Kitabı oku: «The Seven Secrets», sayfa 3

But the girl over and over again asserted that she had heard it. She slept alone in a small room at the top of the second flight of stairs and had heard the sound quite distinctly.

“When you heard it what did you do?”

“I lay and listened.”

“For how long?”

“Oh, quite a quarter of an hour, I should think. It was just before half-past one when I heard the noise, for the church clock struck almost immediately afterwards. The sound of the movement was such as I had never before heard at night, and at first I felt frightened. But I always lock my door, therefore I felt secure. The noise was just like someone creeping along very slowly, with one boot creaking.”

“But if it was so loud that you could hear it with your door closed, it is strange that no one else heard it,” the detective-sergeant remarked dubiously.

“I don’t care what anybody else heard, I heard it quite plainly,” the girl asserted.

“How long did it continue?” asked the detective.

“Oh, only just as though someone was stealing along the corridor. We often hear movements at nights, because Short is always astir at two o’clock, giving the master his medicine. If it hadn’t ha’ been for the creaking I should not have taken notice of it. But I lay quite wide awake for over half an hour – until Short came banging at our doors, telling us to get up at once, as we were wanted downstairs.”

“Well,” exclaimed the inspector, “now, I want to ask all of you a very simple question, and wish to obtain an honest and truthful reply. Was any door or window left unfastened when you went to bed?”

“No, sir,” the cook replied promptly. “I always go round myself, and see that everything is fastened.”

“The front door, for example?”

“I bolted it at Miss Ethelwynn’s orders.”

“At what time?”

“One o’clock. She told me to wait up till then, and if mistress did not return I was to lock up and go to bed.”

“Then the tragedy must have been enacted about half an hour later?”

“I think so, sir.”

“You haven’t examined the doors and windows to see if any have been forced?”

“As far as I can see, they are just as I left them when I went to bed, sir.”

“That’s strange – very strange,” remarked the inspector, turning to us. “We must make an examination and satisfy ourselves.”

The point was one that was most important in the conduct of the inquiry. If all doors and windows were still locked, then the assassin was one of that strange household.

Led by the cook, the officers began a round of the lower premises. One of the detectives borrowed the constable’s bull’s-eye and, accompanied by a second officer, went outside to make an examination of the window sashes, while we remained inside assisting them in their search for any marks.

Ethelwynn had been called aside by one of the detectives, and was answering some questions addressed to her, therefore for an instant I found myself alone. It was the moment I had been waiting for, to secretly examine the clue I had obtained.

I was near the door of the morning room, and for a second slipped inside and switched on the electric light.

Then I took from my vest pocket the tiny little object I had found and carefully examined it.

My heart stood still. My eyes riveted themselves upon it. The mystery was solved.

I alone knew the truth!

CHAPTER VII.
THE MAN SHORT AND HIS STORY

A light footstep sounded behind me, and scarcely had I time to thrust the little object hastily back into my pocket when my well-beloved entered in search of me.

“What do the police think, Ralph?” she asked eagerly. “Have they any clue? Do tell me.”

“They have no clue,” I answered, in a voice which I fear sounded hard and somewhat abrupt.

Then I turned from her, as though fully occupied with the investigations at which I was assisting, and went past her, leaving her standing alone.

The police were busy examining the doors and windows of the back premises, kitchens, scullery, and pantry, but could find no evidence of any lock or fastening having been tampered with. The house, I must explain, was a large detached red brick one, standing in a lawn that was quite spacious for a suburban house, and around it ran an asphalte path which diverged from the right hand corner of the building and ran in two parts to the road, one a semi-circular drive which came up to the portico from the road, and the other, a tradesmen’s path, that ran to the opposite extremity of the property.

From the back kitchen a door led out upon this asphalted tradesmen’s path, and as I rejoined the searchers some discussion was in progress as to whether the door in question had been secured. The detective-sergeant had found it unbolted and unlocked, but the cook most positively asserted that she had both locked and bolted it at half-past ten, when the under housemaid had come in from her “evening out.” None of the servants, however, recollected having undone the door either before the alarm or after. Perhaps Short had done so, but he was absent, in search of the dead man’s widow.

The police certainly spared no pains in their search. They turned the whole place upside down. One man on his hands and knees, and carrying a candle, carefully examined the blue stair-carpet to see if he could find the marks of unusual feet. It was wet outside, and if an intruder had been there, there would probably remain marks of muddy feet. He found many, but they were those of the constable and detectives. Hence the point was beyond solution.

The drawing-room, the dining-room, the morning-room, and the big conservatory were all closely inspected, but without any satisfactory result. My love followed us everywhere, white-faced and nervous, with the cream chenille shawl still over her shoulders. She had hastily put up her wealth of dark hair, and now wore the shawl wrapped lightly about her.

That shawl attracted me. I managed to speak with her alone for a moment, asking her quite an unimportant question, but nevertheless with a distinct object. As we stood there I placed my hand upon her shoulder – and upon the shawl. It was for that very reason – in order to feel the texture of the silk – that I returned to her.

The contact of my hand with the silk was convincing. I turned from her once again, and rejoined the shrewd men whose object it was to fasten the guilt upon the assassin.

Presently we heard the welcome sound of cab wheels outside, and a few minutes later young Mrs. Courtenay, wild eyed and breathless, rushed into the hall and dashed headlong up the stairs. I, however, barred her passage.

“Let me pass!” she cried wildly. “Short has told me he is worse and has asked for me. Let me pass!”

“No, Mary, not so quickly. Let me tell you something,” I answered gravely, placing my hand firmly upon her arm. The police were again re-examining the back premises below, and only Ethelwynn was present at the top of the stairs, where I arrested her progress to the dead man’s room.

“But is there danger?” she demanded anxiously. “Tell me.”

“The crisis is over,” I responded ambiguously. “But is not your absence to-night rather unusual?”

“It was entirely my own fault,” she admitted. “I shall never forgive myself for this neglect. After the theatre we had supper at the Savoy, and I lost my last train. Dolly Henniker, of course, asked me to stay, and I could not refuse.” Then glancing from my face to that of her sister she asked: “Why do you both look so strange? Tell me,” she shrieked. “Tell me the worst. Is he – is he dead?”

I nodded in the affirmative.

For a second she stood dumb, then gave vent to a long wail, and would have fallen senseless if I had not caught her in my arms and laid her back upon the long settee placed in an alcove on the landing. She, like all the others, had dressed hurriedly. Her hair was dishevelled beneath her hat, but her disordered dress was concealed by her long ulster heavily lined with silver fox, a magnificent garment which her doting husband had purchased through a friend at Moscow, and presented to her as a birthday gift.

From her manner it was only too plain that she was filled with remorse. I really pitied her, for she was a light-hearted, flighty, little woman who loved gaiety, and, without an evil thought, had no doubt allowed her friends to draw her into that round of amusement. They sympathised with her – as every woman who marries an old man is sympathised with – and they gave her what pleasures they could. Alas! that such a clanship between women so often proves fatal to domestic happiness. Judged from a logical point of view it was merely natural that young Mrs. Courtenay should, after a year or two with an invalid husband, aged and eccentric, beat her wings against the bars. She was a pretty woman, almost as pretty as her sister, but two years older, with fair hair, blue eyes, and a pink and white, almost doll-like complexion. Indeed, I knew quite well that she had long had a host of admirers, and that just prior to her marriage with Courtenay it had been rumoured that she was to marry the heir to an earldom, a rather rakish young cavalry officer up at York.

To restore her to consciousness was not a difficult matter, but after she had requested me to tell her the whole of the ghastly truth she sat speechless, as though turned to stone.

Her manner was unaccountable. She spoke at last, and to me it seemed as though the fainting fit had caused her an utter loss of memory. She uttered words at random, allowing her tongue to ramble on in strange disjointed sentences, of which I could make nothing.

“My head! Oh! my head!” she kept on exclaiming, passing her hand across her brow as though to clear her brain.

“Does it pain you?” I inquired.

“It seems as though a band of iron were round it. I can’t think. I – I can’t remember!” And she glanced about her helplessly, her eyes with a wild strange look in them, her face so haggard and drawn that it gave her a look of premature age.

“Oh! Mary, dear!” cried Ethelwynn, taking both her cold hands. “Why, what’s the matter? Calm yourself, dear.” Then turning to me she asked, “Can nothing be done, Ralph? See – she’s not herself. The shock has unbalanced her brain.”

“Ralph! Ethelwynn!” gasped the unfortunate woman, looking at us with an expression of sudden wonder. “What has happened? Did I understand you aright? Poor Henry is dead?”

“Unfortunately that is the truth.” I was compelled to reply. “It is a sad affair, Mary, and you have all our sympathy. But recollect he was an invalid, and for a long time his life has been despaired of.”

I dared not yet tell her the terrible truth that he had been the victim of foul play.

“It is my fault!” she cried. “My place was here – at home. But – but why was I not here?” she added with a blank look. “Where did I go?”

“Don’t you remember that you went to London with the Hennikers?” I said.

“Ah! of course!” she exclaimed. “How very stupid of me to forget. But do you know, I’ve never experienced such a strange sensation before. My memory is a perfect blank. How did I return here?”

“Short fetched you in a cab.”

“Short? I – I don’t recollect seeing him. Somebody knocked at my door and said I was wanted, because my husband had been taken worse, so I dressed and went down. But after that I don’t recollect anything.”

“Her mind is a trifle affected by the shock,” I whispered to my love. “Best take her downstairs into one of the rooms and lock the door. Don’t let her see the police. She didn’t notice the constable at the door. She’ll be better presently.”

I uttered these words mechanically, but, truth to tell, these extraordinary symptoms alarmed and puzzled me. She had fainted at hearing of the death of her husband, just as many other wives might have fainted; but to me there seemed no reason whatsoever why the swoon should be followed by that curious lapse of memory. The question she had put to me showed her mind to be a blank. I could discern nothing to account for the symptoms, and the only remedy I could suggest was perfect quiet. I intended that, as soon as daylight came, both women should be removed to the house of some friend in the vicinity.

The scene of the tragedy was no place for two delicate women.

Notwithstanding Mrs. Courtenay’s determination to enter her husband’s room I managed at last to get them both into the morning-room and called the nurse and cook to go in and assist in calming her, for her lapse of memory had suddenly been followed by a fit of violence.

“I must see him!” she shrieked. “I will see him! You can’t prevent me. I am his wife. My place is at his side!”

My love exchanged looks with me. Her sister’s extraordinary manner utterly confounded us.

“You shall see him later,” I promised, endeavouring to calm her. “At present remain quiet. No good can possibly be done by this wild conduct.”

“Where is Sir Bernard?” she inquired suddenly. “Have you telegraphed for him? I must see him.”

“As soon as the office is open I shall wire.”

“Yes, telegraph at the earliest moment. Tell him of the awful blow that has fallen upon us.”

Presently, by dint of much persuasion, we managed to quiet her. The nurse removed her hat, helped her out of her fur-lined coat, and she sat huddled up in a big “grandfather” chair, her handsome evening gown crushed and tumbled, the flowers she had worn in her corsage on the previous night drooping and withered.

For some time she sat motionless, her chin sunk upon her breast, the picture of dejection, until, of a sudden, she roused herself, and before we were aware of her intention she had torn off her marriage ring and cast it across the room, crying wildly:

“It is finished. He is dead – dead!”

And she sank back again, among the cushions, as though exhausted by the effort.

What was passing through her brain at that moment I wondered. Why should a repulsion of the marriage bond seize her so suddenly, and cause her to tear off the golden fetter under which she had so long chafed? There was some reason, without a doubt; but at present all was an enigma – all save one single point.

When I returned to the police to urge them not to disturb Mrs. Courtenay, I found them assembled in the conservatory discussing an open window, by which anyone might easily have entered and left. The mystery of the kitchen door had been cleared up by Short, who admitted that after the discovery he had unlocked and unbolted it, in order to go round the outside of the house and see whether anyone was lurking in the garden.

When I was told this story I remarked that he had displayed some bravery in acting in such a manner. No man cares to face an assassin unarmed.

The man looked across at me with a curious apprehensive glance, and replied:

“I was armed, sir. I took down one of the old Indian daggers from the hall.”

“Where is it now?” inquired the inspector, quickly, for at such a moment the admission that he had had a knife in his possession was sufficient to arouse a strong suspicion.

“I hung it up again, sir, before going out to call the doctor,” he replied quite calmly.

“Show me which it was,” I said; and he accompanied me out to the hall and pointed to a long thin knife which formed part of a trophy of antique Indian weapons.

In an instant I saw that such a knife had undoubtedly inflicted the wound in the dead man’s breast.

“So you armed yourself with this?” I remarked, taking down the knife with affected carelessness, and examining it.

“Yes, doctor. It was the first thing that came to hand. It’s sharp, for I cut myself once when cleaning it.”

I tried its edge, and found it almost as keen as a razor. It was about ten inches long, and not more than half an inch broad, with a hilt of carved ivory, yellow with age, and inlaid with fine lines of silver. Certainly a very dangerous weapon. The sheath was of purple velvet, very worn and faded.

I walked back to where the detectives were standing, and examined the blade beneath the light. It was bright, and had apparently been recently cleaned. It might have been cleaned and oil smeared upon it after the commission of the crime. Yet as far as I could discern with the naked eye there was no evidence that it had recently been used.

It was the man’s curious apprehensive glance that had first aroused my suspicion, and the admissions that he had opened the back door, and that he had been armed, both increased my mistrust. The detectives, too, were interested in the weapon, but were soon satisfied that, although a dangerous knife, it bore no stain of blood.

So I put it back in its case and replaced it. But I experienced some difficulty in getting the loop of wire back upon the brass-headed nail from which it was suspended; and it then occurred to me that Short, in the excitement of the discovery, and ordered by Ethelwynn to go at once in search of me, would not without some motive remain there, striving to return the knife to its place. Such action was unnatural. He would probably have cast it aside and dashed out in search of a cab. Indeed, the constable on the beat had seen him rush forth hurriedly and, urged by Ethelwynn, run in the direction of Kew Bridge.

No. Somehow I could not rid myself of the suspicion that the man was lying. To my professional eye the weapon with which the wound had been inflicted was the one which he admitted had been in his possession.

The story that he had unlocked the door and gone in search of the assassin struck the inspector, as it did myself, as a distinctly lame tale.

I longed for the opening of the telegraph office, so that I might summon my friend Jevons to my aid. He revelled in mysteries, and if the present one admitted of solution I felt confident that he would solve it.

CHAPTER VIII.
AMBLER JEVONS IS INQUISITIVE

People were about me the whole time. Hence I had no opportunity of re-examining the little object I had picked up from the spot where the murderer must have stood.

When morning dawned two detectives from Scotland Yard arrived, made notes of the circumstances, examined the open window in the conservatory, hazarded a few wise remarks, and closely scrutinised the dagger in the hall.

Ethelwynn had taken her sister to a friend in the vicinity, accompanied by the nurse and the cook. The house was now in the possession of the police, and it had already become known in the neighbourhood that old Mr. Courtenay was dead. In all probability early passers-by, men on their way to work, had noticed a constable in uniform enter or leave, and that had excited public curiosity. I hoped that Ambler Jevons would not delay, for I intended that he should be first in the field. If ever he had had a good mystery before him this certainly was one. I knew how keen was his scent for clues, and how carefully and ingeniously he worked when assisting the police to get at the bottom of any such affair.

He came a little after nine in hot haste, having driven from Hammersmith in a hansom. I was upstairs when I heard his deep cheery voice crying to the inspector from Scotland Yard:

“Hulloa, Thorpe. What’s occurred? My friend Doctor Boyd has just wired to me.”

“Murder,” responded the inspector. “You’ll find the doctor somewhere about. He’ll explain it all to you. Queer case – very queer case, sir, it seems.”

“Is that you, Ambler?” I called over the banisters. “Come up here.”

He came up breathlessly, two steps at a time, and gripping my hand, asked:

“Who’s been murdered?”

“Old Mr. Courtenay.”

“The devil!” he ejaculated.

“A most mysterious affair,” I went on. “They called me soon after three, and I came down here, only to find the poor old gentleman stone dead – stabbed to the heart.”

“Let me see him,” my friend said in a sharp business-like tone, which showed that he intended to lose no time in sifting the matter. He had his own peculiar methods of getting at the bottom of a mystery. He worked independently, and although he assisted the police and was therefore always welcomed by them, his efforts were always apart, and generally marked by cunning ingenuity and swift logical reasoning that were alike remarkable and marvellous.

I gave him a brief terse outline of the tragedy, and then, unlocking the door of the room where the dead man still lay in the same position as when discovered, allowed him in.

The place was in darkness, so I drew up the Venetian blinds, letting in the grey depressing light of the wintry morning.

He advanced to the bed, stood in the exact spot where I had stood, and where without doubt the murderer had stood, and folding his arms gazed straight and long upon the dead man’s features.

Then he gave vent to a kind of dissatisfied grunt, and turned down the coverlet in order to examine the wound, while I stood by his side in silence.

Suddenly he swung round on his heel, and measured the paces between the bed and the door. Then he went to the window and looked out; afterwards making a tour of the room slowly, his dark eyes searching everywhere. He did not open his lips in the presence of the dead. He only examined everything, swiftly and yet carefully, opening the door slowly and closing it just as slowly, in order to see whether it creaked or not.

It creaked when closed very slowly. The creaking was evidently what the under-housemaid had heard and believed to be the creaking of boots. The murderer, finding that it creaked, had probably closed it by degrees; hence it gave a series of creaks, which to the girl had sounded in the silence of the night like those of new boots.

Ambler Jevons had, almost at the opening of his inquiry, cleared up one point which had puzzled us.

When he had concluded his examination of the room and re-covered the dead face with the sheet, we emerged into the corridor. Then I told him of the servant’s statement.

“Boots!” he echoed in a tone of impatience. “Would a murderer wear creaking boots? It was the door, of course. It opens noiselessly, but when closed quietly it creaks. Curious, however, that he should have risked the creaking and the awakening of the household in order to close it. He had some strong motive in doing so.”

“He evidently had a motive in the crime,” I remarked. “If we could only discover it, we might perhaps fix upon the assassin.”

“Yes,” he exclaimed, thoughtfully. “But to tell the truth, Ralph, old chap, the fact which is puzzling me most of all at this moment is that extraordinary foreboding of evil which you confessed to me the day before yesterday. You had your suspicions aroused, somehow. Cudgel your brains, and think what induced that very curious presage of evil.”

“I’ve tried and tried over again, but I can fix on nothing. Only yesterday afternoon, when Sir Bernard incidentally mentioned old Mr. Courtenay, it suddenly occurred to me that the curious excitement within me had some connection with him. Of course he was a patient, and I may have studied his case and given a lot of thought to it, but that wouldn’t account for such an oppression as that from which I’ve been suffering.”

“You certainly did have the blues badly the night before last,” he said frankly. “And by some unaccountable manner your curious feeling was an intuition of this tragic occurrence. Very odd and mysterious, to say the least.”

“Uncanny, I call it,” I declared.

“Yes, I agree with you,” he answered. “It is an uncanny affair altogether. Tell me about the ladies. Where are they?”

I explained how Mrs. Courtenay had been absent, and how she had been prostrated by the news of his death.

He stroked his moustache slowly, deeply reflecting.

“Then at present she doesn’t know that he’s been murdered? She thinks that he was taken ill, and expired suddenly?”

“Exactly.”

And I went on to describe the wild scene which followed my admission that her husband was dead. I explained it to him in detail, for I saw that his thoughts were following in the same channel as my own. We both pitied the unfortunate woman. My friend knew her well, for he had often accompanied me there and had spent the evening with us. Ethelwynn liked him for his careless Bohemianism, and for the fund of stories always at his command. Sometimes he used to entertain us for hours together, relating details of mysteries upon which he had at one time or another been engaged. Women are always fond of mysteries, and he often held both of them breathless by his vivid narratives.

Thorpe, the detective from Scotland Yard, a big, sturdily-built, middle-aged man, whose hair was tinged with grey, and whose round, rosy face made him appear the picture of good health, joined us a moment later. In a low, mysterious tone he explained to my friend the circumstance of Short having admitted possession of the knife hanging in the hall.

In it Ambler Jevons at once scented a clue.

“I never liked that fellow!” he exclaimed, turning to me. “My impression has always been that he was a sneak, and told old Courtenay everything that went on, either in drawing-room or kitchen.”

Thorpe, continuing, explained how the back door had been found unfastened, and how Short had admitted unfastening it in order to go forth to seek the assassin.

“A ridiculous story – utterly absurd!” declared Jevons. “A man doesn’t rush out to shed blood for blood like that!”

“Of course not,” agreed the detective. “To my mind appearances are entirely against this fellow. Yet, we have one fact to bear in mind, namely, that being sent to town twice he was afforded every opportunity for escape.”

“He was artful,” I remarked. “He knew that his safest plan was to remain and face it. If, as seems very probable, the crime was planned, it was certainly carried out at a most propitious moment.”

“It certainly was,” observed my friend, carefully scrutinising the knife, which Thorpe had brought to him. “This,” he said, “must be examined microscopically. You can do that, Boyd. It will be easy to see if there are any traces of blood upon it. To all appearances it has been recently cleaned and oiled.”

“Short admits cleaning it, but he says he did so three days ago,” I exclaimed.

He gave vent to another low grunt, from which I knew that the explanation was unsatisfactory, and replaced the knife in its faded velvet sheath.

Save for the man upon whom suspicion had thus fallen, the servants had all gone to the house where their mistress was lodged, after being cautioned by the police to say nothing of the matter, and to keep their mouths closed to all the reporters who would no doubt very soon be swarming into the district eager for every scrap of information. Their evidence would be required at the inquest, and the police forbade them, until then, to make any comment, or to give any explanation of the mysterious affair. The tongues of domestics wag quickly and wildly in such cases, and have many times been the means of defeating the ends of justice by giving away important clues to the Press.

Ambler Jevons, however, was a practised hand at mysteries. He sat down in the library, and with his crabbed handwriting covered two sheets of paper with notes upon the case. I watched as his pencil went swiftly to work, and when he had finished I saw him underline certain words he had written.

“Thorpe appears to suspect that fellow Short,” he remarked, when I met him again in the library a quarter of an hour later. “I’ve just been chatting with him, and to me his demeanour is not that of a guilty man. He’s actually been upstairs with the coroner’s officer in the dead man’s room. A murderer generally excuses himself from entering the presence of his victim.”

“Well,” I exclaimed, after a pause, “you know the whole circumstances now. Can you see any clue which may throw light on the affair?”

He slowly twisted his moustache again; then twisted his plain gold ring slowly round the little finger on the left hand – a habit of his when perplexed.

“No, Ralph, old chap; can’t say I do,” he answered. “There’s an unfathomable mystery somewhere, but in what direction I’m utterly at a loss to distinguish.”

“But do you think that the assassin is a member of the household? That seems to me our first point to clear up.”

“That’s just where we’re perplexed. Thorpe suspects Short; but the police so often rush to conclusions on a single suspicion. Before condemning him it is necessary to watch him narrowly, and note his demeanour and his movements. If he is guilty he’ll betray himself sooner or later. Thorpe was foolish to take down that knife a second time. The fellow might have seen him and had his suspicions aroused thereby. That’s the worst of police inquiries. They display so little ingenuity. It is all method – method – method. Everything must be done by rule. They appear to overlook the fact that a window in the conservatory was undoubtedly left open,” he added.

“Well?” I asked, noticing that he was gazing at me strangely, full in the face.

“Well, has it not occurred to you that that window might have been purposely left open?”

“You mean that the assassin entered and left by that window?”

“I mean to suggest that the murder might have been connived at by one of the household, if the man we suspect were not the actual assassin himself.”

The theory was a curious one, but I saw that there were considerable grounds for it. As in many suburban houses, the conservatory joined the drawing-room, an unlocked glass door being between them. The window that had been left unfastened was situated at the further end, and being low down was in such a position that any intruder might easily have entered and left. Therefore the suggestion appeared a sound one – more especially so because the cook had most solemnly declared that she had fastened it securely before going up to bed.

In that case someone must have crept down and unfastened it after the woman had retired, and done so with the object of assisting the assassin.

But Ambler Jevons was not a man to remain idle for a single moment when once he became interested in a mystery. To his keen perception and calm logical reasoning had been due the solution of “The Mornington Crescent Mystery,” which, as all readers of this narrative will remember, for six months utterly perplexed Scotland Yard; while in a dozen other notable cases his discoveries had placed the police on the scent of the guilty person. Somehow he seemed to possess a peculiar facility in the solving of enigmas. At ordinary times he struck one as a rather careless, easy-going man, who drifted on through life, tasting and dealing in tea, with regular attendance at Mark Lane each day. Sometimes he wore a pair of cheap pince-nez, the frames of which were rusty, but these he seldom assumed unless he was what he termed “at work.” He was at work now, and therefore had stuck the pince-nez on the bridge of his nose, giving him a keener and rather more intelligent appearance.