeance had been paid and a traitor punished; but the brotherhood did not need any such sign. If the man were Lovetski it would know of his death without any such silly nonsense as that. It knew the men it "marked," and it knew when those men died, and by whose hand, too; and it did not go about placarding its victims with clues to their identity or signs of whose hands had directed the exterminating blow.

And Ferdinand Lovetski it never had "marked" – never had issued any death sentence against, never had sought to punish, never, indeed, had taken any interest in – for the simple reason that, as Cleek knew, the man had been in his grave these seven years past! He knew that beyond all question; for in those dark other times that lay behind him forever – in his old "Vanishing Cracksman" days, in those repented years when he and Margot had cast their lot together and he had been the chosen consort of the queen of the Apaches – in those wild times Lovetski, down on his luck, bankrupt through dissipation, a thief by nature, and a lazy vagabond at heart, had joined the Apaches and become one of them. Not for long, however. Within six months word had come to him of the death of a relative in his native Russia, and of a little property that was now his by right of inheritance; and he was for saying good-bye to his new colleagues and journeying on to Moscow to claim his little fortune. But the law of the Apaches is the law of the commonwealth, and Margot and her band had demanded the usual division. Lovetski had rebelled against it; he had sworn that he would not share; that what was his should remain his only as long as he lived and – it did. But five days later his knife-jagged body was fished out of the Seine and lay in the morgue awaiting identification; Margot went thrice to see it before it went into the trench with others that were set down in the records as unknown.

That was seven years ago; and now here was Lord St. Ulmer, or some one in his room, burning labels that had to do with the days when that dead man was in honest business, and had lost it simply through dissipation after the police had discovered that 63 Essex Row was used in part as a meeting place for several "wanted" aliens, and had raided it and closed it up.

Lovetski had never belonged to the brotherhood; he had never even known that they met under that roof until the time of the raid; but he had been arrested with every other inmate of the house, held as a suspect to await examination at the hands of a magistrate, and in the meantime his business had gone to the dogs. After that drink got him, and acquaintances made in the place of detention became associates and pals. It was only a step from that to the Apaches, and from the Apaches to the Seine and the trench; and the little fortune in Russia was never claimed.

And now this Lord St. Ulmer was burning labels that once had been the property of that man, was he? And burning them at this particular period, of all others, when somebody, who evidently had some undesirable knowledge regarding him, had been mysteriously done to death and the Yard was out on the trail of the crime!

What did that mean? How did Lord St. Ulmer come into possession of those labels? And having come into possession of them, why had he suddenly become anxious to get rid of them?

What few paltry effects Lovetski had possessed when he joined the Apaches were left in the room he hired from old Marise – Madame Serpice's mother – at the inn of the "Twisted Arm." The Apaches had gone through them, and voted them not worth ten sous the lot – and very probably they were not. Still there might have been letters, and there might have been some unused labels; fellows of that sort would be apt to keep things of that kind merely to back up maudlin boasts of former standing. And if there had been, if this Lord St. Ulmer had come into possession of things that were left in the secret haunts of the Apaches – Decidedly it would be an advantage to get a look at his lordship, and that, too, as expeditiously as possible.

A footman's waistcoat – merely that. He had one, that he knew; but was it in the kit bag? He went over and reopened the bag, and examined its contents. Good old Dollops! What strokes of inspiration the chap sometimes had! There it was, the regulation thing – the stripes, perhaps, a trifle broader than those the General's servants wore, but quite near enough to pass muster with a stranger. Now, then, upon what pretext? How? When? Hullo! What was that? The dinner gong, by Jupiter!

Certainly! The very thing. "Master wishes to know if there is any especial dish your lordship fancies, or shall I bring up just what cook has prepared?" That would do the trick to a turn; and he need be only four or five minutes late in going down to join his host and the ladies.

He whisked off his coat, waistcoat, and necktie, and made the change in a twinkling. Another and more subtle "change" – yet made even quicker – altered his countenance so completely that not one trace of likeness to Mr. Philip Barch remained. A moment later he had passed swiftly out of the room and was tapping upon Lord St. Ulmer's door.