The Riddle of the Mysterious Light
by Mary E. Hanshew · English · Gutenberg #42802 · 421,548 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Riddle of the Mysterious Light
Author: Mary E. Hanshew
Thomas W. Hanshew
Release date: May 25, 2013 [eBook #42802]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42802
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIDDLE OF THE MYSTERIOUS LIGHT ***
THE RIDDLE OF THE
MYSTERIOUS LIGHT
[Illustration: "_Mr. Narkom saw Cleek run to the tower's foot ... and
then, almost immediately, he saw him throw up both hands and stagger
backward._"]
THE SCOTLAND YARD MYSTERY LIBRARY
THE
RIDDLE OF
THE
MYSTERIOUS
LIGHT
BY
MARY E. and THOMAS W. HANSHEW
McKINLAY, STONE & MACKENZIE
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Trapped by the Apaches 3
II. A Kiss for a Life 12
III. The Haunted Village 22
IV. Weird Church Bells of the Night 30
V. The Private Affairs of a Duke 43
VI. The Ghost in the Church Belfry 50
VII. A Garden of Transplanted Flowers 62
VIII. The Murder of Captain Sandringham 73
IX. A Faintly Familiar Face 78
X. A Walk in the Garden 86
XI. Clues from a Dead Body 94
XII. A Jangle of Pealing Bells 101
XIII. The Mysterious Light 107
XIV. "George Headland" Keeps an Appointment 113
XV. The Laying of the Valehampton "Ghost" 121
XVI. Cleek Explains 128
XVII. The Mystery of the "Rose of Fire" 137
XVIII. Murder at Manor Lodge 145
XIX. The Winged Messenger of Death 154
XX. The Stolen Formulas 166
XXI. Countess Maravitz Entertains 190
XXII. An Interrupted Holiday 202
XXIII. A Divided Legacy 210
XXIV. "The Fire That Slays in the Dark" 218
XXV. The Priceless Statue That Vanished 229
XXVI. Flecks of White Powder 237
XXVII. The Ruse of the Sprained Wrist 246
XXVIII. The Mystery of the "Rope of Fear" 256
XXIX. The Mysterious Death of Elton Carlyle 287
XXX. The Safe with the Time-Lock 297
XXXI. In the Den of the Apaches 306
XXXII. The Passing of Cleek 320
CHAPTER I
TRAPPED BY THE APACHES
There are days, even in the capricious climate of London, when the whole
world seems at peace; when the blue of the summer sky, the fragrance of
some distant flower brought in by a passing breeze, and the contented
chirp of the birds, all unite to evoke a spirit of thankfulness for the
very gift of life itself.
This was the spirit of Mr. Maverick Narkom, Superintendent of Scotland
Yard, on this particular day in July. Even the very criminals had
apparently betaken themselves to other haunts and distant climes, and
the Yard, therefore, may be said to have been surprisingly slack. Up in
his own private room, seated in front of his desk--both desk and room
reduced to a state of order and tidiness uncanny to behold--sat the
Superintendent, if the truth must be told, oblivious to all the world; a
purple silk handkerchief draped itself gracefully over his head and rose
softly up and down with the rise and fall of his breath. This was his
last day at the Yard, for to-morrow would see him well on the road to
Margate for a blessed two weeks' holiday with Mrs. Narkom and the
children, not to mention guests who were nearly as precious to him,
namely Ailsa Lorne and Hamilton Cleek.
His famous ally had himself been absent for more than two months, but
was returning this very day--day, in fact, might be expected to arrive
now at any minute, so it was little wonder that peace reigned supreme in
the worthy Superintendent's heart, and induced his gentle slumbers even
in the sacred precincts of what has been termed the Hub of London.
But outside, in the blue azure of the sky above, a tiny cloud, no bigger
than that of the proverbial man's hand, had gathered, and as if it were
a reflection of the storm-clouds of crime hovering round, there came the
sharp _ting-ting_ of the telephone bell at his elbow. For a minute, thus
suddenly aroused, Mr. Narkom stared blankly at the disturber of his
peace. A swift glance at the indicator told him it was a summons from
the Chief Commissioner, and Mr. Narkom betook himself to the interview.
It lasted only fifteen minutes as registered by the clock ticking gently
on the mantelshelf, but its deadly effect was that of fifteen years on
Mr. Narkom, and when he once more entered his own official sanctum, he
sank down into the chair with a groan. For he had heard the first
details of that mystery of the haunted village of Valehampton, which
later on was to rouse a whole county, and bring to Hamilton Cleek one of
the chief problems of his career. That the strangeness of the case was
apparent on the face of it could be gathered from Mr. Narkom's muttered
remarks.
"Curses!" he growled. "Suicides! Murders! Ghosts! Prophecies! It's the
work of the devil himself." He consulted his notes again, but though
copious enough, it was clear they afforded no further light. He pulled
out his watch and heaved a sigh of relief. "Only half-past nine now," he
ejaculated, "and if only Cleek arrived safely by the 8:40, I think he
said, at Charing Cross, there's a chance of seeing light. I don't know
where he's been, the amazing beggar, but he's never been wanted so badly
here in his life. Thank goodness he's back again."
He reached out a hand for that friendly instrument the telephone
receiver; but his complacent gratitude had evidently tried the patience
of the Fates, for ere his fingers closed round the familiar black
handle, the door of his room was thrown violently open, and without
ceremony or even apology a slim figure fairly hurled itself before the
gaze of the astonished Superintendent.
It was Dollops, worshipper of Cleek and his ever-faithful assistant. His
face was the colour of a Manila paper bag, and his eyes bulged out of
his head as they took in the fact that Mr. Narkom was alone.
"Lor' lumme!" he cried, relapsing into broad cockney, as he invariably
did when excited. "Don't go for to say he ain't 'ere, neither," he
blurted out, his eyes seeking those of Mr. Narkom with a very agony of
impatience.
For both of them there could be but one "he," and Mr. Narkom's face
became nearly the same colour as the lad's as he realized that his
famous ally was not at hand.
"Didn't he arrive at Charing Cross by the 8:40?" he cried.
Dollops shook his head.
"No, bless 'im, that's just what he didn't do, Mr. Narkom. Me and Miss
Lorne waited for 'im, me wivout so much as a bite to keep my insides
from sticking together, and them blooming Apaches--beggin' your pardon,
Mr. Narkom, but they are blooming, too--merry and bright they was, I
tell you, buzzing round that station like bluebottles round a piece of
meat. That's wot made me come 'ere, thinkin' he'd twigged 'em as usual
and come another way. But if 'e ain't 'ere, 'e ain't, and I'll get back
to Portman Square."
With a dejected lurch of the shoulders, he turned, leaving Mr. Narkom to
make his own preparations.
Soon deep in the business of issuing orders to his underlings,
despatching telegrams--one, of course, to Mrs. Narkom herself to
prepare her for the disappointment of a postponed holiday--and in
writing and expanding the notes of this last case just entrusted to him
by his chief, Mr. Narkom for the first time in his life since he had
known and learned to love his famous ally, Hamilton Cleek, once known as
the Man of Forty Faces by reason of his peculiar birth-gift, his ability
to change instantaneously his whole appearance by an extraordinary
distortion of his facial muscles, and also as the Vanishing Cracksman,
for his capacity of extricating himself from perilous positions, and now
as Cleek of Scotland Yard--for the first time, we say, Mr. Narkom forgot
to be anxious at his evident non-arrival.
The sound of hurried footsteps in the corridor outside struck upon his
ear and he wheeled suddenly in his chair. But if he had expected to see
Cleek, he was doomed to disappointment. There came a knock, the door
opened and closed, and a deprecatory cough came from Inspector Hammond,
white-faced and anxious, his lips set in a grim line of tense anxiety.
"Hammond--why, what is wrong, man? Speak up," cried the Superintendent.
"Come, out with it."
"It's 'im, sir," said Hammond. "A kid of a paper-boy just pushed this
'ere paper into my 'and as I was leaving my beat and 'ops it before I
could as much as breathe Jack Robinson."
His hand shaking, he extended to the obviously irritated Mr. Narkom a
scrap of dirty paper, and as the Superintendent gave a glance at the few
words scrawled on it, his own ruddy face was drained of every vestige of
colour, and it looked not unlike that of Dollops but a brief half hour
previous.
The scribbled words were barely half a dozen in number but in their
import they told of more dire disaster to him than could any voluminous
cabinet epistle.
Irregularly penned as by one in imminent peril, the message danced
before his blurred eyes.
"_Come, God's sake, 1st barge, Limehouse, Dock 3.--Cleek._"
"What does it mean, sir?" asked Hammond, anxiously, as Mr. Narkom sucked
in his breath and stood staring rigidly.
"Means," he gasped, "that they've got him, the devils. Dollops was
right. Apaches! God, but he's gone by now perhaps. Cleek, my
pal--my----"
He wheeled on the now frightened Inspector. "Quick, man--the car. You
follow, with Petrie and whoever else is off duty."
Hammond needed no second telling. He almost fled from the room, and the
dread news preceding him, Lennard was on the spot and waiting as
impatiently as the Superintendent himself.
"Limehouse Docks, Lennard--and streak it. Mr. Cleek is in danger----"
"I know, sir. Hop in, and Lord help the man or vehicle in my way!" was
the fervent reply as he cranked up and took his seat.
"Streak it" he did, and not a policeman on duty, after a brief glance at
his grim face and that of the Superintendent within, did more than hold
up every cart, cab, tram, or 'bus that was likely to impede his way.
Obviously the Yard, as vested in the sacred person of Superintendent
Narkom and his prime minister Lennard, was "on active duty" and like a
fire engine in speed and purpose, the Yard limousine rocked and swayed
its way through grimy lanes and malodorous byways till it reached the
squalid region known as Limehouse Docks. Here Lennard could go no
farther, and ere the car had pulled up, quivering, the portly form of
the Superintendent had thrown itself out, and was peering into the
sunlit distances.
"Wait here, Lennard, and when the others come along bring them to Dock 3
and look out for Barge No. 1, if we are not here first."
"Righto, sir," said Lennard.
But already Mr. Narkom was out of sight, all other duties forgotten.
Swiftly he turned a sharp corner, nearly falling over a sailor leaning
against the wall smoking a cigarette. At the first whiff, Mr. Narkom
glanced up swiftly. It did not take his trained sense long to recognize
that it was a French cigarette--hence Apache--and that Cleek must be
here, in need of him!
"La, la, but you are queek," the man muttered. "It is ze brave
Super-in-tend-ent and he come for his gr-great frien' Cleek--is it not
so, my frien'?"
"Yes, yes--_you know_! He is here?" gasped Mr. Narkom, barely, if at
all, stopping to think of any possible peril to himself. "You shall be
finely rewarded for this, my good man," he said, warmly. "Lead on----"
"But yes," was the reply, "a brave reward. Come!" He turned silently and
swiftly, beckoning to the Superintendent to follow.
Nothing loath and unsuspecting, Mr. Narkom turned and followed the
sailor till they reached one of the docks--and a barge.
"This is dock 3," he said, as he noticed the number.
"Quite right," said his guide. "Get in, queek--ze boat--ze others, zay
weel return and it weel be too late."
That was sufficient for Mr. Narkom. Obviously, his friend was in danger;
equally obvious was it that this guide had brought him as a
reinforcement against returning Apaches.
"Get in" he did, and it was not until he had stumbled down a dark
companionway into the grimy cabin and heard the door click swiftly
behind him that he realized he was trapped--deceived by a trick as
simple as it had been effective. The sweat stood out on the
Superintendent's forehead, rolling down in great beads, while his hands
grew cold and clammy.
"Cleek!" he cried, hoping even now that his ally were with him to help
and be helped! But a light laugh--half snarl, half sneer--caused him to
turn. His guide stood regarding him with mocking amusement.
"Bravo! my frien'--so easy it was! Caught like the great big
turkey-gobbler. Oh, _non, non_--but not so queek, my frien'----"
For Mr. Narkom had flung himself forward in a vain effort to escape. A
sharp whistle and a door hitherto unseen in the darkness of the cabin
behind him was flung open. Mr. Narkom was seized from behind, flung down
some three minutes later, and trussed up, panting and helpless, tears of
rage and mortification in his eyes.
Soon, as it grew darker and darker, betokening the fall of the summer
night, he felt the movement of the boat beneath him, and even while
Lennard and a posse of his own men were interviewing the officials and
overhauling Dock 1, the boat with its valuable burden was drifting out
to meet a larger vessel, waiting well up the river's mouth, bearing away
one of the only two men who could solve one of the greatest mysteries
the Law had ever been faced with.
CHAPTER II
A KISS FOR A LIFE
It was just dusk when the police officials were obliged to give up their
quest for the Superintendent and Hammond returned to Scotland Yard to
make his report to the Chief Commissioner. Dejected of mien and heavy of
heart he stopped mechanically at the door of the Superintendent's room.
He would have given worlds if he had never been the unconscious
instrument of his superior's disaster. The door stood slightly ajar and
he halted with the intention of closing it.
The electric light had been switched on and he stood in the doorway. A
figure sat at the familiar desk and as the Inspector gave one brief
glance, a cry of half pain, half fear, burst from his shaking lips.
"Mr. Cleek--you, sir! But----"
Cleek--for he it was--switched round in his chair, exclaiming at sight
of the man's face, "Why, man! What's wrong?"
"Mr. Narkom, sir--they've got him. He's gone!"
"Got him--who've got him? He's not dead?"
Hammond shivered at that; then hoarsely and somewhat incoherently got
out the tale of the afternoon. And as Cleek realized the trap the
Superintendent had bravely entered to save him, his friend and
associate, from danger, he collapsed into the chair, his face hidden in
the palm of his hand.
"God! A friend indeed! They think to hurt me through him," he muttered.
"They'll never dare to injure him, surely! God, if only I hadn't lost
that train--only by a minute, too! But I'll get him, I swear it. The
rats shall pay for this----"
He leapt to his feet, his eyes narrowed down to slits, his lips set in a
straight line, as he mentally reviewed once more the facts of Hammond's
story.
"Leave me alone, Hammond. You can do nothing more. Keep a lookout at the
docks. Tell Dollops I'm all right, and to lie low himself--or he'll be
the next."
Hammond saluted and left the room, as Cleek turned to the telephone. A
quarter of an hour later, out of the sacred precincts of the Yard
itself, slouched one of the most villainous-looking Apaches that Soho or
Montmartre itself ever could have seen. It was Cleek the Vanishing
Cracksman, Cleek the Man of Forty Faces--the King Rat himself on the
warpath. Had Marise of the Twisted Arm, Gustave Merode, or even Margot
herself, the Queen of the Apaches, seen him, they would have feared and
trembled.
Meanwhile, the barge had transferred its precious if bulky burden to one
of the numerous produce boats going up the river and it was well on its
way to Havre before police launches or port officials were made aware
of the loss.
But it was not until midnight had struck that the cramped, aching body
of the Superintendent was hustled out of the boat at a little landing
place outside the port itself, and smuggled hastily down into cellars of
the Coq d'Or. Officials were too used to drunken sailors being helped in
and out of this none too savoury tavern to note one more helpless,
stumbling figure, held up between comrades, and a brief second found Mr.
Narkom in the midst of an uproarious, shouting crew of Apaches, headed
by no less than Margot herself, disguised as a Breton fishwife. She had
escaped the eagle eye of her born foes, the French gendarmes, and here
reigned supreme, surrounded by her compères in crime and those subject
to her sway.
Her shrill cries of delight resounded to the roof as her eyes fell upon
the gagged and bound figure of Mr. Narkom.
"Brava, brave Jules; so you succeeded! La! La! but we 'ave the rat
himself now. This is the toasted cheese, and Cleek will come after his
friend very soon--if we send for him. Eh, _mes amis_? A splendid plan,
and meanwhile the good Duke is being hurt, eh! But it is good!"
Jeering and laughing, she thrust her face close to the drawn one of the
Superintendent.
"But not so clever, eh, my friend? We cannot afford to have you and
Cleek, the rat!"--she spat the words out--"in England. We want a rest."
"Into the cellar--hark, what's that? All right, an aeroplane--that's all
right. Into the cellar with him, lads. All we have to do now is to wait
for the rat to come to the trap!"
To the accompaniment of another laugh, Mr. Narkom was pulled down into
the vaults below, where, dazed with hunger, pain, and anxiety lest Cleek
should indeed be led into fresh danger, he sweated an hour away.
Upstairs all was renewed merriment, and in the midst of it the door
opened and a familiar figure slouched in--evil of face, disfigured with
scars and bruises. As a shout arose at his appearance, there was no
question as to his identity. "Merode. _Nom de dieu_, Gustave!" cried
Margot. "But a pretty picture you cut!"
"_Sacré nom!_" he growled through his clenched teeth. "So would you, if
you had been fighting for your life! The pigs of police are after me.
Give me a drink and take me down through the cellar. The boat goes back
to-night, doesn't it?"
"It does," said Margot. "Here's your drink--and drink to Jules there for
he caught the turkey gobbler. Cleek the Rat's man--Narkom!"
"Nonsense--impossible!" cried Merode with an oath.
"But not so, my friend, you shall see him," cried half a dozen voices.
"See him? I'll mark him for life, the devil. Someone go for the
vitriol--here!"
With dirty, scratched, and bloodstained hands, Merode threw a coin to
one of the Apaches who vanished in the blue fumes of smoke and wine,
while Merode slouched deeper into the shadows as there came the sound of
a gendarme's clattering sword on the cobbles outside.
"_Mon dieu_, Margot, I mustn't be caught."
Margot gave orders swiftly. "Down with him, Jeannette, into the vaults,
while I hold the fort."
Jeannette clutched Merode's arm. "Come, _mon ami_, through here! You
know the way!"
Stumbling, cursing, praying all in one breath, Merode followed down the
rickety wooden ladder, down, it seemed, into the very bowels of the
earth.
Thrusting open another door, Jeannette grumblingly lighted a torch stuck
in the woodwork, and as Merode's eyes fell upon the figure of Mr. Narkom
an oath of triumph burst from his lips.
"_Dieu_, but Margot spoke the truth. It's the pig himself. I've half a
mind to take him with me and make him dance with a hot iron or two!
Better than vitriol----" He gave vent to a hoarse, chuckling laugh, at
the sound of which the Superintendent shivered, even though the confined
space was close enough on the hot summer's night.
"Margot will never stand that," said Jeannette. "She means to keep him
here till Cleek the Rat comes----"
"Margot! _Nom du pipe!_ If she is Queen, I am King. Leave him to me and
give me the key of the door."
Jeannette wheeled suddenly on him.
"What key--what door?" she asked. Then without waiting for an answer she
snatched the torch from the wall and thrust it in Merode's face.
He drew back from her piercing gaze.
"_Hola!_" she cried in triumph. "I was right--it is not Merode!" For
Merode knew of the trap-door. And as the man followed her glance toward
it he realized his mistake.
"And you, who are you?" she cried.
As the man shrank back she advanced, and with a swift gesture plucked at
the matted hair. It came away in her hand, and her own cry of triumph as
it revealed the smooth head beneath drowned the Superintendent's cry of
"Cleek!" even as he realized the double peril of himself and the man
whose friendship was dearer to him even than life itself.
"Aha, I know you now," cried Jeannette. "The great Cleek himself! And it
is I who have got you--_moi_--whom she laughed at."
"And will again, _ma petite_," said Cleek, for he indeed it was.
"Jeannette, be merciful, as you hope for mercy. Let me get my friend
here through the door into the boat and you shall deliver me up to
Margot. I will come back--I swear it--if you set him free."
"Free to bring the gendarmes on us--_pas si bête_. No, my friend,"
laughed the girl.
"He will not do that, I swear it. Did Cleek the Cracksman ever break his
oath?"
"No, but Cleek of what do you call your quarters--eh--ah--Scot-land
Yard--eh--yes, _he_ might!" said the girl.
Swiftly, in a torrent of French patois that Narkom could not follow,
Cleek pleaded, disregarding the Superintendent's own pleas to exchange
his life for that of Cleek himself.
Minutes passed and the girl remained obdurate. Suddenly she looked up.
"They say you have a white-and-gold lady to be your woman over on the
other side--is it not so?"
Cleek shivered and shut his eyes in a veritable agony of spirit at this
reference to Ailsa Lorne--his adored Ailsa who awaited him in the
rose-clad riverside home, and who within a few brief days was to have
been his wife.
A low, sibilant laugh burst from Jeannette's painted lips.
"Eh, but she would not like to know of this little meeting, my friend?
She would scorn the poor Jeannette, eh? But it is Jeannette who holds
you like that!" She snapped her finger and thumb in triumph, and as the
bursts of merriment above them seemed to roll nearer, Cleek grew very,
very still. This was indeed the end, and though he would die for the
sake of his friend, the blow would be none the less bitter.
Jeannette stood silent, too, looking at him. One, two, perhaps three
minutes passed before she turned again.
"Well, _mon ami_, I don't know that I owe anything to Margot up there.
What happens to me if I let you go? How do you pay me--eh?"
"Jeannette, you will? You have only to tell me what to do in return."
Cleek's voice trembled despite himself at this shadow of renewed hope,
and Jeannette flushed in the dark.
"Bah, but I am the fool she calls me," she muttered, "But death comes
soon enough. Pay me----" She came close to him, thrusting her face close
to his. "No lover have I. I am old and plain; you are Cleek, once the
lover of Margot the Queen. Kiss me! Nay, as you value your life and that
of your friend there, kiss me as you would your woman over there--that
is the price you shall pay!"
For one brief second Cleek's soul revolted. The thought of offering his
lips--which he held sacred to the one fair woman who had led him up from
depths such as these to her own pure level--sickened him. He would
sooner yield life itself. Yet Narkom's life depended on his own, and
with a secret prayer for forgiveness he bent over, took the thin,
shaking figure literally into his arms, and kissed the painted lips, not
once, but thrice. "God bless you, Jeannette!" he murmured. "He alone can
reward you."
With a little moan of pain Jeannette clung to him as if indeed he were
the lover she craved; then, slipping from his arms, she turned, sped
across the room, and tugged at a small, half-hidden trap-door.
"Quick," she panted. "Slash his ropes and go--before I repent! I'll tell
them you've gone!"
Without another look or sound she disappeared up the staircase, leaving
Cleek to make good the escape of them both, in his heart a prayer of
gratitude, and a resolution to save Jeannette from this den of crime if
he but lived to escape into safety.
Hardly daring to breathe, he and Narkom stumbled down another foul-laden
ladder and into a noisome passage, which eventually brought them onto
the little landing stage.
"I have the 'plane here," said Cleek, with a little happy laugh. "Be
brave, my friend, but a few more minutes."
He vanished in the darkness, and though it seemed ages to the aching
Superintendent, it was barely three minutes before the shadowy, whirring
body of a War Office hydroplane hovered over him. Not more than five
minutes later they were once more on the way to safety and to London,
there to unravel the riddle which had been propounded to the
Superintendent by his chief but a few hours before.
"What's that, my friend--how did I find you?" said Cleek, later, when
Mr. Narkom had got through a meal which would have done justice to
Dollops himself.
"Well, I 'phoned for the use of one of our sea-planes, and scouted over
every likely boat and barge in the Channel. When I saw one pass by Havre
and stop just beyond, I remembered the old Coq d'Or and determined to
risk it. And now, my friend, all you have to do is to rest. What's that?
A case? Not to-night, Mr. Narkom, nor this morning. We both want rest
and a quiet hour to offer up thanks to _le bon dieu_ and Jeannette for
our escape."
And that is why the case of the Mysterious Light, the riddle which was
terrifying a whole village, was given no thought until many hours later.
It had been a time too fraught with danger to be thought of lightly, and
both men realized perhaps even more clearly the bond of friendship which
had prompted both to walk into the very shadow of death in each other's
service.
CHAPTER III
THE HAUNTED VILLAGE
It was more than twenty-four hours later, and Superintendent Narkom,
fully recovered from the effects of the awful night in the cellar of the
Apaches at the Coq d'Or, was now in fine feather. Anything that had to
do with what certain of his men were wont to allude to as "the hupper
clarses" possessed an especial interest for him, and to-day's affair was
flying high in the social scale indeed.
"A duke, I think you said?"
The inquiry came from beside him, from Cleek, as they both sat in the
Superintendent's limousine, in which they were skimming onward in the
direction of the Carlton, where they were due at half-past two.
"A duke--yes," agreed Mr. Narkom.
"But there are so many. And you whisked me off in such hot haste that
there was no time to inquire which. Now, however, if you don't mind
satisfying a natural curiosity----"
"The Duke of Essex. He came up to town this morning and called me to a
private interview at his hotel. It was a corroboration of what he told
the Chief the other day."
"Ah!" said Cleek, with something like a twinkle in his eye. "That will
be a pleasant little bit of news to tell Mrs. Narkom over the dinner
table to-night. The Duke of Essex, eh? Well, well! That is the
illustrious personage, is it not, who is famous for having a castle
whose underground dungeons have been converted into a vast banqueting
hall, and who is said to possess a service of gold plate which is the
equal, if not the superior, of that which adorns the royal table on
State occasions? That's the Johnnie, isn't it?"
"Yes, that's the---- My dear Cleek, you are hardly respectful, are you?"
"No, I am not. But you see, there must be something of the--er--well,
fashionably democratic strain in my blood, and I'm never quite so
overcome by the importance of dukes as a policeman ought to be. But we
will stick to our--duke, if you please. Will his call upon us have
something to do with guarding that gold plate and the very remarkable
array of wedding presents which is sure to be an accompaniment to the
marriage of his only child, Lady Adela Fulgarney?"
"Nothing whatsoever. It is an affair of a totally different kind."
"H'm! That is both disappointing and gratifying, Mr. Narkom.
Disappointing, because I see by the papers that Lady Adela's wedding is
set for Thursday, the day after to-morrow; and gratifying, because to
tell you the truth, I shouldn't much care to play the role of plain
clothes man and special guard over the wedding gifts of even so
important a lady as a duke's daughter."
"As if I would have brought the case to _you_ had it been anything of
the sort!" came reproachfully from Mr. Narkom.
"I think my only reason for imagining that the duke's call would be
something in connection with Lady Adela's approaching marriage lay in
the fact that a good many of the guests have, according to the
newspapers, already arrived in Valehampton and either become domiciled
at Essex Castle or at some of the neighbouring estates. At such a period
one would naturally expect the duke to feel an interest in nothing but
the forthcoming event--or, at least, not sufficient interest in anything
else to cause him to leave his guests and make a flying trip up to
London within forty-eight hours of the ceremony. It must be something of
very serious importance, I take it, Mr. Narkom, to impel him to make
this sudden visit to town and this urgent appeal to the Yard at such a
time as this."
"It is. Wait until you hear the full details, old chap. I've had only a
mere outline of them, but even that was sufficient to make me sit up.
It's the devil's own business. And if Old Nick himself isn't at the
bottom of it I'm blest if I can imagine who in the world can be. You've
tackled about all sorts in your day, but I don't think you ever went
spook hunting before."
"Went _what_!"
"Spook hunting, ghost tracking, spirit laying--that sort of thing. That
blessed village of Valehampton is haunted. The country folk are leaving
it by the dozen. Half the duke's tenants have flown the place already,
and the other half are getting ready to follow suit. That's what he's
come up here for, that's what he wants you to do: Lay the ghost that's
making life in the place a nightmare and driving people almost insane
with fright."
"Tommyrot!"
"No, it isn't, Cleek--it's facts. The place seems under a curse on
account of some infernal dead man who was buried there. The duke will
give you the particulars--I can't--and the beggar's making life a burden
to the village folk. Somebody or other said that a curse would follow
wherever that dead Johnnie's body rested, and it has, too. One of the
duke's tenants let it be buried from his house, and since that time
nobody can live in the blessed place. And as for the church bells--lord!
They make a perfect pandemonium of the neighbourhood at night--ring,
bang, slam, without rhyme or reason, until people are silly with terror
over the peal of them."
"Who rings them?"
"Nobody--that's the devil of it. The duke thought it was the work of
somebody who was doing the thing for a lark, and he and the vicar had
all the ropes removed. It didn't make any difference. The bells rang
just the same the next night, and they've rung pretty nearly every night
since. But that's not the worst of it. People have begun to be spirited
away--out of their own houses, in the dead of night, without a blessed
sign of where or how they went, and not a trace of them since. Last
night, as if to cap the climax---- Hello! here we are at the Carlton at
last. Jump out, old chap. We'll soon be with the duke now, and he will
tell you."
The limousine had come to a halt. Mr. Narkom, opening the door, got out,
dapper and sleek as always--doing the gentlemanly part of the Yard's
business in a gentlemanly way--and Cleek, silk-hatted and
morning-coated, the very antithesis of the professional detective,
followed him, crossing the pavement and entering the hotel with an easy
grace and repose of manner.
It was at once the envy and despair of his associates, that "way of
carrying himself," as they expressed it, "like as if the earth wasn't
none too good for him to walk upon, and he was sort of expecting a red
carpet." And it was a curious fact that men of all classes on coming
into contact with him were conscious of an indefinable something about
the man which commanded rather than asked for respect.
And yet the man seemed, as a general thing, inclined to efface himself
when in public. He did so now. Keeping in the background, he neither
spoke nor asserted himself in any way; simply stood there and waited
passively while Mr. Narkom sent up a card to the duke, and was wholly
unperturbed when, a few minutes later, the messenger returned and stated
that "His Grace would be pleased to see the gentlemen at once if they
would kindly go up."
They went up forthwith, and were shown without delay into the presence
of the Duke of Essex.
"Your fame is world-wide, Mr. Cleek, and I hold myself most fortunate in
being able to have a man so ably equipped for taking up this amazing
case," began the duke as Narkom introduced his famous ally. "I wish to
enlist your services in ferreting out a very remarkable affair--in fact,
one of the most unbelievable mysteries which even the fictionists could
possibly evolve."
"Mr. Narkom has been giving me a hint of the case," said Cleek, as he
seated himself upon the chair which the duke indicated. "It is about the
reputed 'haunting' of the village where your country seat is located, I
believe? I am told that you desire me to discover the mysterious agency
which causes the church bells to ring without ropes or hands and is
supposed to be accountable for the mysterious disappearance of certain
persons."
"That's it precisely. I do not wonder at your smiling, Mr. Cleek. At
first the affair appears so utterly absurd that it is difficult to
imagine anybody with an ounce of brains regarding it seriously. Let me
tell you the facts, however, and you will, I am sure, change your views
upon that point as completely as I have been compelled to change mine. I
may say, however, that it is an exaggeration to state that 'persons'
have disappeared. Two have come to an untimely end because of the
mysterious visitation, but only one can be said to have disappeared. The
body of the second victim has been discovered. It was found this morning
at daybreak lying at the foot of the church belfry. The poor fellow's
skull had been battered in by some implement of which no trace is to be
found. The other victim--the one who disappeared--was a girl of
thirteen. She vanished from her father's cottage in the dead of night
one week ago. Every door and window was found locked on the inside in
the morning, and whatever the diabolical power may have been that
spirited her away, it did so effectually; for not the faintest shadow of
a clue to her whereabouts has been discovered from that hour to this."
Cleek's brows gathered, and his direct eyes lost something of their
placid expression.
"This would seem to be something more serious than I had at first
imagined," he said. "Would you mind giving me the full details as
explicitly as possible, and from the very beginning, please?"
The duke did so with as little divergence from the direct line of
evidence as was consistent with the narration of a story so amazing.
CHAPTER IV
WEIRD CHURCH BELLS OF THE NIGHT
"To begin with, Mr. Cleek, the origin of the affair dates back eleven
months, when the engagement of my daughter, Lady Adela Fulgarney, to the
young Marquis of Uppingham was first made public. I do not know if you
have any knowledge of the Valehampton district or of the immediate
surroundings of Essex Castle, so I must tell you that the former
consists of some thirty or forty cottages with outlying farm lands, and
that the latter is within easy access of St. Saviour's Church, which,
with its detached belfry and surrounding graveyard, is separated from
the western boundary of the castle grounds only by a narrow road upon
which front two buildings, known as the Castle Cottages on account of
their having been erected unintentionally within the precincts of the
castle grounds years before a proper survey was carried into effect. I
call attention to these two buildings because it is out of one of them
that the whole perplexing mystery arises. They stand fronting upon the
road which passes the churchyard, and their gardens encroach upon the
castle demesne at a point about ninety-six yards distant from the west
wing of the castle itself. Do I make that clear?"
"Perfectly."
"I am glad of that, because it is important. In the days when the late
Duchess lived she frequently begged of me to have the cottages razed, as
she considered them not only an intrusion upon our privacy, but a
detriment to the place in every way. I could not, however, bring myself
to comply with the request, because both had been taken under lease for
a term of years, and although I could, doubtless, have purchased that
lease from the tenants holding it, I did not like to do so, since one of
the two cottages was occupied by the aged parents of James Overton, my
land steward, and they were both very loath to leave it. The other had
been occupied by the wife and family of the curate of our vicar. About
thirteen months ago, however, the Rev. Mr. Giles was appointed to a
living of his own in Yorkshire, and took his departure after a long and
pleasant sojourn with us. I could not, however, tear down the one house
and leave the other standing with any benefit to the appearance of the
estate, so I concluded to allow both to remain until the end of the
Overton lease, at which time I proposed to demolish both. A hundred
times since, Mr. Cleek, I have regretted that decision. If the cottages
had to stand, I said to myself, it was as well that they should both be
bringing in a revenue as for one of them to remain vacant. So as the
Overton lease had still six years to run I consented to my land steward
finding a tenant for the one vacated by the curate for that period only.
"James Overton found a tenant almost immediately, and at that one who
improved rather than detracted from the natural beauty of the castle
grounds. He inhabits the place still. He is an elderly man with some
small private means of his own and an absolute mania for horticulture.
The result is that he makes his little garden a veritable Eden of
beauty; and as there are only himself and wife, neither children nor
grandchildren, and as they not only have no visitors, but hold
themselves aloof from even the village folk, this Mr. Joshua Hurdon is a
very desirable tenant indeed."
"So I should imagine, Duke. And your land-steward?"
"He is one of the best. Been with me for nine years. I look upon him as
my right-hand man, Mr. Cleek. But that is not to the point. Efficient as
he was in speedily finding a model tenant for the cottage vacated by the
curate, he was not by any means successful in the case of that vacated
by his parents."
"They, too, have left then, after all?"
"Yes. Old Mrs. Overton caught a chill and died about a fortnight after
the Hurdons moved in, poor creature. She had gone on a visit to a
married daughter in Scotland, and her death occurred there. Of course,
the old man could not be left altogether to the tender mercies of the
village charwoman, who used to come in two or three times a week to do
the rough household work, so his son, after returning from the funeral,
procured him a housekeeper in the person of one Mrs. Mallory, a widow,
who, with her sister, undertook the entire charge of the place and
dispensed with the services of the charwoman altogether. This Mrs.
Mallory appears to have been a most excellent person for the post and to
have performed her duties satisfactorily, although she was of a highly
romantic and even emotional disposition. She seems to have devoured love
stories and cheap romances with appalling avidity. It is to her
propensity for viewing life in the utterly unnatural and luridly
coloured manner set forth by such literature that Valehampton owes its
unhappy state to-day.
"I cannot vouch for the facts, Mr. Cleek, for I never saw the person,
and never even heard of him until after his death; but, as the report
goes, this romantic creature, wandering about the country lanes and
dreaming her silly dreams, one day heard the sound of someone sobbing
and crying out in pain. On going to ascertain the cause, she found a
young man of about nineteen, evidently in the last stages of
consumption, lying on his face in the woods, and a big, burly gypsy
standing over him and beating him with a whip, at the same time mumbling
some outlandish gibberish which the woman declared she recognized at
once as the spell to avert the Evil Eye.
"Well, to make a long story short, this buxom Diana of the Turnip Fields
flew at the gypsy, plucked the whip from his hand, and laid it about his
shoulders to such good purpose that he made off and left her with the
consumptive youth. She declares, however, that before the man vanished
for good he turned and shouted back to her: 'There is a curse on the
creature--he is a Vampire. Evil goes with him where he lives, and evil
will linger where he dies. Rivers will be choked and devils ride on the
air in the place that holds his body. Children shall be stolen and the
blood of them sucked by spirits, and they shall be stricken blind who
cross any threshold which his accursed foot has pressed!'"
"What utter drivel!" commented Cleek, with a derisive laugh. "It is the
baldest rubbish I ever heard in all my life. What happened next?"
"Well, it appears, from what I have heard, that the woman not only took
pity on the unfortunate youth she had rescued, but smuggled him into the
Overton cottage and tucked him away in a spare room, intending to give
him a few nights' shelter and food and to build him up a bit in strength
before she sent him on his way. Unfortunately, however, that night the
fellow grew worse, and by the morning he was in such a bad way that she
had to call in the village doctor. By that time he was dying, Doctor
Forsyth declares--in the very last stages of galloping consumption and
beyond all possibility of saving."
"H'm! Yes, I see. Couldn't speak, I suppose? Couldn't give any account
of who he was?"
"Not a syllable. Forsyth said, however, that in _his_ eyes he looked
pretty much like a gypsy himself--had all the characteristics of the
Romany race. He further declared that, had he been asked, he should have
said that it was well nigh a physical impossibility for the young man in
his condition to have walked a step or even lifted a hand to help
himself for days and days before he first saw him. But, of course, even
the best of doctors are sometimes at fault in their diagnoses, and if
the fellow hadn't walked--well, the woman must have got him into the
house somehow."
"Yes; you are right there, Duke. The woman must have got him into the
house somehow. By the way, was there any tribe of gypsies known to be in
the vicinity of Valehampton at the time?"
"No, not then. There had been, a few weeks previously. But they had
moved on. Why?"
"It is of no consequence. Go on, please. What happened after Doctor
Forsyth's visit?"
"That night the unfortunate wretch died. Fortunately in one sense, there
was no necessity for the coroner to be called in and the cottage thrown
open for a general inquiry. I can tell you that James Overton was highly
incensed when he heard of what the woman had done; incensed at the
liberty she had taken without consulting him; for, had Forsyth not been
able to issue a death certificate and to declare positively the nature
and cause of the disease, the result might have been serious indeed.
However, the stranger died and the burial permit was issued in due form,
so that put an end to any distressing business with the law. Though it
didn't put an end to James Overton's worry over the matter, by any
means."
"Why not?"
"Well, you see, there was the question of interring the body. In the
usual course of events it would have been buried in the local potter's
field with the remains of other paupers; but James Overton is a
soft-hearted sort of man and--well, he didn't like to think of it ending
that way, so he went to the vicar and offered to pay half the price of a
grave to have the body properly buried. The other half was soon raised
by subscription, and there was enough to pay for a modest headstone as
well. So the poor wretch was buried in the churchyard of St. Saviour's
and a cross put over the grave bearing, at Overton's suggestion, the
inscription, 'Lord, I come as a stranger, but am I not known unto
Thee?'"
"Very pretty, very touching. He is a man of sentiment as well as of
charity, this James Overton, it would seem. So the poor wretch who 'came
as a stranger' went on to where all are known. And then--what?"
"Oh, you'll scarcely credit it, Mr. Cleek. That night the church bells
began to ring as though a madman had laid hands on the ropes, and the
whole village was roused from sleep by their dreadful din. The vicar,
thinking that someone was playing a foolish prank, dressed and went out
to the belfry to reprimand the vandal, but--there was no one there! The
bells were clanging and the dangling ropes moving up and down with each
swing of them, but no hand was on those ropes and no living thing in
sight. He climbed the belfry stairs until he came right underneath the
bells themselves. There was no one there, either--they were swinging and
clanging above his head apparently of their own accord! That was the
beginning of the mischief, Mr. Cleek. Every night following those bells
would peal out through the darkness like that. I myself have stood in
the belfry and both seen and heard them do it, so the matter is not one
of hearsay, but of actual experience.
"The result of this state of affairs I think you can imagine. The whole
village suddenly awoke to a remembrance of Mrs. Mallory's adventure, and
recalled what she had declared the vagrant gypsy had said in regard to
the dead youth. The 'curse' prophesied had fallen; the 'devils' spoken
of had begun to ride on the air, and in the end all the other things
would happen. People with children were the first to act. They vacated
their cottages and left the village by dozens. Almost the first to go
was the woman who was indirectly the cause of the panic--Mrs. Mallory.
She and her sister fled. A fortune could not have tempted them to
stay--they were simply panic-stricken. Then, hard on the heels of that,
Overton's old father went so nearly daft with fright that, in common
humanity, his son had to take him out of the house and send him to
Scotland to the married daughter. The old man would have gone out of his
mind with terror if he had not done so. The place was stripped of its
equipment, the furniture sent to be sold at auction, and the cottage was
left as bare and as empty as an eggshell. And so, but for a period of
one brief week, it has remained ever since. But other parts of the
diabolical prophecy have come to pass as threatened. The river--a branch
of the lovely Colne, which flows within gunshot of the castle
boundaries--has begun to choke up and there is no longer a free passage,
as formerly, for the skiffs and dinghys."
"What's that? What's that?" ejaculated Cleek. "The river stopped up?
Whatever by?"
"By sudden shoals which seem to have risen from the bed of it, and will
permit no craft to pass. But the abominable likeness to the things
predicted by the gypsy do not cease with that. He spoke of children
being spirited away, and at least one child _has_ been.
"With such a reputation hanging over it Overton could get no tenant for
the cottage from which his father fled in a panic. No man would live in
the place rent free, indeed, no soul in all the district could be
persuaded to pass by it, either by night or by day--on account of the
threat of sudden blindness, and for the whole eleven months which have
passed since that wretched youth was buried the place has known no
tenant until eight days ago. Then there suddenly appeared--from God
knows where--a man named Smale, who wandered into the district peddling
rush baskets in company with his daughter, a girl of thirteen. He heard
of the place, laughed at its reputation. He was homeless and well-nigh
penniless; he wanted a shelter, and was willing to risk anything to find
one. He went to Overton, but Overton had not the heart to yield to his
entreaties, so he finally came to me in person. If I would let him have
the house rent free for six months, he'd live in it and brave all the
spirits that ever existed. I listened and--yielded. Eight days ago the
man and the child took possession. A week ago this very night the child
vanished--in the dead of the night, with all the doors and all the
windows fast bolted on the inside. After two horrible days of rushing
about and wildly trying to find a trace of her, the father went insane,
flung himself into the river, and was drowned.
"Nor have the tragedies ceased with these two terrible things, Mr.
Cleek. The bridesmaids and the guests for my daughter's forthcoming
wedding have arrived at the castle. Among them is Captain Weatherley,
and with him came his soldier servant--a loyal and intrepid fellow named
Davis, who had been through countless perils with his master, and was
afraid of nothing living or dead. Early this morning he was found by the
Vicar at the foot of the belfry. His head had been smashed in, and he
was beyond all earthly aid."
"Any attempt been made to decide the matter? Upon the part of the local
authorities, I mean; for, of course, they would be notified of the
affair."
"Naturally. The vicar attended to that. But beyond the fact that the
body was removed by them to the morgue attached to the local almshouses,
I know nothing whatsoever of their movements; nor do I quite see how
they could have come to any definite conclusion about the affair."
"No doubt, however, their first step would have been to investigate the
condition of the earth in the immediate vicinity of the cottage,"
suggested Cleek.
"Ah! I see what you mean. They might have found traces of footprints,
you think?"
"Something of that sort--yes. If it had rained recently, to put the
ground in a condition to receive and retain an impression----"
"The dead man's boot might have been fitted to it, and the point
established that way," put in Mr. Narkom, somewhat hastily, his mind
travelling along well-worn grooves.
"Oh! no," said Cleek. "Not necessarily a footprint at all, Mr. Narkom,
and certainly not a booted one. A boot is never conclusive proof of the
identity of the wearer. It may be removed for the purpose of _creating_
certain impressions and afterward returned to the body of the owner.
Contrary to the methods of the fictionists, the imprint of a boot or
shoe is of no possible value as a clue whatsoever. The only footprints
that can be relied upon to furnish positive evidence of the personality
of their author are those made either by an animal or the human foot
when it is absolutely bare."
"But bare or booted, Mr. Cleek," interposed the duke, "neither could be
relied upon to establish--were it important to do so--any proof relative
to the movements of Captain Weatherley's servant in the neighbourhood of
that abandoned cottage. Two circumstances render such a proceeding
impossible. You suggested a moment ago that--well--er--_something_ might
be discovered in the immediate vicinity of the cottage provided it had
rained recently. Well, it has not. As a matter of fact, the county has
been suffering from an absolute drought for the past five weeks, and the
earth is baked as hard as flint. That is the one circumstance; the other
is even less promising. Both cottages--that of the Hurdons and that left
vacant--have courtyards entirely paved with red tiles. A broad,
red-tiled footpath surrounds each building, and runs down the middle of
its accompanying garden. Nor is that all. Even the belfry of St.
Saviour's itself could not have furnished any evidence of the man ever
having been there had not his body been found on the spot. It is a
curious old Norman structure which originally stood in the midst of a
sort of 'square,' paved with cobbles, and extending outward from the
walls of the tower for a distance which, roughly, is about four yards in
every direction. The uneven surface presented by these cobbles after
ages of wear having proved dangerous walking for the thick-soled boots
of the bellringers, had caused more than one of them to have a nasty
fall, so the vicar sought to rectify the matter by having them entirely
covered by a thick layer of cement. The result is that the square in the
middle of which the belfry stands presents a smooth, firm, level surface
as hard as iron and as bare as one's hand. An elephant could not leave a
footprint upon it, much less a man."
The duke paused a moment, as if to give due weight to these unpromising
circumstances, then leaned back in his chair.
"There," he said, "that is the case as it stands, Mr. Cleek."
CHAPTER V
THE PRIVATE AFFAIRS OF A DUKE
"A very interesting little problem," said Cleek, studying his
finger-nails as if the condition of them was of moment. "You are not,
sir, I take it, inclined to share the general belief obtaining in the
village, and to attribute these remarkable doings to any supernatural
agency?"
"Certainly not," the duke replied. "That would be the very height of
absurdity. It must certainly be apparent to anybody with an ounce of
common sense that there is not only a human brain engineering the
affair, but that there is behind it a definite purpose."
"Beyond all question."
"Yes, but what? That is the point. What end can be attained, what
purpose served by a proceeding of this nature? That is the inexplicable
part of it. Were it not for the disappearance of the child and the
murder of the man, it would be but one degree removed from farce."
"Quite so," admitted Cleek, still studying his finger-nails. "But the
elements of farce come perilously near to the borderline of tragedy at
times; and we have it upon the best authority that it is but a step
from the sublime to the ridiculous. Besides, when one has large landed
interests---- H'm! Yes. By the way, I see that, despite all the rumours
to the contrary, you have finally decided not to take a place on the
board of directors of the company formed for exploiting the new cement
which is to make the present variety as obsolete as the mud bricks of
the Early Britons. Septarite it is called, is it not? I see that the
company's prospectus is out and that the name of the Duke of Essex is
not upon it."
"No; it is not," admitted the duke, with some heat. "Its mention in that
connection was an unwarranted presumption. The thing had merely been
broached to me in the most casual manner, and while I was considering
the project my name was made use of in the most flagrant manner to bring
the company before the public."
"I fancy I have heard that it was the present chairman of the board, Sir
Julius Solinski, who was responsible for that."
"It was. And a piece of infernal impertinence it was, too! Geological
borings have established the fact that there is in all probability a
large deposit of septaria underlying a tract of land which I own in the
village, and the man approached me with a proposition to sell or lease
it to his wretched company for a term of years. As the land was
practically of no importance to me, I told the fellow that I would
consider the matter, and on that basis he made the most flagrant misuse
of my name to bolster up his pettifogging business. Of course, I
immediately declined to have any further dealings with him, and that
settled the affair altogether."
"Unless by one means or another--depreciated value, a deserted village,
something of that sort--he might, in time, bring you round to another
way of thinking," said Cleek, quietly.
The duke sat up sharply. It was impossible not to catch a hint from that
line of argument.
"Do you mean to say that he--that that pettifogging fellow---- The thing
is monstrous, Mr. Cleek, monstrous! If that's the little game--if his is
the hand that's behind the thing----"
"Pardon, but I have not said that, Duke. It is possible, of course, and
there is a suggestiveness about it which---- Oh! well, I shall know more
about that when I go down to Valehampton and look into the matter at
close quarters. And now may I venture to ask a question touching upon
more personal matters? I distinctly remember reading that, at the time
of making known Lady Adela's engagement eleven months ago, you chose the
opportunity to declare also your intention of taking another wife. Is
that so?"
"It is perfectly true. The fact is now public property. If all goes as
planned, I shall be married to Lady Mary Hurst-Buckingham this coming
autumn."
"I see. One other question, please. Your first marriage never having
been blessed by a son, the heir to your title and estates--failing, of
course, direct issue in the future--is, I believe, the son of a distant
cousin, one Captain Paul Sandringham?"
"That, too, is true."
"You have no very great respect for that gentleman, I imagine. Is that a
fact?"
"Your pardon, Mr. Cleek," replied the duke, stiffly. "I am afraid I
cannot enter into a discussion of my personal affairs. They cannot
concern Scotland Yard, nor have any bearing upon the matter in hand."
"That, I fear, Your Grace," said Cleek quietly, "is a matter upon which
I may be the better judge. One should be as frank with one's detective
as with one's doctor. Each has the greatest interest in being able
definitely to lay his finger upon the root of a disease, and each may
become useless if perfect confidence be not given with regard to all
points."
"I ask your pardon, Mr. Cleek. I did not at first see it in that light.
I admit it then: I have no respect for Captain Sandringham--none
whatever. He is a person of dissolute habits and very questionable ways.
He left the Army under compulsion, but he still retains the title of
'Captain.' People of any standing, however, no longer receive him."
"So that, naturally, he will not be invited to share in the festivities
in connection with Lady Adela's wedding?"
"Most emphatically he will not! I have not written to him, spoken to
him, nor even seen him these ten years past. That, however, would not
prevent his inheriting both the title and estates were I to die without
male issue. I have not the slightest doubt that he has raised money on
the anticipated reversion, which he will now, of course, be obliged to
pay back. I don't know how he will manage it, nor do I care."
"H'm! Yes! I see! So then your marriage would be something in the light
of a severe blow to the gentleman, of course. In England is he?"
"I haven't the faintest idea. The last I heard of him he was on the
Continent somewhere. But that was ten years ago, and I have forgotten
the exact place. It would be where there is gaming and life of that
sort, of course."
"Quite so--if one is given to that sort of thing. Mr. Narkom!"
"Yes, old man?"
"Don't happen to know the market price for fullers' earth in bulk, do
you?"
"Good lord, no! Why, what in the world----?"
"I should like about fifteen or sixteen pounds of the ordinary
variety--not the bleached sort, you know," interposed Cleek, rising.
"You might 'phone through to the Yard and order it. And, by the way,
I'm afraid you won't be able to join Mrs. Narkom at dinner this evening,
after all. We shall spend the night at Valehampton. And now, before I
set out to look into the matter of this engaging little affair, Duke,
one last question, please. Did you take anybody into your confidence
regarding this visit to London to-day?"
"Yes, naturally. I spoke to the Marquis and to Captain Weatherley about
it, of course; and--yes--to Overton. I fancy I may also have mentioned
it while Carstairs was present; he was coming in and out of the
breakfast room a great deal, of course. He's the butler."
"H'm! Yes, I see! You wouldn't mind letting it be understood when you go
back, would you, that a couple of ordinary Yard men have been put on the
case? Just ordinary plain-clothes men, you know--called--er--let us say,
'George Headland' and 'Jim Markham.' Can you remember the names?"
"I can and I will, Mr. Cleek," the duke replied, stopping to write them
down on the margin of a newspaper lying on a table beside him.
Cleek stood and watched the operation, explaining the while that he
should like the names to get into circulation in the village; then,
after having obtained permission to call at the Castle and interview the
duke whenever occasion might arise, he took his departure in company
with Mr. Narkom, and left their noble client alone.
"Rum sort of a case, isn't it?" remarked the Superintendent as they went
down the stairs together.
"Very. And it will depend so much upon what they are. Geraniums, lilies,
pansies!--even roses. Yes, by Jupiter! roses would do--roses and
fuchsias--that sort of thing."
"Roses and---- My hat, what the dickens are you talking about?"
"Let me alone for a minute--please!" rapped out Cleek. "I say--you'd
better tell Hammond and Petrie to bring that bag of fullers' earth with
them instead of sending it. Have them turn up with it--both of them--at
the King's Head, Liverpool Street, as soon as they possibly can. The
light lingers late at this time of the year, and the limousine ought to
get us down to Valehampton before tea time if Lennard makes up his mind
to it."
CHAPTER VI
THE GHOST IN THE CHURCH BELFRY
If you have ever journeyed down into Essex by way of the Great Eastern
from Liverpool Street, you may remember that just before you come to
Valehampton--six or seven miles before, in fact--the train stops at a
small and exceedingly picturesque station bearing the name of Willowby
Old Church, behind which the village of the same name lies in a sort of
depression, a picture of peaceful beauty.
But if you do not recall it, it doesn't matter; the point is that it is
there, and that at a period of about two and a half hours after Cleek
and Mr. Narkom had left His Grace of Essex there rushed up to the
outlying borders of that village a panting and dust-smothered blue
limousine in which sat four men--two on the front seat and two on the
back. And the remarkable fact about it was that the two "back seaters"
looked so nearly the image of the two "front seaters" that if you hadn't
heard all four of them talking you might have fancied that at least one
pair was seated in front of a looking-glass.
They differed not a particle in anything, from sleek, well-pomaded hair
to bristly, close-clipped moustache, or from self-evident "dickey" and
greasy necktie to clumping, thick-soled, well-polished cow-hide boots
with metal "protectors" on the heels--policemen's boots by all the
signs.
"Safe enough here, sir, I reckon," came through the speaking tube from
the chauffeur as the car halted in the shadow of some trees. "No one in
sight, and the station not more than a hundred yards away--get to it in
two minutes without half trying."
The pair on the back seat pulled farther back from observation and the
pair on the front one rose and got out. The last to do so spoke a few
sentences to the chauffeur.
"The train won't be in for another half-hour yet," he said. "You ought
to be in Valehampton before that. Keep out of sight as much as possible.
You won't have much difficulty in finding out where we put up, and when
you do, keep as close to the neighbourhood as you can with safety.
Meanwhile, impress it upon Hammond and Petrie not to pull down the
curtains, but to keep out of sight, if they have to lie on the floor to
do it. Come along, Mr. Narkom. Step lively!"
"All right, sir," said Lennard; then the limousine flashed away, bearing
the original Hammond and Petrie in one direction while the counterfeit
presentments of them walked off in the other.
In half an hour the down train from London arrived. They boarded it, and
went, with their brier-woods and their shag, into a third-class smoking
compartment, and were off a minute or so afterward.
The sun had not yet dropped wholly out of sight behind the west wing of
Essex Castle when they turned out at Valehampton, and they had only got
as far as the door where the ticket collector stood when a voice behind
them said abruptly: "Mr. Headland--Mr. Markham. One moment, please."
Facing round they saw a pleasant-faced man on the right side of forty
coming into the waiting-room from the platform, and advancing toward
them. His clothing was undeniably town-made, and selected with excellent
taste. He wore tan boots and leather puttees, and carried a hunting crop
in his hand. He came up and introduced himself at once as James Overton,
land-steward of the Duke of Essex.
"Hallo! The duke got back a'ready, has he?" asked Cleek, when he heard
this.
"Oh, no. I do not expect him for quite another hour at the very
earliest. He will come down as he went up--in the motor. And he is
always a little uneasy about travelling fast. It was at Captain
Weatherley's suggestion that I telephoned him at the Carlton to inquire
if there was any likelihood of somebody from Scotland Yard being sent
down before morning. That is how I came to know--and to be here. His
Grace informed me that you had already started. The local time-table
told me the rest."
"Good business! But I say, Mr. Overton, what put it into Captain
What's-his-name's head to have you telephone the duke and inquire?
Nervous gent, is he?"
"No; not in the least. He suddenly remembered that the only inn in the
village closed its doors this morning. Last night's affair finished the
landlady. She cleared out, bag and baggage, at noon. Couldn't be hired
to stop another hour. The Captain thought I ought to telephone to His
Grace and make the inquiry, because if anybody _should_ be coming down
to-night something ought to be done to find lodgings beforehand."
"I see. Nice and thoughtful of the gent, Markham--eh, what? Much obliged
to you for the trouble, I'm sure. Did you manage to find us any, then?"
"Yes, Mr.--er--Headland, will it be? Thanks.... I had some difficulty in
doing so for a time; but finally Carstairs came to the rescue. Carstairs
is His Grace's butler. He is engaged to a young woman living on the
other side of the village, and her people have eased matters up a bit by
placing a room in their cottage at the disposal of Mr. Markham and
yourself. Shall I show you to it? I regret that I was thoughtless and
neglected to speak for a conveyance."
"Oh, that doesn't matter," replied Cleek, knocking out his pipe against
his heel. "My mate and me, we're used to hoofing it; and, besides,
it'll be a change to stretch our legs after being cooped up for nigh
three hours in the train. Wot price Shanks's mare for a bit, Jim?
Agreeable?"
"Hur!" grunted Mr. Narkom, nodding his head in the affirmative without
troubling to remove his pipe from his lips.
"Right you are, then--best foot forward. Mustn't mind Markham's little
ways, Mr. Overton. Some folks get the idea that because he doesn't talk
much the beggar's sullen. But that ain't it at all. Fact is, he's a bit
hard of hearing. Shell in the South African War. Busted ear-drum."
"What, _deaf_?"
"Yessir. Deaf as a blooming hitching post in the left ear, and the right
one not up to no great figger, either. A thundering good man though, one
of the best."
"God bless my soul! Deaf, and yet----"
Here Mr. Overton's voice dropped off suddenly, and he did the rest of
his thinking in silence. The thoughts themselves were anything but
complimentary to a police force which retained deaf men on its active
list and could send out nothing better than this precious pair of
illiterates to investigate an important case.
"The duke does some funny things sometimes," he said to himself as he
walked over to the spot where he had tethered his horse and began to
unfasten it. "And that's what Scotland Yard takes the rate-payers' good
money to support, eh? Good lord!"
He rejoined the two undesirables a moment later, and with the horse's
bridle over his arm, walked on beside Cleek while Mr. Markham dropped
back a few paces into the rear and clumped along in heavy-footed,
listless style.
Mr. Overton, too, was silent for a time--as if the apparent inefficiency
of these two upon whose perspicacity the duke was relying rather weighed
upon his spirits, and he saw little more hope of getting to the bottom
of this perplexing affair than if it had been left to the local
constabulary. Cleek was sorry for that. He could see that the man was of
a hearty, jovial disposition, and likely to be a rather pleasant
companion for a long walk. He therefore set out to put him more at his
ease and to start the conversational ball rolling.
"Fine country this, Mr. Overton," he said, looking round over the wide
sweep of green land. "Reminds me of Australia, them trees and fields.
Though I never was there; but I've seen the photographs. Brother's a
sailor on the P. and O.--fetched back heaps of 'em. Hello! Wot price
that church spire away over there to the left? Will that be St.
Saviour's?"
"Yes."
"Church where the goings on takes place, ain't it? The bell-ringing and
the like. Reckon I must have a look at that place some time to-morrow."
"Not until to-morrow, Mr. Headland?"
"Well, you see, I didn't expect that the box containing our magnifying
glasses and camera for taking photographs of fingerprints and things of
that sort, you know, will arrive before then, and it's no use working
without your tools, is it? Superintendent said he'd ship it down to us
either to-night or the first thing in the morning, and he's pretty
prompt about such things."
"So then, of course---- To-morrow, eh? I suppose you haven't formed any
opinion regarding the genesis of the case, Mr. Headland?"
"The which, sir?"
"The genesis, the start, the beginning, the cause."
"Oh! I see. No, I haven't made up my mind so set that it ain't liable to
be changed. I never was one of them pig-headed sort that gets an idea
and then can't be shook off it. I've formed a sort of general notion
regarding it, you know, but, as I say, nothing fixed."
"I see. Would it be too much to ask what the 'general notion' is?"
"Why, it'll be just what that dead chap--the one that was killed last
night--called it: a case of hanky-panky. Somebody is engineering the
business. For a purpose, you know. Depreciating land values for the sake
of getting hold of that piece of property the cement company wants to
get from the duke."
Mr. Overton stopped short.
"I hadn't thought of that!" he declared. And it was clear enough from
the manner in which the blood drained out of his face, and then came
rushing back again, that he never had.
"Hadn't you?" said Cleek, with a slight swagger. "Lord, I did--the first
thing!"
It was evident that this hitherto unthought-of explanation had a
remarkable effect upon Mr. Overton.
"It would be that Hebrew chap, the company promoter who was knighted
last New Year, Sir Julius Solinski," he said as he resumed the walk. "It
would be that fellow who would be at the bottom of any scheme to acquire
the land; and the man has a country seat in the adjoining district. Yes,
but the bells, Mr. Headland--the bells?"
"Oh, that will be the doing of boys. Up to a lark, you know. A blackened
fishing-line carried over the branch of a tree--that sort of thing. Did
it myself when I was a youngster. It's all tommyrot about it's being a
'spirit,' you know. Drivel."
"You think so?"
"Why, cert'nly. Don't you?"
"I did once," replied Overton, sinking his voice. "I changed my mind
upon that score last night. I'd have stopped that chap, Davis, going to
the belfry if I had known in time. I didn't. I was over at Willowby Old
Church on business connected with the estate. I was kept later than I
had expected, and didn't get back to Valehampton until after dark."
His voice dropped off. He walked on a few steps in silence, his face
curiously grave, his eyes very large. Of a sudden he took a slight
shivering fit--the last thing in the world one would have expected of
such a man--and then threw a nervous glance over his shoulder and looked
up at Cleek.
"Mr. Headland," he said, gravely, "heretofore people have merely heard
things. Last night I _saw_!"
"Saw? Saw what?"
"I don't know. Perhaps I never shall. I can give it neither name nor
description. I only know that whatever it was it certainly was nothing
human."
"A ghost?"
"It was a jolly good imitation of one then, if it wasn't. Up to that
minute I had been as certain as you are that human hands, and human
hands alone, were at the back of this diabolical business, and that the
talk of the bells being rung by spirits was the baldest rubbish in all
the world. To-day I don't know what to think! It wasn't a case of
nerves. I didn't imagine the thing. I'm not that kind of man. I _saw_
it, Mr. Headland--saw it as plainly as I now see you."
"I say, you know, you make my flesh crawl. How did it happen? And
where?"
"In the road on the far side of St. Saviour's, at about half-past ten
last night," said Overton, with grave seriousness. "I was coming up over
the slope between Valehampton and Willowby Old Church, intending to turn
off at the crossroads and take the short cut to the Lodge, where I live.
The moon was shining brightly and there was no air stirring. The trees
were as motionless as wooden things, and the road, after the long
drought, was baked like iron. Had any footstep fallen upon it I must
have heard it in that complete quiet. Had any living creature passed me
in the road, that creature I must have seen. I saw and I heard nothing.
"All of a sudden, just as I got to the top of the slope, I happened to
look up and catch sight of the flat top of the bell tower of St.
Saviour's. I was a goodish bit away from it, but there was a break in
the roadside trees at that point and I could see it clearly. I shouldn't
have given it a second glance under other circumstances, for I am quite
used to the sight of it and, up to that moment, never had the slightest
belief in there being anything supernatural connected with it in any
way. But it so happened that a curious thing about it forced itself upon
my notice at that moment, so I stood still and looked at it fixedly. The
curious thing was this: at the very moment when I first looked up and
saw the tower's top, the moon dipped out of sight behind a passing
cloud. The place should, naturally, have been plunged into darkness;
instead a curious blob of light still lay on the roof of the place, as
if the moon still shone upon some circular silver thing that rested
there.
"I could not make it out. There is no metal on the belfry's top. Like
all towers of the Norman type, it is simply a huge, truncated stone
cylinder, roofed over with stones and pierced here and there with
bowman's slits cut in the circular walls. But suddenly, to my immense
surprise, that curious light began to move; then, presently, it went
circling round and round the tower's top at a terrific rate of speed.
"'O-ho,' said I to myself, thinking, of course, that I had had the rare
good fortune to stumble upon the spot at a moment when the person
responsible for the ringing of the bells was on the ground for some
purpose of his own. 'Well, I'll precious soon make short work of you, my
friend, I promise you that.' I had not spoken any louder than I am
speaking now, Mr. Headland, so it would have been utterly impossible for
any one or anything on the tower's top to have heard me all that
distance away. But I swear to you that in the very instant I spoke those
words and made to cut across into the graveyard of St. Saviour's a
sudden gust of wind as furious as a tropical hurricane seized upon the
trees about me and whipped and twisted them into writhing cones of
green; a dozen unseen hands slapped and tore at me and flung me back;
and the light on the belfry's top lurched out into space and came
careering toward me with a shrieking noise. I saw for a moment the
outlines of a frightful, bodiless, inhuman face, wrapped in streaming
ribbons of light, and then the thing rushed by me in the darkness,
shapeless and screaming, and for the first time in my life I fainted."
CHAPTER VII
A GARDEN OF TRANSPLANTED FLOWERS
Cleek made not a single sound. A curious, intense, half-frightened
expression had settled down over his face. He walked on with brows knit
and eyes fixed on the road, and when Overton, impressed by his silence,
looked round at him, he saw that his lower lip was pushed outward beyond
the upper one, and that the pipe he had taken out and refilled hung from
the corner of his mouth still unlighted.
"It was a shocking experience, Mr. Headland," Overton said, fetching a
deep breath.
"Must have been," admitted Cleek, without looking up. "You're putting
some new ideas into my head, Mr. Overton. If it had been one of the
villagers, or even a servant from the Castle--anybody but _you_! H'm!
Wot happened afterward?"
"When I came to I was lying on my back in the road. The wind had died
utterly away, the trees were standing motionless again, but there was a
curious sound as of wheels passing and repassing me at a furious rate.
There was, however, not a moving thing in sight, and as the moon was
again shining brightly I could see quite clearly. Nevertheless,
frightened as I was--and I confess that I _was_ frightened, Mr.
Headland, horribly so--I struck several matches and examined the surface
of the road thoroughly."
"Why?"
"I had heard of those phantom wheels that were said to rush about the
village by night, but this was my first personal experience with them.
To judge by the sound alone, I should have declared that vehicles on
rubber tyres were scudding past me at the rate of five or six a minute
and almost within touching distance. When I struck those matches and
looked at the white dust of the road, there was nothing on it but the
prints of my own feet and a shapeless mark where I had fallen. The
wheels, however, were still speeding by in an unbroken stream of
traffic. I turned tail and ran as I haven't run since I was a boy, and I
never slackened pace either, until I was safe inside the Lodge and the
door bolted behind me. If I had had a bit of pluck just then, I should
have faced the dark avenue up to the Castle and told about the affair. I
wish now that I had. It would have saved that poor chap's life."
"Maybe, but you can't be sure of it, Mr. Overton. He was a daredevil
sort from what I've heard, and you can't do much with them kind of chaps
when they take a notion in their heads."
"Possibly not. Still, I might have tried. I shall never be quite able
to forgive myself for being such a coward. But I was absolutely in a
blue funk, and wouldn't have faced that long walk up the Oak Avenue for
the best thousand pounds I ever saw."
"Say anything to the duke about it?"
"No. I was going to do so, but this morning, when poor Davis's body was
found, His Grace was in something so very like a panic over the horrible
turn the abominable affair had taken, that I hadn't the heart to harrow
up his feelings still further--particularly as he was determined on
going up to town and putting the matter into the hands of Scotland Yard
at once. I shall do so, of course, when he's calmer. It is no use making
matters worse than they are. It is bad enough to feel that you have to
cope with natural forces without dragging supernatural ones into it. And
there _is_ some supernatural force connected with it, Mr. Headland--I'm
convinced of that now. Human beings may engineer a plot to haunt a
village for some purpose; may even brain a man and spirit away a child
to keep what they are up to from being found out--but they can't make
church bells ring without hands, nor wheels fly through dust without
leaving traces. Nor can they produce that monstrous Thing which I saw
with my own eyes last night."
"Well, I'll own it's got a devilish queer look, Mr. Overton," admitted
Cleek, gravely. "And, as I said before, if it was anybody but a
level-headed gent like you, I should think it was, maybe, a case of the
D.T.'s coming on. Still, of course, you know, they can do wonderful
things these days with electricity and flying machines--and Solinski's
no fool. Besides, the Cement Company's got the money to spend if it
wants to set about things properly and means to have a tract of land
that it needs. So, of course----Geraniums! Geraniums, fuchsias,
delphiniums, and lilies, or I'm a Dutchman!"
This remark had been rapped out so suddenly and with such vehemence, and
was so utterly foreign to the subject under discussion, that Mr. Overton
looked round at Cleek in absolute bewilderment.
By this time the walk from the station had brought them abreast of the
western boundaries of the Castle domain, and a rise in the road gave a
view of part of its splendid grounds. Beyond a low wall stretched an
expanse of lawn, green, close-clipped, level as a billiard table; on the
right there was the gleam of a water garden, the blaze of a rose-laden
pergola, and the snow of swans' wings; on the left, two straw-thatched
cottages and the rich green of a clipped yew hedge shutting in an
enclosure that glowed with a myriad blossoming flowers.
Mr. Overton, following the direction of Cleek's eyes, looked round and
saw that they were fixed upon that glorious garden.
"Oh, I see what you mean," he said, with a smile of sudden
understanding. "Old Hurdon's flowers. Fine, aren't they?"
"Something more than fine from what I can see of 'em at this distance.
They will be 'Pollacks' and 'Paul Crampels' them geraniums, if I know
anything about it. Do a bit in that line myself at home."
"I shouldn't have thought it," replied Overton, rather abruptly; then
hastened to amend his blunder by adding discreetly, "I should have
supposed that the business of Scotland Yard would leave you so little
time. But possibly you have 'off days' and little opportunities of that
kind."
"Something of that sort. I've always sort of prided myself on my little
bit, but it isn't a patch on that show, I can tell you. How would it be
if we slipped over the wall and had a look at 'em a bit closer, Mr.
Overton? You being who you are, the gardeners wouldn't say nothing, I
reckon."
"Yes, I suppose it will be all right if you like. That will be Mrs.
Hurdon herself that's working in the garden. Come along."
They swung over the low boundary wall into the Castle grounds, and
walked directly toward the cottages, Mr. Overton flinging a reassuring,
"That's all right, Johnston, the gentlemen are with me," to a protesting
gardener who came running across the lawn.
Cleek observed, however, that, although the gardener heard the
land-steward's voice clearly enough, and went about his business at
once, the woman in the radiant garden of the cottage did not so much as
look up.
"Old lady's something after the style of my mate here, ain't she--a bit
deaf?" he observed.
"Yes, a little. That is one reason why she never is worried by the
ringing of the bells."
"I see. And the old man--wot about him? He deaf, too?"
"Oh, dear no. Ears as sharp as a badger's. He is a very strong-minded,
practical, level-headed old chap, without a grain of superstition in
him. He declares that he has never in all his life found soil so fertile
or a garden that gives such good return for his work as that one, and he
wouldn't give the place up if ghosts danced round the house all night in
dozens."
"Oh, so that's why they didn't get out and chuck the place when the
mischief began, is it? I was wondering. One deaf and the other with his
head screwed on the right way. Old gent must have a power o' confidence
in his missus, Mr. Overton, to let her go messing about with his plants
and him not there. Blowed if I'd let mine do it--no fear."
"I don't fancy that Hurdon would either, if he could help it. He's as
fussy a horticulturist as any," said Overton, with an amused laugh,
"and, in an ordinary way, it would be as much as anybody's life was
worth to touch a single one of his plants. Unfortunately, however, the
old chap had a slight accident the day before yesterday. Fell down the
stairs and strained his back. It will probably keep him laid up for the
next five or six days; and, as his garden is his hobby, I suppose he has
sent the old lady out to attend to it. I'm told, too, that she's as well
up in garden matters as he."
"Is she now?" commented Cleek with a casualness which masked an emotion
of a totally different character; for he observed, as he drew nearer,
that the good lady was in the act of inserting a blossoming begonia into
a nice round hole which she had scooped out from one of the beds with
her trowel, and that there was an empty flower pot and a full
watering-can standing on the tiled path beside her.
Nor did his observations cease there. His eye, seeing while it seemed
not to see, detected dotted here and there about the crowded flower beds
fuchsias and geraniums whose foliage was of that clear, rich, glossy
green which betokens plants fresh bought from a greenhouse and whose
general appearance indicated that they had never before been exposed to
the rigours of the open and the dust from a near-by road.
He looked round to see if there was any greenhouse attached to the
cottage garden, or any glass frame of any sort from whose shelter these
speckless plants might have come. There was none. The garden was simply
a rectangle of brilliant bloom cut through the middle by a red-tiled
footpath--a glowing, gorgeous spot of beauty, blazing in the sunshine.
When he came close enough to lean over the low hedge with Mr. Overton,
however, and to see what that hedge had hidden heretofore, he observed
that just below him there was a little heap of broken pots and withered
plants lying, waiting to be removed. Drooping fuchsias and yellowing
geraniums they were with the original ball of earth from a florist's
pots still clinging to their dry roots.
Here it was that a flash of memory brought back to Mr. Narkom that
moment on the stairs at the Carlton and a recollection of what had been
said. If there were geraniums and fuchsias much would depend upon it,
Cleek had murmured. And now here were geraniums and fuchsias in dozens!
He twitched an inquiring glance at Cleek; but Cleek was looking at the
dying plants, not at the thriving ones, and the curious one-sided smile
peculiar to him was looping up his cheek.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Hurdon," called out the land-steward, leaning over
both the low hedge and the stone wall it screened and shouting across
the garden to the woman who had never once looked up during the whole
period of their approach.
She did now, however.
"Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Overton, sir," she said, rising instantly and
brushing down her gardening apron with conspicuous haste as she did so.
She displayed as she got on her feet a figure of grenadier-like
proportions. "And how will you be doing this fine weather, sir?"
"Very well indeed, Mrs. Hurdon, thank you. And how is the good man
coming on?"
"Middling, sir, middling. The pain's a bit less, but he's uncommon
stiff, poor dear. Can't bend to so much as pick up a pin!"
"Poor old chap! Too bad he can't come out. I've a gentleman here who
takes an interest in gardening, and I'm sure he and Mr. Hurdon would
enjoy a few words on a subject so agreeable to both."
"Ah! that he would, yes, indeed! Talk flowers to Joshua, Mr. Overton,
sir, and he'll listen to you by the hour."
"And here, evidently, is a kindred spirit. Mr. Headland was so struck
with the beauty of your garden that nothing would do him but to come
over and have a good look at it. You will be pleased to hear that he
calls this as fine a display of the kind as he has ever seen."
"Doo-ee, now? Well, I'm sure that's very nice of him. We do take a pride
in our garden, sir, and that's a fact."
During all this Cleek had said nothing--had not even so much as glanced
at Mrs. Hurdon a second time after she rose to her feet. He seemed to be
wholly absorbed in contemplating the beauty of the flowers, and, with
his arms folded on the top of the wall, and his pipe in his mouth, was
giving them his entire attention. It had occurred to him, however, that
to be owned by one so erect, so broad-shouldered, and so seemingly
virile, Mrs. Hurdon's voice was singularly thin and high-pitched, and
had the quavering, cracked quality of eighty rather than that which
usually goes with the appearance of fifty-five.
"I'm struck most with them Paul Crampels of yours, ma'am," he declared,
breaking silence suddenly, and looking up. "Never saw a finer lot in all
my life. Would you mind telling me where your husband got them?"
At the first word he knew, from the blank expression which came into her
face, that what he had said was Choctaw to her--that she did not know a
Paul Crampel from a Pollock, and hastened to land her still deeper into
the mire by seeming to give a hint.
"Them with the white and scarlet bells is the best I ever see."
"Yes, they are fine, aren't they now?" she said, her face clearing, as,
guided by his gesture, she looked in the direction of the plants bearing
blooms of that description. "No; I don't know where he got them, sir.
But it will be from somewhere in England, of course--he says he don't
hold with them foreign seeds."
"Doesn't know a fuchsia from a geranium!" was Cleek's unspoken comment.
"Doesn't even know whether they are propagated from cutting or from
seed." Aloud, however, he simply declared, "No more do I, ma'am--that's
where me and him agrees. All the same, though, I would like to know
where he got that particular lot. You ask him for me, will you? And you
can tell me some time when I drop round this way again."
"With pleasure, sir," said she. "Going, are you, Mr. Overton, sir?"
Evidently Mr. Overton was, but Cleek delayed the departure rather
unexpectedly. On the top of the wall a seed had found lodgment, and was
rooted between the stones. He caught hold of it suddenly, and pulled it
up roots and all.
"Here's something your husband will be interested in, ma'am, I know,"
said he. "Hold your apron--catch! Don't let it get bruised."
With that he swung the plant forward, threw it to her, and she, catching
up the corners of her apron, received it therein.
"Well, now, I never! To think of it growing up there, and me never
noticing such a beautiful thing before! Oh, thanky, sir, thanky. Joshua
_will_ be pleased!"
Then she took up the plant and looked at its fuzzy little yellow
blossoms, and let her apron fall into place again.
But not before Cleek had remarked the fact that the skirt it covered was
baggy and very badly smudged in the neighbourhood of the good lady's
knees, and that the smudges bore a curious resemblance to dried mustard.
The smile went up his cheek again.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN SANDRINGHAM
Overton and Mr. Narkom had already turned away, and with a pleasant
"Good afternoon" to Mrs. Hurdon, Cleek moved off after them.
"Sorry to kep' you hanging round so late, gov'ner," he said, as he came
up and joined the land-steward, Narkom again dropping back into the
rear. "I never give a thought to how the time was flying until I see you
make a move."
"Oh, don't let that distress you, Mr. Headland," replied Overton, good
naturedly. "I have plenty of time at my disposal, fortunately. It was
only my horse I was worrying over. He gets a bit restless if he's tied
up too long, and that roadside sapling I fastened him to is none too
firm a thing if he should suddenly take it into his mind to go back to
the stables and leave me. You can see for yourself that he is beginning
to get uneasy."
Cleek could. The animal was exceedingly restless, so they quickened
their steps and got back to the road in time to take him before he did
any mischief.
A short walk brought them to the curve where the road went round the
bend of the Castle grounds and past the front elevation of the two
cottages, and there before them stood St. Saviour's, with its moss-grown
lich-gate, its well-worn footpath, its grim surroundings of sagging and
discoloured tombstones, and its scarred and time-worn bell-tower.
Tower and church stood back from the highway at a distance of some
thirty feet or more, and looking past them one could catch a glimpse
through the trees of the gate and the path which led to the adjoining
vicarage.
Cleek paused a moment and looked at the place. It seemed peaceful enough
in the waning light and the pleasant country hush--far too peaceful to
be in any way connected with matters of mystery and blood-shed.
"Seen a bit of time go over its head, that has," said he, as he struck a
match and lit his pipe. "That'll be the bell-tower over there to the
left, won't it, the round thing with the cement pavement all round it?"
"Yes. Would you like to go in and examine it? There's plenty of time."
"Not me. I want my supper and a good night's rest first. Will this be
the road where you saw that thing last night, Mr. Overton?"
"No. It is on the other side of the graveyard--over there, where you see
that row of trees in the distance. It runs parallel with this one. I
couldn't have come over from Willowby Old Church by this road, you
know. It takes another sharp turn presently, then another again, and
goes off in a totally different direction. I remember hearing an
American gentleman who was here last summer saying that he guessed it
must have been paced off by an Early Briton who'd just risen from
sitting down on a nest of bees and was hunting around for a drug store."
"Hallo!" interrupted Cleek, "this is the front of the Hurdons' cottage,
I see. They _do_ keep it tidy and no mistake. And the one adjoining it
is where the child disappeared, eh?"
"Yes. Would you care to go in and have a look at it? I haven't the key,
of course, but I could borrow Mrs. Hurdon's. They both have the one kind
of lock, so I dare say hers would do. Shall I ask?"
"No, thanks. That'll do for to-morrow--when the magnifying glass and the
other things arrive. Let's move on. I'm a bit tired and anxious to get
to our rooms. I can tell from the way my mate drags his feet that he's
about done up, too."
"He _is_ an uncommunicative beggar, and no mistake!" declared Overton,
with a laugh. "Hasn't spoken a blessed syllable the whole way. I should
say an oyster was about as sociable a companion for you as he."
"Oh, Jim's all right when you know him. Not much on the talk, I'll
allow; but deaf folks never is. I like him because he never worries me
none. Hallo! who's this Johnnie, I wonder? He looks a bit excited."
By this time they had negotiated the farther turning in the road and had
come in sight of a gate and a man standing before it--someone whom the
clustering lilac bushes completely screened from view.
"That will be Carstairs, he's butler at the Castle, you remember," said
Overton as he looked up and saw him. "The gate is the gate of the
vicarage. No doubt it's the vicar himself he's talking to."
It was, as they saw clearly when they came abreast of the place. But
even before they did so, the butler hearing their approach, looked round
and saw them, and Cleek could not remember when he had seen any man's
face and eyes express such exultation.
"Well, Carstairs, taking a constitutional before dinner-time?" inquired
Overton, genially. "Ah! good afternoon, Vicar. Instructing Carstairs how
to go about putting up the banns? He looks uncommonly well pleased."
"So I am, Mr. Overton; so I am, sir," declared Carstairs, with a
satisfaction openly manifest. "One doesn't serve a good master like His
Grace for years without being glad when good news comes his way--and
this will mean the lifting of a great cross from his shoulders, bless
him!"
"Now what do you mean by that? Something come to light about last
night's horrible affair, Vicar?"
"No, Mr. Overton, nothing at all--unfortunately. It appears that I have
been the means of imparting a piece of important news which has not yet
reached the Castle--although I naturally supposed that it had. I dare
say, however, that the duke was so much upset this morning that he
neglected to read his newspaper."
"There was something of importance in it, then?"
"Of very great importance, Mr. Overton. I had to send to my study for
the paper before I could convince Carstairs that I had not made a
mistake. Here it is--look! 'Tragic Close of a Mis-spent Life. English
Duke's Heir Murdered in Paris.' The victim, Mr. Overton, was Captain
Paul Sandringham. He was shot dead in the street in Paris last evening
by a Pole he had fleeced and ruined at cards."
Mr. Narkom glanced at Cleek; and Cleek catching that glance from the
tail of his eye began to smoke hard.
In Paris, eh? Not in England at all! So, then, whoever was engineering
this Valehampton affair, Captain Paul Sandringham was out of it. For
last night he was in France; last night he was a dead man; yet last
night the bells of St. Saviour's sent forth their peal as usual!
CHAPTER IX
A FAINTLY FAMILIAR FACE
Different men view things from a different standpoint. It was clearly
evident that Mr. Overton was moved by this announcement of the unhappy
termination of Captain Sandringham's life, but he did not show such
great elation as Carstairs displayed. His countenance, as he took the
paper which the vicar extended, was grave rather than gay, and there was
a troubled expression in his kindly eyes.
"Mind reading it aloud, sir?" suggested Cleek. "The reverend gentleman
spoke as though it was something as had to do with the duke."
"So it has. Captain Sandringham was his heir. But pardon. Mr. Saintly,
this is Mr. George Headland, a detective His Grace had sent down from
Scotland Yard to look into the matter of the bells and the murder of
young Tom Davis last night."
"Pleased to meet you, sir," said Cleek. "This will be my mate, Jim
Markham. Yessir, a queer business and an ugly one, as you say, sir.
Ought to get at the bottom of it in a week or so, however. Still, you
never know."
The vicar gave Mr. Overton a puzzled glance. It was evident that he was
no more favourably impressed by these two "specimens of the police" than
the land-steward had been. Then, too, one of them had not bothered to
take even the slightest notice of the introduction to him.
"Mr. Markham is rather deaf," volunteered Overton, in explanation of the
omission; and it may be that it was because of the blank wonder in the
vicar's eyes at this announcement that Carstairs so far forgot himself
as to titter. Still, as it was a very mild titter, it apparently did not
reach Cleek's ears, so there was no harm done; and Mr. Overton proceeded
to read the article in the paper aloud.
That it was a thoroughly authentic one there could be no doubt, for,
after giving the fullest details of the affair and stating that he
himself had seen the body of the victim, whom he had long known by sight
as well as by reputation--a fact which utterly precluded the possibility
of its being that of anybody merely resembling the captain and not
actually the captain himself--the writer proceeded to sign the article
with a name which was known to be that of one of the most reliable,
careful, and conscientious of special newspaper correspondents. Beyond
all question the report was true. Cleek was as convinced of Captain Paul
Sandringham's death as if he had stood by and seen him killed.
"It will be a great relief to the duke, there can be no denying that,
Vicar," declared Overton as he finished reading the report; "but, all
the same, I can't help thinking that it's a sad business, sir, for a
human creature to go out of the world like that and with never a chance
to repent. I saw him once--quite by accident--when I went over to Ostend
a year ago, on business for the estate, and a fine, upstanding,
splendid-looking fellow he was, too. He might have made much of his life
had he only tried. But to be shot down like a dog! It's too awful, sir,
too awful."
"Your sentiments do you credit, Mr. Overton; but they are no more than I
should have expected of you," declared the vicar. "Carstairs here is
less thoughtful, I fear."
"What would be the sense of wasting tears over such a man, sir?" replied
Carstairs, emphatically. "It is enough for me to remember that a load
has been lifted from the shoulders of the best master I ever had.
Besides, sir, there are bad men enough in the world without grieving
over a thinning out of the ranks. There'll be one the less to reckon
with, that's all!"
Cleek began to smoke furiously. Mr. Narkom, twitching round an inquiring
eye, saw that his attention had fallen suddenly upon something across
the road, and was not at all surprised when he abruptly walked over and,
leaving the vicar to lecture Carstairs, began to examine a particularly
thrifty wild rose whose branches were smothered with delicate bloom.
But of a sudden he gave his shoulders a shrug and came back.
"False alarm!" he said, quietly. "I thought I'd stumbled on a find, Mr.
Overton, but it's only a common brier, after all. But hadn't we better
be moving? I won't be half sorry to sit down a bit. Much farther to the
house where your young lady's folks live, Mr. Carstairs?"
"No; not very. Another ten minutes' walk will do it easily."
"Good business. Don't mind telling you that I am tired and shan't be
none too sorry to get some food. My mate here, he's about done for, I
reckon; and Mr. Overton, he must be a bit done up, too. I say, wot price
letting him stand here and talk with the vicar for a time while you show
us the rest of the way? You look as fresh as paint. Anyway, I reckon the
young lady will be gladder to see us fetching _you_ with us than if we
was piloted by Mr. Overton here."
"Good idea that, Carstairs--act on it," put in the land-steward with a
laugh. "You've got plenty of time before you need think of dinner; and I
dare say that Emmy Costivan won't be sorry to have a few extra words
with you on her own account."
Apparently Carstairs himself wouldn't be sorry for the opportunity
either, for he fell in with the suggestion with alacrity, and with a
farewell salute to the vicar and a "So long, sir, see you again," to
the land-steward, Cleek and Mr. Narkom surrendered themselves to the
leadership of this new guide and fared forth in his company to the abode
of the Costivans.
"Can't stand that Overton," volunteered Carstairs, as soon as they were
at a safe distance from the vicarage gate. "Always poking his blessed
'humanity' ideas down a man's throat and snivelling over people's
souls."
"Just so. Quite agree with you, Mr. Carstairs."
"Fancy his wasting pity on a bounder like Captain Paul Sandringham! I
don't hold with any such nonsense."
"And, as you very properly said, it makes one the less to reckon with.
My sentiments exactly, Mr. Carstairs. It will be a welcome bit of news
to the duke, I take it; and he's got enough worry on his mind over this
business."
"More than enough. Ghastly sort of business, isn't it? Formed any sort
of an idea, Mr. Headland?"
"None worth speaking of. Hasn't been time. I should have said it was
boys up to a lark, if it hadn't been for the killing of that chap Davis
last night. Wish I'd been somewhere about then, or could meet with
somebody who heard the sounds of the struggle. Don't happen to know of
anybody that did, do you?"
"That I don't. As a matter of fact, I don't think anybody did hear a
blessed thing of it. Nobody had the least idea that anything had really
happened to him until the vicar found the body at the foot of that
accursed bell-tower this morning. Of course, if anybody was likely to
have heard anything, he would be the one--the vicarage is so near, you
know. But he never heard a sound."
"Heavy sleeper, I suppose."
"On the contrary, according to Mrs. Marden, his housekeeper, he's an
exceedingly light one. Even lighter than herself, she says, and it's her
boast that an owl flying past would wake _her_."
"She hear anything last night, then?"
"Not a sound--beyond the clanging of the bells. But she's getting used
to them. Besides, they don't last long, you know. Just off and on now
and again, and never later than eleven or twelve o'clock. Last night,
however, they started earlier than they ever did before--about ten, I
believe, and they never sounded a solitary peal after half-past."
"H'm! maybe the murder was committed whilst they _were_ pealing, then.
That would account for her not hearing the struggle, of course."
"She says not, though. Constable suggested that first thing. Says she's
become so used to the bells they don't affect her hearing of other
things at all--that she could hear any other sound that there might be
right through the pealing of them. She called vicar to prove that one
night last week she cried out to him while the things were ringing to
say that she believed he must have left the door of the stable open, as
she could hear a scratching noise in there. Vicar dressed and ran out,
and sure enough he had left the door open and there was an old dog fox
in the place trying to scratch his way through to the fowl-house. If she
could have heard that through the sound of the bells it's pretty certain
she could have heard Davis putting up a fight if he had been attacked by
anything human. But he wasn't! You take my word for it, Mr. Headland,
devils are at the bottom of this business, and the thing will never be
stopped until that dead Johnnie's body is dug up out of the churchyard
and carried out to sea and chucked overboard."
Cleek had no opportunity to reply, for at that moment the quiet of the
country was suddenly broken by the sharp _Honk! honk!_ of a motor-horn,
and round the bend of the road swung a high-powered car, driven by a
liveried chauffeur, and containing an overdressed gentleman of a dark,
Hebraic cast of countenance.
"That will be Sir Julius Solinski, the great company promoter,"
explained Carstairs, offhandedly. "Got a fine place over Framleigh way.
Motors through here every day about this time. Same old course, without
a break or a change--down here, round the curve, past the cottage where
those Hurdon people live, and then down behind the grounds of the
Castle and off Willowby Old Church way. Should think he'd be about fed
up with it by this time."
"Ever stop anywhere on the road?"
"Not that I know of. Never seen him do so, at all events. Still, of
course, he might, you know, without---- Here we are at last. This is
where you and your friend are to put up, Mr. Headland. Come in."
Cleek had merely time to remark that the cottage was a thatched one with
a goodly allowance of garden surrounding it on all sides, and that the
tops of tall trees were visible in the rear, showing that it was close
to the adjacent woodland, when following Carstairs' lead, he walked
inside. He was at once presented to a young, dark-haired, exceedingly
pretty girl whose bright eyes impressed him with an odd sense of
familiarity. Somewhere, somehow, he said to himself, he had certainly
seen someone who bore a very marked resemblance to Miss Emmy Costivan.
CHAPTER X
A WALK IN THE GARDEN
"Here you are, Emmy. These are the gentlemen you are expecting,"
announced Carstairs, cheerily.
Miss Costivan--who was about four-and-twenty--said she was pleased to
meet them, and then turned to call through an open door, "Mother, the
London gentlemen have come. Luke's just fetched 'em."
Immediately the sound of someone making vigorous use of a washboard,
which all along had been issuing from the door, came to an abrupt end; a
pair of clogs clattered noisily across a tiled floor, and there issued
from the scullery a tall, gaunt, black-haired, somewhat slatternly
female whose cast of features was so strongly suggestive of the Romany
race that one might well have suspected her of having more than a mere
dash of gypsy blood in her veins.
She advanced into the room, drying her hands on her apron, and welcomed
the newcomers heartily. Cleek decided that never in his life had he seen
a mother and daughter who bore so little resemblance to each other.
"I'll have the kettle on and some tea ready in a very few minutes,
gentlemen," declared Mrs. Costivan, with an odd use of certain words
which was not lost upon Cleek. "But maylike you'd be glad to run up to
your room and wash a bit, the whiles the kittle's boilin'? Luke, lad,
show the way, there's a bonny. Old Man's not home from the fields yet.
They've a power o' hay to get under cover over at Mason's before the
weather breaks." By which it was clear to Cleek that the good lady
wished her visitors to understand that her husband was a field hand on
one of the outlying farms.
Carstairs announced his readiness to perform the suggested office, and
called on the two "London gentlemen" to follow him--an act which pulled
Cleek up with a jerk, for he had fallen into a state of abstraction born
of a sudden realization of the peculiar character of the wet marks Mrs.
Costivan had left upon her apron when she dried her hands.
He had never heard of anybody washing things in mustard water--things
which required hard rubbing on a laundry board. Yet, if the yellow stain
left by drying her hands on her apron suggested anything, it certainly
suggested that.
Here, catching the sound of Carstairs' voice, Cleek turned, and together
with Mr. Narkom, followed him up the stairs to an airy, double-bedded
room overlooking the garden in the rear.
Here Carstairs, after looking to see that there were towels on the rack
and soap in the dish, left them and went below. Presently they could
hear his voice and Emmy Costivan's blent in half-subdued laughter.
Cleek, leaving the door partly open and signalling to Narkom to place
himself so that he could see if anybody started to come upstairs, went
to the open window, looked out across the neglected garden to the belt
of woodland beyond it and, putting up his hand, tilted his hat to one
side and began reflectively to scratch his head. Immediately, a bare
branch moved above the level of a thick clump of wild elder bushes just
by the broken paling which marked the rear boundary of the garden. It
remained stationary for an instant, and then dropped out of sight again.
"All right, Narkom, they are there!" he said in a swift whisper. "Sit
tight a minute and don't speak."
Then he slopped a quantity of water out of the jug into the wash-basin,
plunged his hands into it, then rubbed them along the window-sill. After
which he partially rinsed them and then dried them off on first one
towel and then the other--all the while moving up and down the floor and
whistling contentedly.
"All right," he announced, presently. "Needn't do sentry duty any more.
Leave the door wide open. I don't think our friend Carstairs will be
quite such an idiot as to waste his time in sneaking up; but if he
should the open door will be enough for him and, at the same time, give
us a chance to see him. A bad egg, that gentleman. He is pretty deeply
involved in this little business unless I miss my guess."
"I thought you suspected him of something when you crossed over to that
wild rose bush."
"What! Am I dropping into the habit of giving signs, then?" exclaimed
Cleek. "I wonder if our friend the vicar noticed, too? I caught his eye
fixed upon me more than once."
"The vicar! Good heavens, man, you don't mean that you suspect----?"
"Ch't! Not so loud, or I shall wish I had made you a dumb man as well as
a deaf one. Sh-h! Nothing now--your time is coming. We have dawdled to
the end of the dawdling period, and come to the active one. You shall
have speech and excitement enough the minute the darkness falls."
"You have an idea, then?" murmured Mr. Narkom. "You have really picked
up a clue?"
"I have picked up many. They may be good and they may be bad, I can
decide only when St. Saviour's bells start ringing to-night."
"You have a clue to that, then?"
"Not I. They will be the last on my list for investigation. At present I
am principally concerned with the astonishing circumstance regarding the
noise of that fellow Davis's death struggle."
"But, man alive, he didn't make any."
"Precisely. That's the astonishing circumstance to which I allude!"
said Cleek. The queer one-sided smile travelled slowly up his cheek.
Midway down the neglected garden Mrs. Costivan was engaged in the task
of hanging up a pair of wet gray overalls, and along the path beside her
a stream of yellowish water from a recently emptied washtub was
trickling down the drain.
"Mr. Narkom!"
"Yes."
"Essex is your native county, I believe, so naturally you ought to be an
authority on it. Tell me something. Is it a peculiarity of Essex hay,
then, to give off a deep yellowish stain?"
"Hay? Hay _stain_? What confounded nonsense!"
"Precisely. That's how I feel about it myself. And as between Mrs.
Hurdon and Mrs. Costivan----Come along, let's get down and eat. I hope
the fair Emmy will give us something good. I'm famished."
The "fair Emmy" did, presiding over the tea-pot herself, and laying out
such a tempting spread that even Carstairs was prevailed upon to join
with the others and to defer his departure for another half-hour or so.
But finally he had to go, and Emmy, excusing herself, rose to see him as
far as the door. And it was only then, as she looked round over her
shoulder at leaving, and a flash of alertness came into her eyes, that
Cleek was able to put his finger on a point which heretofore had baffled
him. He had wondered from the first whose eyes hers reminded him of;
now, when he saw them with that expression in them and accompanied by a
certain twitching movement of the head, he knew!
Carstairs went his way, and Emmy returned to set about making matters as
pleasant for the visitors as she knew how. Then, after a time, Emmy's
father having come home and had his meal in the kitchen, and gone
"straightaway up to bed, poor lad! the sun havin' give him a splittin'
headache." Mrs. Costivan, too, came in while Emmy went out to wash up
the dishes. It soon became very apparent to the two "London gentlemen"
that they were not going to be allowed to get out of the sight of one or
other of the occupants of this house for so much as one minute if the
thing could be avoided.
Meantime, night was drawing in and Cleek, borrowing a sheet of paper and
an envelope, sat down to "drop a line to my missus before I turn in."
Mr. Narkom, taking his cue from this, slipped down in his chair and
began to snore softly.
Cleek wrote on until darkness fell and the moon rose and all the
tree-tops beyond the garden were picked out in silver; then sealed the
letter in its envelope and put it into his pocket. He rose then,
stretching and yawning, from his chair. Mr. Narkom, hearing him, opened
a pair of blinking eyes and looked up.
"Bedtime?" he inquired, sleepily.
"'Most," said Cleek. "Feel like having a pipe and a toddle up and down
the garden before turning in? Come along then, old sport. Mind our going
through the kitchen, missus?"
Mrs. Costivan did not; but for fear they should not quite know the way,
piloted them, and as they stepped out into the shadowy darkness and
lighted up they were conscious of the fact that, as soon as she put out
the kitchen light, she sat down beside the window and kept watch of
them.
The flare of the lighted match had done more than merely supply fire for
their pipes. They knew that it would; but they were in no haste. Time
must be given and--they gave it. Three times they made the journey up
and down the garden's length, smoking and chatting away now and again,
before Cleek, coming abreast of the broken palings and the clump of
elder bushes, ventured to say in a whisper, "Next time down be ready to
grab the pipes!" and they faced round and strolled back toward the
cottage again.
It was the fourth time down the garden that the thing was done. Suddenly
both men gave a jump, Cleek shouting excitedly, "A hare, by Jove! Grab
it!" Then both plunged into the elder bushes. A voice said, "Missed it!
Lord, didn't the beggar bolt?" Then Hammond took Narkom's place and
Petrie took Cleek's, and Mrs. Costivan, who had just started to run down
to the spot where she had seen them dive out of sight, suddenly saw
that they had come back laughing and twitting each other over their
failure to catch the hare, and were again walking up and down the garden
and smoking. And the good lady slipped back into the darkness again. And
so it fell out that when the pipes were finished and the smokers tired
enough to go to bed, it was Petrie and Hammond who slept that night
under the thatch of the Costivan cottage.
CHAPTER XI
CLUES FROM A DEAD BODY
At a point just off the road, and where the thick trees hid it, the big
car waited, with lights hooded and Lennard on watch. Narkom was the
first to wriggle through the broken palings and make his way to it; a
short time afterward Cleek, who had lingered to make sure that
everything was safe, came up and joined him.
"They'll eat the beggars out of house and home, that pair, and lead them
the devil's own game of follow-my-leader to-morrow," laughed the
Superintendent. "And now then--what next?"
"What I told you back there, Mr. Narkom--the beginning of action. The
race now will be to the swift. Lennard, hand me out that bag of fullers'
earth. Look sharp! Thanks. Mr. Narkom, take this letter; I think you
must have understood that I was writing it to you. Read it, then hop
into the car and act upon it at once. No questions now, please--there
isn't time. Simply go. Arrange things--you can change back to your own
dapper self on the way--and then get back here as soon as you can. I
shall be waiting for you at this spot. That's all."
It was--it had to be; for in an instant he had swung the bag up over his
shoulder, moved away, and disappeared in the darkness of the woodland.
When, at the end of half an hour, however, Narkom returned from his
errand, there Cleek stood again, leaning against a tree, with arms
folded, his chin on his breast, and his forehead puckered thoughtfully.
"You are just one minute too soon, Mr. Narkom," he said, with a sort of
sigh as the limousine halted and the Superintendent jumped out. "I was
just working out a little question in mental arithmetic, and in another
sixty seconds I should have had the answer. Look here: Given a space of
two hundred and eighty feet in length by about, say, three feet in
breadth, and intervals of probably three and a half yards between each
balk, how many cubic feet of timber, one and a half inches thick and six
inches broad, do you think it would take to---- Oh! let it go! There
isn't time at present. I'll work it out to-morrow. Come along--quick!
We've plenty to do before those bells set up their peal to-night."
Here he sprang past the Superintendent and got briskly into the
limousine. By the time Mr. Narkom joined him he was stripping off his
coat.
"Now, then, down with the curtains and up with the light," he said, as
Narkom shut the door and the car took the dark road at a lively clip.
"Thanks very much. Sit this side, please, and let me get at the locker,
and we'll dig up our old friend 'Mr. Philip Barch' for the rest of the
game."
* * * * *
It still wanted some few minutes of ten o'clock when the limousine,
panting up to the Valehampton almshouses, swung round the angle of the
buildings and made its way to the small detached one which served the
double purpose of isolation hospital and, when occasion demanded,
morgue.
Here, in a small, brightly lighted anteroom, Cleek and Mr. Narkom found
four persons waiting to receive them: Mr. Bevington Howard, the local
justice of the peace; Mr. Hamish, the master of the almshouses; Mr.
Naylor, the chief constable of the district; and a certain Dr. Alexander
Forsyth.
They all rose as the Superintendent and his famous ally came in, and two
of them at least--Mr. Howard and Mr. Naylor--regarded Cleek with
deep-seated earnestness.
"Mr. Cleek, this is a pleasure and a privilege," said Howard. "I have
long desired to meet you."
"Will you forget that you have done so, Mr. Howard, until after this
Valehampton business is settled? It may hamper me somewhat if my
identity is known too soon. I shall be obliged if you will think of me
until then as one 'Philip Barch,' an ordinary civilian. And now, if you
please, may I not see the body of Davis at once?"
Together the six men passed into the adjoining apartment, carrying with
them the lamps which Mr. Hamish had supplied for the purpose, and in a
minute's time all were standing round the bier upon which the dead man
lay.
The body was that of a well-developed, muscular fellow, of about thirty
years of age, big-framed, and in the very pink of physical condition,
who in life must have been as strong as an ox and as difficult to handle
in a rough-and-tumble fight as man could well be. Yet here he now lay,
the whole back of his head crushed in, yet his face expressing no sign
of any such agony as one would have thought must have convulsed it as
the result of an injury so appalling. Instead, its expression was rather
peaceful than otherwise. The features of a man who had died in his sleep
could not have been more placid.
The curious, one-sided smile curved the corner of Cleek's mouth, and
beckoning Mr. Narkom to hold the light closer, he bent down over the
body, and with the aid of his lens minutely examined the ghastly wound.
From that he went, in turn, to other points. With his thumb and
forefinger he uncovered the dead eyes and studied the condition of
cornea and pupil; from thence he turned to the lips--inspecting them
with the glass, touching them, smelling them--then went to fingertips
and the cuticular folds of the nails. At the end of five minutes he put
his glass in his pocket and rose.
"Gentlemen," he said, gravely, "I think I shall be fairly correct in
asserting that the wound on the back of this poor fellow's head was made
by a sledge-hammer which had previously been used in demolishing an
ordinary house wall of lath and plaster. There are distinct traces of
both mortar and lime, and very minute particles of what, for want of a
better term, one might call old wood dust, in the hair--those atoms
which the blow of a heavy instrument upon wood that is in the primary
stages of dry rot would cause to rise like dust. The man, having been
addicted to the use of pomade for the hair, has furnished a very useful
adhesive for the collection and retention of those particles.
"From the first, gentlemen, it has been a matter of great surprise to me
that such an injury could be inflicted upon such a man without a
terrific struggle and a very considerable uproar. It is a surprise to me
no longer. I shall be something more than astonished if that blow was
not delivered after death, and decidedly _not_ at the place where the
body was subsequently found."
"You think it was carried to the bell-tower, then?"
"Yes, Mr. Howard, I do. It was taken to that spot and left there for
just such a purpose as it has served--namely, to divert every atom of
suspicion from channels which might lead to the identification of the
murderer and still further to strike terror into the minds of the
ignorant and superstitious. If this man had carried into effect what he
set out to accomplish last night, somebody stood to lose a pretty high
stake. It was, therefore, to the interest of that somebody to prevent
his doing it, and as this poor fellow was not the kind that could be
coaxed or bribed or cajoled into a crooked course, the only preventive
was the desperate one of death."
Here he turned to Doctor Forsyth and addressed him personally.
"Doctor," he said, "you may have wondered why the request was made to
you to bring your surgical instruments and to meet these gentlemen here
in the interests of science and the law. Let me confess that I made that
request merely upon the off-chance of a theory of my own proving correct
and requiring such services at your hands. I am now pretty thoroughly
convinced that it _is_ correct, and that this man's death is the direct
result of poison."
"Poison, sir, poison?"
"Yes, Mr. Naylor, poison. Accepting, on the evidence of that fearful
injury to the head, the cause of death as being the result of a blow,
you would not, of course, look for any other in the face of a thing so
apparent. It was quite natural. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the
man was poisoned, and that that poison was administered through the
medium of drink. There is a distinct odour of alcohol still clinging
about the mouth, so there can hardly be a question that death must have
ensued soon after the taking of a drink, and that the man neither smoked
nor ate afterward. In the presence of these witnesses, Doctor Forsyth,
have the goodness to perform an autopsy and to subject the contents of
the stomach to chemical analysis. I'll lay my life that if you do--I
know my man! That's all for the present, gentlemen. I will leave you to
witness the autopsy, and will call for the result to-morrow. My
compliments to you all; good-night!"
He turned and, beckoning Mr. Narkom to follow, walked out of the
building and returned to the waiting limousine.
"Where now, sir?" questioned Lennard, as he appeared.
"To the River Colne," he replied. "Drive like the devil, and follow the
river's course till I tell you to stop."
The limousine took the angle of the building with a rush and went racing
off through the moonlight at a mile-a-minute clip.
CHAPTER XII
A JANGLE OF PEALING BELLS
The moon was high up over the tree-tops and the river, when they reached
it, was a shining silver ribbon lying between sloping banks.
Cleek, as they rushed along beside it, leaned forward with his elbow on
the window-ledge and his cheek in his palm, and studied its shining
surface narrowly. Of a sudden, however, he called out sharply "Stop!"
The vehicle ran on for a yard or two and then came to a halt. Cleek,
despite that fact, did not alight at once. Instead, he pulled down all
the leather curtains, switched on the light, and taking out his
note-book, began to write. His stylo travelled rapidly, but even at that
it was a good six minutes before he tore out the leaves he had covered,
switched off the light, and, opening the door, said "Come!" and stepped
out with Mr. Narkom.
Carefully folding the written leaves, he walked round to the front of
the limousine and put the little bundle into Lennard's hand.
"Take that to the vicarage of St. Saviour's, and deliver it to the Rev.
Mr. Saintly," he said. "If he asks you any questions, answer
them--truthfully. After that you may return to Willowby Old Church and
put up for the night. We shall not need you again until to-morrow. Move
lively, lad, and the quicker you get that note into the vicar's hands
and take yourself out of Valehampton, the better I shall be pleased."
"Do both inside of the next five minutes, sir; the river path has
brought us round on the other side of the church--there's her spire just
above those trees to the left. Good-night! I'm off."
And so he was, so swiftly that it might almost be said that at the very
moment he spoke the moonlit landscape held no trace of any living thing
but a silk-hatted Narkom and dapper Cleek standing in the middle of the
road and looking very much out of keeping with their surroundings.
The Superintendent looked at his watch, saw that its hands pointed to
twenty minutes to eleven, and then faced round on Cleek.
"And now what, old chap?" he inquired. The habit of blind obedience to
the lead of his famous ally had become a fixed one with the
Superintendent, who was nevertheless most alert when in charge of
affairs himself. "I suppose you know what you're about, but I don't. It
seems to me that, having sent Lennard off for good, you've done us out
of all hope of finding a bed anywhere to-night. And I'm blest if I
shall relish prowling about the neighbourhood in this sort of a get-up
until morning."
"Oh, don't worry. You will get a bed, I promise you. Indeed, the matter
is the one uppermost in my mind at this minute--the reason for our
presence here--only it happens to be a bed of another colour from the
one you're demanding. It is, in short, the bed of a river--this one
beside us."
"Now what the devil can the bed of a river have to do with the matter in
hand?"
"That is precisely what I am anxious to settle to my own satisfaction.
It is almost the last point in the case which we have to investigate;
and it is an extremely interesting one. Brush up your memory a bit, Mr.
Narkom. Part of that extraordinary prophecy was that the river should
become choked, and, according to the duke, choked it has become."
"Oh, ah! Yes, I remember. Shoals formed, didn't they?"
"Exactly. And I am extremely anxious to discover why. Perhaps we may,
presently. You observe that we are at the point where the stream begins
to narrow perceptibly. As yet, however, I perceive no sign of shoals.
Still, if we follow this narrowing course for a time---- Come on."
They walked on, and for the next ten or fifteen minutes they scarcely
spoke a word, keeping their eyes fixed steadily on the ever-narrowing
stream, but finding nothing to reward them for their diligence.
"It will be a fake, I'm afraid, Cleek."
"Possibly; but I doubt it. It is one of the essential points--a thing so
absolutely necessary that, if it doesn't exist, I'm on the wrong scent,
that's all."
For another two or three minutes they walked on in silence; then Cleek
gave a satisfied grunt and pointed to where the hitherto placid surface
of the stream was broken into a little patch of eddies and ripples that
circled round a clump of trembling river grass.
"We are coming to it, you see!" he said, and moved quickly to a spot
where the eddies played closer to the shore, and the water, obstructed,
encroached upon the land. By the time Mr. Narkom came up with him he had
laid aside his coat and was hastily turning back the cuff of his shirt
sleeve.
In another moment he had gone down the shelving bank and jumped out to
where a half-submerged rock offered a footing and his arm was elbow deep
in the eddying water. For a time his hand remained invisible, groping
and tugging at something, then it came into view again, and Narkom could
see that it held a heavy, sodden lump of something from which the water
trickled in yellowish streams.
"Have a look at that," said Cleek, with an exultant laugh as he threw it
over onto the bank and, dipping in his hand again, fished up another
lump and sent that flying across in the wake of the other. "And there's
a second to show that it isn't merely an isolated specimen."
He whirled his hand round in the water to wash it, then rose, and
jumping back to the shore, began to pull down his sleeve while Mr.
Narkom was inspecting the two slimy lumps.
"Don't trust the moonlight--get out your electric torch and have a good
look at them. They are worth it, Mr. Narkom--the beauties. They are a
rich find all right."
"_Rich?_ Are you off your head, old man? They're nothing but lumps of
common clay."
"Certainly--that is what makes them so valuable."
"Valuable?"
"To be sure," replied Cleek, serenely. "There is a lot more where they
came from, and it's worth in the aggregate something like one hundred
and fifty thousand pounds in gold! If you doubt that----"
Here he stopped, and, reaching round, made a grab for his hat and coat.
Of a sudden the stillness of the night was broken into by a tuneless and
discordant jangle of pealing bells.
The chimes of St. Saviour's had begun their nightly ringing.
"Come!" exclaimed Cleek, excitedly, and started off up the slope and
across the intervening fields and spinneys in the direction of the
churchyard, putting on his coat as he ran.
His pace was so swift that he was already a good twenty yards on his way
before Mr. Narkom could grasp his intention and start after him.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MYSTERIOUS LIGHT
A good sprinter at all times, to-night it seemed to the Superintendent
that the man was fairly outdoing himself, in this wild "cross-country"
race; and, although Mr. Narkom put forth all the energy and all the
speed that was in him, never once could he lessen the space which lay
between him and that flying figure in front of him. And all the time the
jangling bells went on, flinging their harsh discord out upon the night.
As yet Cleek could get no sight of the church tower, for the
centuries-old luxuriance of a group of fir trees screened tower and
bells alike from view on this side of the church, and the upward slope
of the land from the river's edge to the graveyard wall rendered their
screen doubly effective. But presently he came abreast of that wall,
vaulted over it, zigzagged his way through a wilderness of crowded
tombstones, came out into the open, and looking upward--saw!
It was the first moment since the beginning of the sound that he had
checked his speed or halted for so much as a second. That he did so now
was only natural. For here was a thing totally unexpected. Here was
corroboration of James Overton's story. Here was, indeed, a suggestion
of the supernatural.
High up in the open space where the bells--themselves unseen--were
swinging and clashing out their jarring discords, a globe of light, its
radiance intensified by the black shadow of the tower's roof, was
careering about as if it hung in mid-air, and was dancing a ghostly
tarantella to the time of the clanging bells.
He stood stock still and looked at it, conscious of a swift, prickling
sensation travelling up his spine to his very hair; then catching a
gasping sort of sound and a low exclamation from somewhere behind him,
he knew that Mr. Narkom, too, had come within sight of the thing, and,
pulling himself together, took up the lead again and ran toward the
tower.
Racing behind in a state of mind bordering closely upon panic, Mr.
Narkom saw Cleek run to the tower's foot, whip out his electric torch,
and splash the light of it about its base--a square now spread inches
deep with fullers' earth--and then, almost immediately, he saw him throw
up both hands as if to recover an equilibrium disturbed by a violent
blow, and stagger backward.
"My God! What is it?" Mr. Narkom called in a shaking voice, as he made a
mad rush toward him. And indeed there was sufficient cause for the
horror in his voice.
For Cleek, crying out that he was burning up, had suddenly faced about,
dashed through the lich-gate, and lurched out into the road, and when,
presently, the Superintendent dodged out of the churchyard after him, it
was in time to see him stagger to the Hurdons' cottage, fall so heavily
against the door of it that it flew inward with a bang, and drop, a
crumpled heap, upon the threshold--limp and inert as a man shot dead.
Narkom, a picture of terror too real to admit of any doubt, was across
that road and kneeling beside him before you could have counted twenty,
and to the astonished eyes of Mrs. Hurdon, drawn to the window by the
uproar, and well-nigh carried off her feet by the bursting in of the
door, there appeared a man's hat rolling across her floor and a
fashionably dressed gentleman sprawling over her threshold in a fainting
condition, while another was bending over him trying to revive him as
well as terror would permit.
"Old man, wake up, pull yourself together, speak to me!" exclaimed the
Superintendent with the utmost concern and then, becoming aware of the
woman's presence, appealed to her.
"Help me!" he cried. "Don't stand there like a stone! Can't you see the
man's ill? Get some sort of a stimulant, quick!"
Here the woman's wits came back to her.
"We haven't any," she replied, tartly. "And what's more, you can't bring
him in here. There's no room for him--none at all. Besides, I never saw
either of you before. Take him outside--take him where he belongs. I
can't have him here, I tell you. I've got a sick husband, and--and I'm
going to shut the door."
She caught hold of it as she spoke, intending to carry her words into
execution, and Narkom, fairly bursting with indignation, had just begun
to call her everything his concerned mind was capable of, when there
came the sound of a voice and the rush of footsteps up the red-tiled
path behind him. In another moment the vicar of St. Saviour's put in an
unexpected appearance.
"God bless me, it will be Mr. Barch, will it not, Mr. Williams?" he
said, as he met Mr. Narkom's upturned glance. "I guessed as much when I
heard the noise. I told you--I told you, you foolish men! What madness
to let a weak-nerved, weak-minded fellow like that go prowling about
country roads in the night. Mrs. Hurdon, these are two London gentlemen,
Mr. John Williams and Mr. Philip Barch, who have just come down to spend
the week-end with me at the vicarage, and Mr. Barch is unhappily
addicted to fainting fits."
"Deary me! That is it?" said Mrs. Hurdon with suddenly awakened
sympathy. "Oh, the poor, dear gentleman. But he did scare the wits half
out of me, sir, bursting into a body's house like that."
"No doubt, no doubt. Hand me his hat, please. Thank you. Now, my dear
Mr. Williams, you get hold of his head, and I'll take his feet, and
we'll carry him back to the vicarage between us."
Mr. Narkom, his head in a whirl with an overwhelming sense of having
been taken in, acted upon the suggestion without a word, and two minutes
later he and the vicar were trudging down the dark road with Cleek lying
a dead weight between them.
"I'd let you put me down, only one never knows what may happen," he took
the opportunity of saying in a low voice when they were some twenty or
thirty yards down the road. "Mr. Saintly, you were excellent; but I had
some groggy moments lying there, and not being sure if you would
understand the note or not. And your worried expression, Narkom,
couldn't be beaten."
"I should say not. It was perfectly genuine, and I was pretty well off
my head with fright. I think you might have given me a hint."
"It wouldn't have been anything like so natural. You were positively
superb. Sorry to be such a burden, gentlemen, but we shall soon be at
the vicarage, and after that---- Mr. Saintly!"
"Yes, Mr. Cleek?"
"We are close to the end. If you will write and invite the duke and a
few other gentlemen at the Castle to honour you with a call at St.
Saviour's vicarage to-morrow night at half-past ten o'clock, I will give
them the riddle's answer as soon as the bells begin to ring!"
CHAPTER XIV
"GEORGE HEADLAND" KEEPS AN APPOINTMENT
On the morrow the village of Valehampton knew that the vicar of St.
Saviour's was entertaining two gentlemen, Mr. John Williams and Mr.
Philip Barch, who had come down from town by the last train the
preceding night and were to stop with him over the week-end; and, being
informed that Mr. Barch was a gentleman of poor health, it was not at
all surprised that he should make an early call on Doctor Forsyth.
It did not, however, know that at the time that call was made the doctor
was entertaining Mr. Justice of the Peace Howard and Mr. Chief Constable
Naylor, and that Mr. Barch remained in close council with all three for
upward of an hour, afterward making a personal call upon His Grace the
Duke of Essex and spending yet another hour at the Castle.
When that hour was over he went back to the vicarage, every link was
fitted into its place, and the chain complete at last.
It was about twenty minutes past ten that evening that Mr. James
Overton, answering a hand-delivered note, was shown into the vicarage
drawing-room, and found himself in the presence of a most distinguished
company, made up of the Duke of Essex, the Marquis of Uppingham, Captain
Weatherley, and two gentlemen who were alluded to as Mr. John Williams
and Mr. Philip Barch.
Mr. Overton, who had been over at Braintree ever since noon on business
for the duke, and was, of course, still wearing his ordinary riding
clothes, apologized for his appearance on the score that he had not had
time to change.
"I found Your Grace's man waiting for me with your note when I arrived
at the Lodge," he said; "and, of course, came on immediately, as
requested. But surely there must be some error--the thing seems so
impossible. You said in the note that the man, George Headland, would be
here by eleven o'clock to offer a solution of the mystery, and that
simply can't be. I saw him myself over at Earl's Colne as I rode through
this afternoon, he and his deaf companion. They were sitting outside an
inn drinking stout and smoking their pipes as contentedly as you please;
and when I stopped and asked them what on earth they were doing there,
Headland told me that their effects had not come down from London as
they expected, and they were taking a holiday until they did. As I came
back I learned that they were strolling about Pebmarsh as late as seven
o'clock this evening, and had been over in that section of this county
pretty much all day. How can it be possible for them to have discovered
anything _here_?"
"That I can't tell you, I'm sure, Overton," replied the duke. "I merely
know that he sent word to me through the vicar that if I would be here
at eleven o'clock to-night he would give me a full and clear explanation
of the diabolical affair. It occurred to me at the last moment that you,
probably, would like to hear that explanation with the rest of us, so I
left Roberts to deliver that note as soon as you returned."
"Thank you--it was very kind. Naturally I am very deeply interested; but
I am more mystified than ever when Your Grace tells me that Headland
sent the message through the vicar. Have you then seen the man to-day,
Mr. Saintly?"
"Oh, dear, no. The message came to me through Mr. Philip Barch here."
"Meaning the gentleman who is your guest, sir?"
"Meaning me--yes, Mr. Overton," remarked Cleek. "We met quite
accidentally while I was out this morning. Personally, I must admit that
I haven't very much faith in our actually seeing the man to-night."
"You couldn't be blamed for not having much faith in the man's ability,
I am sure, Mr. Barch. To tell you the truth, sir, I have very little
myself. I never even heard of him until yesterday. He seemed a stupid
sort of fellow."
Here Captain Weatherley chimed in:
"Judging from his appearance when he was pointed out to me, I should say
that he was nothing less than an idiot!" was his contribution.
"With the odds on the idiot," supplemented Cleek. "Still, let's give him
his chance. We shall know the best or the worst in half an hour, Captain
Weatherley. Eleven o'clock will tell the tale."
And eleven o'clock did tell it.
Cleek, to pass away the tedium of waiting, had taken his seat before the
vicarage organ and was deep in a selection from Handel when, all of a
sudden, a clanging noise broke through the outer stillness and all the
night echoed to the clash of the discordant bells.
"Hallo! There's our friend the ghost starting in with his nightly
jamboree," he said, screwing round on the organ stool and rising, as the
sound of hasty feet coming up the vicarage steps and along the vicarage
hall followed on the peal of bells. "He's a prompt beggar to-night, that
spook--a very prompt beggar indeed."
"But no prompter than that Headland fellow," exclaimed Captain
Weatherley, catching the sound of the running footsteps and jumping to
his feet. "Here he comes now, by Jove!--and it's two minutes short of
the hour."
In his excitement, he jumped to the door and whirled it open, and almost
in the same instant there entered the room, in a state of breathless
excitement, no less a person than Mr. Justice of the Peace Howard, with
Chief Constable Naylor close upon his heels.
"They've started--don't you hear them?" he cried, looking up at Cleek.
"That was to be the signal, wasn't it? Shall Naylor give the word?"
"By all means," replied Cleek, calmly. "Start them going, Mr. Naylor,
and start them going _hard_!"
Mr. Naylor's response was not given in words. Facing about instantly, he
ran down the hall and out into the forecourt of the vicarage, blowing a
police whistle, and shouting at the top of his voice: "In with you, my
boys! Get 'em."
Almost instantly there was a sound of rushing feet, a banging and a
smashing of hammers on wood, the crash of a door going down, and the
sound of a dozen voices crying lustily, "Come out of it! Come out of
it!" voices which soon dwindled off in the distance.
The duke and Mr. Overton were on their feet at once. There could be no
mistake about the direction whence these sounds came. A force of men,
acting upon a given signal, had made an attack upon the Castle cottages.
"Oh, don't be alarmed, Duke. Don't be alarmed, Mr. Overton," said Cleek,
coming up with them as master and man, realizing the state of affairs,
moved hastily to the nearest window and tried vainly to peer through the
intervening trees. "It is nothing very serious--only a small detachment
of police, aided by some of your own gamekeepers, paying their respects
to Mr. and Mrs. John Hurdon. It will be over soon, and the interesting
party will take a turn at oakum-picking with this gentleman--dear,
clever man!"
Here his hands reached over quickly toward those of the land-steward;
there was a jingle and a click, and by the time Overton became aware
that something cold had touched his wrists, the handcuffs were locked
and the thing was done.
He gave a queer sort of cry--half gasp, half howl--and lurched backward
in a panic.
"In the name of God----" he began, but got no farther, for Cleek's hand
was on his shoulder and Cleek's voice was saying soothingly:
"Oh, fie, my friend! So tender a heart should be mated with a reverent
tongue. And if you must cry out, surely there is another name more
fitting to the occasion? But why cry at all? You cannot alter matters.
It is fated, you see, that none of you is ever to go up that underground
tunnel or touch one article of that splendid gold service, even though
Captain Paul Sandringham is dead and, as Carstairs said, 'It makes one
the less to reckon with!' Sit down, Mr. Overton, and make yourself
comfortable until Mr. Naylor comes back to take care of you. And let me
take this opportunity to thank you for our very pleasant walk up from
the station yesterday. Do you know, I always did like that ghost story
from the time when I first read it in a fiction magazine, and it lost
none of its charm through your telling. Oh, yes--I'm the same
person--I'm the George Headland you told it to. The one your sister and
the gypsy woman have been following all day is a fake. I expect he and
his mate have rounded on them by this time and have taken them into
custody, and---- Fainted, by jupiter! Ah, they are a weak-nerved lot,
this sneaking kind, when it comes to the final corner, and it's the wall
behind them and the law in front. Pardon? Oh, yes, Marquis! Oh, yes,
Captain Weatherley. That was the game: tunnelling from the Hurdons'
cottage to the Castle to get at the Essex gold service which they knew
would be brought down from the bank for Lady Adela's wedding; and they
have been at it for eleven months. Captain Paul Sandringham's was the
mind that conceived the thing--how I know this I'll tell you in due
time--and he planned the scheme with this fellow a year ago in Ostend
when first the duke made public his intention to marry again. He has
been over, too, off and on, and taken an actual hand in the work, has
the late captain, and I dare say he would have been over again to-morrow
night to take part in the final act of the little drama if the curtain
had not been rung down on all the dramas for him the day before
yesterday. Oh! he was a clever schemer, was Captain Paul Sandringham,
and he neglected nothing. That is the strongest point in the whole
armour of the educated criminal: the brains to reason and the wit to
provide for all contingencies. You cannot tunnel the earth for a
distance of ninety-six yards without having a deal of refuse to dispose
of, you know; therefore, the prophecy had to take in the question of a
choked river, and there had to be phantom wheels to account for the
vehicle which conveyed it to the stream by night; there had to be those
bells which are ringing now to account for the supernatural agency, and
there had to be a curse on the adjoining cottage to prevent----"
Here he stopped--his ear caught by a confused murmur of voices rising
above the clashing of the bells.
"Let us go and see the rest of the interesting collection," he said. "I
think the raid is over, and Mr. Naylor's fishers are pulling in the
nets."
He turned and walked briskly out of the vicarage and, taking a short cut
across the churchyard, made his way to the curve of the road, the bells
still clashing out discordantly as he passed through the lich-gate and
turned to the Castle cottages--and the duke and the marquis, the captain
and the vicar, and Mr. Maverick Narkom, too, followed close upon his
heels.
CHAPTER XV
THE LAYING OF THE VALEHAMPTON "GHOST"
AS they issued from the churchyard a couple of gamekeepers, standing on
guard with loaded shotguns, challenged them.
"That's all right, Norton," said Cleek, as one of them stepped forward
to bar the way. "It is only His Grace and the rest of us coming to see
the final kick-up. You can let us pass with impunity."
"Right, sir," said Norton, and stepped aside.
"The beggars made fine work of it, didn't they, Mr. Narkom?" said Cleek
with a laugh, as he pointed to the battered condition of the raided
cottage. "Door, window, and half the wall battered down! They _were_ an
energetic lot! Did they all go in, then, Norton?"
"Yes, sir, every blessed one of them; and Mr. Naylor himself with the
lot. They'll be coming out in a minute, I'm thinking--fancy I can hear
someone running."
He had scarcely more than finished speaking than there came a clatter of
hasty footsteps running up wooden steps, and presently a man, smeared
and streaked with yellow clay, dashed in through the scullery door of
the cottage and flung himself across the main room, as if running for
dear life.
The two gamekeepers rushed forward, and their guns went up like
clockwork.
"Now, then, _you_! Stop where you are," sang out Norton. "You don't take
your hook without there's a line on it--and a sinker, too, if you don't
look sharp. Hands up!"
The runner obeyed one part of the command at least. That is to say, he
stopped short, but instead of throwing up his hands he shouted out in a
voice of great excitement:
"Don't make a fool of yourself, Norton; it is only I--Naylor. Get a
litter! Get a doctor! We've nabbed the two Hurdons and the gypsy,
Costivan; but that fellow Carstairs had a pistol with him, the brute,
and after putting a ball through Weston's leg and another into Farley's
cap, the beggar shot himself."
"What's that? Shot himself? Carstairs?"
"Oh, that you, Mr. Cleek, is it? Yes, sir, shot himself--through the
temple, and I'm afraid he's done himself in."
"Dead?"
"As a doornail, sir. Hole in his head you could put your two fingers in!
It's Weston I want the doctor and the litter for. Carstairs won't need
anything any more--his little jig is done!"
"And I let the beggar slip me like that!" said Cleek, striking his
tongue against the roof of his mouth with a mild clicking sound thrice
repeated. "A cold-blooded butcher of that fellow's type--the one real
tiger in the whole skulking pack of jackals--and to get off so easily!
Too bad, too bad. Well, it can't be helped, I suppose. You got the
others all safe and sound, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir, all three."
"Close to the end, were they?"
"Very close, sir. Just as you reckoned. They'd have been in before
morning. The floor of the strong-room was just beginning to show in
places, and they had the soup all ready and waiting. We nabbed them just
in time."
Here the sound of a woman's smothered screams and of men's curses became
dimly audible. Mr. Naylor jerked his thumb backward over his shoulder in
the direction from which they came.
"That will be them now," he said. "They are bringing the lot up."
"Get down and stop them, then," said Cleek. "All these good people will
not care to see an exhibition of that sort now that it has taken a
tragic turn. Hold them there for another ten minutes. Don't bring even
Weston up. The sight would not be a pleasant one for the duke."
Here Mr. Narkom, waiting only for Naylor to take his departure, chose to
deliver a dig at his friend.
"I notice," he said in an undertone, "that for all your fine scorn of
dukes you are taking devilish good care of this one."
"Excellent, my friend! Your powers of observation are improving. Notice
anything else as well?"
"Yes. You are conducting this affair somewhat off your usual lines, and
instead of being bowled over with astonishment by your revelations, this
particular duke doesn't seem surprised at anything."
"He isn't. I told him everything beforehand. Doctor Forsyth advised it;
his heart is weak. Any more questions, please?"
"Yes, one. In the name of Heaven, what did you cut up that fainting
caper for last night?"
"Come over to the cottage door. Look there. See that thing in the
corner? By the sofa there--with the quilt half over it?"
"Mean the box with the wire netting over the front?"
"Exactly. That's what I did it for. I wanted to see if there was such a
thing here. It was necessary to get down on the floor to see it, and
there it was."
"But what on earth----?"
Mr. Narkom did not bother to complete the sentence. It would have been
useless. Cleek had walked away and left him--going back to the place
where the duke and the others were standing.
"I think, Duke, it will be as well to return to the vicarage," he said,
"and leave the rest of this unpleasant business to the law alone. I am
sorry, gentlemen, that I have put you all to the useless trouble of
coming out here. I should not have done so had I known or even guessed
of Carstairs' act. Still, it doesn't matter. You know the result; you
know the game. The robbery of the gold service has been prevented, the
criminals unmasked, and--that's all. I think we may be satisfied that
the riddle has been solved."
"Do you? Well, I'm blest if I do, then!" exclaimed Captain Weatherley.
"There is one little point which you decidedly have not cleared up, if
you don't mind my saying so. That thing!" Here he flung out his hand and
made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the bell-tower, from which
the discordant clang had all the time been sounding. "How about that,
please? Who has been managing that little dodge, and--how?"
"Oh, the ghost, you mean?"
"Yes, the ghost, the power--the thing, or whatever it is, that rings
bells without ropes, and yet--Uppingham, Essex, look round, look round,
for Heaven's sake. It has got beyond mere sound alone--it has become
visible now--visible! Look, there's a light there--a light!"
"Yes," said Cleek. "It appeared for the first time last night. It gave
me quite a shock for the minute, until I remembered."
"Remembered?"
"Yes. Our friend Mr. Overton arranged it for me. He knew, of course,
that 'George Headland' would inspect the place some time or another, and
he wanted to back up his little ghost story of the night before."
"Overton? Overton, Mr. Cleek?"
"Yes; he is a quite ingenious gentleman when you come to know him--only
he is not very original at bottom, I fear. Would you like to see the
Valehampton ghost laid, Captain? Would you like to know how bells can be
rung without hands or ropes, or wires, or anything of that sort,
gentlemen? Very well, then, step this way, and you shall."
Here, beckoning Norton to follow, he walked to the lich-gate, opened it,
and, accompanied by the six men, led the way to the belfry.
The clanging bells still flung their discord upon the air, the globe of
light still circled in the darkness of the tower's top, and, although
the head which had devised it was laid low and the hand which had
directed it was now a manacled one, the Valehampton ghost still played
its uncanny part.
Cleek turned to the gamekeeper, a smile hovering around his lips.
"Gun for a minute, please, Norton. Thanks. Keep your eyes on the light,
gentlemen, and stand back a bit. All ready, are you?"
_Bang! Bang!_
The gun barked twice in rapid succession, and two charges of buckshot
rattled against the bells. A scream, almost human in its note, shrilled
out from the tower's top, the ball of light lurched outward and came
tumbling downward till it struck the earth with a curious crunching
sound, and then lay quiet in a cloud of fullers' earth.
"Gentlemen, the Valehampton Ghost," said Cleek; then he whipped out his
torch and switched a circle of light upon it where it lay--a little
black monkey with a wire muzzle over its mouth and a sponge that glowed
brightly and smelt strongly of phosphorus fastened to the top of its
shattered head. And hard by the spot where it lay there was one single
trail of its footprints going across the fullers' earth and pointing
toward the stone tower.
CHAPTER XVI
CLEEK EXPLAINS
"How did I manage to find the thing out?" said Cleek, answering the
duke's query as they all sat together in the vicarage drawing-room, an
hour or more afterward, discussing the affair. "Well, to tell you the
truth, I think I got the very first inkling from the ringing of the
bells. Oh, no, not through any special power of deduction or any
super-human nonsense of that sort, but simply and solely through my
memory. You will remember that I said Overton was not very original in
his methods. Well, it so happened that I recalled the circumstance of a
monkey which escaped from its cage and terrorized a Swiss village some
years ago by climbing into the church belfry and inadvertently setting
the bells ringing in the middle of the night by hopping from one to the
other in an effort to maintain its equilibrium. That, of course,
suggested a similar possibility here, and I set about deciding the point
by means of the fullers' earth. By the way, Mr. Narkom, I chose fullers'
earth not alone because of its yielding quality and its ability to
receive impressions of even very slight things falling upon it, but
because by reason of its weight and its rather tenacious character it
was not so likely as another medium to be blown away by any sudden
rising of the wind. I suppose you know that I placed the stuff about the
tower's base when I left you at the limousine?"
"I judged that," replied the Superintendent. "The thing which amazed me,
however, was all that meaningless stuff about timber and cubic feet you
talked about when you came back. I can't even yet get the hang of that."
"Can't you? It will be getting in advance of the story a bit, but I may
as well explain it now as later. I had come to the point of certainty
regarding the making of a tunnel--how, you shall hear later--and as a
tunnel of 288 feet in length will require shoring up and bracing with
balks at intervals if one doesn't want it to become one's grave, timber
for that purpose becomes a necessity. Now, as it would have been a
pretty risky business to have left a trail by purchasing timber, and a
worse one to attempt to smuggle it into the Hurdons' cottage, I had to
figure out just where those beauties were going to get it. Old or new,
they simply must have it, and the idea of _old_ timber set my thoughts
going--opened up, as it were, the possibility of the adjoining house
being kept tenantless so that they could quietly demolish it and get the
wood from there. So, when I went to lay the fullers' earth about the
tower, I determined to have a look inside that other cottage and decide
the point. A skeleton key let me in, and one flicker of my torch settled
the question. The floors were up, the walls had been broken with a
sledge-hammer until the place was fairly littered with mortar and lime
from end to end, and every joist and beam that could be removed without
bringing the place down had been taken away. I made a rapid inventory,
calculated roughly about how much timber it would take to supply what
had been removed, reduced that to the requirements of the tunnel, and
when you caught me going about that little problem in mental arithmetic,
I was trying to discover just how far those chaps must have progressed
with the tunnel on the basis of the cubic feet of timber used.
"Now, to get back to the beginning. The tunnel idea was really the
outcome of speculating with regard to Sir Julius Solinski's possible
connection with the matter. That, of course, set me to thinking on the
subject of digging for the purpose of getting something out of the earth
by secret means and defeating the duke that way; then, when I got to
thinking over Captain Paul Sandringham's position in the event of the
proposed marriage and the possibility of an heir coming between him and
his expectations, and added to that my knowledge of the dishonest
character of the man--why, there you are! The tunnel and the reason for
it simply evolve themselves by natural means out of such fertile soil
as that; and, this much accomplished, it was but a step to the Hurdons
and that very delightful garden which was so delightfully kept."
"How?"
"I didn't like the idea of that garden in that particular place for one
thing, and then, for another, I didn't like its being so wonderfully
kept up by a couple of people who couldn't apparently be scared into
neglecting it or frightened out of the neighbourhood by all the ghosts
and bells and curses in Christendom. I asked myself: 'Why do people of
position and means so humble that they have to live in a little thatched
cottage go to the expense of a garden so ornamental that even a ducal
residence is enhanced by the presence of it?' The answer appeared to be
that they were doing it for the purpose of making the duke pleased to
have them remain there; and if they had any reason for spending a lot of
money in plants and flowers simply to prevent the duke from tearing down
the cottages and putting an end to the nuisance of that ill-kept one
next door, there must be something at the bottom of it that would not
stand looking into. If there was to be a tunnel, then, why should not
that be the starting point? The more I thought over the thing the more
promising it looked. For, I said to myself, to keep up a garden in the
state of constant bloom and continual perfection, as that one appears to
be, will need a lot of work; in fact, will keep that one old man and
woman busy in it pretty much all their time, if there is no fake about
it; but if there is, and they are digging in the tunnel, and the garden
still bears those outward signs of constant care, why, there will be
only one possible solution, one possible way to do it. In other words,
there will have to be a constant supply of fresh plants that can be
popped into the place of any that show the slightest trace of neglect,
and that means that they will have to be shallow-rooted things like
geraniums, fuchsias, lilies, and the like, so that the change cannot
only be accomplished quickly, but will show no sign to the casual
observer."
"Ah, now I understand what you meant by all that stuff about geraniums
which I couldn't make head or tail of at the time. And that's why you
were so interested and so anxious to go over and talk with the Hurdon
woman the minute you caught sight of the place."
"That's it precisely, Mr. Narkom. I saw at once that I had hit upon
something very like the truth; and as I also saw that the woman was very
particular in rising from her work to see that her gardening apron was
brushed down over her skirt, I wondered what she was so anxious to hide,
and took means to find out by tossing the wall plant to her on the plea
of its being a very choice plant. When she caught it in her apron and I
saw those marks of caked yellow clay about her knees, I was both
gratified and--disappointed."
"Disappointed, old chap?"
"Yes, in the colour of the stuff. I'd expected it to be blue. For, as
you know, the county of Essex may be said to rest almost entirely on a
foundation of what is geologically known as 'London clay' and that is
decidedly blue. All in a moment, however, I remembered that we were
close to the border line of Suffolk, and consequently on the edge of the
yellow clay belt, and--there you are. Pardon, Duke? How did I get the
idea of Captain Sandringham's connection with the affair? Oh, that
fellow Carstairs gave me the first hint of that at the vicarage gate
when the news of the man's death was made known, and Overton clinched
the nail at once. He was obviously distressed by the news, and didn't
know how to proceed; but when Carstairs flung out that little hint about
there being 'one the less to reckon with' the fellow's eyes lit up in a
manner not to be mistaken. They are expressive eyes. To-day, when I went
over to the Castle and got the duke to send him off to Braintree so that
I could slip into the Lodge and search his effects I found all the proof
of 'Miss Emmy Costivan's' identity and of the beggar's arrangements with
Captain Sandringham.
"I also made use of my time at the Castle to question the duke's valet
and to learn what happened when Tom Davis went out to investigate the
matter of the bells that night. Just before he went, Carstairs had
treated him to half a bottle of the ducal champagne. When I heard that,
I knew at once how the morphia had been administered. I had known from
the first, however, that, if morphia should turn out to be the drug
employed, Carstairs would be the man, because the rascal had it handy.
How did I know that? Well, you remember that time when Sir Julius
Solinski passed us in his motor? Carstairs saluted him. As the beggar
put his hand to his hat, his sleeve slipped down, and I could see the
evidence of the thing. The man was addicted to the use of hypodermic
injections of morphia--the scars of the needle were clearly visible. I
don't think there is any doubt of how poor Davis died. The drug overcame
him on the road, and he dropped down in a stupor. There is clear
evidence of that. You saw me examine his nails? The flint dust of the
road was under them. After that, I suppose, Carstairs, who had been
following him and watching him out for just such a time, pounced on him,
carried him into the half-demolished cottage, and brained him with the
hammer that was being used to batter down the walls and beat out the
joists. As for the other tragic affair connected with the same
cottage--namely, the mysterious disappearance of the child and the
insanity and suicide of the father? I don't suppose we need regard that
as other than a pleasant little fiction upon the part of Mr. James
Overton. The duke tells me that the body of the man Smale was never
recovered, and that his going insane and drowning himself rests only
upon a 'farewell note' from him to Mr. Overton, who afterward declared
that he had seen his body fished out of the river a good ten miles away.
Of course the story of the child's vanishing in the dead of the night
was another piece of fiction of the same sort. Nor would it surprise me
in the slightest if the man called Smale, who posed as her father, was
really no less a person than Captain Paul Sandringham himself.
"One thing, however, I think we can assert positively, and that is that
Mrs. Mallory, the widow who set the ball rolling, was no other than Miss
Emily Overton, otherwise Emily Costivan, and that the person who figured
as her sister is the woman who passed as her mother."
"Mrs. Costivan?"
"Yes. I think we shall find that she and her husband were admitted into
the game simply because they had at the time a nephew who was in the
last stages of consumption. Of course the story about the gypsy who was
beating him and who told the curse that would follow if he were buried
here was made from whole cloth. The youth was simply carried into the
house in the night, and Doctor Forsyth was right in the matter of his
not having been able to lift a hand for days before he was called in to
him. Since then it would appear that Mrs. Costivan had directed her
energies toward washing the clay-stained overalls of one and the other
of the 'tunnellers' when her husband carried them to her--for I dare say
that every one of them--Carstairs, Overton, Costivan, all of them, took
a hand in it at times; and if it hadn't been for poor Tom Davis, they
might have carried it through successfully, after all. Which shows again
that 'there's many a slip----!'"
And so ended the case of the Mysterious Light which nearly lost a duke a
most valuable heritage and to which only Cleek could find the solution.
CHAPTER XVII
THE MYSTERY OF THE "ROSE OF FIRE"
Some few days later, Mr. Narkom, breathing noisily and obviously hard
pressed for time, pushed open the door of Cleek's apartment on Portman
Square and carefully inserted his head into the room. His face lighted
up and he drew a deep sigh of relief as he caught sight of Cleek,
reclining in an easy-chair and apparently day-dreaming.
He glanced up as the Superintendent entered.
"Well, for once you have caught me napping, Mr. Narkom," he said. "I was
so deep in thought, I never heard a sound. But sit down, old friend. You
look worried."
"I am," admitted the Superintendent. "I was on pins and needles for fear
this gorgeous day might have drawn you up the river, and I didn't dare
use the public telephone."
"Which tells me very plainly that you have not come directly from the
Yard. So I may assume it is a case of some importance that has brought
you here in post haste," said Cleek.
"It is indeed," said Narkom, "and it is a case connected with jewels.
"You remember that young American chap I pointed out in a motor last
week--the fellow who came over about the Panama Canal, intending to go
back, but wound up by getting engaged to an English girl and settling
down here...?"
"Anthony Winton, do you mean? Yes, of course I do. If my memory holds
right, he is the son of a California millionaire, and with a pretty
taste in jewels. Made a hobby of outlandish settings, photographs were
in the _Connoisseur_. The woman who marries him will never go short of
unique jewels. Wasn't he to have been married to-day, by the way,
according to the papers?"
"'Was' is the correct word, Cleek," said Narkom in a hushed tone. "There
will be no wedding for him, poor chap. The man has been murdered----"
"Murdered!" Cleek interrupted, sitting up suddenly. "Winton murdered!
How? When?"
"Last night," said Narkom. "Robbery is supposed to have been the motive,
and suspicion points in half-a-dozen directions."
"What has been stolen, something from his collection?"
"Yes. As you yourself said, he had a mania for queer jewels, and the one
that is missing is the queerest of the lot--rubies mounted on a stem. A
Burmese thing, known as the 'Rose of Fire,' made of priceless
pigeon-blood rubies, and supposed to have been stolen from the temple of
Buddha in Mandalay.
"I was told it was a rose with ruby petals and emerald stem and worth
thousands."
"Of course; everyone knows of it. Thousands won't replace it," said
Cleek. "Its historical value alone makes it priceless. It is supposed to
have belonged to Buddha himself. But to come back to Winton. How was he
killed? Stabbed? Shot?"
"I can't say for certain," said Narkom, "save that he was certainly not
shot or stabbed. There is no mark or blemish on the body at all. All
that is positive, according to the doctor, who did not arrive until
after his death, is that he had been asphyxiated by some unknown fumes.
He was found by his servant, who says he heard him struggling with an
assailant, but when he forced the door in, the room was empty, the
windows shut, and he was only just in time to reach his master and hear
him say with his last gasp 'Death's Head!' Then he fell back, dead as
the skeleton to which he pointed."
"'Death's Head'," repeated Cleek, knitting his brows. "Does anybody know
what he meant?"
"Not unless he was still thinking of his words with Miss Parradine, the
bride-to-be."
"What had she to do with it?" asked Cleek.
"A great deal, I should say. As you know, Winton had queer taste in
jewels and it seems that he had had some of his finest diamonds mounted
in skull-and-crossbones brooches as his present to the bride and as
bridesmaid gifts. He was obsessed with breaking superstitions--insisted
on sitting down thirteen at table when possible, had the knives crossed,
had skull and crossbones on his notepaper and cutlery. He defied, in
fact, every legend and superstition known, even to having a skeleton
present at the table."
"H'm, cheerful companion! Every man has some whim, but for a young man
all this was peculiar, to say the least of it. I suppose he wanted his
future wife to indulge in the same tricks, eh?"
"Yes, that's just it, Cleek, and evidently she resisted. Anyhow, with
the exception of Calvert, the valet, she was the last person to see him
alive last night. She arrived unexpectedly during the evening, and was
shown in to him. It seems that they were not entirely on the best of
terms. Both have, or had I suppose I must say, strong wills, and Miss
Parradine was obviously in a furious temper, for Calvert declared that
he heard her voice raised high and shrill more than once. He even goes
further than that, for he swears that as he was passing the door, just
before she flung herself out, flushed with rage and mortification, he
heard her say distinctly: 'I won't have it. I'd sooner see you a skull
and crossbones yourself than ask such a thing'."
"Humph," commented Cleek. "I wonder if Calvert is to be trusted. Sure he
wasn't making the words fit those of the dying man? Possibly Miss
Parradine was angry at the gift and carried away by temper. Vanity
plays a great part with women at the best of times, and a wedding, after
all, is a trying experience."
"In this case vanity, or rather wealth, plays the chief part, I fear,
Cleek, for to all accounts the lady only consented to the marriage
because of the pressure brought to bear upon her by her family, and
secondly because of her own love of precious stones. According to the
marriage settlements, on his death all jewels go to her."
"Oho!" said Cleek in two different inflections.
"The lady herself," continued Mr. Narkom, "was really engaged to a
neighbouring land-owner, Robert Bristol, but she had to give him up.
Probably Winton had a financial hold over her father. Anyhow, the
marriage was hastened, and Winton had decided to take his bride back to
America before settling down here."
"And where did the murder take place--in London?" queried Cleek, diving
for his cigarette-case.
"No, in Essex, in the village of Grays, where Winton had leased a very
old solidly built manor house, and had had his jewel collection, which
he made while travelling from place to place, transferred to the big
picture gallery there. This collection included the famous 'Rose of
Fire'."
"H'm. I see. And considering that the Burmese priests will never rest
till they regain that holy relic, it was positively asking for trouble.
The Death's Head, sign of the skull and crossbones, is an emblem of one
of their rites, I believe, and if one of them were in the neighbourhood,
might Winton not have recognized the instigator of his death? The
hypothesis is rather far-fetched, I admit, but still----Well, continue
with the story, please. How long had the lady left before Calvert began
to suspect trouble?"
"About ten minutes. As a matter of fact, she let herself out,
apparently. Calvert was called away by the telephone down another
passage, and when he came back she was gone. He took the 'phone message
to Mr. Winton and found the door locked. According to him, he called,
and at last broke in the door on hearing a funny scuffling noise inside,
but getting no answer to his knocks found his master dying, and later
discovered the loss of the 'Rose of Fire' from his table. That is as far
as I can get."
"How was it that Miss Parradine was able to make such an inopportune
call? Does she live in Grays, too?"
"Yes, she does. She is, as you doubtless are aware, the daughter of
Colonel Parradine, late of the Bengal Lancers, and----"
"Stop a moment," cut in Cleek, sharply. "It isn't often my memory fails
me. Wasn't it about '74 when the Bengal Lancers were stationed at
Mandalay? I seem to remember some yarns about ragging. If I am not
wrong, I expect it must have been that same Colonel, or Captain
Parradine as he then was, who nearly got cashiered. Is he still up to
high jinks?"
"Well, he acts pretty queerly," said Narkom, "according to Winton's
butler, Wills. It was he, by the way, who went flying off for the doctor
when they found that the telephone was out of order at the same time as
the lights."
"What's that? The lights wrong?"
"Yes, he said, and Calvert, too, that every light in the place went out
just as Calvert got into the room. Then they flashed on again, and
that's how he looked for the jewels, directly he saw his master was
dead, in order to find whether they had been stolen."
"Very thoughtful of him," put in Cleek, pinching up his chin. "Very!"
"Yes, and that's not the only funny thing. Nothing else but the 'Rose'
was missing, although other stones of the collection were there. Winton
had evidently been polishing or looking at them. You would have thought
the thief would have cleared the lot."
"Possibly! And yet, too, he might have banked on one single jewel not
being missed immediately and let him get a good start away."
"But to come back to Colonel Parradine," said Narkom. "Wills tells me he
met him half-way down the lane as he was going for the doctor either
very ill and shaken or much the worse for drink. His clothes were dusty
and awry as if he had had a fall, and that's how he accounted for his
condition. He said he had been knocked down by a motor on his way from
the station. But there were scratches on his face and hands which gave
him the appearance of having dropped from a high window rather than of
having been in a motor accident. As Winton's gallery is a sheer drop of
thirty feet from the ground, you can imagine it looks strange. Anyhow,
Wills told him what had happened and left the Colonel to come on to the
Manor Lodge as best he could."
"Looks bad, I must say. Still, if he had had any hand in it, he would
hardly have been hanging about the lane near the scene of the murder.
But you never know. Anyhow, it's easy to round up someone who saw or
heard of that accident. It remains to be seen what the Colonel has to
say. Any possibility of his secreting the jewel himself?"
"Hardly," said Narkom. "Considering that he drew my attention to its
loss. Besides, to make things worse, I phoned through to headquarters on
my way up and learned that some loose rubies were pawned in London at
nine o'clock this morning by a woman who answers vaguely a description
of Miss Parradine herself."
"That looks worst of all," said Cleek. "Give me five minutes to jump
into another suit, Mr. Narkom, and we'll see what Mr. George Headland
can do."
CHAPTER XVIII
MURDER AT MANOR LODGE
It did not take the motor more than an hour to cover the difference
between Portman Square and Manor Lodge, Grays, and in a very brief time
Cleek in the character of George Headland had the satisfaction of seeing
all the actors in this tragic drama. Narkom's assertion that Colonel
Parradine was "acting queerly" had led him to expect a broken-down,
shifty-eyed half-pay officer, glad to be free from the iron hold of the
dead man. He found instead a collected, typical Anglo-Indian, as keen on
probing the mystery as Cleek himself, and full of suggestions as to
possible clues. It was only when there arose the subject of motor-cars,
which he detested ordinarily, that his calm was broken.
Miss Parradine, however, appeared to be on the verge of hysterics, and
though in normal times she would have been a very handsome girl, now her
eyes were red with weeping, her hair dishevelled, and had she been the
dead man's widow she could not have evinced more grief. All this, in
face of Mr. Narkom's statement that she loved another man, made her
manner over-done, and almost theatrical.
"I suppose, Miss Parradine," said Cleek in a casual, off-hand sort of
way, "you don't happen to know who will inherit Mr. Winton's fortune, or
if he ever made a will? I am aware from what Mr. Narkom has told me that
the collection of jewels will come to you, but that is not the whole
extent of his wealth. There is no one you know who might benefit by his
death?"
"No one who would be likely to injure him," said Miss Parradine. "His
only relative is a distant cousin, Richard Deverill, I believe, a
wealthy man in Buenos Ayres. I know, because Anthony told me when he had
our settlements drawn up that he would leave all the jewels to me, and
in case anything happened to him, Mr. Weston, the solicitor, was to send
over to South America and find out if Deverill was still alive."
Cleek switched round quickly.
"Anything happen?" he inquired. "Did he expect anything to happen then?"
"Well," said Miss Parradine, "I think he was always nervous, especially
about the 'Rose of Fire.' And as that very day I had caught sight of
some Burmese natives, of high caste, it is true, hanging about his
London hotel, the Savoy, where we had all been staying, I got nervous,
too. That is why I came straight to him last night, to ask him to give
the 'Rose' up to me for safety. But he refused, and I was angry about
those horrible brooches. But if only I had known! No, Mr. Headland,
there is no one else I know."
"Well, there's nothing wrong there," said Cleek. "Clearly a case of
local robbery, I should say."
"Yes, that's what Robert said." She flushed as Mr. Headland twitched an
inquiring eyebrow.
"Robert Bristol and I at one time were engaged," she said, huskily.
"This terrible tragedy sets me free. I confess that I regret parting in
anger from Mr. Winton, but he could be very, very cruel. Robert said he
could save me--but oh----" She broke off as if frightened at what she
had said, and Cleek flashed a glance of deepest significance at Mr.
Narkom.
"Robert could save her," could he! How, except by removing the obstacle
which stood in their path of mutual happiness, that with the jewels left
her by one lover she might find happiness with the other? Was this the
explanation?
"Perhaps you would like to see Mr. Bristol," she said, hurriedly. "I
know he is here, because he, too, is worried over it."
"I should indeed," said Cleek, and as she left the room it seemed to him
that Parradine cast an anxious glance after her.
"I cannot understand Bristol," he said, "since my daughter's engagement
to Mr. Winton. He went away until yesterday, the day before the
wedding, then arrived evidently in good time...." his voice trailed away
as the door opened to admit Robert Bristol, a typical gentleman-farmer,
but now his face was pale and lined with anxiety, his whole appearance
as of one who has had little sleep, and as Cleek noticed his carelessly
brushed clothes and shaking hands, his eyes narrowed down. But when the
first formalities were over, he spoke as he always did at such times, in
the heavy, befogged tones of utter incompetence.
"You are just the man I want to see, Mr. Bristol, before I go upstairs.
I'm fairly puzzled, but I'd like to know any other facts you can give
me----"
"I can give you nothing, tell you nothing," declared the young man in
shaking tones. "It has been such a colossal shock to me. I hated the
dead man, Heaven knows, and could not bring myself to return till
after--that is---- But I could not keep away, and when I learned what
had happened...."
"From whom did you hear the news, Mr. Bristol?" asked Cleek, sharply.
"Well, I think it was old Twells," he said. "He's a bit of a character,
kind of naturalist and all that sort of thing," Bristol stammered. "He
said Wills, the butler, had told him on his way to Doctor Smith's, and
as I passed him ... he told me.
"Passed him!" ejaculated Cleek. "Where were you; where had you been
during the evening?"
"Most of the time, at the Electric Power House. I know one of the
engineers there, and I just happened to be there, and so ... so...." His
voice trailed away as though he had given the most lucid of
explanations.
"I see," said Cleek, pinching up his chin, as the thoughts raced through
his mind. What connection had this explanation with the sudden failure
of the electric light at the exact moment of the discovery of the
murder, and how was Miss Parradine connected with it? Were the two in
league, after all? But he said no more, only switched round on his heel
and allowed himself to be led upstairs to the gallery where the dead man
still lay.
It was a large square room, solidly built, without corners or panels.
Along its dull, gray-papered walls hung large pictures of long dead and
gone ancestors of the owner of Manor Lodge, himself a wanderer in
strange lands. Small tables held the cases of curios collected by
Anthony Winton, and but one big window gave it light. Clearly there was
no room for concealment of any unknown assailant, and when Cleek had
dismissed the plain-clothes man on guard, and told Calvert, who had
quickly been sent for at Cleek's request, to open up the blind, he
turned his attention to the dead man.
As Mr. Narkom had said, there was no sign of wound or mark on the body.
"Suffocated, it is clear enough," commented Cleek, having made minute
examination. "But how?" He looked round. "You have no gas fittings
here?"
"None in the house, sir," said Calvert. "The whole place was lit by
oil-lamps till my master took it and then the local company wired it for
electricity. All the rooms are not done yet, but this one and downstairs
were finished first. The company also connected up the house telephone
to theirs, so as to oblige Mr. Winton while waiting for his own
connection with the company. I suppose that was why that went wrong,
too, when the electric light went off."
"What did he have to eat last?" said Cleek, suddenly, almost as if he
had not been listening. "Do you know?"
"Yes, I do," said Calvert. "He dined downstairs at 7 o'clock, as usual,
and the rest of the dinner was finished in the servants' hall and
nothing better could be desired. I came in at 9 o'clock to see whether
he would have anything more, but Mr. Winton said no. And then Miss
Parradine came."
"Yes, I know. And what about her visit?" said Cleek. "How long was she
here, do you remember?"
"Yes, sir. The hall clock was striking a quarter past nine when I let
her in, and at a quarter to ten the telephone bell rang. Miss Parradine
flung herself out of the gallery as I went to answer it, and the master
was alive then. I heard his voice. Whether she went back while I was
answering the 'phone, I don't know...."
"Went back?" said Cleek, excitedly. "What do you mean?"
"Well, sir," said Calvert, "as I said, just as she came out, the bell
rang, and Miss Parradine said she would let herself out, and I turned
and ran to the instrument. When I returned--it was only a message from
the tailor, and nothing important--she was gone. But she might have gone
back to the master, and perhaps it was her dress fluttering that I heard
inside the room. You see, sir, I knocked, and then I heard that kind of
struggling and fluttering and ... I am almost sure, the sound of the
window being shut. Then I forced the door, but the room was pitch dark.
If any one slipped by me then I didn't know it, but when the lights
flashed on again I saw Mr. Winton crouched up against the window, and he
pointed to the skeleton, saying, 'Death's Head!' And that was the end."
The man gave a half-sob and his words rang true. If it were acting, it
was perfect of its kind. Cleek stood silent, his shoulders hunched up.
"Where was your master sitting before that, do you know?"
"When I went in about nine, as I said, he was sitting right under the
light. The window was wide open then. I noticed it particularly, and the
Rose of Fire, was in front of him. Very fond of that jewel he was, and
used to say he'd give his life for it."
"Which he did," muttered Cleek, advancing to the table and standing just
where the dead man had sat a few short hours before. Suddenly he
switched round.
"Mr. Winton was cleaning his jewels then, was he? He preferred Venetian
powder to jeweller's rouge, eh?"
"Cleaning, sir? No, indeed. He never touched them last night, that I'll
swear."
Cleek bent down lower. "Ah, I see my mistake, a little cigarette ash,
nothing of importance. Well, Calvert, I see there is nothing more to be
gained here. Tell Mr. Narkom I am ready for him, will you?"
"Certainly, sir," and Calvert turned as if glad to make his escape.
Had he waited another minute he would have seen Cleek pounce swiftly on
the little feathery yellow dust on the table, gather it up, and transfer
it to his note-book, and when Mr. Narkom had come upstairs, it was to
find his famous ally gazing thoughtfully out of the window, his face
serene, as if there were no such gruesome things as a murdered man and a
withered skeleton behind him.
"Mr. Narkom," he said, when he had followed the Superintendent
downstairs and out into the country road, where the limousine was
waiting, and as he stepped into it, "I want you to wait here for me.
I've got an idea that death takes strange shapes, and Mr. Winton
recognized his foe rightly, though too late. I want to poke about for
myself a little farther afield. Give me a couple of hours, and if I am
right, my friend, the riddle is at an end. What's that? A clue? I want
to find out which sticks the best to metal, glue or soap." With this Mr.
Narkom had to be content, and only Lennard, at the wheel of the car,
heard the direction to drive to South Kensington Museum as hard as he
could go.
CHAPTER XIX
THE WINGED MESSENGER OF DEATH
That Lennard did go at considerable speed was very evident, for it was
under two hours when the limousine, gray with dust, raced once more into
Grays High Street, and pulled up in front of the solitary inn, the Royal
Arms. Here Mr. George Headland, after giving some directions to a weedy
youth of dejected mien, who had sat beside him in the car, flashed the
door open and shut again, and vanished up the village street.
He crossed the road and struck into the woods, his face relaxed from its
tenseness, and swung across country in the direction of the Manor House.
There was still one link missing in his chain, and he wanted it quite
finished before he met Mr. Narkom.
Reaching the house through the trees, he searched carefully along the
ground on the side on which gave the window of the gallery, and in a
very few moments leaned forward with a little cry of satisfaction. His
case was complete.
He turned swiftly back, but as he passed silently through the heavy
undergrowth, the sound of snapping twigs brought him up short. Then he
moved on with indrawn breath. Someone was shadowing him without a doubt.
Well, if necessary, he could make a run for it, but the path was
indistinct---- And just then came a snarl and a spring from somewhere
behind him. A thick cloth was thrown rapidly over his head, two arms
like vises closed about his struggling shoulders, and he was carried,
fighting for dear life, away from the Manor House and the scene of the
murder. He was conscious of being forced inside some building and here a
voice greeted him the sound of which sent a little dagger of fear
stabbing its way into his heart.
"The Cracksman at last!" shrilled the voice, excitedly, and Cleek knew,
for the time being, that the game was up. He was here in the shadow of
these woods, and in the power of the accursed Apaches themselves--alone
and helpless! A door closed behind them, bolts were shot, the cloth torn
from his head, and he saw before him, in the interior of a half-ruined
cottage, three of the best-known scoundrels in Paris, men he had known
only too well in the past. "At last, _nom de Dieu_, we have you!" cried
one as he seized a rope and bound Cleek's struggling hands and feet.
"Margot shall hear of this, I promise you! Margot, who thirsts for your
blood for your escape from her as we thirst for the money she will pay
us! Where is this precious 'Rose of Fire'? That is what we are after. No
foolish priest shall have a jewel which _we_ are after. Where is it,
pig of a cracksman, where, I say?"
"Where I have failed to find it, that I can promise you!" replied Cleek
in as level a voice as he could muster under the circumstances. "It has
wholly disappeared."
"You lie!" screamed Dubois, furiously. "You lie! You know well where it
is concealed. Do you not always find the answers to the cases propounded
to you? But we shall see what we shall see. A touch of fire may loosen
your tongue, _cochon_! Come, _mes amis_!"
Turning, they swarmed into a tiny kitchen, and Cleek could see them
throwing paper and wood into the range. Luckily for him the wood was
damp, and the chimney smoky from disuse. He writhed his hands to and fro
in their ropes. It was not for nothing that those old days in Paris had
been lived. He knew a thing or two about knots which would teach these
devils something. A tug, a twist, and at last one hand was free. The
other followed in a jiffy. Quickly and soundlessly he worked upon the
rope about his feet, while the snarling Apaches cursed and swore at the
fire which would not burn. In another moment he was free. But he stood
still, awaiting his opportunity. Then of a sudden there came to his ears
a sound that made his heart leap. He did not even know he was near a
road, and yet there sounded the soft purr of the Scotland Yard
limousine--he would have known it among a thousand! He did not stop to
think how his plight could have become known, he simply leapt for the
window, and making a cup of his hands, shouted as loudly as his lungs
would permit, "All right, boys! Well played! Get round to the back!
They're in the kitchen!"
The trick worked like magic. He heard the car come to a grinding stop,
saw the leaping figures of three Apaches dart like frightened rats
across the little kitchen floor, and in the twinkling of an eye every
man of them had vanished into the wood beyond. With a bound Cleek was
out of the door, onto a road, into the limousine, with a very excited
Dollops at his side, and death was once more behind him.
"How did you know?" he said, curiously, as the car went speeding down
the road under the guidance of Lennard.
Dollops heaved a heavy sigh.
"I saw some of the blighters up the road after you left me. I told you,
sir, you should have took me along"--this very reproachfully--"and I
tells Lennard here, we don't leave this neighbourhood till I sees you
safe and sound."
"It was a narrow squeak this time, old man," said Cleek, softly, and put
out his hand. "You are the best ever of a helper. Bless you."
Dollops' eyes gleamed with pleasure as the car swept on in the direction
of Grays Village.
And this was why Mr. Narkom had begun to feel very uneasy about the
whereabouts of his colleague when he finally received a message from one
of his men that "Mr. George Headland" was having a meal at the Royal
Arms and would be pleased if all the company from the Manor House would
give him the pleasure of joining him there.
There was an indignant murmur of dissent from the Parradines, but Mr.
Narkom, knowing there must be a very good reason for this invitation,
succeeded in persuading them to accompany him down to the inn, though
they expressed no faith in what "that fool of a policeman was doing."
In the old-fashioned inn, at the bar of which most of the villagers were
smoking and drinking, at one of the window tables they found Mr.
Headland certainly busy in front of a meal though it was the youth
beside him who was eating it voraciously. As Mr. Narkom recognized
Dollops, he beamed delightedly. The landlord of the inn was himself in
attendance, but Mr. George Headland was evidently in a state of
indignation with the youth at the table and was pointing to a small
yellow object in his hand.
As the little party came up, he turned to Mr. Narkom.
"Look, sir, that's what that young varmint's done while I've been down
'ere. Let my prize canary starve in the office. I wouldn't have parted
with that bird for a fortune, and what I'm to say to my missus. Lord
only knows."
Colonel Parradine gave a snort of disgust. "I suppose you haven't sent
for us to look at a dead canary when we are faced with such a tragedy,"
he thundered.
"Sent for you, sir," said Mr. Headland, innocently. "Never thought of
such a thing. Lennard must have made a mistake. I asked for Mr. Narkom
to come, as I can't find anything more out, and am giving up the job.
But this canary fair beats me...."
"I suggest having it stuffed, sir," put in the landlord, thoughtfully.
"We've got the man here that'll do it, in a trice."
"Why, of course," said Bristol, patiently, turning in the direction of
the bar. "Old Twells, the very man."
"The very thing," said Cleek, and switching round on his heel looked
interestedly at the old gray-haired man to whom the landlord was
evidently explaining the situation. Then, as he came over to them, Cleek
turned to Mr. Narkom. "If you'd get the cage out of the locker in the
car, sir, we could stick it on its blessed perch and make a good job of
it. Here's the key; I think it's the right one."
Whether it was the right one or not Mr. Narkom looked down on the label
attached to it, and seeing the message that Cleek had scribbled on it,
ran out of the place as fast as legs could carry him.
When he returned Mr. Headland was still directing the taxidermist as to
what he was to do and how and when to do it.
"Did you find it, sir?" he asked as Mr. Narkom rushed in, his face red
with excitement.
"Yes, exactly where you said, Cleek," cried the Superintendent, blurting
out the name unconsciously in his agitation.
A little gasp of interest sounded, but Cleek took no heed. With shining
eyes and mouth set in a thin red line he switched round on his heel, his
voice sounding clear and sharp:
"Game's up, my boy; sta
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