The Yellow Claw
by Sax Rohmer · English · Gutenberg #2028 · 544,564 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Yellow Claw
Author: Sax Rohmer
Release date: May 14, 2006 [eBook #2028]
Most recently updated: March 9, 2018
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2028
Credits: Produced by Donald Lainson; Anonymous Volunteers; David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YELLOW CLAW ***
Produced by Donald Lainson; Anonymous Volunteers; David Widger
THE YELLOW CLAW
by Sax Rohmer
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE LADY OF THE CIVET FURS
II MIDNIGHT--AND MR. KING
III INSPECTOR DUNBAR TAKES CHARGE
IV A WINDOW IS OPENED
V DOCTORS DIFFER
VI AT SCOTLAND YARD
VII THE MAN IN THE LIMOUSINE
VIII CABMEN TWO
IX THE MAN IN BLACK
X THE GREAT UNDERSTANDING
XI PRESENTING M. GASTON MAX
XII MR. GIANAPOLIS
XIII THE DRAFT ON PARIS
XIV EAST 18642
XV CAVE OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON
XVI HO-PIN'S CATACOMBS
XVII KAN-SUH CONCESSIONS
XVIII THE WORLD ABOVE
XIX THE LIVING DEAD
XX ABRAHAM LEVINSKY BUTTS IN
XXI THE STUDIO IN SOHO
XXII M. MAX MOUNTS CAGLIOSTRO'S STAIRCASE
XXIII RAID IN THE RUE ST.-CLAUDE
XXIV OPIUM
XXV FATE'S SHUTTLECOCK
XXVI “OUR LADY OF THE POPPIES”
XXVII GROVE OF A MILLION APES
XXVIII THE OPIUM AGENT
XXIX M. MAX OF LONDON AND M. MAX OF PARIS
XXX MAHARA
XXXI MUSK AND ROSES
XXXII BLUE BLINDS
XXXIII LOGIC VS. INTUITION
XXXIV M. MAX REPORTS PROGRESS
XXXV TRACKER TRACKED
XXXVI IN DUNBAR'S ROOM
XXXVII THE WHISTLE
XXXVIII THE SECRET TRAPS
XXXIX THE LABYRINTH
XL DAWN AT THE NORE
XLI WESTMINSTER--MIDNIGHT
THE YELLOW CLAW
I
THE LADY OF THE CIVET FURS
Henry Leroux wrote busily on. The light of the table-lamp, softened and
enriched by its mosaic shade, gave an appearance of added opulence to
the already handsome appointments of the room. The little table-clock
ticked merrily from half-past eleven to a quarter to twelve.
Into the cozy, bookish atmosphere of the novelist's study penetrated the
muffled chime of Big Ben; it chimed the three-quarters. But, with his
mind centered upon his work, Leroux wrote on ceaselessly.
An odd figure of a man was this popular novelist, with patchy and
untidy hair which lessened the otherwise striking contour of his brow.
A neglected and unpicturesque figure, in a baggy, neutral-colored
dressing-gown; a figure more fitted to a garret than to this spacious,
luxurious workroom, with the soft light playing upon rank after rank
of rare and costly editions, deepening the tones in the Persian carpet,
making red morocco more red, purifying the vellum and regilding the
gold of the choice bindings, caressing lovingly the busts and statuettes
surmounting the book-shelves, and twinkling upon the scantily-covered
crown of Henry Leroux. The door bell rang.
Leroux, heedless of external matters, pursued his work. But the door
bell rang again and continued to ring.
“Soames! Soames!” Leroux raised his voice irascibly, continuing to write
the while. “Where the devil are you! Can't you hear the door bell?”
Soames did not reveal himself; and to the ringing of the bell was added
the unmistakable rattling of a letter-box.
“Soames!” Leroux put down his pen and stood up. “Damn it! he's out! I
have no memory!”
He retied the girdle of his dressing-gown, which had become unfastened,
and opened the study door. Opposite, across the entrance lobby, was
the outer door; and in the light from the lobby lamp he perceived two
laughing eyes peering in under the upraised flap of the letter-box. The
ringing ceased.
“Are you VERY angry with me for interrupting you?” cried a girl's voice.
“My dear Miss Cumberly!” said Leroux without irritation; “on the
contrary--er--I am delighted to see you--or rather to hear you. There is
nobody at home, you know.”...
“I DO know,” replied the girl firmly, “and I know something else, also.
Father assures me that you simply STARVE yourself when Mrs. Leroux is
away! So I have brought down an omelette!”
“Omelette!” muttered Leroux, advancing toward the door; “you
have--er--brought an omelette! I understand--yes; you have brought an
omelette? Er--that is very good of you.”
He hesitated when about to open the outer door, raising his hands to his
dishevelled hair and unshaven chin. The flap of the letter-box dropped;
and the girl outside could be heard stifling her laughter.
“You must think me--er--very rude,” began Leroux; “I mean--not to open
the door. But”...
“I quite understand,” concluded the voice of the unseen one. “You are a
most untidy object! And I shall tell Mira DIRECTLY she returns that she
has no right to leave you alone like this! Now I am going to hurry back
upstairs; so you may appear safely. Don't let the omelette get cold.
Good night!”
“No, certainly I shall not!” cried Leroux. “So good of you--I--er--do
like omelette.... Good night!”
Calmly he returned to his writing-table, where, in the pursuit of the
elusive character whose exploits he was chronicling and who had brought
him fame and wealth, he forgot in the same moment Helen Cumberly and the
omelette.
The table-clock ticked merrily on;
SCRATCH--SCRATCH--SPLUTTER--SCRATCH--went Henry Leroux's pen; for this
up-to-date litterateur, essayist by inclination, creator of “Martin
Zeda, Criminal Scientist” by popular clamor, was yet old-fashioned
enough, and sufficient of an enthusiast, to pen his work, while lesser
men dictated.
So, amidst that classic company, smiling or frowning upon him from the
oaken shelves, where Petronius Arbiter, exquisite, rubbed shoulders
with Balzac, plebeian; where Omar Khayyam leaned confidentially toward
Philostratus; where Mark Twain, standing squarely beside Thomas Carlyle,
glared across the room at George Meredith, Henry Leroux pursued the
amazing career of “Martin Zeda.”
It wanted but five minutes to the hour of midnight, when again the door
bell clamored in the silence.
Leroux wrote steadily on. The bell continued to ring, and, furthermore,
the ringer could be heard beating upon the outer door.
“Soames!” cried Leroux irritably, “Soames! Why the hell don't you go to
the door!”
Leroux stood up, dashing his pen upon the table.
“I shall have to sack that damned man!” he cried; “he takes too many
liberties--stopping out until this hour of the night!”
He pulled open the study door, crossed the hallway, and opened the door
beyond.
In, out of the darkness--for the stair lights had been
extinguished--staggered a woman; a woman whose pale face exhibited,
despite the ravages of sorrow or illness, signs of quite unusual beauty.
Her eyes were wide opened, and terror-stricken, the pupils contracted
almost to vanishing point. She wore a magnificent cloak of civet fur
wrapped tightly about her, and, as Leroux opened the door, she tottered
past him into the lobby, glancing back over her shoulder.
With his upraised hands plunged pathetically into the mop of his hair,
Leroux turned and stared at the intruder. She groped as if a darkness
had descended, clutched at the sides of the study doorway, and then,
unsteadily, entered--and sank down upon the big chesterfield in utter
exhaustion.
Leroux, rubbing his chin, perplexedly, walked in after her. He
scarcely had his foot upon the study carpet, ere the woman started up,
tremulously, and shot out from the enveloping furs a bare arm and a
pointing, quivering finger.
“Close the door!” she cried hoarsely--“close the door!... He has...
followed me!”...
The disturbed novelist, as a man in a dream, turned, retraced his steps,
and closed the outer door of the flat. Then, rubbing his chin more
vigorously than ever and only desisting from this exercise to fumble in
his dishevelled hair, he walked back into the study, whose Athenean calm
had thus mysteriously been violated.
Two minutes to midnight; the most respectable flat in respectable
Westminster; a lonely and very abstracted novelist--and a pale-faced,
beautiful woman, enveloped in costly furs, sitting staring with fearful
eyes straight before her. This was such a scene as his sense of the
proprieties and of the probabilities could never have permitted Henry
Leroux to create.
His visitor kept moistening her dry lips and swallowing, emotionally.
Standing at a discreet distance from her:--
“Madam,” began Leroux, nervously.
She waved her hand, enjoining him to silence, and at the same time
intimating that she would explain herself directly speech became
possible. Whilst she sought to recover her composure, Leroux, gradually
forcing himself out of the dreamlike state, studied her with a sort of
anxious curiosity.
It now became apparent to him that his visitor was no more than
twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, but illness or trouble, or both
together, had seared and marred her beauty. Amid the auburn masses of
her hair, gleamed streaks, not of gray, but of purest white. The low
brow was faintly wrinkled, and the big--unnaturally big--eyes were
purple shaded; whilst two heavy lines traced their way from the corner
of the nostrils to the corner of the mouth--of the drooping mouth with
the bloodless lips.
Her pallor became more strange and interesting the longer he studied it;
for, underlying the skin was a yellow tinge which he found inexplicable,
but which he linked in his mind with the contracted pupils of her eyes,
seeking vainly for a common cause.
He had a hazy impression that his visitor, beneath her furs, was most
inadequately clothed; and seeking confirmation of this, his gaze strayed
downward to where one little slippered foot peeped out from the civet
furs.
Leroux suppressed a gasp. He had caught a glimpse of a bare ankle!
He crossed to his writing-table, and seated himself, glancing sideways
at this living mystery. Suddenly she began, in a voice tremulous and
scarcely audible:--
“Mr. Leroux, at a great--at a very great personal risk, I have come
to-night. What I have to ask of you--to entreat of you, will... will”...
Two bare arms emerged from the fur, and she began clutching at her
throat and bosom as though choking--dying.
Leroux leapt up and would have run to her; but forcing a ghastly smile,
she waved him away again.
“It is all right,” she muttered, swallowing noisily. But frightful
spasms of pain convulsed her, contorting her pale face.
“Some brandy--!” cried Leroux, anxiously.
“If you please,” whispered the visitor.
She dropped her arms and fell back upon the chesterfield, insensible.
II
MIDNIGHT AND MR. KING
Leroux clutched at the corner of the writing-table to steady himself
and stood there looking at the deathly face. Under the most favorable
circumstances, he was no man of action, although in common with the rest
of his kind he prided himself upon the possession of that presence of
mind which he lacked. It was a situation which could not have alarmed
“Martin Zeda,” but it alarmed, immeasurably, nay, struck inert with
horror, Martin Zeda's creator.
Then, in upon Leroux's mental turmoil, a sensible idea intruded itself.
“Dr. Cumberly!” he muttered. “I hope to God he is in!”
Without touching the recumbent form upon the chesterfield, without
seeking to learn, without daring to learn, if she lived or had died,
Leroux, the tempo of his life changed to a breathless gallop, rushed
out of the study, across the entrance hail, and, throwing wide the flat
door, leapt up the stair to the flat above--that of his old friend, Dr.
Cumberly.
The patter of the slippered feet grew faint upon the stair; then, as
Leroux reached the landing above, became inaudible altogether.
In Leroux's study, the table-clock ticked merrily on, seeming to hasten
its ticking as the hand crept around closer and closer to midnight.
The mosaic shade of the lamp mingled reds and blues and greens upon the
white ceiling above and poured golden light upon the pages of manuscript
strewn about beneath it. This was a typical work-room of a literary man
having the ear of the public--typical in every respect, save for the
fur-clad figure outstretched upon the settee.
And now the peeping light indiscreetly penetrated to the hem of a silken
garment revealed by some disarrangement of the civet fur. To the eye
of an experienced observer, had such an observer been present in Henry
Leroux's study, this billow of silk and lace behind the sheltering fur
must have proclaimed itself the edge of a night-robe, just as the ankle
beneath had proclaimed itself to Henry Leroux's shocked susceptibilities
to be innocent of stocking.
Thirty seconds were wanted to complete the cycle of the day, when one of
the listless hands thrown across the back of the chesterfield opened and
closed spasmodically. The fur at the bosom of the midnight visitor began
rapidly to rise and fall.
Then, with a choking cry, the woman struggled upright; her hair, hastily
dressed, burst free of its bindings and poured in gleaming cascade down
about her shoulders.
Clutching with one hand at her cloak in order to keep it wrapped about
her, and holding the other blindly before her, she rose, and with that
same odd, groping movement, began to approach the writing-table. The
pupils of her eyes were mere pin-points now; she shuddered convulsively,
and her skin was dewed with perspiration. Her breath came in agonized
gasps.
“God!--I... am dying... and I cannot--tell him!” she breathed.
Feverishly, weakly, she took up a pen, and upon a quarto page, already
half filled with Leroux's small, neat, illegible writing, began to
scrawl a message, bending down, one hand upon the table, and with her
whole body shaking.
Some three or four wavering lines she had written, when intimately,
for the flat of Henry Leroux in Palace Mansions lay within sight of the
clock-face--Big Ben began to chime midnight.
The writer started back and dropped a great blot of ink upon the paper;
then, realizing the cause of the disturbance, forced herself to continue
her task.
The chime being completed: ONE! boomed the clock; TWO!... THREE! ...
FOUR!...
The light in the entrance-hall went out!
FIVE! boomed Big Ben;--SIX!... SEVEN!...
A hand, of old ivory hue, a long, yellow, clawish hand, with part of a
sinewy forearm, crept in from the black lobby through the study doorway
and touched the electric switch!
EIGHT!...
The study was plunged in darkness!
Uttering a sob--a cry of agony and horror that came from her very
soul--the woman stood upright and turned to face toward the door,
clutching the sheet of paper in one rigid hand.
Through the leaded panes of the window above the writing-table swept
a silvern beam of moonlight. It poured, searchingly, upon the fur-clad
figure swaying by the table; cutting through the darkness of the room
like some huge scimitar, to end in a pallid pool about the woman's
shadow on the center of the Persian carpet.
Coincident with her sobbing cry--NINE! boomed Big Ben; TEN!...
Two hands--with outstretched, crooked, clutching fingers--leapt from the
darkness into the light of the moonbeam.
“God! Oh, God!” came a frenzied, rasping shriek--“MR. KING!”
Straight at the bare throat leapt the yellow hands; a gurgling cry
rose--fell--and died away.
Gently, noiselessly, the lady of the civet fur sank upon the carpet by
the table; as she fell, a dim black figure bent over her. The tearing
of paper told of the note being snatched from her frozen grip; but never
for a moment did the face or the form of her assailant encroach upon the
moonbeam.
Batlike, this second and terrible visitant avoided the light.
The deed had occupied so brief a time that but one note of the great
bell had accompanied it.
TWELVE! rang out the final stroke from the clock-tower. A low, eerie
whistle, minor, rising in three irregular notes and falling in weird,
unusual cadence to silence again, came from somewhere outside the room.
Then darkness--stillness--with the moon a witness of one more ghastly
crime.
Presently, confused and intermingled voices from above proclaimed the
return of Leroux with the doctor. They were talking in an excited
key, the voice of Leroux, especially, sounding almost hysterical. They
created such a disturbance that they attracted the attention of Mr. John
Exel, M. P., occupant of the flat below, who at that very moment had
returned from the House and was about to insert the key in the lock of
his door. He looked up the stairway, but, all being in darkness, was
unable to detect anything. Therefore he called out:--
“Is that you, Leroux? Is anything the matter?”
“Matter, Exel!” cried Leroux; “there's a devil of a business! For
mercy's sake, come up!”
His curiosity greatly excited, Mr. Exel mounted the stairs, entering
the lobby of Leroux's flat immediately behind the owner and Dr.
Cumberly--who, like Leroux, was arrayed in a dressing-gown; for he had
been in bed when summoned by his friend.
“You are all in the dark, here,” muttered Dr. Cumberly, fumbling for the
switch.
“Some one has turned the light out!” whispered Leroux, nervously; “I
left it on.”
Dr. Cumberly pressed the switch, turning up the lobby light as Exel
entered from the landing. Then Leroux, entering the study first of the
three, switched on the light there, also.
One glance he threw about the room, then started back like a man
physically stricken.
“Cumberly!” he gasped, “Cumberly”--and he pointed to the furry heap by
the writing-table.
“You said she lay on the chesterfield,” muttered Cumberly.
“I left her there.”...
Dr. Cumberly crossed the room and dropped upon his knees. He turned the
white face toward the light, gently parted the civet fur, and pressed
his ear to the silken covering of the breast. He started slightly and
looked into the glazing eyes.
Replacing the fur which he had disarranged, the physician stood up and
fixed a keen gaze upon the face of Henry Leroux. The latter swallowed
noisily, moistening his parched lips.
“Is she”... he muttered; “is she”...
“God's mercy, Leroux!” whispered Mr. Exel--“what does this mean?”
“The woman is dead,” said Dr. Cumberly.
In common with all medical men, Dr. Cumberly was a physiognomist; he was
a great physician and a proportionately great physiognomist. Therefore,
when he looked into Henry Leroux's eyes, he saw there, and recognized,
horror and consternation. With no further evidence than that furnished
by his own powers of perception, he knew that the mystery of this
woman's death was as inexplicable to Henry Leroux as it was inexplicable
to himself.
He was a masterful man, with the gray eyes of a diplomat, and he knew
Leroux as did few men. He laid both hands upon the novelist's shoulders.
“Brace up, old chap!” he said; “you will want all your wits about you.”
“I left her,” began Leroux, hesitatingly--“I left”...
“We know all about where you left her, Leroux,” interrupted Cumberly;
“but what we want to get at is this: what occurred between the time you
left her, and the time of our return?”
Exel, who had walked across to the table, and with a horror-stricken
face was gingerly examining the victim, now exclaimed:--
“Why! Leroux! she is--she is... UNDRESSED!”
Leroux clutched at his dishevelled hair with both hands.
“My dear Exel!” he cried--“my dear, good man! Why do you use that tone?
You say 'she is undressed!' as though I were responsible for the poor
soul's condition!”
“On the contrary, Leroux!” retorted Exel, standing very upright, and
staring through his monocle; “on the contrary, YOU misconstrue ME! I did
not intend to imply--to insinuate--”
“My dear Exel!” broke in Dr. Cumberly--“Leroux is perfectly well aware
that you intended nothing unkindly. But the poor chap, quite naturally,
is distraught at the moment. You MUST understand that, man!”
“I understand; and I am sorry,” said Exel, casting a sidelong glance
at the body. “Of course, it is a delicate subject. No doubt Leroux can
explain.”...
“Damn your explanation!” shrieked Leroux hysterically. “I CANNOT
explain! If I could explain, I”...
“Leroux!” said Cumberly, placing his arm paternally about the shaking
man--“you are such a nervous subject. DO make an effort, old fellow.
Pull yourself together. Exel does not know the circumstances--”
“I am curious to learn them,” said the M. P. icily.
Leroux was about to launch some angry retort, but Cumberly forced him
into the chesterfield, and crossing to a bureau, poured out a stiff
peg of brandy from a decanter which stood there. Leroux sank upon the
chesterfield, rubbing his fingers up and down his palms with a
curious nervous movement and glancing at the dead woman, and at Exel,
alternately, in a mechanical, regular fashion, pathetic to behold.
Mr. Exel, tapping his boot with the head of his inverted cane, was
staring fixedly at the doctor.
“Here you are, Leroux,” said Cumberly; “drink this up, and let us
arrange our facts in decent order before we--”
“Phone for the police?” concluded Exel, his gaze upon the last speaker.
Leroux drank the brandy at a gulp and put down the glass upon a little
persian coffee table with a hand which he had somehow contrived to
steady.
“You are keen on the official forms, Exel?” he said, with a wry smile.
“Please accept my apology for my recent--er--outburst, but picture this
thing happening in your place!”
“I cannot,” declared Exel, bluntly.
“You lack imagination,” said Cumberly. “Take a whisky and soda, and help
me to search the flat.”
“Search the flat!”
The physician raised a forefinger, forensically.
“Since you, Exel, if not actually in the building, must certainly have
been within sight of the street entrance at the moment of the crime, and
since Leroux and I descended the stair and met you on the landing, it is
reasonable to suppose that the assassin can only be in one place: HERE!”
“HERE!” cried Exel and Leroux, together.
“Did you see anyone leave the lower hall as you entered?”
“No one; emphatically, there was no one there!”
“Then I am right.”
“Good God!” whispered Exel, glancing about him, with a new, and keen
apprehensiveness.
“Take your drink,” concluded Cumberly, “and join me in my search.”
“Thanks,” replied Exel, nervously proffering a cigar-case; “but I won't
drink.”
“As you wish,” said the doctor, who thus, in his masterful way, acted
the host; “and I won't smoke. But do you light up.”
“Later,” muttered Exel; “later. Let us search, first.”
Leroux stood up; Cumberly forced him back.
“Stay where you are, Leroux; it is elementary strategy to operate from a
fixed base. This study shall be the base. Ready, Exel?”
Exel nodded, and the search commenced. Leroux sat rigidly upon the
settee, his hands resting upon his knees, watching and listening. Save
for the merry ticking of the table-clock, and the movements of the
searchers from room to room, nothing disturbed the silence. From the
table, and that which lay near to it, he kept his gaze obstinately
averted.
Five or six minutes passed in this fashion, Leroux expecting each to
bring a sudden outcry. He was disappointed. The searchers returned, Exel
noticeably holding himself aloof and Cumberly very stern.
Exel, a cigar between his teeth, walked to the writing-table, carefully
circling around the dreadful obstacle which lay in his path, to help
himself to a match. As he stooped to do so, he perceived that in the
closed right hand of the dead woman was a torn scrap of paper.
“Leroux! Cumberly!” he exclaimed; “come here!”
He pointed with the match as Cumberly hurriedly crossed to his side.
Leroux, inert, remained where he sat, but watched with haggard eyes. Dr.
Cumberly bent down and sought to detach the paper from the grip of the
poor cold fingers, without tearing it. Finally he contrived to release
the fragment, and, perceiving it to bear some written words, he spread
it out beneath the lamp, on the table, and eagerly scanned it, lowering
his massive gray head close to the writing.
He inhaled, sibilantly.
“Do you see, Exel?” he jerked--for Exel was bending over his shoulder.
“I do--but I don't understand.”
“What is it?” came hollowly from Leroux.
“It is the bottom part of an unfinished note,” said Cumberly, slowly.
“It is written shakily in a woman's hand, and it reads:--'Your wife'”...
Leroux sprang to his feet and crossed the room in three strides.
“Wife!” he muttered. His voice seemed to be choked in his throat; “my
wife! It says something about my wife?”
“It says,” resumed the doctor, quietly, “'your wife.' Then there's a
piece torn out, and the two words 'Mr. King.' No stop follows, and the
line is evidently incomplete.”
“My wife!” mumbled Leroux, staring unseeingly at the fragment of paper.
“MY WIFE! MR. KING! Oh! God! I shall go mad!”
“Sit down!” snapped Dr. Cumberly, turning to him; “damn it, Leroux, you
are worse than a woman!”
In a manner almost childlike, the novelist obeyed the will of the
stronger man, throwing himself into an armchair, and burying his face in
his hands.
“My wife!” he kept muttering--“my wife!”...
Exel and the doctor stood staring at one another; when suddenly, from
outside the flat, came a metallic clattering, followed by a little
suppressed cry. Helen Cumberly, in daintiest deshabille, appeared in
the lobby, carrying, in one hand, a chafing-dish, and, in the other,
the lid. As she advanced toward the study, from whence she had heard her
father's voice:--
“Why, Mr. Leroux!” she cried, “I shall CERTAINLY report you to Mira,
now! You have not even touched the omelette!”
“Good God! Cumberly! stop her!” muttered Exel, uneasily. “The door was
not latched!”...
But it was too late. Even as the physician turned to intercept his
daughter, she crossed the threshold of the study. She stopped short
at perceiving Exel; then, with a woman's unerring intuition, divined a
tragedy, and, in the instant of divination, sought for, and found, the
hub of the tragic wheel.
One swift glance she cast at the fur-clad form, prostrate.
The chafing-dish fell from her hand, and the omelette rolled, a
grotesque mass, upon the carpet. She swayed, dizzily, raising one hand
to her brow, but had recovered herself even as Leroux sprang forward to
support her.
“All right, Leroux!” cried Cumberly; “I will take her upstairs again.
Wait for me, Exel.”
Exel nodded, lighted his cigar, and sat down in a chair, remote from the
writing-table.
“Mira--my wife!” muttered Leroux, standing, looking after Dr. Cumberly
and his daughter as they crossed the lobby. “She will report to--my
wife.”...
In the outer doorway, Helen Cumberly looked back over her shoulder,
and her glance met that of Leroux. Hers was a healing glance and a
strengthening glance; it braced him up as nothing else could have done.
He turned to Exel.
“For Heaven's sake, Exel!” he said, evenly, “give me your advice--give
me your help; I am going to 'phone for the police.”
Exel looked up with an odd expression.
“I am entirely at your service, Leroux,” he said. “I can quite
understand how this ghastly affair has shaken you up.”
“It was so sudden,” said the other, plaintively. “It is incredible
that so much emotion can be crowded into so short a period of a man's
life.”...
Big Ben chimed the quarter after midnight. Leroux, eyes averted, walked
to the writing-table, and took up the telephone.
III
INSPECTOR DUNBAR TAKES CHARGE
Detective-Inspector Dunbar was admitted by Dr. Cumberly. He was a man of
notable height, large-boned, and built gauntly and squarely. His clothes
fitted him ill, and through them one seemed to perceive the massive
scaffolding of his frame. He had gray hair retiring above a high
brow, but worn long and untidily at the back; a wire-like straight-cut
mustache, also streaked with gray, which served to accentuate the
grimness of his mouth and slightly undershot jaw. A massive head, with
tawny, leonine eyes; indeed, altogether a leonine face, and a frame
indicative of tremendous nervous energy.
In the entrance lobby he stood for a moment.
“My name is Cumberly,” said the doctor, glancing at the card which the
Scotland Yard man had proffered. “I occupy the flat above.”
“Glad to know you, Dr. Cumberly,” replied the detective in a light and
not unpleasant voice--and the fierce eyes momentarily grew kindly.
“This--” continued Cumberly, drawing Dunbar forward into the study, “is
my friend, Leroux--Henry Leroux, whose name you will know?”
“I have not that pleasure,” replied Dunbar.
“Well,” added Cumberly, “he is a famous novelist, and his flat,
unfortunately, has been made the scene of a crime. This is
Detective-Inspector Dunbar, who has come to solve our difficulties,
Leroux.” He turned to where Exel stood upon the hearth-rug--toying with
his monocle. “Mr. John Exel, M. P.”
“Glad to know you, gentlemen,” said Dunbar.
Leroux rose from the armchair in which he had been sitting and stared,
drearily, at the newcomer. Exel screwed the monocle into his right eye,
and likewise surveyed the detective. Cumberly, taking a tumbler from the
bureau, said:--
“A scotch-and-soda, Inspector?”
“It is a suggestion,” said Dunbar, “that, coming from a medical man,
appeals.”
Whilst the doctor poured out the whisky and squirted the soda into the
glass, Inspector Dunbar, standing squarely in the middle of the
room, fixed his eyes upon the still form lying in the shadow of the
writing-table.
“You will have been called in, doctor,” he said, taking the proffered
tumbler, “at the time of the crime?”
“Exactly!” replied Cumberly. “Mr. Leroux ran up to my flat and summoned
me to see the woman.”
“What time would that be?”
“Big Ben had just struck the final stroke of twelve when I came out on
to the landing.”
“Mr. Leroux would be waiting there for you?”
“He stood in my entrance-lobby whilst I slipped on my dressing-gown, and
we came down together.”
“I was entering from the street,” interrupted Exel, “as they were
descending from above”...
“You can enter from the street, sir, in a moment,” said Dunbar, holding
up his hand. “One witness at a time, if you please.”
Exel shrugged his shoulders and turned slightly, leaning his elbow upon
the mantelpiece and flicking off the ash from his cigar.
“I take it you were in bed?” questioned Dunbar, turning again to the
doctor.
“I had been in bed about a quarter of an hour when I was aroused by the
ringing of the door-bell. This ringing struck me as so urgent that I
ran out in my pajamas, and found there Mr. Leroux, in a very disturbed
state--”
“What did he say? Give his own words as nearly as you remember them.”
Leroux, who had been standing, sank slowly back into the armchair, with
his eyes upon Dr. Cumberly as the latter replied:--
“He said 'Cumberly! Cumberly! For God's sake, come down at once; there
is a strange woman in my flat, apparently in a dying condition!'”
“What did you do?”
“I ran into my bedroom and slipped on my dressing-gown, leaving Mr.
Leroux in the entrance-hall. Then, with the clock chiming the last
stroke of midnight, we came out together and I closed my door behind me.
There was no light on the stair; but our conversation--Mr. Leroux was
speaking in a very high-pitched voice”...
“What was he saying?”
“He was explaining to me how some woman, unknown to him, had interrupted
his work a few minutes before by ringing his door-bell.”...
Inspector Dunbar held up his hand.
“I won't ask you to repeat what he said, doctor; Mr. Leroux, presently,
can give me his own words.”
“We had descended to this floor, then,” resumed Cumberly, “when Mr.
Exel, entering below, called up to us, asking if anything was the
matter. Leroux replied, 'Matter, Exel! There's a devil of a business!
For mercy's sake, come up!'”
“Well?”
“Mr. Exel thereupon joined us at the door of this flat.”
“Was it open?”
“Yes. Mr. Leroux had rushed up to me, leaving the door open behind him.
The light was out, both in the lobby and in the study, a fact upon which
I commented at the time. It was all the more curious as Mr. Leroux had
left both lights on!”...
“Did he say so?”
“He did. The circumstances surprised him to a marked degree. We came in
and I turned up the light in the lobby. Then Leroux, entering the
study, turned up the light there, too. I entered next, followed by Mr.
Exel--and we saw the body lying where you see it now.”
“Who saw it first?”
“Mr. Leroux; he drew my attention to it, saying that he had left her
lying on the chesterfield and NOT upon the floor.”
“You examined her?”
“I did. She was dead, but still warm. She exhibited signs of recent
illness, and of being addicted to some drug habit; probably morphine.
This, beyond doubt, contributed to her death, but the direct cause was
asphyxiation. She had been strangled!”
“My God!” groaned Leroux, dropping his face into his hands.
“You found marks on her throat?”
“The marks were very slight. No great pressure was required in her weak
condition.”
“You did not move the body?”
“Certainly not; a more complete examination must be made, of course. But
I extracted a piece of torn paper from her clenched right hand.”
Inspector Dunbar lowered his tufted brows.
“I'm not glad to know you did that,” he said. “It should have been
left.”
“It was done on the spur of the moment, but without altering the
position of the hand or arm. The paper lies upon the table, yonder.”
Inspector Dunbar took a long drink. Thus far he had made no attempt
to examine the victim. Pulling out a bulging note-case from the inside
pocket of his blue serge coat, he unscrewed a fountain-pen, carefully
tested the nib upon his thumb nail, and made three or four brief
entries. Then, stretching out one long arm, he laid the wallet and
the pen beside his glass upon the top of a bookcase, without otherwise
changing his position, and glancing aside at Exel, said:--
“Now, Mr. Exel, what help can you give us?”
“I have little to add to Dr. Cumberly's account,” answered Exel,
offhandedly. “The whole thing seemed to me”...
“What it seemed,” interrupted Dunbar, “does not interest Scotland Yard,
Mr. Exel, and won't interest the jury.”
Leroux glanced up for a moment, then set his teeth hard, so that his jaw
muscles stood out prominently under the pallid skin.
“What do you want to know, then?” asked Exel.
“I will be wanting to know,” said Dunbar, “where you were coming from,
to-night?”
“From the House of Commons.”
“You came direct?”
“I left Sir Brian Malpas at the corner of Victoria Street at four
minutes to twelve by Big Ben, and walked straight home, actually
entering here, from the street, as the clock was chiming the last stroke
of midnight.”
“Then you would have walked up the street from an easterly direction?”
“Certainly.”
“Did you meet any one or anything?”
“A taxi-cab, empty--for the hood was lowered--passed me as I turned the
corner. There was no other vehicle in the street, and no person.”
“You don't know from which door the cab came?”
“As I turned the corner,” replied Exel, “I heard the man starting his
engine, although when I actually saw the cab, it was in motion; but
judging by the sound to which I refer, the cab had been stationary,
if not at the door of Palace Mansions, certainly at that of the next
block--St. Andrew's Mansions.”
“Did you hear, or see anything else?”
“I saw nothing whatever. But just as I approached the street door, I
heard a peculiar whistle, apparently proceeding from the gardens in the
center of the square. I attached no importance to it at the time.”
“What kind of whistle?”
“I have forgotten the actual notes, but the effect was very odd in some
way.”
“In what way?”
“An impression of this sort is not entirely reliable, Inspector; but it
struck me as Oriental.”
“Ah!” said Dunbar, and reached out the long arm for his notebook.
“Can I be of any further assistance?” said Exel, glancing at his watch.
“You had entered the hall-way and were about to enter your own flat when
the voices of Dr. Cumberly and Mr. Leroux attracted your attention?”
“I actually had the key in my hand,” replied Exel.
“Did you actually have the key in the lock?”
“Let me think,” mused Exel, and he took out a bunch of keys and dangled
them, reflectively, before his eyes. “No! I was fumbling for the right
key when I heard the voices above me.”
“But were you facing your door?”
“No,” averred Exel, perceiving the drift of the inspector's inquiries;
“I was facing the stairway the whole time, and although it was in
darkness, there is a street lamp immediately outside on the pavement,
and I can swear, positively, that no one descended; that there was no
one in the hall nor on the stair, except Mr. Leroux and Dr. Cumberly.”
“Ah!” said Dunbar again, and made further entries in his book. “I need
not trouble you further, sir. Good night!”
Exel, despite his earlier attitude of boredom, now ignored this official
dismissal, and, tossing the stump of his cigar into the grate, lighted a
cigarette, and with both hands thrust deep in his pockets, stood leaning
back against the mantelpiece. The detective turned to Leroux.
“Have a brandy-and-soda?” suggested Dr. Cumberly, his eyes turned upon
the pathetic face of the novelist.
But Leroux shook his head, wearily.
“Go ahead, Inspector!” he said. “I am anxious to tell you all I know.
God knows I am anxious to tell you.”
A sound was heard of a key being inserted in the lock of a door.
Four pairs of curious eyes were turned toward the entrance lobby, when
the door opened, and a sleek man of medium height, clean shaven, but
with his hair cut low upon the cheek bones, so as to give the impression
of short side-whiskers, entered in a manner at once furtive and servile.
He wore a black overcoat and a bowler hat. Reclosing the door, he
turned, perceived the group in the study, and fell back as though
someone had struck him a fierce blow.
Abject terror was written upon his features, and, for a moment, the idea
of flight appeared to suggest itself urgently to him; but finally, he
took a step forward toward the study.
“Who's this?” snapped Dunbar, without removing his leonine eyes from the
newcomer.
“It is Soames,” came the weary voice of Leroux.
“Butler?”
“Yes.”
“Where's he been?”
“I don't know. He remained out without my permission.”
“He did, eh?”
Inspector Dunbar thrust forth a long finger at the shrinking form in the
doorway.
“Mr. Soames,” he said, “you will be going to your own room and waiting
there until I ring for you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Soames, holding his hat in both bands, and speaking
huskily. “Yes, sir: certainly, sir.”
He crossed the lobby and disappeared.
“There is no other way out, is there?” inquired the detective, glancing
at Dr. Cumberly.
“There is no other way,” was the reply; “but surely you don't
suspect”...
“I would suspect the Archbishop of Westminster,” snapped Dunbar, “if
he came in like that! Now, sir,”--he turned to Leroux--“you were alone,
here, to-night?”
“Quite alone, Inspector. The truth is, I fear, that my servants take
liberties in the absence of my wife.”
“In the absence of your wife? Where is your wife?”
“She is in Paris.”
“Is she a Frenchwoman?”
“No! oh, no! But my wife is a painter, you understand, and--er--I met
her in Paris--er--... Must you insist upon these--domestic particulars,
Inspector?”
“If Mr. Exel is anxious to turn in,” replied the inspector, “after his
no doubt exhausting duties at the House, and if Dr. Cumberly--”
“I have no secrets from Cumberly!” interjected Leroux. “The doctor
has known me almost from boyhood, but--er--” turning to the
politician--“don't you know, Exel--no offense, no offense”...
“My dear Leroux,” responded Exel hastily, “I am the offender! Permit me
to wish you all good night.”
He crossed the study, and, at the door, paused and turned.
“Rely upon me, Leroux,” he said, “to help in any way within my power.”
He crossed the lobby, opened the outer door, and departed.
“Now, Mr. Leroux,” resumed Dunbar, “about this matter of your wife's
absence.”
IV
A WINDOW IS OPENED
Whilst Henry Leroux collected his thoughts, Dr. Cumberly glanced across
at the writing-table where lay the fragment of paper which had been
clutched in the dead woman's hand, then turned his head again toward the
inspector, staring at him curiously. Since Dunbar had not yet attempted
even to glance at the strange message, he wondered what had prompted the
present line of inquiry.
“My wife,” began Leroux, “shared a studio in Paris, at the time that I
met her, with an American lady a very talented portrait painter--er--a
Miss Denise Ryland. You may know her name?--but of course, you don't,
no! Well, my wife is, herself, quite clever with her brush; in fact she
has exhibited more than once at the Paris Salon. We agreed at--er--the
time of our--of our--engagement, that she should be free to visit her
old artistic friends in Paris at any time. You understand? There was to
be no let or hindrance.... Is this really necessary, Inspector?”
“Pray go on, Mr. Leroux.”
“Well, you understand, it was a give-and-take arrangement; because I
am afraid that I, myself, demand certain--sacrifices from my
wife--and--er--I did not feel entitled to--interfere”...
“You see, Inspector,” interrupted Dr. Cumberly, “they are a Bohemian
pair, and Bohemians, inevitably, bore one another at times! This little
arrangement was intended as a safety-valve. Whenever ennui attacked Mrs.
Leroux, she was at liberty to depart for a week to her own friends in
Paris, leaving Leroux to the bachelor's existence which is really his
proper state; to go unshaven and unshorn, to dine upon bread and cheese
and onions, to work until all hours of the morning, and generally to
enjoy himself!”
“Does she usually stay long?” inquired Dunbar.
“Not more than a week, as a rule,” answered Leroux.
“You must excuse me,” continued the detective, “if I seem to pry into
intimate matters; but on these occasions, how does Mrs. Leroux get on
for money?”
“I have opened a credit for her,” explained the novelist, wearily, “at
the Credit Lyonnais, in Paris.”
Dunbar scribbled busily in his notebook.
“Does she take her maid with her?” he jerked, suddenly.
“She has no maid at the moment,” replied Leroux; “she has been without
one for twelve months or more, now.”
“When did you last hear from her?”
“Three days ago.”
“Did you answer the letter?”
“Yes; my answer was amongst the mail which Soames took to the post,
to-night.”
“You said, though, if I remember rightly, that he was out without
permission?”
Leroux ran his fingers through his hair.
“I meant that he should only have been absent five minutes or so; whilst
he remained out for more than an hour.”
Inspector Dunbar nodded, comprehendingly, tapping his teeth with the
head of the fountain-pen.
“And the other servants?”
“There are only two: a cook and a maid. I released them for the
evening--glad to get rid of them--wanted to work.”
“They are late?”
“They take liberties, damnable liberties, because I am easy-going.”
“I see,” said Dunbar. “So that you were quite alone this evening,
when”--he nodded in the direction of the writing-table--“your visitor
came?”
“Quite alone.”
“Was her arrival the first interruption?”
“No--er--not exactly. Miss Cumberly...”
“My daughter,” explained Dr. Cumberly, “knowing that Mr. Leroux, at
these times, was very neglectful in regard to meals, prepared him an
omelette, and brought it down in a chafing-dish.”
“How long did she remain?” asked the inspector of Leroux.
“I--er--did not exactly open the door. We chatted, through--er--through
the letter-box, and she left the omelette outside on the landing.”
“What time would that be?”
“It was a quarter to twelve,” declared Cumberly. “I had been supping
with some friends, and returned to find Helen, my daughter, engaged
in preparing the omelette. I congratulated her upon the happy thought,
knowing that Leroux was probably starving himself.”
“I see. The omelette, though, seems to be upset here on the floor?” said
the inspector.
Cumberly briefly explained how it came to be there, Leroux punctuating
his friend's story with affirmative nods.
“Then the door of the flat was open all the time?” cried Dunbar.
“Yes,” replied Cumberly; “but whilst Exel and I searched the other
rooms--and our search was exhaustive--Mr. Leroux remained here in the
study, and in full view of the lobby--as you see for yourself.”
“No living thing,” said Leroux, monotonously, “left this flat from the
time that the three of us, Exel, Cumberly, and I, entered, up to the
time that Miss Cumberly came, and, with the doctor, went out again.”
“H'm!” said the inspector, making notes; “it appears so, certainly. I
will ask you then, for your own account, Mr. Leroux, of the arrival of
the woman in the civet furs. Pay special attention”--he pointed with his
fountain-pen--“to the TIME at which the various incidents occurred.”
Leroux, growing calmer as he proceeded with the strange story, complied
with the inspector's request. He had practically completed his account
when the door-bell rang.
“It's the servants,” said Dr. Cumberly. “Soames will open the door.”
But Soames did not appear.
The ringing being repeated:--
“I told him to remain in his room,” said Dunbar, “until I rang for him,
I remember--”
“I will open the door,” said Cumberly.
“And tell the servants to stay in the kitchen,” snapped Dunbar.
Dr. Cumberly opened the door, admitting the cook and housemaid.
“There has been an unfortunate accident,” he said--“but not to your
master; you need not be afraid. But be good enough to remain in the
kitchen for the present.”
Peeping in furtively as they passed, the two women crossed the lobby and
went to their own quarters.
“Mr. Soames next,” muttered Dunbar, and, glancing at Cumberly as he
returned from the lobby:--“Will you ring for him?” he requested.
Dr. Cumberly nodded, and pressed a bell beside the mantelpiece. An
interval followed, in which the inspector made notes and Cumberly stood
looking at Leroux, who was beating his palms upon his knees, and staring
unseeingly before him.
Cumberly rang again; and in response to the second ring, the housemaid
appeared at the door.
“I rang for Soames,” said Dr. Cumberly.
“He is not in, sir,” answered the girl.
Inspector Dunbar started as though he had been bitten.
“What!” he cried; “not in?”
“No, sir,” said the girl, with wide-open, frightened eyes.
Dunbar turned to Cumberly.
“You said there was no other way out!”
“There IS no other way, to my knowledge.”
“Where's his room?”
Cumberly led the way to a room at the end of a short corridor, and
Inspector Dunbar, entering, and turning up the light, glanced about
the little apartment. It was a very neat servants' bedroom; with
comfortable, quite simple, furniture; but the chest-of-drawers had
been hastily ransacked, and the contents of a trunk--or some of its
contents--lay strewn about the floor.
“He has packed his grip!” came Leroux's voice from the doorway. “It's
gone!”
The window was wide open. Dunbar sprang forward and leaned out over the
ledge, looking to right and left, above and below.
A sort of square courtyard was beneath, and for the convenience of
tradesmen, a hand-lift was constructed outside the kitchens of the three
flats comprising the house; i. e.:--Mr. Exel's, ground floor, Henry
Leroux's second floor, and Dr. Cumberly's, top. It worked in a skeleton
shaft which passed close to the left of Soames' window.
For an active man, this was a good enough ladder, and the inspector
withdrew his head shrugging his square shoulders, irritably.
“My fault entirely!” he muttered, biting his wiry mustache. “I should
have come and seen for myself if there was another way out.”
Leroux, in a new flutter of excitement, now craned from the window.
“It might be possible to climb down the shaft,” he cried, after a brief
survey, “but not if one were carrying a heavy grip, such as that which
he has taken!”
“H'm!” said Dunbar. “You are a writing gentleman, I understand, and yet
it does not occur to you that he could have lowered the bag on a cord,
if he wanted to avoid the noise of dropping it!”
“Yes--er--of course!” muttered Leroux. “But really--but really--oh, good
God! I am bewildered! What in Heaven's name does it all mean!”
“It means trouble,” replied Dunbar, grimly; “bad trouble.”
They returned to the study, and Inspector Dunbar, for the first time
since his arrival, walked across and examined the fragmentary message,
raising his eyebrows when he discovered that it was written upon the
same paper as Leroux's MSS. He glanced, too, at the pen lying on a page
of “Martin Zeda” near the lamp and at the inky splash which told how
hastily the pen had been dropped.
Then--his brows drawn together--he stooped to the body of the murdered
woman. Partially raising the fur cloak, he suppressed a gasp of
astonishment.
“Why! she only wears a silk night-dress, and a pair of suede slippers!”
He glanced back over his shoulder.
“I had noted that,” said Cumberly. “The whole business is utterly
extraordinary.”
“Extraordinary is no word for it!” growled the inspector, pursuing his
examination.... “Marks of pressure at the throat--yes; and generally
unhealthy appearance.”
“Due to the drug habit,” interjected Dr. Cumberly.
“What drug?”
“I should not like to say out of hand; possibly morphine.”
“No jewelry,” continued the detective, musingly; “wedding ring--not a
new one. Finger nails well cared for, but recently neglected. Hair dyed
to hide gray patches; dye wanted renewing. Shoes, French. Night-robe,
silk; good lace; probably French, also. Faint perfume--don't know what
it is--apparently proceeding from civet fur. Furs, magnificent; very
costly.”...
He slightly moved the table-lamp in order to direct its light upon
the white face. The bloodless lips were parted and the detective bent,
closely peering at the teeth thus revealed.
“Her teeth were oddly discolored, doctor,” he said, taking out a
magnifying glass and examining them closely. “They had been recently
scaled, too; so that she was not in the habit of neglecting them.”
Dr. Cumberly nodded.
“The drug habit, again,” he said guardedly; “a proper examination will
establish the full facts.”
The inspector added brief notes to those already made, ere he rose from
beside the body. Then:--
“You are absolutely certain,” he said, deliberately, facing Leroux,
“that you had never set eyes on this woman prior to her coming here,
to-night?”
“I can swear it!” said Leroux.
“Good!” replied the detective, and closed his notebook with a snap.
“Usual formalities will have to be gone through, but I don't think I
need trouble you, gentlemen, any further, to-night.”
V
DOCTORS DIFFER
Dr. Cumberly walked slowly upstairs to his own flat, a picture etched
indelibly upon his mind, of Henry Leroux, with a face of despair,
sitting below in his dining-room and listening to the ominous sounds
proceeding from the study, where the police were now busily engaged. In
the lobby he met his daughter Helen, who was waiting for him in a state
of nervous suspense.
“Father!” she began, whilst rebuke died upon the doctor's lips--“tell me
quickly what has happened.”
Perceiving that an explanation was unavoidable, Dr. Cumberly outlined
the story of the night's gruesome happenings, whilst Big Ben began to
chime the hour of one.
Helen, eager-eyed, and with her charming face rather pale, hung upon
every word of the narrative.
“And now,” concluded her father, “you must go to bed. I insist.”
“But father!” cried the girl--“there is some thing”...
She hesitated, uneasily.
“Well, Helen, go on,” said the doctor.
“I am afraid you will refuse.”
“At least give me the opportunity.”
“Well--in the glimpse, the half-glimpse, which I had of her, I
seemed”...
Dr. Cumberly rested his hands upon his daughter's shoulders
characteristically, looking into the troubled gray eyes.
“You don't mean,” he began...
“I thought I recognized her!” whispered the girl.
“Good God! can it be possible?”
“I have been trying, ever since, to recall where we had met, but without
result. It might mean so much”...
Dr. Cumberly regarded her, fixedly.
“It might mean so much to--Mr. Leroux. But I suppose you will say it is
impossible?”
“It IS impossible,” said Dr. Cumberly firmly; “dismiss the idea, Helen.”
“But father,” pleaded the girl, placing her hands over his own,
“consider what is at stake”...
“I am anxious that you should not become involved in this morbid
business.”
“But you surely know me better than to expect me to faint or become
hysterical, or anything silly like that! I was certainly shocked when
I came down to-night, because--well, it was all so frightfully
unexpected”...
Dr. Cumberly shook his head. Helen put her arms about his neck and
raised her eyes to his.
“You have no right to refuse,” she said, softly: “don't you see that?”
Dr. Cumberly frowned. Then:--
“You are right, Helen,” he agreed. “I should know your pluck well
enough. But if Inspector Dunbar is gone, the police may refuse to admit
us”...
“Then let us hurry!” cried Helen. “I am afraid they will take away”...
Side by side they descended to Henry Leroux's flat, ringing the bell,
which, an hour earlier, the lady of the civet furs had rung.
A sergeant in uniform opened the door.
“Is Detective-Inspector Dunbar here?” inquired the physician.
“Yes, sir.”
“Say that Dr. Cumberly wishes to speak to him. And”--as the man was
about to depart--“request him not to arouse Mr. Leroux.”
Almost immediately the inspector appeared, a look of surprise upon his
face, which increased on perceiving the girl beside her father.
“This is my daughter, Inspector,” explained Cumberly; “she is a
contributor to the Planet, and to various magazines, and in this
journalistic capacity, meets many people in many walks of life. She
thinks she may be of use to you in preparing your case.”
Dunbar bowed rather awkwardly.
“Glad to meet you, Miss Cumberly,” came the inevitable formula.
“Entirely at your service.”
“I had an idea, Inspector,” said the girl, laying her hand
confidentially upon Dunbar's arm, “that I recognized, when I entered Mr.
Leroux's study, tonight”--Dunbar nodded--“that I recognized--the--the
victim!”
“Good!” said the inspector, rubbing his palms briskly together. His
tawny eyes sparkled. “And you would wish to see her again before we
take her away. Very plucky of you, Miss Cumberly! But then, you are a
doctor's daughter.”
They entered, and the inspector closed the door behind them.
“Don't arouse poor Leroux,” whispered Cumberly to the detective. “I left
him on a couch in the dining-room.”...
“He is still there,” replied Dunbar; “poor chap! It is”...
He met Helen's glance, and broke off shortly.
In the study two uniformed constables, and an officer in plain clothes,
were apparently engaged in making an inventory--or such was the
impression conveyed. The clock ticked merrily on; its ticking a
desecration, where all else was hushed in deference to the grim visitor.
The body of the murdered woman had been laid upon the chesterfield, and
a little, dark, bearded man was conducting an elaborate examination;
when, seeing the trio enter, he hastily threw the coat of civet fur over
the body, and stood up, facing the intruders.
“It's all right, doctor,” said the inspector; “and we shan't detain you
a moment.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Mr. Hilton, M. R. C. S.” he
said, indicating the dark man--“Dr. Cumberly and Miss Cumberly.”
The divisional surgeon bowed to Helen and eagerly grasped the hand of
the celebrated physician.
“I am fortunate in being able to ask your opinion,” he began....
Dr. Cumberly nodded shortly, and with upraised hand, cut him short.
“I shall willingly give you any assistance in my power,” he said;
“but my daughter has voluntarily committed herself to a rather painful
ordeal, and I am anxious to get it over.”
He stooped and raised the fur from the ghastly face.
Helen, her hand resting upon her father's shoulder, ventured one rapid
glance and then looked away, shuddering slightly. Dr. Cumberly replaced
the coat and gazed anxiously at his daughter. But Helen, with admirable
courage, having closed her eyes for a moment, reopened them, and smiled
at her father's anxiety. She was pale, but perfectly composed.
“Well, Miss Cumberly?” inquired the inspector, eagerly; whilst all in
the room watched this slim girl in her charming deshabille, this dainty
figure so utterly out of place in that scene of morbid crime.
She raised her gray eyes to the detective.
“I still believe that I have seen the face, somewhere, before. But I
shall have to reflect a while--I meet so many folks, you know, in a
casual way--before I can commit myself to any statement.”
In the leonine eyes looking into hers gleamed the light of admiration
and approval. The canny Scotsman admired this girl for her beauty, as
a matter of course, for her courage, because courage was a quality
standing high in his estimation, but, above all, for her admirable
discretion.
“Very proper, Miss Cumberly,” he said; “very proper and wise on your
part. I don't wish to hurry you in any way, but”--he hesitated, glancing
at the man in plain clothes, who had now resumed a careful perusal of a
newspaper--“but her name doesn't happen to be Vernon--”
“Vernon!” cried the girl, her eyes lighting up at sound of the name.
“Mrs. Vernon! it is! it is! She was pointed out to me at the last Arts
Ball--where she appeared in a most monstrous Chinese costume--”
“Chinese?” inquired Dunbar, producing the bulky notebook.
“Yes. Oh! poor, poor soul!”
“You know nothing further about her, Miss Cumberly?”
“Nothing, Inspector. She was merely pointed out to me as one of the
strangest figures in the hall. Her husband, I understand, is an art
expert--”
“He WAS!” said Dunbar, closing the book sharply. “He died this
afternoon; and a paragraph announcing his death appears in the newspaper
which we found in the victim's fur coat!”
“But how--”
“It was the only paragraph on the half-page folded outwards which was in
any sense PERSONAL. I am greatly indebted to you, Miss Cumberly; every
hour wasted on a case like this means a fresh plait in the rope around
the neck of the wrong man!”
Helen Cumberly grew slowly quite pallid.
“Good night,” she said; and bowing to the detective and to the surgeon,
she prepared to depart.
Mr. Hilton touched Dr. Cumberly's arm, as he, too, was about to retire.
“May I hope,” he whispered, “that you will return and give me the
benefit of your opinion in making out my report?”
Dr. Cumberly glanced at his daughter; and seeing her to be perfectly
composed:--“For the moment, I have formed no opinion, Mr. Hilton,”
he said, quietly, “not having had an opportunity to conduct a proper
examination.”
Hilton bent and whispered, confidentially, in the other's ear:--
“She was drugged!”
The innuendo underlying the words struck Dr. Cumberly forcibly, and he
started back with his brows drawn together in a frown.
“Do you mean that she was addicted to the use of drugs?” he asked,
sharply; “or that the drugging took place to-night.”
“The drugging DID take place to-night!” whispered the other. “An
injection was made in the left shoulder with a hypodermic syringe; the
mark is quite fresh.”
Dr. Cumberly glared at his fellow practitioner, angrily.
“Are there no other marks of injection?” he asked.
“On the left forearm, yes. Obviously self-administered. Oh, I don't deny
the habit! But my point is this: the injection in the shoulder was NOT
self-administered.”
“Come, Helen,” said Cumberly, taking his daughter's arm; for she had
drawn near, during the colloquy--“you must get to bed.”
His face was very stern when he turned again to Mr. Hilton.
“I shall return in a few minutes,” he said, and escorted his daughter
from the room.
VI
AT SCOTLAND YARD
Matters of vital importance to some people whom already we have met, and
to others whom thus far we have not met, were transacted in a lofty and
rather bleak looking room at Scotland Yard between the hours of nine and
ten A. M.; that is, later in the morning of the fateful day whose advent
we have heard acclaimed from the Tower of Westminster.
The room, which was lighted by a large French window opening upon a
balcony, commanded an excellent view of the Thames Embankment. The floor
was polished to a degree of brightness, almost painful. The distempered
walls, save for a severe and solitary etching of a former Commissioner,
were nude in all their unloveliness. A heavy deal table (upon which
rested a blotting-pad, a pewter ink-pot, several newspapers and two
pens) together with three deal chairs, built rather as monuments of
durability than as examples of art, constituted the only furniture, if
we except an electric lamp with a green glass shade, above the table.
This was the room of Detective-Inspector Dunbar; and Detective-Inspector
Dunbar, at the hour of our entrance, will be found seated in the chair,
placed behind the table, his elbows resting upon the blotting-pad.
At ten minutes past nine, exactly, the door opened, and a thick-set,
florid man, buttoned up in a fawn colored raincoat and wearing a bowler
hat of obsolete build, entered. He possessed a black mustache, a breezy,
bustling manner, and humorous blue eyes; furthermore, when he took
off his hat, he revealed the possession of a head of very bristly,
upstanding, black hair. This was Detective-Sergeant Sowerby, and the
same who was engaged in examining a newspaper in the study of Henry
Leroux when Dr. Cumberly and his daughter had paid their second visit to
that scene of an unhappy soul's dismissal.
“Well?” said Dunbar, glancing up at his subordinate, inquiringly.
“I have done all the cab depots,” reported Sergeant Sowerby, “and a good
many of the private owners; but so far the man seen by Mr. Exel has not
turned up.”
“The word will be passed round now, though,” said Dunbar, “and we shall
probably have him here during the day.”
“I hope so,” said the other good-humoredly, seating himself upon one of
the two chairs ranged beside the wall. “If he doesn't show up.”...
“Well?” jerked Dunbar--“if he doesn't?”
“It will look very black against Leroux.”
Dunbar drummed upon the blotting-pad with the fingers of his left hand.
“It beats anything of the kind that has ever come my way,” he confessed.
“You get pretty cautious at weighing people up, in this business; but I
certainly don't think--mind you, I go no further--but I certainly
don't think Mr. Henry Leroux would willingly kill a fly; yet there is
circumstantial evidence enough to hang him.”
Sergeant Sowerby nodded, gazing speculatively at the floor.
“I wonder,” he said, slowly, “why the girl--Miss Cumberly--hesitated
about telling us the woman's name?”
“I am not wondering about that at all,” replied Dunbar, bluntly. “She
must meet thousands in the same way. The wonder to me is that she
remembered at all. I am open to bet half-a-crown that YOU couldn't
remember the name of every woman you happened to have pointed out to you
at an Arts Ball?”
“Maybe not,” agreed Sowerby; “she's a smart girl, I'll allow. I see you
have last night's papers there?”
“I have,” replied Dunbar; “and I'm wondering”...
“If there's any connection?”
“Well,” continued the inspector, “it looks on the face of it as though
the news of her husband's death had something to do with Mrs. Vernon's
presence at Leroux's flat. It's not a natural thing for a woman, on the
evening of her husband's death, to rush straight away to another man's
place”...
“It's strange we couldn't find her clothes”...
“It's not strange at all! You're simply obsessed with the idea that this
was a love intrigue! Think, man! the most abandoned woman wouldn't run
to keep an appointment with a lover at a time like that! And remember
she had the news in her pocket! She came to that flat dressed--or
undressed--just as we found her; I'm sure of it. And a point like that
sometimes means the difference between hanging and acquittal.”
Sergeant Sowerby digested these words, composing his jovial countenance
in an expression of unnatural profundity. Then:--
“THE point to my mind,” he said, “is the one raised by Mr. Hilton. By
gum! didn't Dr. Cumberly tell him off!”
“Dr. Cumberly,” replied Dunbar, “is entitled to his opinion, that the
injection in the woman's shoulder was at least eight hours old; whilst
Mr. Hilton is equally entitled to maintain that it was less than ONE
hour old. Neither of them can hope to prove his case.”
“If either of them could?”...
“It might make a difference to the evidence--but I'm not sure.”
“What time is your appointment?”
“Ten o'clock,” replied Dunbar. “I am meeting Mr. Debnam--the late Mr.
Vernon's solicitor. There is something in it. Damme! I am sure of it!”
“Something in what?”
“The fact that Mr. Vernon died yesterday evening, and that his wife was
murdered at midnight.”
“What have you told the press?”
“As little as possible, but you will see that the early editions will
all be screaming for the arrest of Soames.”
“I shouldn't wonder. He would be a useful man to have; but he's probably
out of London now.”
“I think not. He's more likely to wait for instructions from his
principal.”
“His principal?”
“Certainly. You don't think Soames did the murder, do you?”
“No; but he's obviously an accessory.”
“I'm not so sure even of that.”
“Then why did he bolt?”
“Because he had a guilty conscience.”
“Yes,” agreed Sowerby; “it does turn out that way sometimes. At any
rate, Stringer is after him, but he's got next to nothing to go upon.
Has any reply been received from Mrs. Leroux in Paris?”
“No,” answered Dunbar, frowning thoughtfully. “Her husband's wire would
reach her first thing this morning; I am expecting to hear of a reply at
any moment.”
“They're a funny couple, altogether,” said Sowerby. “I can't imagine
myself standing for Mrs. Sowerby spending her week-ends in Paris. Asking
for trouble, I call it!”
“It does seem a daft arrangement,” agreed Dunbar; “but then, as you say,
they're a funny couple.”
“I never saw such a bundle of nerves in all my life!”...
“Leroux?”
Sowerby nodded.
“I suppose,” he said, “it's the artistic temperament! If Mrs. Leroux
has got it, too, I don't wonder that they get fed up with one another's
company.”
“That's about the secret of it. And now, I shall be glad, Sowerby, if
you will be after that taxi-man again. Report at one o'clock. I shall be
here.”
With his hand on the door-knob: “By the way,” said Sowerby, “who the
blazes is Mr. King?”
Inspector Dunbar looked up.
“Mr. King,” he replied slowly, “is the solution of the mystery.”
VII
THE MAN IN THE LIMOUSINE
The house of the late Horace Vernon was a modern villa of prosperous
appearance; but, on this sunny September morning, a palpable atmosphere
of gloom seemed to overlie it. This made itself perceptible even to the
toughened and unimpressionable nerves of Inspector Dunbar. As he mounted
the five steps leading up to the door, glancing meanwhile at the lowered
blinds at the windows, he wondered if, failing these evidences and his
own private knowledge of the facts, he should have recognized that the
hand of tragedy had placed its mark upon this house. But when the door
was opened by a white-faced servant, he told himself that he should, for
a veritable miasma of death seemed to come out to meet him, to envelop
him.
Within, proceeded a subdued activity: somber figures moved upon the
staircase; and Inspector Dunbar, having presented his card, presently
found himself in a well-appointed library.
At the table, whereon were spread a number of documents, sat a lean,
clean-shaven, sallow-faced man, wearing gold-rimmed pince-nez; a man
whose demeanor of business-like gloom was most admirably adapted to that
place and occasion. This was Mr. Debnam, the solicitor. He gravely
waved the detective to an armchair, adjusted his pince-nez, and coughed,
introductorily.
“Your communication, Inspector,” he began (he had the kind of voice
which seems to be buried in sawdust packing), “was brought to me this
morning, and has disturbed me immeasurably, unspeakably.”
“You have been to view the body, sir?”
“One of my clerks, who knew Mrs. Vernon, has just returned to this house
to report that he has identified her.”
“I should have preferred you to have gone yourself, sir,” began Dunbar,
taking out his notebook.
“My state of health, Inspector,” said the solicitor, “renders it
undesirable that I should submit myself to an ordeal so unnecessary--so
wholly unnecessary.”
“Very good!” muttered Dunbar, making an entry in his book; “your clerk,
then, whom I can see in a moment, identifies the murdered woman as Mrs.
Vernon. What was her Christian name?”
“Iris--Iris Mary Vernon.”
Inspector Dunbar made a note of the fact.
“And now,” he said, “you will have read the copy of that portion of my
report which I submitted to you this morning--acting upon information
supplied by Miss Helen Cumberly?”
“Yes, yes, Inspector, I have read it--but, by the way, I do not know
Miss Cumberly.”
“Miss Cumberly,” explained the detective, “is the daughter of Dr.
Cumberly, the Harley Street physician. She lives with her father in
the flat above that of Mr. Leroux. She saw the body by accident--and
recognized it as that of a lady who had been named to her at the last
Arts Ball.”
“Ah!” said Debnam, “yes--I see--at the Arts Ball, Inspector. This is a
mysterious and a very ghastly case.”
“It is indeed, sir,” agreed Dunbar. “Can you throw any light upon the
presence of Mrs. Vernon at Mr. Leroux's flat on the very night of her
husband's death?”
“I can--and I cannot,” answered the solicitor, leaning back in the
chair and again adjusting his pince-nez, in the manner of a man having
important matters--and gloomy, very gloomy, matters--to communicate.
“Good!” said the inspector, and prepared to listen.
“You see,” continued Debnam, “the late Mrs. Vernon was not actually
residing with her husband at the date of his death.”
“Indeed!”
“Ostensibly”--the solicitor shook a lean forefinger at his
vis-a-vis--“ostensibly, Inspector, she was visiting her sister in
Scotland.”
Inspector Dunbar sat up very straight, his brows drawn down over the
tawny eyes.
“These visits were of frequent occurrence, and usually of about a
week's duration. Mr. Vernon, my late client, a man--I'll not deny it--of
inconstant affections (you understand me, Inspector?), did not greatly
concern himself with his wife's movements. She belonged to a smart
Bohemian set, and--to use a popular figure of speech--burnt the candle
at both ends; late dances, night clubs, bridge parties, and other
feverish pursuits, possibly taken up as a result of the--shall I say
cooling?--of her husband's affections”...
“There was another woman in the case?”
“I fear so, Inspector; in fact, I am sure of it: but to return to Mrs.
Vernon. My client provided her with ample funds; and I, myself, have
expressed to him astonishment respecting her expenditures in Scotland. I
understand that her sister was in comparatively poor circumstances,
and I went so far as to point out to Mr. Vernon that one hundred
pounds was--shall I say an excessive?--outlay upon a week's sojourn in
Auchterander, Perth.”
“A hundred pounds!”
“One hundred pounds!”
“Was it queried by Mr. Vernon?”
“Not at all.”
“Was Mr. Vernon personally acquainted with this sister in Perth?”
“He was not, Inspector. Mrs. Vernon, at the time of her marriage, did
not enjoy that social status to which my late client elevated her. For
many years she held no open communication with any member of her
family, but latterly, as I have explained, she acquired the habit of
recuperating--recuperating from the effects of her febrile pleasures--at
this obscure place in Scotland. And Mr. Vernon, his interest in
her movements having considerably--shall I say abated?--offered no
objection: even suffered it gladly, counting the cost but little
against”...
“Freedom?” suggested Dunbar, scribbling in his notebook.
“Rather crudely expressed, perhaps,” said the solicitor, peering
over the top of his glasses, “but you have the idea. I come now to my
client's awakening. Four days ago, he learned the truth; he learned that
he was being deceived!”
“Deceived!”
“Mrs. Vernon, thoroughly exhausted with irregular living, announced
that she was about to resort once more to the healing breezes of the
heather-land”--Mr. Debnam was thoroughly warming to his discourse and
thoroughly enjoying his own dusty phrases.
“Interrupting you for a moment,” said the inspector, “at what intervals
did these visits take place?”
“At remarkably regular intervals, Inspector: something like six times a
year.”
“For how long had Mrs. Vernon made a custom of these visits?”
“Roughly, for two years.”
“Thank you. Will you go on, sir?”
“She requested Mr. Vernon, then, on the last occasion to give her a
check for eighty pounds; and this he did, unquestioningly. On Thursday,
the second of September, she left for Scotland”...
“Did she take her maid?”
“Her maid always received a holiday on these occasions; Mrs. Vernon
wired her respecting the date of her return.”
“Did any one actually see her off?”
“No, not that I am aware of, Inspector.”
“To put the whole thing quite bluntly, Mr. Debnam,” said Dunbar, fixing
his tawny eyes upon the solicitor, “Mr. Vernon was thoroughly glad to
get rid of her for a week?”
Mr. Debnam shifted uneasily in his chair; the truculent directness of
the detective was unpleasing to his tortuous mind. However:--
“I fear you have hit upon the truth,” he confessed, “and I must admit
that we have no legal evidence of her leaving for Scotland on this, or
on any other occasion. Letters were received from Perth, and letters
sent to Auchterander from London were answered. But the truth, the
painful truth came to light, unexpectedly, dramatically, on Monday
last”...
“Four days ago?”
“Exactly; three days before the death of my client.” Mr. Debnam wagged
his finger at the inspector again. “I maintain,” he said, “that this
painful discovery, which I am about to mention, precipitated my client's
end; although it is a fact that there was--hereditary heart trouble.
But I admit that his neglect of his wife (to give it no harsher name)
contributed to the catastrophe.”
He paused to give dramatic point to the revelation.
“Walking homeward at a late hour on Monday evening from a flat in
Victoria Street--the flat of--shall I employ the term a particular
friend?--Mr. Vernon was horrified--horrified beyond measure, to
perceive, in a large and well-appointed car--a limousine--his wife!”...
“The inside lights of the car were on, then?”
“No; but the light from a street lamp shone directly into the car. A
temporary block in the traffic compelled the driver of the car, whom my
client described to me as an Asiatic--to pull up for a moment. There,
within a few yards of her husband, Mrs. Vernon reclined in the car--or
rather in the arms of a male companion!”
“What!”
“Positively!” Mr. Debnam was sedately enjoying himself. “Positively, my
dear Inspector, in the arms of a man of extremely dark complexion. Mr.
Vernon was unable to perceive more than this, for the man had his back
toward him. But the light shone fully upon the face of Mrs. Vernon, who
appeared pale and exhausted. She wore a conspicuous motor-coat of civet
fur, and it was this which first attracted Mr. Vernon's attention. The
blow was a very severe one to a man in my client's state of health; and
although I cannot claim that his own conscience was clear, this open
violation of the marriage vows outraged the husband--outraged him. In
fact he was so perturbed, that he stood there shaking, quivering,
unable to speak or act, and the car drove away before he had recovered
sufficient presence of mind to note the number.”
“In which direction did the car proceed?”
“Toward Victoria Station.”
“Any other particulars?”
“Not regarding the car, its driver, or its occupants; but early on the
following morning, Mr. Vernon, very much shaken, called upon me and
instructed me to despatch an agent to Perth immediately. My agent's
report reached me at practically the same time as the news of my
client's death”...
“And his report was?”...
“His report, Inspector, telegraphic, of course, was this: that no sister
of Mrs. Vernon resided at the address; that the place was a cottage
occupied by a certain Mrs. Fry and her husband; that the husband was of
no occupation, and had no visible means of support”--he ticked off the
points on the long forefinger--“that the Frys lived better than any
of their neighbors; and--most important of all--that Mrs. Fry's maiden
name, which my agent discovered by recourse to the parish register of
marriages--was Ann Fairchild.”
“What of that?”
“Ann Fairchild was a former maid of Mrs. Vernon!”
“In short, it amounts to this, then: Mrs. Vernon, during these various
absences, never went to Scotland at all? It was a conspiracy?”
“Exactly--exactly, Inspector! I wired instructing my agent to extort
from the woman, Fry, the address to which she forwarded letters received
by her for Mrs. Vernon. The lady's death, news of which will now have
reached him, will no doubt be a lever, enabling my representative to
obtain the desired information.”
“When do you expect to hear from him?”
“At any moment. Failing a full confession by the Frys, you will of
course know how to act, Inspector?”
“Damme!” cried Dunbar, “can your man be relied upon to watch them? They
mustn't slip away! Shall I instruct Perth to arrest the couple?”
“I wired my agent this morning, Inspector, to communicate with the local
police respecting the Frys.”
Inspector Dunbar tapped his small, widely-separated teeth with the end
of his fountain-pen.
“I have had one priceless witness slip through my fingers,” he muttered.
“I'll hand in my resignation if the Frys go!”
“To whom do you refer?”
Inspector Dunbar rose.
“It is a point with which I need not trouble you, sir,” he said. “It was
not included in the extract of report sent to you. This is going to be
the biggest case of my professional career, or my name is not Robert
Dunbar!”
Closing his notebook, he thrust it into his pocket, and replaced his
fountain-pen in the little leather wallet.
“Of course,” said the solicitor, rising in turn, and adjusting the
troublesome pince-nez, “there was some intrigue with Leroux? So much is
evident.”
“You will be thinking that, eh?”
“My dear Inspector”--Mr. Debnam, the wily, was seeking information--“my
dear Inspector, Leroux's own wife was absent in Paris--quite a safe
distance; and Mrs. Vernon (now proven to be a woman conducting a love
intrigue) is found dead under most compromising circumstances--MOST
compromising circumstances--in his flat! His servants, even, are got
safely out of the way for the evening”...
“Quite so,” said Dunbar, shortly, “quite so, Mr. Debnam.” He opened the
door. “Might I see the late Mrs. Vernon's maid?”
“She is at her home. As I told you, Mrs. Vernon habitually released her
for the period of these absences.”
The notebook reappeared.
“The young woman's address?”
“You can get it from the housekeeper. Is there anything else you wish to
know?”
“Nothing beyond that, thank you.”
Three minutes later, Inspector Dunbar had written in his book:--Clarice
Goodstone, c/o Mrs. Herne, 134a Robert Street, Hampstead Road, N. W.
He departed from the house whereat Death the Gleaner had twice knocked
with his Scythe.
VIII
CABMAN TWO
Returning to Scotland Yard, Inspector Dunbar walked straight up to
his own room. There he found Sowerby, very red faced and humid, and a
taximan who sat stolidly surveying the Embankment from the window.
“Hullo!” cried Dunbar; “he's turned up, then?”
“No, he hasn't,” replied Sowerby with a mild irritation. “But we know
where to find him, and he ought to lose his license.”
The taximan turned hurriedly. He wore a muffler so tightly packed
between his neck and the collar of his uniform jacket, that it appeared
materially to impair his respiration. His face possessed a bluish tinge,
suggestive of asphyxia, and his watery eyes protruded remarkably; his
breathing was noisily audible.
“No, chuck it, mister!” he exclaimed. “I'm only tellin' you 'cause it
ain't my line to play tricks on the police. You'll find my name in
the books downstairs more'n any other driver in London! I reckon I've
brought enough umbrellas, cameras, walkin' sticks, hopera cloaks,
watches and sicklike in 'ere, to set up a blarsted pawnbroker's!”
“That's all right, my lad!” said Dunbar, holding up his hand to silence
the voluble speaker. “There's going to be no license-losing. You did not
hear that you were wanted before?”
The watery eyes of the cabman protruded painfully; he respired like a
horse.
“ME, guv'nor!” he exclaimed. “Gor'blime! I ain't the bloke! I was
drivin' back from takin' the Honorable 'Erbert 'Arding 'ome--same as I
does almost every night, when the 'ouse is a-sittin'--when I see old Tom
Brian drawin' away from the door o' Palace Man--”
Again Dunbar held up his hand.
“No doubt you mean well,” he said; “but damme! begin at the beginning!
Who are you, and what have you come to tell us?”
“'Oo are I?--'Ere's 'oo I ham!” wheezed the cabman, proffering a greasy
license. “Richard 'Amper, number 3 Breams Mews, Dulwich Village”...
“That's all right,” said Dunbar, thrusting back the proffered document;
“and last night you had taken Mr. Harding the member of Parliament, to
his residence in?”--
“In Peers' Chambers, Westminister--that's it, guv'nor! Comin' back, I
'ave to pass along the north side o' the Square, an' just a'ead o' me,
I see old Tom Brian a-pullin' round the Johnny 'Orner,--'im comin' from
Palace Mansions.”
“Mr. Exel only mentioned seeing ONE cab,” muttered Dunbar, glancing
keenly aside at Sowerby.
“Wotcher say, guv'nor?” asked the cabman.
“I say--did you see a gentleman approaching from the corner?” asked
Dunbar.
“Yus,” declared the man; “I see 'im, but 'e 'adn't got as far as the
Johnny 'Orner. As I passed outside old Tom Brian, wot's changin' 'is
gear, I see a bloke blowin' along on the pavement--a bloke in a high
'at, an' wearin' a heye-glass.”
“At this time, then,” pursued Dunbar, “you had actually passed the other
cab, and the gentleman on the pavement had not come up with it?”
“'E couldn't see it, guv'nor! I'm tellin' you 'e 'adn't got to the
Johnny 'Orner!”
“I see,” muttered Sowerby. “It's possible that Mr. Exel took no notice
of the first cab--especially as it did not come out of the Square.”
“Wotcher say, guv'nor?” queried the cabman again, turning his bleared
eyes upon Sergeant Sowerby.
“He said,” interrupted Dunbar, “was Brian's cab empty?”
“'Course it was,” rapped Mr. Hamper, “'e 'd just dropped 'is fare at
Palace Mansions.”...
“How do you know?” snapped Dunbar, suddenly, fixing his fierce eyes upon
the face of the speaker.
The cabman glared in beery truculence.
“I got me blarsted senses, ain't I?” he inquired. “There's only two lots
o' flats on that side o' the Square--Palace Mansions, an' St. Andrew's
Mansions.”
“Well?”
“St. Andrew's Mansions,” continued Hamper, “is all away!”
“All away?”
“All away! I know, 'cause I used to have a reg'lar fare there. 'E's
in Egyp'; flat shut up. Top floor's to let. Bottom floor's two old
unmarried maiden ladies what always travels by 'bus. So does all their
blarsted friends an' relations. Where can old Tom Brian 'ave been comin'
from, if it wasn't Palace Mansions?”
“H'm!” said Dunbar, “you are a loss to the detective service, my lad!
And how do you account for the fact that Brian has not got to hear of
the inquiry?”
Hamper bent to Dunbar and whispered, beerily, in his ear: “P'r'aps 'e
don't want to 'ear, guv'nor!”
“Oh! Why not?”
“Well, 'e knows there's something up there!”
“Therefore it's his plain duty to assist the police.”
“Same as what I does?” cried Hamper, raising his eyebrows. “Course it
is! but 'ow d'you know 'e ain't been got at?”
“Our friend, here, evidently has one up against Mr. Tom Brian!” muttered
Dunbar aside to Sowerby.
“Wotcher say, guv'nor?” inquired the cabman, looking from one to the
other.
“I say, no doubt you can save us the trouble of looking out Brian's
license, and give us his private address?” replied Dunbar.
“Course I can. 'E lives hat num'er 36 Forth Street, Brixton, and 'e's
out o' the big Brixton depot.”
“Oh!” said Dunbar, dryly. “Does he owe you anything?”
“Wotcher say, guv'nor?”
“I say, it's very good of you to take all this trouble and whatever it
has cost you in time, we shall be pleased to put right.”
Mr. Hamper spat in his right palm, and rubbed his hands together,
appreciatively.
“Make it five bob!” he said.
“Wait downstairs,” directed Dunbar, pressing a bell-push beside the
door. “I'll get it put through for you.”
“Right 'o!” rumbled the cabman, and went lurching from the room as a
constable in uniform appeared at the door. “Good mornin', guv'nor. Good
mornin'!”
The cabman having departed, leaving in his wake a fragrant odor of
fourpenny ale:--
“Here you are, Sowerby!” cried Dunbar. “We are moving at last! This is
the address of the late Mrs. Vernon's maid. See her; feel your ground,
carefully, of course; get to know what clothes Mrs. Vernon took with her
on her periodical visits to Scotland.”
“What clothes?”
“That's the idea; it is important. I don't think the girl was in
her mistress's confidence, but I leave it to you to find out. If
circumstances point to my surmise being inaccurate--you know how to
act.”
“Just let me glance over your notes, bearing on the matter,” said
Sowerby, “and I'll be off.”
Dunbar handed him the bulging notebook, and Sergeant Sowerby lowered his
inadequate eyebrows, thoughtfully, whilst he scanned the evidence of
Mr. Debnam. Then, returning the book to his superior, and adjusting the
peculiar bowler firmly upon his head, he set out.
Dunbar glanced through some papers--apparently reports--which lay upon
the table, penciled comments upon two of them, and then, consulting his
notebook once more in order to refresh his memory, started off for Forth
Street, Brixton.
Forth Street, Brixton, is a depressing thoroughfare. It contains small,
cheap flats, and a number of frowsy looking houses which give one the
impression of having run to seed. A hostelry of sad aspect occupies a
commanding position midway along the street, but inspires the traveler
not with cheer, but with lugubrious reflections upon the horrors of
inebriety. The odors, unpleasantly mingled, of fried bacon and paraffin
oil, are wafted to the wayfarer from the porches of these family
residences.
Number 36 proved to be such a villa, and Inspector Dunbar contemplated
it from a distance, thoughtfully. As he stood by the door of the
public house, gazing across the street, a tired looking woman, lean and
anxious-eyed, a poor, dried up bean-pod of a woman, appeared from the
door of number 36, carrying a basket. She walked along in the direction
of the neighboring highroad, and Dunbar casually followed her.
For some ten minutes he studied her activities, noting that she went
from shop to shop until her basket was laden with provisions of all
sorts. When she entered a wine-and-spirit merchant's, the detective
entered close behind her, for the place was also a post-office. Whilst
he purchased a penny stamp and fumbled in his pocket for an imaginary
letter, he observed, with interest, that the woman had purchased, and
was loading into the hospitable basket, a bottle of whisky, a bottle of
rum, and a bottle of gin.
He left the shop ahead of her, sure, now, of his ground, always provided
that the woman proved to be Mrs. Brian. Dunbar walked along Forth Street
slowly enough to enable the woman to overtake him. At the door of number
36, he glanced up at the number, questioningly, and turned in the gate
as she was about to enter.
He raised his hat.
“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mrs. Brian?”
Momentarily, a hard look came into the tired eyes, but Dunbar's
gentleness of manner and voice, together with the kindly expression upon
his face, turned the scales favorably.
“I am Mrs. Brian,” she said; “yes. Did you want to see me?”
“On a matter of some importance. May I come in?”
She nodded and led the way into the house; the door was not closed.
In a living-room whereon was written a pathetic history--a history of
decline from easy circumstance and respectability to poverty and utter
disregard of appearances--she confronted him, setting down her basket on
a table from which the remains of a fish breakfast were not yet removed.
“Is your husband in?” inquired Dunbar with a subtle change of manner.
“He's lying down.”
The hard look was creeping again into the woman's eyes.
“Will you please awake him, and tell him that I have called in regard to
his license?”
He thrust a card into her hand:--
DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR DUNBAR,
C. I. D.
NEW SCOTLAND YARD. S. W.
IX
THE MAN IN BLACK
Mrs. Brian started back, with a wild look, a trapped look, in her eyes.
“What's he done?” she inquired. “What's he done? Tom's not done
anything!”
“Be good enough to waken him,” persisted the inspector. “I wish to speak
to him.”
Mrs. Brian walked slowly from the room and could be heard entering one
further along the passage. An angry snarling, suggesting that of a wild
animal disturbed in its lair, proclaimed the arousing of Taximan Thomas
Brian. A thick voice inquired, brutally, why the sanguinary hell he (Mr.
Brian) had had his bloodstained slumbers disturbed in this gory manner
and who was the vermilion blighter responsible.
Then Mrs. Brian's voice mingled with that of her husband, and both
became subdued. Finally, a slim man, who wore a short beard, or had
omitted to shave for some days, appeared at the door of the living-room.
His face was another history upon the same subject as that which might
be studied from the walls, the floor, and the appointments of the room.
Inspector Dunbar perceived that the shadow of the neighboring hostelry
overlay this home.
“What's up?” inquired the new arrival.
The tone of his voice, thickened by excess, was yet eloquent of the
gentleman. The barriers passed, your pariah gentleman can be the
completest blackguard of them all. He spoke coarsely, and the infectious
Cockney accent showed itself in his vowels; but Dunbar, a trained
observer, summed up his man in a moment and acted accordingly.
“Come in and shut the door!” he directed. “No”--as Mrs. Brian sought to
enter behind her husband--“I wish to speak with you, privately.”
“Hop it!” instructed Brian, jerking his thumb over his shoulder--and
Mrs. Brian obediently disappeared, closing the door.
“Now,” said Dunbar, looking the man up and down, “have you been into the
depot, to-day?”
“No.”
“But you have heard that there's an inquiry?”
“I've heard nothing. I've been in bed.”
“We won't argue about that. I'll simply put a question to you: Where
did you pick up the fare that you dropped at Palace Mansions at twelve
o'clock last night?”
“Palace Mansions!” muttered Brian, shifting uneasily beneath the
unflinching stare of the tawny eyes. “What d'you mean? What Palace
Mansions?”
“Don't quibble!” warned Dunbar, thrusting out a finger at him. “This is
not a matter of a loss of license; it's a life job!”
“Life job!” whispered the man, and his weak face suddenly relaxed,
so that, oddly, the old refinement shone out through the new, vulgar
veneer.
“Answer my questions straight and square and I'll take your word that
you have not seen the inquiry!” said Dunbar.
“Dick Hamper's done this for me!” muttered Brian. “He's a dirty, low
swine! Somebody'll do for him one night!”
“Leave Hamper out of the question,” snapped Dunbar. “You put down a fare
at Palace Mansions at twelve o'clock last night?”
For one tremendous moment, Brian hesitated, but the good that was in
him, or the evil--a consciousness of wrongdoing, or of retribution
pending--respect for the law, or fear of its might--decided his course.
“I did.”
“It was a man?”
Again Brian, with furtive glance, sought to test his opponent; but his
opponent was too strong for him. With Dunbar's eyes upon his face, he
chose not to lie.
“It was a woman.”
“How was she dressed?”
“In a fur motor-coat--civet fur.”
The man of culture spoke in those two words, “civet fur”; and Dunbar
nodded quickly, his eyes ablaze at the importance of the evidence.
“Was she alone?”
“She was.”
“What fare did she pay you?”
“The meter only registered eightpence, but she gave me half-a-crown.”
“Did she appear to be ill?”
“Very ill. She wore no hat, and I supposed her to be in evening dress.
She almost fell as she got out of the cab, but managed to get into
the hall of Palace Mansions quickly enough, looking behind her all the
time.”
Inspector Dunbar shot out the hypnotic finger again.
“She told you to wait!” he asserted, positively. Brian looked to right
and left, up and down, thrusting his hands into his coat pockets, and
taking them out again to stroke his collarless neck. Then:--
“She did--yes,” he admitted.
“But you were bribed to drive away? Don't deny it! Don't dare to trifle
with me, or by God! you'll spend the night in Brixton Jail!”
“It was made worth my while,” muttered Brian, his voice beginning to
break, “to hop it.”
“Who paid you to do it?”
“A man who had followed all the way in a big car.”
“That's it! Describe him!”
“I can't! No, no! you can threaten as much as you like, but I can't
describe him. I never saw his face. He stood behind me on the near side
of the cab, and just reached forward and pushed a flyer under my nose.”
Inspector Dunbar searched the speaker's face closely--and concluded that
he was respecting the verity.
“How was he dressed?”
“In black, and that's all I can tell you about him.”
“You took the money?”
“I took the money, yes”...
“What did he say to you?”
“Simply: 'Drive off.'”
“Did you take him to be an Englishman from his speech?”
“No; he was not an Englishman. He had a foreign accent.”
“French? German?”
“No,” said Brian, looking up and meeting the glance of the fierce eyes.
“Asiatic!”
Inspector Dunbar, closely as he held himself in hand, started slightly.
“Are you sure?”
“Certainly. Before I--when I was younger--I traveled in the East, and I
know the voice and intonation of the cultured Oriental.”
“Can you place him any closer than that?”
“No, I can't venture to do so.” Brian's manner was becoming,
momentarily, more nearly that of a gentleman. “I might be leading you
astray if I ventured a guess, but if you asked me to do so, I should say
he was a Chinaman.”
“A CHINAMAN?” Dunbar's voice rose excitedly.
“I think so.”
“What occurred next?”
“I turned my cab and drove off out of the Square.”
“Did you see where the man went?”
“I didn't. I saw nothing of him beyond his hand.”
“And his hand?”
“He wore a glove.”
“And now,” said Dunbar, speaking very slowly, “where did you pick up
your fare?”
“In Gillingham Street, near Victoria Station.”
“From a house?”
“Yes, from Nurse Proctor's.”
“Nurse Proctor's! Who is Nurse Proctor?”
Brian shrugged his shoulders in a nonchalant manner, which obviously
belonged to an earlier phase of existence.
“She keeps a nursing home,” he said--“for ladies.”
“Do you mean a maternity home?”
“Not exactly; at least I don't think so. Most of her clients are society
ladies, who stay there periodically.”
“What are you driving at?” demanded Dunbar. “I have asked you if it is a
maternity home.”
“And I have replied that it isn't. I am only giving you facts; you don't
want my surmises.”
“Who hailed you?”
“The woman did--the woman in the fur coat. I was just passing the door
very slowly when it was flung open with a bang, and she rushed out as
though hell were after her. Before I had time to pull up, she threw
herself into my cab and screamed: 'Palace Mansions! Westminster!' I
reached back and shut the door, and drove right away.”
“When did you see that you were followed?”
“We were held up just outside the music hall, and looking back, I saw
that my fare was dreadfully excited. It didn't take me long to find out
that the cause of her excitement was a big limousine, three or four back
in the block of traffic. The driver was some kind of an Oriental, too,
although I couldn't make him out very clearly.”
“Good!” snapped Dunbar; “that's important! But you saw nothing more of
this car?”...
“I saw it follow me into the Square.”
“Then where did it wait?”
“I don't know; I didn't see it again.”
Inspector Dunbar nodded rapidly.
“Have you ever driven women to or from this Nurse Proctor's before?”
“On two other occasions, I have driven ladies who came from there. I
knew they came from there, because it got about amongst us that the tall
woman in nurse's uniform who accompanied them was Nurse Proctor.”
“You mean that you didn't take these women actually from the door of the
house in Gillingham Street, but from somewhere adjacent?”
“Yes; they never take a cab from the door. They always walk to the
corner of the street with a nurse, and a porter belonging to the house
brings their luggage along.”
“The idea is secrecy?”
“No doubt. But as I have said, the word was passed round.”
“Did you know either of these other women?”
“No; but they were obviously members of good society.”
“And you drove them?”
“One to St. Pancras, and one to Waterloo,” said Brian, dropping
back somewhat into his coarser style, and permitting a slow grin to
overspread his countenance.
“To catch trains, no doubt?”
“Not a bit of it! To MEET trains!”
“You mean?”
“I mean that their own private cars were waiting for them at the ARRIVAL
platform as I drove 'em up to the DEPARTURE platform, and that they
simply marched through the station and pretended to have arrived by
train!”
Inspector Dunbar took out his notebook and fountain-pen, and began to
tap his teeth with the latter, nodding his head at the same time.
“You are sure of the accuracy of your last statement?” he said, raising
his eyes to the other.
“I followed one of them,” was the reply, “and saw her footman gravely
take charge of the luggage which I had just brought from Victoria; and a
pal of mine followed the other--the Waterloo one, that was.”
Inspector Dunbar scribbled busily. Then:--
“You have done well to make a clean breast of it,” he said. “Take a
straight tip from me. Keep off the drink!”
X
THE GREAT UNDERSTANDING
It was in the afternoon of this same day--a day so momentous in the
lives of more than one of London's millions--that two travelers might
have been seen to descend from a first-class compartment of the Dover
boat-train at Charing Cross.
They had been the sole occupants of the compartment, and, despite the
wide dissimilarity of character to be read upon their countenances,
seemed to have struck up an acquaintance based upon mutual amiability
and worldly common sense. The traveler first to descend and gallantly to
offer his hand to his companion in order to assist her to the platform,
was the one whom a casual observer would first have noted.
He was a man built largely, but on good lines; a man past his youth, and
somewhat too fleshy; but for all his bulk, there was nothing unwieldy,
and nothing ungraceful in his bearing or carriage. He wore a French
traveling-coat, conceived in a style violently Parisian, and composed of
a wonderful check calculated to have blinded any cutter in Savile Row.
From beneath its gorgeous folds protruded the extremities of severely
creased cashmere trousers, turned up over white spats which nestled
coyly about a pair of glossy black boots. The traveler's hat was of
velour, silver gray and boasting a partridge feather thrust in its
silken band. One glimpse of the outfit must have brought the entire
staff of the Tailor and Cutter to an untimely grave.
But if ever man was born who could carry such a make-up, this
traveler was he. The face was cut on massive lines, on fleshy lines,
clean-shaven, and inclined to pallor. The hirsute blue tinge about
the jaw and lips helped to accentuate the virile strength of the long,
flexible mouth, which could be humorous, which could be sorrowful, which
could be grim. In the dark eyes of the man lay a wealth of experience,
acquired in a lifelong pilgrimage among many peoples, and to many lands.
His dark brows were heavily marked, and his close-cut hair was splashed
with gray.
Let us glance at the lady who accepted his white-gloved hand, and who
sprang alertly onto the platform beside him.
She was a woman bordering on the forties, with a face of masculine
vigor, redeemed and effeminized, by splendid hazel eyes, the kindliest
imaginable. Obviously, the lady was one who had never married, who
despised, or affected to despise, members of the other sex, but who had
never learned to hate them; who had never grown soured, but who found
the world a garden of heedless children--of children who called for
mothering. Her athletic figure was clothed in a “sensible” tweed
traveling dress, and she wore a tweed hat pressed well on to her head,
and brown boots with the flattest heels conceivable. Add to this a
Scotch woolen muffler, and a pair of woolen gloves, and you have a
mental picture of the second traveler--a truly incongruous companion for
the first.
Joining the crowd pouring in the direction of the exit gates, the
two chatted together animatedly, both speaking English, and the man
employing that language with a perfect ease and command of words which
nevertheless failed to disguise his French nationality. He spoke with
an American accent; a phenomenon sometimes observable in one who has
learned his English in Paris.
The irritating formalities which beset the returning traveler--and the
lady distinctly was of the readily irritated type--were smoothed away by
the magic personality of her companion. Porters came at the beck of his
gloved hand; guards, catching his eye, saluted and were completely his
servants; ticket inspectors yielded to him the deference ordinarily
reserved for directors of the line.
Outside the station, then, her luggage having been stacked upon a cab,
the lady parted from her companion with assurances, which were returned,
that she should hope to improve the acquaintance.
The address to which the French gentleman politely requested the
cabman to drive, was that of a sound and old-established hotel in the
neighborhood of the Strand, and at no great distance from the station.
Then, having stood bareheaded until the cab turned out into the traffic
stream of that busy thoroughfare, the first traveler, whose baggage
consisted of a large suitcase, hailed a second cab and drove to the
Hotel Astoria--the usual objective of Americans.
Taking leave of him for the moment, let us follow the lady.
Her arrangements were very soon made at the hotel, and having removed
some of the travel-stains from her person and partaken of one cup of
China tea, respecting the quality whereof she delivered herself of some
caustic comments, she walked down into the Strand and mounted to the top
of a Victoria bound 'bus.
That she was not intimately acquainted with London, was a fact readily
observable by her fellow passengers; for as the 'bus went rolling
westward, from the large pocket of her Norfolk jacket she took out a
guide-book provided with numerous maps, and began composedly to consult
its complexities.
When the conductor came to collect her fare, she had made up her mind,
and was replacing the guidebook in her pocket.
“Put me down by the Storis, Victoria Street, conductor,” she directed,
and handed him a penny--the correct fare.
It chanced that at about the time, within a minute or so, of the
American lady's leaving the hotel, and just as red rays, the harbingers
of dusk, came creeping in at the latticed widow of her cozy work-room,
Helen Cumberly laid down her pen with a sigh. She stood up, mechanically
rearranging her hair as she did so, and crossed the corridor to her
bedroom, the window whereof overlooked the Square.
She peered down into the central garden. A common-looking man sat upon
a bench, apparently watching the labors of the gardener, which consisted
at the moment of the spiking of scraps of paper which disfigured the
green carpet of the lawn.
Helen returned to her writing-table and reseated herself. Kindly
twilight veiled her, and a chatty sparrow who perched upon the
window-ledge pretended that he had not noticed two tears which trembled,
quivering, upon the girl's lashes. Almost unconsciously, for it was an
established custom, she sprinkled crumbs from the tea-tray beside her
upon the ledge, whilst the tears dropped upon a written page and two
more appeared in turn upon her lashes.
The sparrow supped enthusiastically, being joined in his repast by two
talkative companions. As the last fragments dropped from the girl's
white fingers, she withdrew her hand, and slowly--very slowly--her head
sank down, pillowed upon her arms.
For some five minutes she cried silently; the sparrows, unheeded, bade
her good night, and flew to their nests in the trees of the Square.
Then, very resolutely, as if inspired by a settled purpose, she stood up
and recrossed the corridor to her bedroom.
She turned on the lamp above the dressing-table and rapidly removed the
traces of her tears, contemplating in dismay a redness of her pretty
nose which did not prove entirely amenable to treatment with the
powder-puff. Finally, however, she switched off the light, and, going
out on to the landing, descended to the door of Henry Leroux's flat.
In reply to her ring, the maid, Ferris, opened the door. She wore her
hat and coat, and beside her on the floor stood a tin trunk.
“Why, Ferris!” cried Helen--“are you leaving?”
“I am indeed, miss!” said the girl, independently.
“But why? whatever will Mr. Leroux do?”
“He'll have to do the best he can. Cook's goin' too!”
“What! cook is going?”
“I am!” announced a deep, female voice.
And the cook appeared beside the maid.
“But whatever--” began Helen; then, realizing that she could achieve
no good end by such an attitude: “Tell Mr. Leroux,” she instructed the
maid, quietly, “that I wish to see him.”
Ferris glanced rapidly at her companion, as a man appeared on the
landing, to inquire in an abysmal tone, if “them boxes was ready to be
took?” Helen Cumberly forestalled an insolent refusal which the cook, by
furtive wink, counseled to the housemaid.
“Don't trouble,” she said, with an easy dignity reminiscent of her
father. “I will announce myself.”
She passed the servants, crossed the lobby, and rapped upon the study
door.
“Come in,” said the voice of Henry Leroux.
Helen opened the door. The place was in semidarkness, objects being but
dimly discernible. Leroux sat in his usual seat at the writing-table.
The room was in the utmost disorder, evidently having received no
attention since its overhauling by the police. Helen pressed the switch,
lighting the two lamps.
Leroux, at last, seemed in his proper element: he exhibited an unhealthy
pallor, and it was obvious that no razor had touched his chin for at
least three days. His dark blue eyes the eyes of a dreamer--were heavy
and dull, with shadows pooled below them. A biscuit-jar, a decanter and
a syphon stood half buried in papers on the table.
“Why, Mr. Leroux!” said Helen, with a deep note of sympathy in her
voice--“you don't mean to say”...
Leroux rose, forcing a smile to his haggard face.
“You see--much too good,” he said. “Altogether--too good.”...
“I thought I should find you here,” continued the girl, firmly; “but
I did not anticipate”--she indicated the chaos about--“this! The
insolence, the disgraceful, ungrateful insolence, of those women!”
“Dear, dear, dear!” murmured Leroux, waving his hand vaguely; “never
mind--never mind! They--er--they... I don't want them to stop... and,
believe me, I am--er--perfectly comfortable!”
“You should not be in--THIS room, at all. In fact, you should go right
away.”...
“I cannot... my wife may--return--at any moment.” His voice shook.
“I--am expecting her return--hourly.”...
His gaze sought the table-clock; and he drew his lips very tightly
together when the pitiless hands forced upon his mind the fact that the
day was marching to its end.
Helen turned her head aside, inhaling deeply, and striving for
composure.
“Garnham shall come down and tidy up for you,” she said, quietly; “and
you must dine with us.”
The outer door was noisily closed by the departing servants.
“You are much too good,” whispered Leroux, again; and the weary eyes
glistened with a sudden moisture. “Thank you! Thank you! But--er--I
could not dream of disturbing”...
“Mr. Leroux,” said Helen, with all her old firmness--“Garnham is coming
down IMMEDIATELY to put the place in order! And, whilst he is doing so,
you are going to prepare yourself for a decent, Christian dinner!”
Henry Leroux rested one hand upon the table, looking down at the
carpet. He had known for a long time, in a vague fashion, that he lacked
something; that his success--a wholly inartistic one--had yielded him
little gratification; that the comfort of his home was a purely monetary
product and not in any sense atmospheric. He had schooled himself to
believe that he liked loneliness--loneliness physical and mental, and
that in marrying a pretty, but pleasure-loving girl, he had insured an
ideal menage. Furthermore, he honestly believed that he worshiped
his wife; and with his present grief at her unaccountable silence was
mingled no atom of reproach.
But latterly he had begun to wonder--in his peculiarly indefinite way
he had begun to doubt his own philosophy. Was the void in his soul a
product of thwarted ambition?--for, whilst he slaved, scrupulously, upon
“Martin Zeda,” he loathed every deed and every word of that Old Man of
the Sea. Or could it be that his own being--his nature of Adam--lacked
something which wealth, social position, and Mira, his wife, could not
yield to him?
Now, a new tone in the voice of Helen Cumberly--a tone different from
that compound of good-fellowship and raillery, which he knew--a tone
which had entered into it when she had exclaimed upon the state of the
room--set his poor, anxious heart thrumming like a lute. He felt a hot
flush creeping upon him; his forehead grew damp. He feared to raise his
eyes.
“Is that a bargain?” asked Helen, sweetly.
Henry Leroux found a lump in his throat; but he lifted his untidy head
and took the hand which the girl had extended to him. She smiled a bit
unnaturally; then every tinge of color faded from her cheeks, and Henry
Leroux, unconsciously holding the white hand in a vice-like grip, looked
hungrily into the eyes grown suddenly tragic whilst into his own came
the light of a great and sorrowful understanding.
“God bless you,” he said. “I will do anything you wish.”
Helen released her hand, turned, and ran from the study. Not until she
was on the landing did she dare to speak. Then:--
“Garnham shall come down immediately. Don't be late for dinner!” she
called--and there was a hint of laughter and of tears in her voice, of
the restraint of culture struggling with rebellious womanhood.
XI
PRESENTING M. GASTON MAX
Not venturing to turn on the light, not daring to look upon her own face
in the mirror, Helen Cumberly sat before her dressing-table, trembling
wildly. She wanted to laugh, and wanted to cry; but the daughter of
Seton Cumberly knew what those symptoms meant and knew how to deal with
them. At the end of an interval of some four or five minutes, she rang.
The maid opened the door.
“Don't light up, Merton,” she said, composedly. “I want you to tell
Garnham to go down to Mr. Leroux's and put the place in order. Mr.
Leroux is dining with us.”
The girl withdrew; and Helen, as the door closed, pressed the electric
switch. She stared at her reflection in the mirror as if it were the
face of an enemy, then, turning her head aside, sat deep in reflection,
biting her lip and toying with the edge of the white doily.
“You little traitor!” she whispered, through clenched teeth. “You little
traitor--and hypocrite”--sobs began to rise in her throat--“and fool!”
Five more minutes passed in a silent conflict. A knock announced the
return of the maid; and the girl reentered, placing upon the table a
visiting-card:--
DENISE RYLAND
ATELIER 4, RUE DU COQ D'OR,
MONTMARTRE,
PARIS.
Helen Cumberly started to her feet with a stifled exclamation and turned
to the maid; her face, to which the color slowly had been returning,
suddenly blanched anew.
“Denise Ryland!” she muttered, still holding the card in her hand,
“why--that's Mrs. Leroux's friend, with whom she had been staying in
Paris! Whatever can it mean?”
“Shall I show her in here, please?” asked the maid.
“Yes, in here,” replied Helen, absently; and, scarcely aware that she
had given instructions to that effect, she presently found herself
confronted by the lady of the boat-train!
“Miss Cumberly?” said the new arrival in a pleasant American voice.
“Yes--I am Helen Cumberly. Oh! I am so glad to know you at last! I have
often pictured you; for Mira--Mrs. Leroux--is always talking about you,
and about the glorious times you have together! I have sometimes longed
to join you in beautiful Paris. How good of you to come back with her!”
Miss Ryland unrolled the Scotch muffler from her throat, swinging her
head from side to side in a sort of spuriously truculent manner, quite
peculiarly her own. Her keen hazel eyes were fixed upon the face of the
girl before her. Instinctively and immediately she liked Helen Cumberly;
and Helen felt that this strong-looking, vaguely masculine woman, was an
old, intimate friend, although she had never before set eyes upon her.
“H'm!” said Miss Ryland. “I have come from Paris”--she punctuated many
of her sentences with wags of the head as if carefully weighing her
words--“especially” (pause) “to see you” (pause and wag of head) “I am
glad... to find that... you are the thoroughly sensible... kind of
girl that I... had imagined, from the accounts which... I have had of
you.”...
She seated herself in an armchair.
“Had of me from Mira?” asked Helen.
“Yes... from Mrs. Leroux.”
“How delightful it must be for you to have her with you so often!
Marriage, as a rule, puts an end to that particular sort of good-time,
doesn't it?”
“It does... very properly... too. No MAN... no MAN in his ... right
senses... would permit... his wife... to gad about in Paris with
another... girl” (she presumably referred to herself) “whom HE had only
met... casually... and did not like”...
“What! do you mean that Mr. Leroux doesn't like you? I can't believe
that!”
“Then the sooner... you believe it... the better.”
“It can only be that he does not know you, properly?”
“He has no wish... to know me... properly; and I have no desire... to
cultivate... the... friendship of such... a silly being.”
Helen Cumberly was conscious that a flush was rising from her face to
her brow, and tingling in the very roots of her hair. She was indignant
with herself and turned, aside, bending over her table in order to
conceal this ill-timed embarrassment from her visitor.
“Poor Mr. Leroux!” she said, speaking very rapidly; “I think it awfully
good of him, and sporty, to allow his wife so much liberty.”
“Sporty!” said Miss Ryland, head wagging and nostrils distended in
scorn. “Idi-otic... I should call it.”
“Why?”
Helen Cumberly, perfectly composed again, raised her clear eyes to her
visitor.
“You seem so... thoroughly sensible, except in regard to... Harry
Leroux;--and ALL women, with a few... exceptions, are FOOLS where the
true... character of a MAN is concerned--that I will take you right into
my confidence.”
Her speech lost its quality of syncopation; the whole expression of her
face changed; and in the hazel eyes a deep concern might be read.
“My dear,” she stood up, crossed to Helen's side, and rested her
artistic looking hands upon the girl's shoulder. “Harry Leroux stands
upon the brink of a great tragedy--a life's tragedy!”
Helen was trembling slightly again.
“Oh, I know!” she whispered--“I know--”
“You know?”
There was surprise in Miss Ryland's voice.
“Yes, I have seen them--watched them--and I know that the police
think”...
“Police! What are you talking about--the police?”
Helen looked up with a troubled face.
“The murder!” she began...
Miss Ryland dropped into a chair which, fortunately, stood close behind
her, with a face suddenly set in an expression of horror. She began to
understand, now, a certain restraint, a certain ominous shadow, which
she had perceived, or thought she had perceived, in the atmosphere of
this home, and in the manner of its occupants.
“My dear girl,” she began, and the old nervous, jerky manner showed
itself again, momentarily,--“remember that... I left Paris by ... the
first train, this morning, and have simply been... traveling right up to
the present moment.”...
“Then you have not heard? You don't know that a--murder--has been
committed?”
“MURDER! Not--not”...
“Not any one connected with Mr. Leroux; no, thank God! but it was done
in his flat.”...
Miss Ryland brushed a whisk of straight hair back from her brow with a
rough and ungraceful movement.
“My dear,” she began, taking a French telegraphic form from her pocket,
“you see this message? It's one which reached me at an unearthly hour
this morning from Harry Leroux. It was addressed to his wife at my
studio; therefore, as her friend, I opened it. Mira Leroux has actually
visited me there twice since her marriage--”
“Twice!” Helen rose slowly to her feet, with horrified eyes fixed upon
the speaker.
“Twice I said! I have not seen her, and have rarely heard from her, for
nearly twelve months, now! Therefore I packed up post-haste and here I
am! I came to you, because, from what little I have heard of you, and
of your father, I judged you to be the right kind of friends to
consult.”...
“You have not seen her for twelve months?”
Helen's voice was almost inaudible, and she was trembling dreadfully.
“That's a fact, my dear. And now, what are we going to tell Harry
Leroux?”
It was a question, the answer to which was by no means evident at
a glance; and leaving Helen Cumberly face to face with this new and
horrible truth which had brought Denise Ryland hotfoot from Paris to
London, let us glance, for a moment, into the now familiar room of
Detective-Inspector Dunbar at Scotland Yard.
He had returned from his interrogation of Brian; and he received the
report of Sowerby, respecting the late Mrs. Vernon's maid. The girl,
Sergeant Sowerby declared, was innocent of complicity, and could only
depose to the fact that her late mistress took very little luggage with
her on the occasions of her trips to Scotland. With his notebook open
before him upon the table, Dunbar was adding this slight item to his
notes upon the case, when the door opened, and the uniformed constable
entered, saluted, and placed an envelope in the Inspector's hand.
“From the commissioner!” said Sowerby, significantly.
With puzzled face, Dunbar opened the envelope and withdrew the
commissioner's note. It was very brief:--
“M. Gaston Max, of the Paris Police, is joining you in the Palace
Mansions murder case. You will cooperate with him from date above.”
“MAX!” said Dunbar, gazing astoundedly at his subordinate.
Certainly it was a name which might well account for the amazement
written upon the inspector's face; for it was the name of admittedly the
greatest criminal investigator in Europe!
“What the devil has the case to do with the French police?” muttered
Sowerby, his ruddy countenance exhibiting a whole history of wonderment.
The constable, who had withdrawn, now reappeared, knocking deferentially
upon the door, throwing it open, and announcing:
“Mr. Gaston Max, to see Detective-Inspector Dunbar.”
Bowing courteously upon the threshold, appeared a figure in a dazzling
check traveling-coat--a figure very novel, and wholly unforgettable.
“I am honored to meet a distinguished London colleague,” he said in
perfect English, with a faint American accent.
Dunbar stepped across the room with outstretched hand, and cordially
shook that of the famous Frenchman.
“I am the more honored,” he declared, gallantly playing up to the
other's courtesy. “This is Detective-Sergeant Sowerby, who is acting
with me in the case.”
M. Gaston Max bowed low in acknowledgment of the introduction.
“It is a pleasure to meet Detective-Sergeant Sowerby,” he declared.
These polite overtures being concluded then, and the door being closed,
the three detectives stood looking at one another in momentary silence.
Then Dunbar spoke with blunt directness:
“I am very pleased to have you with us, Mr. Max,” he said; “but might I
ask what your presence in London means?”
M. Gaston Max shrugged in true Gallic fashion.
“It means, monsieur,” he said, “--murder--and MR. KING!”
XII
MR. GIANAPOLIS
It will prove of interest at this place to avail ourselves of an
opportunity denied to the police, and to inquire into the activities of
Mr. Soames, whilom employee of Henry Leroux.
Luke Soames was a man of unpleasant character; a man ever seeking
advancement--advancement to what he believed to be an ideal state, viz.:
the possession of a competency; and to this ambition he subjugated all
conflicting interests--especially the interests of others. From narrow
but honest beginnings, he had developed along lines ever growing
narrower until gradually honesty became squeezed out. He formed the
opinion that wealth was unobtainable by dint of hard work; and indeed
in a man of his limited intellectual attainments, this was no more than
true.
At the period when he becomes of interest, he had just discovered
himself a gentleman-at-large by reason of his dismissal from the
services of a wealthy bachelor, to whose establishment in Piccadilly he
had been attached in the capacity of valet. There was nothing definite
against his character at this time, save that he had never remained for
long in any one situation.
His experience was varied, if his references were limited; he had served
not only as valet, but also as chauffeur, as steward on an ocean liner,
and, for a limited period, as temporary butler in an American household
at Nice.
Soames' banking account had increased steadily, but not at a rate
commensurate with his ambitions; therefore, when entering his name and
qualifications in the books of a certain exclusive employment agency
in Mayfair he determined to avail himself, upon this occasion, of
his comparative independence by waiting until kindly Fate should cast
something really satisfactory in his path.
Such an opening occurred very shortly after his first visit to the
agent. He received a card instructing him to call at the office in order
to meet a certain Mr. Gianapolis. Quitting his rooms in Kennington, Mr.
Soames, attired in discreet black, set out to make the acquaintance of
his hypothetical employer.
He found Mr. Gianapolis to be a little and very swarthy man, who held
his head so low as to convey the impression of having a pronounced
stoop; a man whose well-cut clothes and immaculate linen could not
redeem his appearance from a constitutional dirtiness. A jet black
mustache, small, aquiline features, an engaging smile, and very dark
brown eyes, viciously crossed, made up a personality incongruous with
his sheltering silk hat, and calling aloud for a tarboosh and a linen
suit, a shop in a bazaar, or a part in the campaign of commercial
brigandage which, based in the Levant, spreads its ramifications
throughout the Orient, Near and Far.
Mr. Gianapolis had the suave speech and smiling manner. He greeted
Soames not as one greets a prospective servant, but as one welcomes
an esteemed acquaintance. Following a brief chat, he proposed an
adjournment to a neighboring saloon bar; and there, over cocktails, he
conversed with Mr. Soames as one crook with another.
Soames was charmed, fascinated, yet vaguely horrified; for this
man smilingly threw off the cloak of hypocrisy from his companion's
shoulders, and pretended, with the skill of his race, equally to nudify
his own villainy.
“My dear Mr. Soames!” he said, speaking almost perfect English, but with
the sing-song intonation of the Greek, and giving all his syllables
an equal value--“you are the man I am looking for; and I can make your
fortune.”
This was entirely in accordance with Mr. Soames' own views, and he
nodded, respectfully.
“I know,” continued Gianapolis, proffering an excellent Egyptian
cigarette, “that you were cramped in your last situation--that you were
misunderstood”...
Soames, cigarette in hand, suppressed a start, and wondered if he were
turning pale. He selected a match with nervous care.
“The little matter of the silver spoons,” continued Gianapolis, smiling
fraternally, “was perhaps an error of judgment. Although”--patting the
startled Soames upon the shoulder--“they were a legitimate perquisite;
I am not blaming you. But it takes so long to accumulate a really useful
balance in that petty way. Now”--he glanced cautiously about him--“I
can offer you a post under conditions which will place you above the
consideration of silver spoons!”
Soames, hastily finishing his cocktail, sought for words; but
Gianapolis, finishing his own, blandly ordered two more, and, tapping
Soames upon the knee, continued:
“Then that matter of the petty cash, and those trifling irregularities
in the wine-bill, you remember?--when you were with Colonel Hewett in
Nice?”...
Soames gripped the counter hard, staring at the newly arrived cocktail
as though it were hypnotizing him.
“These little matters,” added Gianapolis, appreciatively sipping from
his own glass, “which would weigh heavily against your other references,
in the event of their being mentioned to any prospective employer”...
Soames knew beyond doubt that his face was very pale indeed.
“These little matters, then,” pursued Gianapolis, “all go to prove to ME
that you are a man of enterprise and spirit--that you are the very man
I require. Now I can offer you a post in the establishment of Mr. Henry
Leroux, the novelist. The service will be easy. You will be required
to attend to callers and to wait at table upon special occasions. There
will be no valeting, and you will have undisputed charge of the pantry
and wine-cellar. In short, you will enjoy unusual liberty. The salary,
you would say? It will be the same as that which you received from Mr.
Mapleson”...
Soames raised his head drearily; he felt himself in the toils; he felt
himself a mined man.
“It isn't a salary,” he began, “which”...
“My dear Mr. Soames,” said Gianapolis, tapping him confidentially upon
the knee again--“my dear Soames, it isn't the salary, I admit, which you
enjoyed whilst in the services of Colonel Hewett in a similar capacity.
But this is not a large establishment, and the duties are light.
Furthermore, there will be--extras.”
“Extras?”
Mr. Soames' eye brightened, and under the benignant influence of the
cocktails his courage began to return.
“I do not refer,” smiled Mr. Gianapolis, “to perquisites! The extras
will be monetary. Another two pounds per week”...
“Two pounds!”
“Bringing your salary up to a nice round figure; the additional amount
will be paid to you from another source. You will receive the latter
payment quarterly”...
“From--from”...
“From me!” said Mr. Gianapolis, smiling radiantly. “Now, I know you
are going to accept; that is understood between us. I will give you the
address--Palace Mansions, Westminster--at which you must apply; and I
will tell you what little services will be required from you in return
for this additional emolument.”
Mr. Soames hurriedly finished his second cocktail. Mr. Gianapolis, in
true sporting fashion, kept pace with him and repeated the order.
“You will take charge of the mail!” he whispered softly, one irregular
eye following the movements of the barmaid, and the other fixed almost
fiercely upon the face of Soames. “At certain times--of which you will
be notified in advance--Mrs. Leroux will pay visits to Paris. At such
times, all letters addressed to her, or re-addressed to her, will not
be posted! You will ring me up when such letters come into your
possession--they must ALL come into your possession!--and I will arrange
to meet you, say at the corner of Victoria Street, to receive them. You
understand?”
Mr. Soames understood, and thus far found his plastic conscience
marching in step with his inclinations.
“Then,” resumed Gianapolis, “prior to her departure on these occasions,
Mrs. Leroux will hand you a parcel. This also you will bring to me at
the place arranged. Do you find anything onerous in these conditions?”
“Not at all,” muttered Soames, a trifle unsteadily; “it seems all
right”--the cocktails were beginning to speak now, and his voice was a
duet--“simply perfectly all right--all square.”
“Good!” said Mr. Gianapolis with his radiant smile; and the gaze of
his left eye, crossing that of its neighbor, observed the entrance of a
stranger into the bar. He drew his stool closer and lowered his voice:
“Mrs. Leroux,” he continued, “will be in your confidence. Mr. Leroux and
every one else--EVERY ONE else--must not suspect the arrangement”...
“Certainly--I quite understand”...
“Mrs. Leroux will engage you this afternoon--her husband is a mere
cipher in the household--and you will commence your duties on Monday.
Later in the week, Wednesday or Thursday, we will meet by appointment,
and discuss further details.”
“Where can I see you?”
“Ring up this number: 18642 East, and ask for Mr. King. No! don't
write it down; remember it! I will come to the telephone, and arrange a
meeting.”
Shortly after this, then, the interview concluded; and later in the
afternoon of that day Mr. Soames presented himself at Palace Mansions.
He was received by Mrs. Leroux--a pretty woman with a pathetically weak
mouth. She had fair hair, not very abundant, and large eyes; which,
since they exhibited the unusual phenomenon, in a blonde, of long dark
lashes (Mr. Soames judged their blackness to be natural), would have
been beautiful had they not been of too light a color, too small in the
pupils, and utterly expressionless. Indeed, her whole face lacked
color, as did her personality, and the exquisite tea-gown which she
wore conveyed that odd impression of slovenliness, which is often an
indication of secret vice. She was quite young and indisputably pretty,
but this malproprete, together with a certain aimlessness of manner,
struck an incongruous note; for essentially she was of a type which for
its complement needs vivacity.
Mr. Soames, a man of experience, scented an intrigue and a neglectful
husband. Since he was engaged on the spot without reference to the
invisible Leroux, he was immediately confirmed in the latter part of
his surmise. He departed well satisfied with his affairs, and with
the promise of the future, over which Mr. Gianapolis, the cherubic,
radiantly presided.
XIII
THE DRAFT ON PARIS
For close upon a month Soames performed the duties imposed upon him
in the household of Henry Leroux. He was unable to discover, despite
a careful course of inquiry from the cook and the housemaid, that Mrs.
Leroux frequently absented herself. But the servants were newly engaged,
for the flat in Palace Mansions had only recently been leased by the
Leroux. He gathered that they had formerly lived much abroad, and that
their marriage had taken place in Paris. Mrs. Leroux had been to visit
a friend in the French capital once, he understood, since the housemaid
had been in her employ.
The mistress (said the housemaid) did not care twopence-ha'penny for her
husband; she had married him for his money, and for nothing else. She
had had an earlier love (declared the cook) and was pining away to a
mere shadow because of her painful memories. During the last six months
(the period of the cook's service) Mrs. Leroux had altered out of all
recognition. The cook was of opinion that she drank secretly.
Of Mr. Leroux, Soames formed the poorest opinion. He counted him a
spiritless being, whose world was bounded by his book-shelves, and whose
wife would be a fool if she did not avail herself of the liberty which
his neglect invited her to enjoy. Soames felt himself, not a snake in
the grass, but a benefactor--a friend in need--a champion come to the
defense of an unhappy and persecuted woman.
He wondered when an opportunity should arise which would enable him
to commence his chivalrous operations; almost daily he anticipated
instructions to the effect that Mrs. Leroux would be leaving for Paris
immediately. But the days glided by and the weeks glided by, without
anything occurring to break the monotony of the Leroux household.
Mr. Soames sought an opportunity to express his respectful readiness to
Mrs. Leroux; but the lady was rarely visible outside her own apartments
until late in the day, when she would be engaged in preparing for
the serious business of the evening: one night a dance, another, a
bridge-party; so it went. Mr. Leroux rarely joined her upon these
festive expeditions, but clung to his study like Diogenes to his tub.
Great was Mr. Soames' contempt; bitter were the reproaches of the cook;
dark were the predictions of the housemaid.
At last, however, Soames, feeling himself neglected, seized an
opportunity which offered to cement the secret bond (the TOO secret
bond) existing between himself and the mistress of the house.
Meeting her one afternoon in the lobby, which she was crossing on the
way from her bedroom to the drawing-room, he stood aside to let her
pass, whispering:
“At your service, whenever you are ready, madam!”
It was a non-committal remark, which, if she chose to keep up the
comedy, he could explain away by claiming it to refer to the summoning
of the car from the garage--for Mrs. Leroux was driving out that
afternoon.
She did not endeavor to evade the occult meaning of the words, however.
In the wearily dreamy manner which, when first he had seen her, had
aroused Soames' respectful interest, she raised her thin hand to her
hair, slowly pressing it back from her brow, and directed her big eyes
vacantly upon him.
“Yes, Soames,” she said (her voice had a faraway quality in keeping with
the rest of her personality), “Mr. King speaks well of you. But please
do not refer again to”--she glanced in a manner at once furtive and
sorrowful, in the direction of the study-door--“to the ... little
arrangement of”...
She passed on, with the slow, gliding gait, which, together with her
fragility, sometimes lent her an almost phantomesque appearance.
This was comforting, in its degree; since it proved that the smiling
Gianapolis had in no way misled him (Soames). But as a man of business,
Mr. Soames was not fully satisfied. He selected an evening when Mrs.
Leroux was absent--and indeed she was absent almost every evening, for
Leroux entertained but little. The cook and the housemaid were absent,
also; therefore, to all intents and purposes, Soames had the flat to
himself; since Henry Leroux counted in that establishment, not as an
entity, but rather as a necessary, if unornamental, portion of the
fittings.
Standing in the lobby, Soames raised the telephone receiver, and having
paused with closed eyes preparing the exact form of words in which he
should address his invisible employer, he gave the number: East 18642.
Following a brief delay:--
“Yes,” came a nasal voice, “who is it?”
“Soames! I want to speak to Mr. King!”
The words apparently surprised the man at the other end of the wire, for
he hesitated ere inquiring:--
“What did you say your name was?”
“Soames--Luke Soames.”
“Hold on!”
Soames, with closed eyes, and holding the receiver to his ear, silently
rehearsed again the exact wording of his speech. Then:--
“Hullo!” came another voice--“is that Mr. Soames?”
“Yes! Is that Mr. Gianapolis speaking?”
“It is, my dear Soames!” replied the sing-song voice; and Soames,
closing his eyes again, had before him a mental picture of the radiantly
smiling Greek.
“Yes, my dear Soames,” continued Gianapolis; “here I am. I hope you are
quite well--perfectly well?”
“I am perfectly well, thank you; but as a man of business, it has
occurred to me that failing a proper agreement--which in this case I
know would be impossible--a trifling advance on the first quarter's”...
“On your salary, my dear Soames! On your salary? Payment for the first
quarter shall be made to you to-morrow, my dear Soames! Why ever did you
not express the wish before? Certainly, certainly!”...
“Will it be sent to me?”
“My dear fellow! How absurd you are! Can you get out to-morrow evening
about nine o'clock?”
“Yes, easily.”
“Then I will meet you at the corner of Victoria Street, by the hotel,
and hand you your first quarter's salary. Will that be satisfactory?”
“Perfectly,” said Soames, his small eyes sparkling with avarice. “Most
decidedly, Mr. Gianapolis. Many thanks.”...
“And by the way,” continued the other, “it is rather fortunate that you
rang me up this evening, because it has saved me the trouble of ringing
you up.”
“What?”--Soames' eyes half closed, from the bottom lids upwards:--“there
is something”...
“There is a trifling service which I require of you--yes, my dear
Soames.”
“Is it?”...
“We will discuss the matter to-morrow evening. Oh! it is a mere trifle.
So good-by for the present.”
Soames, with the fingers of his two hands interlocked before him, and
his thumbs twirling rapidly around one another, stood in the lobby,
gazing reflectively at the rug-strewn floor. He was working out in his
mind how handsomely this first payment would show up on the welcome
side of his passbook. Truly, he was fortunate in having met the generous
Gianapolis....
He thought of a trifling indiscretion committed at the expense of one
Mr. Mapleson, and of the wine-bill of Colonel Hewett; and he thought of
the apparently clairvoyant knowledge of the Greek. A cloud momentarily
came between his perceptive and the rosy horizon.
But nearer to the foreground of the mental picture, uprose a left-hand
page of his pass book; and its tidings of great joy, written in clerkly
hand, served to dispel the cloud.
Soames sighed in gentle rapture, and, soft-footed, passed into his own
room.
Certainly his duties were neither difficult nor unpleasant. The mistress
of the house lived apparently in a hazy dream-world of her own, and Mr.
Leroux was the ultimate expression of the non-commercial. Mr. Soames
could have robbed him every day had he desired to do so; but he had
refrained from availing himself even of those perquisites which he
considered justly his; for it was evident, to his limited intelligence,
that greater profit was to be gained by establishing himself in this
household than by weeding-out five shillings here, and half-a-sovereign
there, at the risk of untimely dismissal.
Yet--it was a struggle! All Mr. Soames' commercial instincts were up in
arms against this voice of a greater avarice which counseled abstention.
For instance: he could have added half-a-sovereign a week to his
earnings by means of a simple arrangement with the local wine merchant.
Leroux's cigars he could have sold by the hundreds; for Leroux, when a
friend called, would absently open a new box, entirely forgetful of the
fact that a box from which but two--or at most three--cigars had been
taken, lay already on the bureau.
Mr. Soames, in order to put his theories to the test, had temporarily
abstracted half-a-dozen such boxes from the study and the dining-room
and had hidden them. Leroux, finding, as he supposed, that he was out of
cigars, had simply ordered Soames to get him some more.
“Er--about a dozen boxes--er--Soames,” he had said; “of the same sort!”
Was ever a man of business submitted to such an ordeal? After receiving
those instructions, Soames had sat for close upon an hour in his own
room, contemplating the six broken boxes, containing in all some five
hundred and ninety cigars; but the voice within prevailed; he must court
no chance of losing his situation; therefore, he “discovered” these six
boxes in a cupboard--much to Henry Leroux's surprise!
Then, Leroux regularly sent him to the Charing Cross branch of the
London County and Suburban Bank with open checks! Sometimes, he would be
sent to pay in, at other times to withdraw; the amounts involved varying
from one guinea to 150 pounds! But, as he told himself, on almost every
occasion that he went to Leroux's bank, he was deliberately throwing
money away, deliberately closing his eyes to the good fortune which this
careless and gullible man cast in his path. He observed a scrupulous
honesty in all these dealings, with the result that the bank manager
came to regard him as a valuable and trustworthy servant, and said as
much to the assistant manager, expressing his wonder that Leroux--whose
account occasioned the bank more anxiety, and gave it more work, than
that of any other two depositors--had at last engaged a man who would
keep his business affairs in order!
And these were but a few of the golden apples which Mr. Soames permitted
to slip through his fingers, so steadfast was he in his belief that
Gianapolis would be as good as his word, and make his fortune.
Leroux employed no secretary; and his MSS. were typed at his agent's
office. A most slovenly man in all things, and in business matters
especially, he was the despair, not only of his banker, but of his
broker; he was a man who, in professional parlance, “deserved to be
robbed.” It is improbable that he had any but the haziest ideas, at
any particular time, respecting the state of his bank balance and
investments. He detested the writing of business letters, and was
always at great pains to avoid anything in the nature of a commercial
rendezvous. He would sign any document which his lawyer or his broker
cared to send him, with simple, unquestioned faith.
His bank he never visited, and his appearance was entirely unfamiliar
to the staff. True, the manager knew him slightly, having had two
interviews with him: one when the account was opened, and the second
when Leroux introduced his solicitor and broker--in order that in the
future he might not be troubled in any way with business affairs.
Mr. Soames perceived more and more clearly that the mild deception
projected was unlikely to be discovered by its victim; and, at the
appointed time, he hastened to the corner of Victoria Street, to his
appointment with Gianapolis. The latter was prompt, for Soames perceived
his radiant smile afar off.
The saloon bar of the Red Lion was affably proposed by Mr. Gianapolis
as a suitable spot to discuss the business. Soames agreed, not without
certain inward qualms; for the proximity of the hostelry to New Scotland
Yard was a disquieting circumstance.
However, since Gianapolis affected to treat their negotiations in
the light of perfectly legitimate business, he put up no protest, and
presently found himself seated in a very cozy corner of the saloon bar,
with a glass of whisky-and-soda on a little table before him, bubbling
in a manner which rendered it an agreeable and refreshing sight in the
eyes of Mr. Soames.
“You know,” said Gianapolis, the gaze of his left eye bisecting that
of his right in a most bewildering manner, “they call this 'the 'tec's
tabernacle!'”
“Indeed,” said Soames, without enthusiasm; “I suppose some of the
Scotland Yard men do drop in now and then?”
“Beyond doubt, my dear Soames.”
Soames responded to his companion's radiant smile with a smile of his
own by no means so pleasant to look upon. Soames had the type of face
which, in repose, might be the face of an honest man; but his smile
would have led to his instant arrest on any racecourse in Europe: it was
the smile of a pick-pocket.
“Now,” continued Gianapolis, “here is a quarter's salary in advance.”
From a pocket-book, he took a little brown paper envelope and from the
brown paper envelope counted out four five-pound notes, five golden
sovereigns, one half-sovereign, and ten shillings' worth of silver.
Soames' eyes glittered, delightedly.
“A little informal receipt?” smiled Gianapolis, raising his eyebrows,
satanically. “Here on this page of my notebook I have written: 'Received
from Mr. King for service rendered, 26 pounds, being payment, in
advance, of amount due on 31st October 19--' I have attached a stamp
to the page, as you will see,” continued Gianapolis, “and here is a
fountain-pen. Just sign across the stamp, adding to-day's date.”
Soames complied with willing alacrity; and Gianapolis having carefully
blotted the signature, replaced the notebook in his pocket, and politely
acknowledged the return of the fountain-pen. Soames, glancing furtively
about him, replaced the money in the envelope, and thrust the latter
carefully into a trouser pocket.
“Now,” resumed Gianapolis, “we must not permit our affairs of business
to interfere with our amusements.”
He stepped up to the bar and ordered two more whiskies with soda. These
being sampled, business was resumed.
“To-morrow,” said Gianapolis, leaning forward across the table so that
his face almost touched that of his companion, “you will be entrusted by
Mr. Leroux with a commission.”...
Soames nodded eagerly, his eyes upon the speaker's face.
“You will accompany Mrs. Leroux to the bank,” continued Gianapolis, “in
order that she may write a specimen signature, in the presence of the
manager, for transmission to the Credit Lyonnais in Paris.”...
Soames nearly closed his little eyes in his effort to comprehend.
“A draft in her favor,” continued the Greek, “has been purchased by
Mr. Leroux's bank from the Paris bank, and, on presentation of this, a
checkbook will be issued to Mrs. Leroux by the Credit Lyonnais in Paris
to enable her to draw at her convenience upon that establishment against
the said order. Do you follow me?”
Soames nodded rapidly, eager to exhibit an intelligent grasp of the
situation.
“Now”--Gianapolis lowered his voice impressively--“no one at the Charing
Cross branch of the London County and Suburban Bank has ever seen Mrs.
Leroux!--Oh! we have been careful of that, and we shall be careful in
the future. You are known already as an accredited agent of Leroux;
therefore”--he bent yet closer to Soames' ear--“you will direct the
chauffeur to drop you, not at the Strand entrance, but at the side
entrance. You follow?”
Soames, almost holding his breath, nodded again.
“At the end of the court, in which the latter entrance is situated, a
lady dressed in the same manner as Mrs. Leroux (this is arranged)
will be waiting. Mrs. Leroux will walk straight up the court, into the
corridor of Bank Chambers by the back entrance, and from thence out into
the Strand. YOU will escort the second lady into the manager's office,
and she will sign 'Mira Leroux' instead of the real Mira Leroux.”...
Soames became aware that he was changing color. This was a superior
felony, and as such it awed his little mind. It was tantamount to
burning his boats. Missing silver spoons and cooked petty cash were
trivialities usually expiable at the price of a boot-assisted dismissal;
but this--!
“You understand?” Gianapolis was not smiling, now. “There is not the
slightest danger. The signature of the lady whom you will meet will be
an exact duplicate of the real one; that is, exact enough to deceive a
man who is not looking for a forgery. But it would not be exact enough
to deceive the French banker--he WILL be looking for a forgery. You
follow me? The signature on the checks drawn against the Credit Lyonnais
will be the SAME as the specimen forwarded by the London County and
Suburban, since they will be written by the same lady--the duplicate
Mrs. Leroux. Therefore, the French bank will have no means of detecting
the harmless little deception practised upon them, and the English bank,
if it should ever see those checks, will raise no question, since the
checks will have been honored by the Credit Lyonnais.”
Soames finished his whisky-and-soda at a gulp.
“Finally,” concluded Gianapolis, “you will escort the lady out by the
front entrance to the Strand. She will leave you and walk in an easterly
direction--making some suitable excuse if the manager should insist upon
seeing her to the door; and the real Mrs. Leroux will come out by the
Strand end of Bank Chambers' corridor, and walk back with you around the
corner to where the car will be waiting. Perfect?”
“Quite,” said Soames, huskily....
But when, some twenty minutes later, he returned to Palace Mansions,
he was a man lost in thought; and he did not entirely regain his wonted
composure, and did not entirely shake off the incubus, Doubt, until in
his own room he had re-counted the contents of the brown paper envelope.
Then:--
“It's safe enough,” he muttered; “and it's worth it!”
Thus it came about that, on the following morning, Leroux called him
into the study and gave him just such instructions as Gianapolis had
outlined the evening before.
“I am--er--too busy to go myself, Soames,” said Leroux, “and--er--Mrs.
Leroux will shortly be paying a visit to friends in--er--in Paris.
So that I am opening a credit there for her. Save so much
trouble--and--such a lot of--correspondence--international money
orders--and such worrying things. Mr. Smith, the manager, knows you
and you will take this letter of authority. The draft I understand has
already been purchased.”
Mr. Soames was bursting with anxiety to learn the amount of this draft,
but could find no suitable opportunity to inquire. The astonishing
deception, then, was carried out without anything resembling a hitch.
Mrs. Leroux went through with her part in the comedy, in the dreamy
manner of a somnambulist; and the duplicate Mrs. Leroux, who waited
at the appointed spot, had achieved so startling a resemblance to her
prototype, that Mr. Soames became conscious of a craving for a peg
of brandy at the moment of setting eyes upon her. However, he braced
himself up and saw the business through.
As was to be expected, no questions were raised and no doubts
entertained. The bank manager was very courteous and very reserved, and
the fictitious Mrs. Leroux equally reserved, indeed, cold. She avoided
raising her motor veil, and, immediately the business was concluded,
took her departure, Mr. Smith escorting her as far as the door.
She walked away toward Fleet Street, and the respectful attendant,
Soames, toward Charing Cross; he rejoined Mrs. Leroux at the door of
Bank Chambers, and the two turned the corner and entered the waiting
car. Soames was rather nervous; Mrs. Leroux quite apathetic.
Shortly after this event, Soames learnt that the date of Mrs. Leroux's
departure to Paris was definitely fixed. He received from her hands a
large envelope.
“For Mr. King,” she said, in her dreamy fashion; and he noticed that she
seemed to be in poorer health than usual. Her mouth twitched strangely;
she was a nervous wreck.
Then came her departure, attended by a certain bustle, an appointment
with Mr. Gianapolis; and the delivery of the parcel into that
gentleman's keeping.
Mrs. Leroux was away for six days on this occasion. Leroux sent her
three postcards during that time, and re-addressed some ten or twelve
letters which arrived for her. The address in all cases was:
c/o Miss Denise Ryland,
Atelier 4, Rue du Coq d'Or,
Montmartre,
Paris.
East 18642 was much in demand that week; and there were numerous
meetings between Soames and Gianapolis at the corner of Victoria
Street, and numerous whiskies-and-sodas in the Red Lion; for Gianapolis
persisted in his patronage of that establishment, apparently for no
other reason than because it was dangerously near to Scotland Yard, and
an occasional house of call for members of the Criminal Investigation
Department.
Thus did Mr. Soames commence his career of duplicity at the flat of
Henry Leroux; and for some twelve months before the events which so
dramatically interfered with the delightful scheme, he drew his double
salary and performed his perfidious work with great efficiency and
contentment. Mrs. Leroux paid four other visits to Paris during that
time, and always returned in much better spirits, although pale and
somewhat haggard looking. It fell to the lot of Soames always to meet
her at Charing Cross; but never once, by look or by word, did
she proffer, or invite, the slightest exchange of confidence. She
apathetically accepted his aid in conducting this intrigue as she would
have accepted his aid in putting on her opera-cloak.
The curious Soames had read right through the telephone directory from
A to Z in quest of East 18642--only to learn that no such number was
published. His ingenuity not being great, he could think of no means
to learn the address of the mysterious Mr. King. So keenly had he been
impressed with the omniscience of that shadowy being who knew all his
past, that he feared to inquire of the Eastern Exchange. His banking
account was growing handsomely, and, above all things, he dreaded to
kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Then came the night which shattered all. Having rung up East 18642 and
made an appointment with Gianapolis in regard to some letters for
Mrs. Leroux, he had been surprised, on reaching the corner of Victoria
Street, to find that Gianapolis was not there! He glanced up at the face
of Big Ben. Yes--for the first time during their business acquaintance,
Mr. Gianapolis was late!
For close upon twenty minutes, Soames waited, walking slowly up and
down. When, at last, coming from the direction of Westminster, he saw
the familiar spruce figure.
Eagerly he hurried forward to meet the Greek; but Gianapolis--to the
horror and amazement of Soames--affected not to know him! He stepped
aside to avoid the stupefied butler, and passed. But, in passing, he
hissed these words at Soames:--
“Follow to Victoria Street Post Office! Pretend to post letters at next
box to me and put them in my hand!”
He was gone!
Soames, dazed at this new state of affairs, followed him at a discreet
distance. Gianapolis ran up the Post Office steps briskly, and Soames,
immediately afterwards, ascended also--furtively. Gianapolis was taking
out a number of letters from his pocket.
Soames walked across to the “Country” box on his right, and affected
to scrutinize the addresses on the envelopes of Mrs. Leroux's
correspondence.
Gianapolis, on the pretense of posting a country letter, reached out and
snatched the correspondence from Soames' hand. The gaze of his left eye
crookedly sought the face of the butler.
“Go home!” whispered Gianapolis; “be cautious!”
XIV
EAST 18642
In a pitiable state of mind, Soames walked away from the Post Office.
Gianapolis had hurried off in the direction of Victoria Station.
Something was wrong! Some part of the machine, of the dimly divined
machine whereof he formed a cog, was out of gear. Since the very nature
of this machine--its construction and purpose, alike--was unknown to
Soames, he had no basis upon which to erect surmises for good or ill.
His timid inquiries into the identity of East 18642 had begun and
terminated with his labored perusal of the telephone book, a profitless
task which had occupied him for the greater part of an evening.
The name, Gianapolis, did not appear at all; whereas there proved to be
some two hundred and ninety Kings. But, oddly, only four of these
were on the Eastern Exchange; one was a veterinary surgeon; one a
boat-builder; and a third a teacher of dancing. The fourth, an engineer,
seemed a “possible” to Soames, although his published number was not
18642; but a brief--a very brief--conversation, convinced the butler
that this was not his man.
He had been away from the flat for over an hour, and he doubted if even
the lax sense of discipline possessed by Mr. Leroux would enable that
gentleman to overlook this irregularity. Soames had a key of the outer
door, and he built his hopes upon the possibility that Leroux had not
noticed his absence and would not hear his return.
He opened the door very quietly, but had scarcely set his foot in the
lobby ere the dreadful, unforgettable scene met his gaze.
For more years than he could remember, he had lived in dread of the
law; and, in Luke Soames' philosophy, the words Satan and Detective
were interchangeable. Now, before his eyes, was a palpable, unmistakable
police officer; and on the floor...
Just one glimpse he permitted himself--and, in a voice that seemed to
reach him from a vast distance, the detective was addressing HIM!...
Slinking to his room, with his craven heart missing every fourth beat,
and his mind in chaos, Soames sank down upon the bed, locked his hands
together and hugged them, convulsively, between his knees.
It was come! He had overstepped that almost invisible boundary-line
which divides indiscretion from crime. He knew now that the voice within
him, the voice which had warned him against Gianapolis and against
becoming involved in what dimly he had perceived to be an elaborate
scheme, had been, not the voice of cowardice (as he had supposed) but
that of prudence.
And it was too late. The dead woman, he told himself--he had been unable
to see her very clearly--undoubtedly was Mrs. Leroux. What in God's name
had happened! Probably her husband had killed her... which meant? It
meant that proofs--PROOFS--were come into his possession; and who should
be involved, entangled in the meshes of this fallen conspiracy, but
himself, Luke Soames!
As must be abundantly evident, Soames was not a criminal of the daring
type; he did not believe in reaching out for anything until he was
well assured that he could, if necessary, draw back his hand. This last
venture, this regrettable venture--this ruinous venture--had been
a mistake. He had entered into it under the glamour of Gianapolis'
personality. Of what use, now, to him was his swelling bank balance?
But in justice to the mental capacity of Soames, it must be admitted
that he had not entirely overlooked such a possibility as this; he had
simply refrained, for the good of his health, from contemplating it.
Long before, he had observed, with interest, that, should an emergency
arise (such as a fire), a means of egress had been placed by the kindly
architect adjacent to his bedroom window. Thus, his departure on the
night of the murder was not the fruit of a sudden scheme, but of one
well matured.
Closing and locking his bedroom door, Soames threw out upon the bed the
entire contents of his trunk; selected those things which he considered
indispensable, and those which might constitute clues. He hastily packed
his grip, and, with a last glance about the room and some seconds of
breathless listening at the door, he attached to the handle a long piece
of cord, which at some time had been tied about his trunk, and, gently
opening the window, lowered the grip into the courtyard beneath. The
light he had already extinguished, and with the conviction dwelling in
his bosom that in some way he was become accessory to a murder--that he
was a man shortly to be pursued by the police of the civilized world--he
descended the skeleton lift-shaft, picked up his grip, and passed out
under the archway into the lane at the back of Palace Mansions and St.
Andrew's Mansions.
He did not proceed in the direction which would have brought him out
into the Square, but elected to emerge through the other end. At exactly
the moment that Inspector Dunbar rushed into his vacated room, Mr.
Soames, grip in hand, was mounting to the top of a southward bound 'bus
at the corner of Parliament Street!
He was conscious of a need for reflection. He longed to sit in some
secluded spot in order to think. At present, his brain was a mere
whirligig, and all things about him seemingly danced to the same tune.
Stationary objects were become unstable in the eyes of Soames, and the
solid earth, burst free of its moorings, no longer afforded him a safe
foothold. There was a humming in his ears; and a mist floated before his
eyes. By the time that the motor-'bus was come to the south side of the
bridge, Soames had succeeded in slowing down his mental roundabout in
some degree; and now he began grasping at the flying ideas which
the diminishing violence of his brain storm enabled him, vaguely, to
perceive.
The first fruits of his reflections were bitter. He viewed the events
of the night in truer focus; he saw that by his flight he had sealed his
fate--had voluntarily outlawed himself. It became frightfully evident
to him that he dared not seek to draw from his bank, that he dared not
touch even his modest Post Office account. With the exception of some
twenty-five shillings in his pocket, he was penniless!
How could he hope to fly the country, or even to hide himself, without
money?
He glanced suspiciously about the 'bus; for he perceived that an old
instinct had prompted him to mount one which passed the Oval--a former
point of debarkation when he lived in rooms near Kennington Park.
Someone might recognize him!
Furtively, he scanned his fellow passengers, but perceived no
acquaintance.
What should he do--where should he go? It was a desperate situation.
The inspector who had cared to study that furtive, isolated figure,
could not have failed to mark it for that of a hunted man.
At Kennington Gate the 'bus made a halt. Soames glanced at the clock on
the corner. It was close upon one A. M. Where in heaven's name should he
go? What a fool he had been to come to this district where he was known!
Stay! There was one man in London, surely, who must be almost as
keenly interested in the fate of Luke Soames as Luke Soames himself ...
Gianapolis!
Soames sprang up and hurried off the 'bus. No public telephone box would
be available at that hour, but dire need spurred his slow mind and also
lent him assurance. He entered the office of the taxicab depot on the
next corner, and, from the man whom he found in charge, solicited and
obtained the favor of using the telephone. Lifting the receiver, he
asked for East 18642.
The seconds that elapsed, now, were as hours of deathly suspense to
the man at the telephone. If the number should be engaged!... If the
exchange could get no reply!...
“Hullo!” said a nasal voice--“who is it?”
“It is Soames--and I want to speak to Mr. King!”
He lowered his tone as much as possible, almost whispering his own name.
He knew the voice which had answered him; it was the same that he always
heard when ringing up East 18642. But would Gianapolis come to the
telephone? Suddenly--
“Is that Soames?” spoke the sing-song voice of the Greek.
“Yes, yes!”
“Where are you?”
“At Kennington.”
“Are they following you?”
“No--I don't think so, at least; what am I to do? Where am I to go?”
“Get to Globe Road--near Stratford Bridge, East, without delay. But
whatever you do, see that you are not followed! Globe Road is the
turning immediately beyond the Railway Station. It is not too late,
perhaps, to get a 'bus or tram, for some part of the way, at any rate.
But even if the last is gone, don't take a cab; walk. When you get to
Globe Road, pass down on the left-hand side, and, if necessary, right to
the end. Make sure you are not followed, then walk back again. You will
receive a signal from an open door. Come right in. Good-by.”
Soames replaced the receiver on the hook, uttering a long-drawn sigh of
relief. The arbiter of his fortunes had not failed him!
“Thank you very much!” he said to the man in charge of the office, who
had been bending over his books and apparently taking not the slightest
interest in the telephone conversation. Soames placed twopence, the
price of the call, on the desk. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
He hastened out of the gate and across the road. An electric tramcar
which would bear him as far as the Elephant-and-Castle was on the point
of starting from the corner. Grip in hand, Soames boarded the car and
mounted to the top deck. He was in some doubt respecting his mode of
travel from the next point onward, but the night was fine, even if he
had to walk, and his reviving spirits would cheer him with visions of a
golden future!
His money!--That indeed was a bitter draught: the loss of his hardly
earned savings! But he was now established--linked by a common
secret--in partnership with Gianapolis; he was one of that mysterious,
obviously wealthy group which arranged drafts on Paris--which could
afford to pay him some hundreds of pounds per annum for such a trifling
service as juggling the mail!
Mr. King!--If Gianapolis were only the servant, what a magnificent man
of business must be hidden beneath the cognomen, Mr. King! And he
was about to meet that lord of mystery. Fear and curiosity were oddly
blended in the anticipation.
By great good fortune, Soames arrived at the Elephant-and-Castle in time
to catch an eastward bound motor-'bus, a 'bus which would actually carry
him to the end of Globe Road. He took his seat on top, and with greater
composure than he had known since his dramatic meeting with Gianapolis
in Victoria Street, lighted one of Mr. Leroux's cabanas (with which he
invariably kept his case filled) and settled down to think about the
future.
His reflections served apparently to shorten the journey; and Soames
found himself proceeding along Globe Road--a dark and uninviting
highway--almost before he realized that London Bridge had been
traversed. It was now long past one o'clock; and that part of the
east-end showed dreary and deserted. Public houses had long since
ejected their late guests, and even those argumentative groups,
which, after closing-time, linger on the pavements, within the odor
Bacchanalian, were dispersed. The jauntiness was gone, now, from Soames'
manner, and aware of a marked internal depression, he passed furtively
along the pavement with its long shadowy reaches between the islands
of light formed by the street lamps. From patch to patch he passed, and
each successive lamp that looked down upon him found him more furtive,
more bent in his carriage.
Not a shop nor a house exhibited any light. Sleeping Globe Road, East,
served to extinguish the last poor spark of courage within Soames'
bosom. He came to the extreme end of the road without having perceived
a beckoning hand, without having detected a sound to reveal that his
advent was observed. In the shadow of a wall he stopped, resting his
grip upon the pavement and looking back upon his tracks.
No living thing moved from end to end of Globe Road.
Shivering slightly, Soames picked up the bag and began to walk back.
Less than half-way along, an icy chill entered into his veins, and his
nerves quivered like piano wires, for a soft crying of his name came,
eerie, through the silence, and terrified the hearer.
“SOAMES!... SOAMES!”...
Soames stopped dead, breathing very rapidly, and looking about him right
and left. He could hear the muted pulse of sleeping London. Then, in the
dark doorway of the house before which he stood, he perceived, dimly, a
motionless figure. His first sensation was not of relief, but of fear.
The figure raised a beckoning hand. Soames, conscious that his course
was set and that he must navigate it accordingly, opened the iron gate,
passed up the path and entered the house to which he thus had been
summoned....
He found himself surrounded by absolute darkness, and the door was
closed behind him.
“Straight ahead, Soames!” said the familiar voice of Gianapolis out of
the darkness.
Soames, with a gasp of relief, staggered on. A hand rested upon his
shoulder, and he was guided into a room on the right of the passage.
Then an electric lamp was lighted, and he found himself confronting the
Greek.
But Gianapolis was no longer radiant; all the innate evil of the man
shone out through the smirking mask.
“Sit down, Soames!” he directed.
Soames, placing his bag upon the floor, seated himself in a cane
armchair. The room was cheaply furnished as an office, with a roll-top
desk, a revolving chair, and a filing cabinet. On a side-table stood
a typewriter, and about the room were several other chairs, whilst the
floor was covered with cheap linoleum. Gianapolis sat in the revolving
chair, staring at the lowered blinds of the window, and brushing up the
points of his black mustache.
With a fine white silk handkerchief Soames gently wiped the perspiration
from his forehead and from the lining of his hat-band. Gianapolis began
abruptly:--
“There has been an--accident” (he continued to brush his mustache, with
increasing rapidity). “Tell me all that took place after you left the
Post Office.”
Soames nervously related his painful experiences of the evening, whilst
Gianapolis drilled his mustache to a satanic angle. The story being
concluded:
“Whatever has happened?” groaned Soames; “and what am I to do?”
“What you are to do,” replied Gianapolis, “will be arranged, my dear
Soames, by--Mr. King. Where you are to go, is a problem shortly settled:
you are to go nowhere; you are to stay here.”...
“Here!”
Soames gazed drearily about the room.
“Not exactly here--this is merely the office; but at our establishment
proper in Limehouse.”...
“Limehouse!”
“Certainly. Although you seem to be unaware of the fact, Soames,
there are some charming resorts in Limehouse; and your duties, for the
present, will confine you to one of them.”
“But--but,” hesitated Soames, “the police”...
“Unless my information is at fault,” said Gianapolis, “the police have
no greater chance of paying us a visit, now, than they had formerly.”...
“But Mrs. Leroux”...
“Mrs. Leroux!”
Gianapolis twirled around in the chair, his eyes squinting
demoniacally:--“Mrs. Leroux!”
“She--she”...
“What about Mrs. Leroux?”
“Isn't she dead?”
“Dead! Mrs. Leroux! You are laboring under a strange delusion, Soames.
The lady whom you saw was not Mrs. Leroux.”
Soames' brain began to fail him again.
“Then who,” he began....
“That doesn't concern you in the least, Soames. But what does concern
you is this: your connection, and my connection, with the matter cannot
possibly be established by the police. The incident is regrettable, but
the emergency was dealt with--in time. It represents a serious deficit,
unfortunately, and your own usefulness, for the moment, becomes nil; but
we shall have to look after you, I suppose, and hope for better things
in the future.”
He took up the telephone.
“East 39951,” he said, whilst Soames listened, attentively. Then:--
“Is that Kan-Suh Concessions?” he asked. “Yes--good! Tell Said to bring
the car past the end of the road at a quarter-to-two. That's all.”
He hung up the receiver.
“Now, my dear Soames,” he said, with a faint return to his old manner,
“you are about to enter upon new duties. I will make your position clear
to you. Whilst you do your work, and keep yourself to yourself, you are
in no danger; but one indiscretion--just one--apart from what it may
mean for others, will mean, for YOU, immediate arrest as accessory to a
murder!”
Soames shuddered, coldly.
“You can rely upon me, Mr. Gianapolis,” he protested, “to do absolutely
what you wish--absolutely. I am a ruined man, and I know it--I know it.
My only hope is that you will give me a chance.”...
“You shall have every chance, Soames,” replied Gianapolis--“every
chance.”
XV
CAVE OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON
When the car stopped at the end of a short drive, Soames had not the
slightest idea of his whereabouts. The blinds at the window of the
limousine had been lowered during the whole journey, and now he
descended from the step of the car on to the step of a doorway. He was
in some kind of roofed-in courtyard, only illuminated by the headlamps
of the car. Mr. Gianapolis pushed him forward, and, as the door was
closed, he heard the gear of the car reversed; then--silence fell.
“My grip!” he began, nervously.
“It will be placed in your room, Soames.”
The voice of the Greek answered him from the darkness.
Guided by the hand of Gianapolis, he passed on and descended a flight of
stone steps. Ahead of him a light shone out beneath a door, and, as he
stumbled on the steps, the door was thrown suddenly open.
He found himself looking into a long, narrow apartment.... He pulled up
short with a smothered, gasping cry.
It was a cavern!--but a cavern the like of which he had never seen,
never imagined. The walls had the appearance of being rough-hewn
from virgin rock--from black rock--from rock black as the rocks of
Shellal--black as the gates of Erebus.
Placed at regular intervals along the frowning walls, to right and left,
were spiral, slender pillars, gilded and gleaming. They supported an
archwork of fancifully carven wood, which curved gently outward to the
center of the ceiling, forming, by conjunction with a similar, opposite
curve, a pointed arch.
In niches of the wall were a number of grotesque Chinese idols. The
floor was jet black and polished like ebony. Several tiger-skin rugs
were strewn about it. But, dominating the strange place, in the center
of the floor stood an ivory pedestal, supporting a golden dragon of
exquisite workmanship; and before it, as before a shrine, an enormous
Chinese vase was placed, of the hue, at its base, of deepest violet,
fading, upward, through all the shades of rose pink seen in an Egyptian
sunset, to a tint more elusive than a maiden's blush. It contained a
mass of exotic poppies of every shade conceivable, from purple so dark
as to seem black, to poppies of the whiteness of snow.
Just within the door, and immediately in front of Soames, stood a slim
man of about his own height, dressed with great nicety in a perfectly
fitting morning-coat, his well-cut cashmere trousers falling accurately
over glossy boots having gray suede uppers. His linen was immaculate,
and he wore a fine pearl in his black poplin cravat. Between two yellow
fingers smoldered a cigarette.
Soames, unconsciously, clenched his fists: this slim man embodied the
very spirit of the outre. The fantastic surroundings melted from the
ken of Soames, and he seemed to stand in a shadow-world, alone with an
incarnate shadow.
For this was a Chinaman! His jet black lusterless hair was not shaven in
the national manner, but worn long, and brushed back from his slanting
brow with no parting, so that it fell about his white collar behind,
lankly. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, which magnified his oblique eyes
and lent him a terrifying beetle-like appearance. His mephistophelean
eyebrows were raised interrogatively, and he was smiling so as to
exhibit a row of uneven yellow teeth.
Soames, his amazement giving place to reasonless terror, fell back a
step--into the arms of Gianapolis.
“This is our friend from Palace Mansions,” said the Greek. He squeezed
Soames' arm, reassuringly. “Your new principal, Soames, Mr. Ho-Pin, from
whom you will take your instructions.”
“I have these instructions for Mr. Soames,” said Ho-Pin, in a metallic,
monotonous voice. (He gave to r half the value of w, with a hint of the
presence of l.) “He will wremain here as valet until the search fowr him
becomes less wrigowrous.”
Soames, scarce believing that he was awake, made no reply. He found
himself unable to meet the glittering eyes of the Chinaman; he glanced
furtively about the room, prepared at any moment to wake up from what
seemed to him an absurd, a ghostly dream.
“Said will change his appeawrance,” continued Ho-Pin, smoothly, “so that
he will not wreadily be wrecognized. Said will come now.”
Ho-Pin clapped his hands three times.
The door at the end of the room immediately opened, and a thick-set man
of a pronounced Arabian type, entered. He wore a chauffeur's livery of
dark blue; and Soames recognized him for the man who had driven the car.
“Said,” said Ho-Pin very deliberately, turning to face the new arrival,
“ahu hina--Lucas Effendi--Mr. Lucas. Waddi el--shenta ila beta oda.
Fehimt?”
Said bowed his head.
“Fahim, effendi,” he muttered rapidly.
“Ma fihsh.”...
Again Said bowed his head, then, glancing at Soames:--
“Ta'ala wayyaya!” he said.
Soames, looking helplessly at Gianapolis--who merely pointed to the
door--followed Said from the room.
He was conducted along a wide passage, thickly carpeted and having its
walls covered with a kind of matting kept in place by strips of bamboo.
Its roof was similarly concealed. A door near to the end, and on the
right, proved to open into a square room quite simply furnished in the
manner of a bed-sitting room. A little bathroom opened out of it in one
corner. The walls were distempered white, and there was no window.
Light was furnished by an electric lamp, hanging from the center of the
ceiling.
Soames, glancing at his bag, which Said had just placed beside the
white-enameled bedstead, turned to his impassive guide.
“This is a funny go!” he began, with forced geniality. “Am I to live
here?”
“Ma'lesh!” muttered Said--“ma'lesh!”
He indicated, by gestures, that Soames should remove his collar; he was
markedly unemotional. He crossed to the bathroom, and could be heard
filling the hand-basin with water.
“Kursi!” he called from within.
Soames, seriously doubting his own sanity, and so obsessed with a sense
of the unreal that his senses were benumbed, began to take off his
collar; he could not feel the contact of his fingers with his neck in
the act. Collarless, he entered the little bathroom....
“Kursi!” repeated Said; then: “Ah! ana nesit! ma'lesh!”
Said--whilst Soames, docile in his stupor, watched him--went back,
picked up the solitary cane chair which the apartment boasted, and
brought it into the bathroom. Soames perceived that he was to be treated
to something in the nature of a shampoo; for Said had ranged a number
of bottles, a cake of soap, and several towels, along a shelf over the
bath.
In a curious state of passivity, Soames submitted to the operation. His
hair was vigorously toweled, then fanned in the most approved fashion;
but this was no more than the beginning of the operation. As he leaned
back in the chair:
“Am I dreaming?” he said aloud. “What's all this about?”
“Uskut!” muttered Said--“Uskut!”
Soames, at no time an aggressive character, resigned himself to the
incredible.
Some lotion, which tingled slightly upon the scalp, was next applied
by Said from a long-necked bottle. Then, fresh water having been poured
into the basin, a dark purple liquid was added, and Soames' head dipped
therein by the operating Eastern. This time no rubbing followed, but
after some minutes of vigorous fanning, he was thrust back into
the chair, and a dry towel tucked firmly into his collar-band. He
anticipated that he was about to be shaved, and in this was not
disappointed.
Said, filling a shaving-mug from the hot-water tap, lathered Soames'
chin and the abbreviated whiskers upon which he had prided himself. Then
the razor was skilfully handled, and Soames' face shaved until his chin
was as smooth as satin.
Next, a dark brown solution was rubbed over the skin, and even upon
his forehead and right into the roots of the hair; upon his throat, his
ears, and the back of his neck. He was now past the putting of questions
or the raising of protest; he was as clay in the hands of the silent
Oriental. Having fanned his wet face again for some time, Said, breaking
the long silence, muttered:
“Ikfil'iyyun!”
Soames stared. Said indicated, by pantomime, that he desired him to
close his eyes, and Soames obeyed mechanically. Thereupon the Oriental
busied himself with the ex-butler's not very abundant lashes for five
minutes or more. Then the busy fingers were at work with his inadequate
eyebrows: finally:--
“Khalas!” muttered Said, tapping him on the shoulder.
Soames wearily opened his eyes, wondering if his strange martyrdom were
nearly at its end. He discovered his hair to be still rather damp, but,
since it was sparse, it was rapidly drying. His eyes smarted painfully.
Removing all trace of his operations, Said, with no word of farewell,
took up his towels, bottles and other paraphernalia and departed.
Soames watched the retreating figure crossing the outer room, but did
not rise from the chair until the door had closed behind Said. Then,
feeling strangely like a man who has drunk too heavily, he stood up
and walked into the bedroom. There was a small shaving-glass upon the
chest-of-drawers, and to this he advanced, filled with the wildest
apprehensions.
One glance he ventured, and started back with a groan.
His apprehensions had fallen short of the reality. With one hand
clutching the bedrail, he stood there swaying from side to side, and
striving to screw up his courage to the point whereat he might venture
upon a second glance in the mirror. At last he succeeded, looking long
and pitifully.
“Oh, Lord!” he groaned, “what a guy!”
Beyond doubt he was strangely changed. By nature, Luke Soames had hair
of a sandy color; now it was of so dark a brown as to seem black in the
lamplight. His thin eyebrows and scanty lashes were naturally almost
colorless; but they were become those of a pronounced brunette. He was
of pale complexion, but to-night had the face of a mulatto, or of one
long in tropical regions. In short, he was another man--a man whom he
detested at first sight!
This was the price, or perhaps only part of the price, of his
indiscretion. Mr. Soames was become Mr. Lucas. Clutching the top of
the chest-of-drawers with both hands, he glared at his own reflection,
dazedly.
In that pose, he was interrupted. Said, silently opening the door behind
him, muttered:
“Ta'ala wayyaya!”
Soames whirled around in a sudden panic, his heart leaping madly. The
immobile brown face peered in at the door.
“Ta'ala wayyaya!” repeated Said, his face expressionless as a mask. He
pointed along the corridor. “Ho-Pin Effendi!” he explained.
Soames, raising his hands to his collarless neck, made a swallowing
noise, and would have spoken; but:
“Ta'ala wayyaya!” reiterated the Oriental.
Soames hesitated no more. Reentering the corridor, with its
straw-matting walls, he made a curious discovery. Away to the left it
terminated in a blank, matting-covered wall. There was no indication of
the door by which he had entered it. Glancing hurriedly to the right,
he failed also to perceive any door there. The bespectacled Ho-Pin
stood halfway along the passage, awaiting him. Following Said in that
direction, Soames was greeted with the announcement:
“Mr. King will see you.”
The words taught Soames that his capacity for emotion was by no means
exhausted. His endless conjectures respecting the mysterious Mr. King
were at last to be replaced by facts; he was to see him, to speak with
him. He knew now that it was a fearful privilege which gladly he would
have denied himself.
Ho-Pin opened a door almost immediately behind him, a door the existence
of which had not hitherto been evident to Soames. Beyond, was a dark
passage.
“You will follow me, closely,” said Ho-Pin with one of his piercing
glances.
Soames, finding his legs none too steady, entered the passage behind
Ho-Pin. As he did so, the door was closed by Said, and he found himself
in absolute darkness.
“Keep close behind me,” directed the metallic voice.
Soames could not see the speaker, since no ray of light penetrated
into the passage. He stretched out a groping hand, and, although he was
conscious of an odd revulsion, touched the shoulder of the man in front
of him and maintained that unpleasant contact whilst they walked on and
on through apparently endless passages, extensive as a catacomb. Many
corners they turned; they turned to the right, they turned to the left.
Soames was hopelessly bewildered. Then, suddenly, Ho-Pin stopped.
“Stand still,” he said.
Soames became vaguely aware that a door was being closed somewhere near
to him. A lamp lighted up directly over his head... he found himself in
a small library!
Its four walls were covered with book-shelves from floor to ceiling, and
the shelves were packed to overflowing with books in most unusual and
bizarre bindings. A red carpet was on the floor and a red-shaded lamp
hung from the ceiling, which was conventionally white-washed. Although
there was no fireplace, the room was immoderately hot, and heavy with
the perfume of roses. On three little tables were great bowls filled
with roses, and there were other bowls containing roses in gaps between
the books on the open shelves.
A tall screen of beautifully carved sandalwood masked one corner of
the room, but beyond it protruded the end of a heavy writing-table upon
which lay some loose papers, and, standing amid them, an enormous silver
rose-bowl, brimming with sulphur-colored blooms.
Soames, obeying a primary instinct, turned, as the light leaped into
being, to seek the door by which he had entered. As he did so, the
former doubts of his own sanity returned with renewed vigor.
The book-lined wall behind him was unbroken by any opening.
Slowly, as a man awaking from a stupor, Soames gazed around the library.
It contained no door.
He rested his hand upon one of the shelves and closed his eyes. Beyond
doubt he was going mad! The tragic events of that night had proved too
much for him; he had never disguised from himself the fact that his
mental capacity was not of the greatest. He was assured, now, that
his brain had lost its balance shortly after his flight from Palace
Mansions, and that the events of the past two hours had been phantasmal.
He would presently return to sanity (or, blasphemously, he dared to
petition heaven that he would) and find himself...? Perhaps in the hands
of the police!
“Oh, God!” he groaned--“Oh, God!”
He opened his eyes...
A woman stood before the sandalwood screen! She had the pallidly dusky
skin of a Eurasian, but, by virtue of nature or artifice, her cheeks
wore a peachlike bloom. Her features were flawless in their chiseling,
save for the slightly distended nostrils, and her black eyes were
magnificent.
She was divinely petite, slender and girlish; but there was that in
the lines of her figure, so seductively defined by her clinging Chinese
dress, in the poise of her small head, with the blush rose nestling
amid the black hair--above all in the smile of her full red lips--which
discounted the youth of her body; which whispered “Mine is a soul old
in strange sins--a soul for whom dead Alexandria had no secrets, that
learnt nothing of Athenean Thais and might have tutored Messalina”...
In her fanciful robe of old gold, with her tiny feet shod in
ridiculously small, gilt slippers, she stood by the screen watching
the stupefied man--an exquisite, fragrantly youthful casket of ancient,
unnameable evils.
“Good evening, Soames!” she said, stumbling quaintly with her English,
but speaking in a voice musical as a silver bell. “You will here be
known as Lucas. Mr. King he wishing me to say that you to receive two
pounds, at each week.”...
Soames, glassy-eyed, stood watching her. A horror, the horror of
insanity, had descended upon him--a clammy, rose-scented mantle. The
room, the incredible, book-lined room, was a red blur, surrounding the
black, taunting eyes of the Eurasian. Everything was out of focus; past,
present, and future were merged into a red, rose-haunted nothingness...
“You will attend to Block A,” resumed the girl, pointing at him with a
little fan. “You will also attend to the gentlemen.”...
She laughed softly, revealing tiny white teeth; then paused, head tilted
coquettishly, and appeared to be listening to someone's conversation--to
the words of some person seated behind the screen. This fact broke in
upon Soames' disordered mind and confirmed him in his opinion that he
was a man demented. For only one slight sound broke the silence of the
room. The red carpet below the little tables was littered with
rose petals, and, in the super-heated atmosphere, other petals kept
falling--softly, with a gentle rustling. Just that sound there was...
and no other. Then:
“Mr. King he wishing to point out to you,” said the girl, “that he hold
receipts of you, which bind you to him. So you will be free man, and
have liberty to go out sometimes for your own business. Mr. King he
wishing to hear you say you thinking to agree with the conditions and be
satisfied.”
She ceased speaking, but continued to smile; and so complete was the
stillness, that Soames, whose sense of hearing had become nervously
stimulated, heard a solitary rose petal fall upon the corner of the
writing-table.
“I... agree,” he whispered huskily; “and... I am... satisfied.”
He looked at the carven screen as a lost soul might look at the gate of
Hades; he felt now that if a sound should come from beyond it he would
shriek out, he would stop up his ears; that if the figure of the Unseen
should become visible, he must die at the first glimpse of it.
The little brown girl was repeating the uncanny business of listening
to that voice of silence; and Soames knew that he could not sustain his
part in this eerie comedy for another half-minute without breaking out
into hysterical laughter. Then:
“Mr. King he releasing you for to-night,” announced the silver bell
voice.
The light went out.
Soames uttered a groan of terror, followed by a short, bubbling laugh,
but was seized firmly by the arm and led on into the blackness--on
through the solid, book-laden walls, presumably; and on--on--on, along
those interminable passages by which he had come. Here the air was
cooler, and the odor of roses no longer perceptible, no longer stifling
him, no longer assailing his nostrils, not as an odor of sweetness, but
as a perfume utterly damnable and unholy.
With his knees trembling at every step, he marched on, firmly supported
by his unseen companion.
“Stop!” directed a metallic, guttural voice.
Soames pulled up, and leaned weakly against the wall. He heard the clap
of hands close behind him; and a door opened within twelve inches of the
spot whereat he stood.
He tottered out into the matting-lined corridor from which he had
started upon that nightmare journey; Ho-Pin appeared at his elbow, but
no door appeared behind Ho-Pin!
“This is your wroom,” said the Chinaman, revealing his yellow teeth in a
mirthless smile.
He walked across the corridor, threw open a door--a real, palpable
door... and there was Soames' little white room!
Soames staggered across, for it seemed a veritable haven of
refuge--entered, and dropped upon the bed. He seemed to see the
rose-petals fall--fall--falling in that red room in the labyrinth--the
room that had no door; he seemed to see the laughing eyes of the
beautiful Eurasian.
“Good night!” came the metallic voice of Ho-Pin.
The light in the corridor went out.
XVI
HO-PIN'S CATACOMBS
The newly-created Mr. Lucas entered upon a sort of cave-man existence
in this fantastic abode where night was day and day was night; where the
sun never shone.
He was awakened on the first morning of his sojourn in the establishment
of Ho-Pin by the loud ringing of an electric bell immediately beside his
bed. He sprang upright with a catching of the breath, peering about him
at the unfamiliar surroundings and wondering, in the hazy manner of a
sleeper newly awakened, where he was, and how come there. He was fully
dressed, and his strapped-up grip lay beside him on the floor; for he
had not dared to remove his clothes, had not dared to seek slumber
after that terrifying interview with Mr. King. But outraged nature had
prevailed, and sleep had come unbeckoned, unbidden.
The electric light was still burning in the room, as he had left it, and
as he sat up, looking about him, a purring whistle drew his attention to
a speaking-tube which protruded below the bell.
Soames rolled from the bed, head throbbing, and an acrid taste in his
mouth, and spoke into the tube:
“Hullo!”
“You will pwrepare for youwr duties,” came the metallic gutturals of
Ho-Pin. “Bwreakfast will be bwrought to you in a quawrter-of-an-hour.”
He made no reply, but stood looking about him dully. It had not been a
dream, then, nor was he mad. It was a horrible reality; here, in London,
in modern, civilized London, he was actually buried in some incredible
catacomb; somewhere near to him, very near to him, was the cave of the
golden dragon, and, also adjacent--terrifying thought--was the doorless
library, the rose-scented haunt where the beautiful Eurasian spoke,
oracularly, the responses of Mr. King!
Soames could not understand it all; he felt that such things could
not be; that there must exist an explanation of those seeming
impossibilities other than that they actually existed. But the
instructions were veritable enough, and would not be denied.
Rapidly he began to unpack his grip. His watch had stopped, since he
had neglected to wind it, and he hurried with his toilet, fearful of
incurring the anger of Ho-Pin--of Ho-Pin, the beetlesque.
He observed, with passive interest, that the operation of shaving did
not appreciably lighten the stain upon his skin, and, by the time that
he was shaved, he had begun to know the dark-haired, yellow-faced
man grimacing in the mirror for himself; but he was far from being
reconciled to his new appearance.
Said peeped in at the door. He no longer wore his chauffeur's livery,
but was arrayed in a white linen robe, red-sashed, and wore loose, red
slippers; a tarboosh perched upon his shaven skull.
Pushing the door widely open, he entered with a tray upon which was
spread a substantial breakfast.
“Hurryup!” he muttered, as one word; wherewith he departed again.
Soames seated himself at the little table upon which the tray rested,
and endeavored to eat. His usual appetite had departed with his
identity; Mr. Lucas was a poor, twitching being of raw nerves and
internal qualms. He emptied the coffee-pot, however, and smoked a
cigarette which he found in his case.
Said reappeared.
“Ta'ala!” he directed.
Soames having learnt that that term was evidently intended as an
invitation to follow Said, rose and followed, dumbly.
He was conducted along the matting-lined corridor to the left; and now,
where formerly he had seen a blank wall, he saw an open door! Passing
this, he discovered himself in the cave of the golden dragon.
Ho-Pin, dressed in a perfectly fitting morning coat and its usual
accompaniments, received him with a mirthless smile.
“Good mowrning!” he said; “I twrust your bwreakfast was satisfactowry?”
“Quite, sir,” replied Soames, mechanically, and as he might have replied
to Mr. Leroux.
“Said will show you to a wroom,” continued Ho-Pin, “where you will find
a gentleman awaiting you. You will valet him and perfowrm any other
services which he may wrequire of you. When he departs, you will clean
the wroom and adjoining bath-wroom, and put it into thowrough order
for an incoming tenant. In short, your duties in this wrespect will be
identical to those which formerly you perfowrmed at sea. There is
one important diffewrence: your name is Lucas, and you will answer no
questions.”
The metallic voice seemed to reach Soames' comprehension from some place
other than the room of the golden dragon--from a great distance, or as
though he were fastened up in a box and were being addressed by someone
outside it.
“Yes, sir,” he replied.
Said opened the yellow door upon the right of the room, and Soames
followed him into another of the matting-lined corridors, this one
running right and left and parallel with the wall of the apartment which
he had just quitted. Six doors opened out of this corridor; four of
them upon the side opposite to that by which he had entered, and one at
either end.
These doors were not readily to be detected; and the wall, at first
glance, presented an unbroken appearance. But from experience, he had
learned that where the strips of bamboo which overlay the straw matting
formed a rectangular panel, there was a door, and by the light of the
electric lamp hung in the center of the corridor, he counted six of
these.
Said, selecting a key from a bunch which he carried, opened one of the
doors, held it ajar for Soames to enter, and permitted it to reclose
behind him.
Soames entered nervously. He found himself in a room identical in size
with his own private apartment; a bathroom, etc., opened out of it in
one corner after the same fashion. But there similarity ended.
The bed in this apartment was constructed more on the lines of a modern
steamer bunk; that is, it was surrounded by a rail, and was raised no
more than a foot from the floor. The latter was covered with a rich
carpet, worked in many colors, and the wall was hung with such paper
as Soames had never seen hitherto in his life. The scheme of this mural
decoration was distinctly Chinese, and consisted in an intricate design
of human and animal figures, bewilderingly mingled; its coloring was
brilliant, and the scheme extended, unbroken, over the entire ceiling.
Cushions, most fancifully embroidered, were strewn about the floor, and
the bed coverlet was a piece of heavy Chinese tapestry. A lamp, shaded
with silk of a dull purple, swung in the center of the apartment, and
an ebony table, inlaid with ivory, stood on one side of the bed; on the
other was a cushioned armchair figured with the eternal, chaotic Chinese
design, and being littered, at the moment, with the garments of the man
in the bed. The air of the room was disgusting, unbreathable; it caught
Soames by the throat and sickened him. It was laden with some kind of
fumes, entirely unfamiliar to his nostrils. A dainty Chinese tea-service
stood upon the ebony table.
For fully thirty seconds Soames, with his back to the door, gazed at the
man in the bed, and fought down the nausea which the air of the place
had induced in him.
This sleeper was a man of middle age, thin to emaciation and having
lank, dark hair. His face was ghastly white, and he lay with his head
thrown back and with his arms hanging out upon either side of the bunk,
so that his listless hands rested upon the carpet. It was a tragic face;
a high, intellectual brow and finely chiseled features; but it presented
an indescribable aspect of decay; it was as the face of some classic
statue which has long lain buried in humid ruins.
Soames shook himself into activity, and ventured to approach the bed. He
moistened his dry lips and spoke:
“Good morning, sir”--the words sounded wildly, fantastically out of
place. “Shall I prepare your bath?”
The sleeper showed no signs of awakening.
Soames forced himself to touch one of the thrown-back shoulders. He
shook it gently.
The man on the bed raised his arms and dropped them back again into
their original position, without opening his eyes.
“They... are hiding,” he murmured thickly... “in the... orange grove....
If the felucca sails... closer... they will”...
Soames, finding something very horrifying in the broken words, shook the
sleeper more urgently.
“Wake up, sir!” he cried; “I am going to prepare your bath.”
“Don't let them... escape,” murmured the man, slowly opening his
eyes--“I have not”...
He struggled upright, glaring madly at the intruder. His light gray
eyes had a glassiness as of long sickness, and his pupils, which were
unnaturally dilated, began rapidly to contract; became almost invisible.
Then they expanded again--and again contracted.
“Who--the deuce are you?” he murmured, passing his hand across his
unshaven face.
“My name is--Lucas, sir,” said Soames, conscious that if he remained
much longer in the place he should be physically sick. “At your
service--shall I prepare the bath?”
“The bath?” said the man, sitting up more straightly--“certainly,
yes--of course”...
He looked at Soames, with a light of growing sanit
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