It had gone two o’clock. The morning’s work was done, a hasty luncheon disposed of, and the investigators were back in the dockmaster’s house discussing the curious features of the case again.
“And now, gentlemen,” said Cleek, “to the unsolved part of the riddle—the mysterious manner in which the messages were sent from this house. For sent from here they undoubtedly were, and by Sophie Borovonski; but the question of how still remains to be discovered.”
“I make it that it’s the devil’s own work, Mr. Cleek,” said MacInery, “and that there must have been some accident connected with it, the same as with the taking off of the wire-tapping chap.”
“Hardly that, I’m afraid,” replied Cleek. “I think it was accident which put astopto the proceedings here, not one which created them. We now know perfectly well that the woman was in this house—undiscovered and unsuspected for days; and you may safely lay your life that she wasn’t idle, wasn’t stopping here for nothing. The pile of papers burnt shows very clearly that considerable intelligence had been forwarded to her brother, so it is safe to infer that she was wiring it to him constantly.”
“But how was it possible for her to obtain that information?” queried Sir Charles. “I again declare to you most solemnly, Mr. Cleek, that no one entered or left the room, that no word was spoken that could be said to have any bearing upon secret matters, so nothing could possibly be overheard; and how could the woman read documentswhich were never out of our sight for a minute? Granted that she had some means of wiring intelligence to her brother—indeed, we now know that to have been the case—how under God’s heaven did she obtain that intelligence?”
“Well, that’s a facer, certainly, Sir Charles; but with such a past-mistress of ingenuity as she—well, you never know. Sure she couldn’t possibly have managed to get into the room and hide herself somewhere, you think?”
“I am positive she couldn’t. The thing isn’t possible. There’s no place where shecouldhave hidden. Come in and see.”
He unlocked the door and, followed by the rest, led the way into the room where the inquiry into the dockmaster’s affairs had been held. A glance about it was sufficient to corroborate Sir Charles’s statement.
On one side stood a large fireproof safe, closely locked; on the other were two windows—iron-grilled and with inside shutters of steel; at one end was a large flat-topped table, at which Sir Charles and MacInery had conducted their investigation of the books, et cetera, and at the other a smaller writing-table, upon which stood a typewriter set on a sound-deadening square of felt, and over which hung a white-disked electric bulb. There were five chairs, and not another mortal thing. No cupboard, no wardrobe, no chest—nothing under heaven in which a creature any bigger than a cat could have hidden.
“You see,” said Sir Charles, with a wave of the hand, “she couldn’t have hidden in here, neither could she have hidden outside and overheard, for nothing was said that could have been of any use to her.”
“Quite confident of that?”
“Oh, I can answer for that, Mr. Cleek,” put in young Grimsdick. “We were so careful upon that point that Sir Charles never dictated even the smallest thing that hewanted recorded; merely passed over the papers and said: ‘Copy that where I have marked it’; and to save my table from being overcrowded, I scratched down the marked paragraphs in shorthand, and prepared to transcribe them on the typewriter later. Why, sir, look here; the diabolical part of the mystery is that those two fragments of sentences flashed out at the telegraph office at the time of that frightful peal of thunder, and at that very instant I was in the act of transcribing them on the typewriter.”
“Hello! Hello!” rapped out Cleek, twitching round sharply. “Sure of that, are you—absolutely sure?”
“Beyond all question, Mr. Cleek. Sir Charles will tell you that the thunder-clap was so violent and so sudden that both he and Mr. MacInery fairly jumped. As for me, I was so startled that I struck a wrong letter by mistake and had to rub out a word and type it over again. Come and see. The paper is still on my table, and I can show you the erasure and the alteration. Now, nobody could have seen that paper, at that particular time; not a solitary word had been spoken with regard to it, and it wasn’t more than half a minute before that Sir Charles himself had taken it out of the safe. Look, sir, here’s the paper and here’s the place where I erased the word—see?”
Cleek walked over to the typewriter and looked at the paper, saw the erasure, lifted it, looked at other typed sheets lying under it, and then knotted up his brows.
“H’m!” he said reflectively, and looked farther. “You’ve got a devilish hard touch for a man who does this sort of thing constantly, and ought therefore to be an adept in the art of typewriting evenly. And there are other errors and erasures. Look here, my friend, I don’t believe you’re used to this machine.”
“No, sir, I’m not. I’m not accustomed to a shift key. My own machine hasn’t one.”
“Your own! By Gad! What are you using this machinefor, then, if you’ve got one of your own? And why didn’t you bring your own when you came here on important business like this?”
“I did; but as we found this one already here I started in on it; and when I found it difficult to work, I went out to get my own, which I’d left in the outer room, just as I’d taken it from the carrier who brought it over. But the careless beggar must have handled it as if it were a trunk, for the spring was broken, the carriage wouldn’t work, and two of the type bars were snapped off.”
“ByJupiter!” Cleek’s voice struck in so suddenly and with such vehemence that it was almost a bark, like that of a startled terrier, and Mr. Narkom, knowing the signs, fairly jumped at him.
“You’ve found out something,Iknow!” he cried. “What is it, old chap—eh?”
“Let me alone, let me alone!” flung back Cleek, irritably. “I want the dockmaster! I want him at once! Where is the man? Oh, there you are, Mr. Beachman. Speak up—quickly. Was that ‘Hilmann’ woman ever allowed to enter this room? Did she ever make use of this typewriter at any time?”
“Yes, sir—often,” he replied. “She was one of the best and most careful typists I ever saw. Used to attend to all my correspondence for me and——Good God, man, what are you doing? Don’t you know that that thing’s Government property?”
For Cleek, not waiting for him to finish what he was saying, had suddenly laid hands on the machine, found it screwed fast to the table and, catching up the nearest chair, was now smashing and banging away at it with all his force.
“Government destruction, you mean!” he gave back sharply. “Didn’t I tell you she was a very demon of ingenuity, stupid? Didn’t I say——Victory! Now then,look here—all of you! Here’s a pretty little contrivance, if you like.”
He had battered the typewriter from its fastenings and sent it crashing to the floor, a wreck, not ten seconds before; now, his hand, which, immediately thereafter, had been moving rapidly over the surface of the sound-deadening square of felt beneath, whisked that, too, from the table, and let them all see the discovery he had made.
Protruding from the surface of that table and set at regular intervals there were forty-two needle points of steel—one for each key of the typewriter—which a moment before had pierced the felt’s surface just sufficient to meet the bottom of the “key” above it, and to be driven downward when that key was depressed.
Spectacular as ever in these times, he faced about and gave his hand an outward fling.
“Gentlemen, the answer to the riddle,” he said. “You have been supplying her with the needed information yourselves. A ducat to a door knob, every time a letter was struck on this machine its exact duplicate was recorded somewhere else. Get a saw, Mr. Beachman, and let us see to what these steel points lead.”
They led to a most ingenious contrivance, as it turned out. A highly sensitive spiral spring attached to an “arm” of thin, tough steel beneath the surface of the table communicated with a rigid wire running down the wall behind one of that table’s back legs and, passing thence through a small gimlet-hole in the floor, descended and disappeared.
Following that wire’s course, they, too, descended until, in the fulness of time, the end was reached in a far corner of the cellar underneath the building.
There, behind an upturned empty cask, they came upon yet another wire, which wound upward, and was found afterward to travel out and up beside the “leader” until it joined the private wire of the dockyard just outside thedormer window of what had once been Miss Greta Hilmann’s bedroom. And to these wires—the one descending and the other ascending from behind that empty cask in the cellar—there was a singular contrivance attached. To one, a plain, everyday instrument for dispatching telegrams by the Morse system; to the other, a curious little keyboard which was an exact counterpart of the keyboard to the typewriter upstairs; and besides this there lay some remnants of food from the store cupboard of the house, and a sheaf of paper leaves covered with typewritten characters.
“Gentlemen, the absolute end of the riddle at last,” said Cleek as he took up one of those leaves. “Look at them—Government secrets every one. And I, like an ass, forgot to remember that Nicolo Ferrand was one of the cleverest mechanicians and one of the craftiest ‘wire workers’ that the underworld boasts. Look, Sir Charles; look, Mr. Narkom. Every touch of a letter on the keyboard of the typewriter upstairs registered its exact duplicate on this infernal contrivance down here, and fast as it was recorded, that vixen wired it on to Boris Borovonski. Can’t you understand now why she left her post and flew to him? The shock which killed him and travelled with lessened force down the wire to the telegraph operator was felt here, and the instrument she used was, in all probability, disabled. She knew then, of course, that something had happened to her brother, and in a panic flew to find out what.
“But even the shrewdest slip up sometimes and overlook things. Her foolish slip lay in this: that she forgot to take with her these original drafts of the intelligence she had wired to the dead man.”
“Ah, weel,” said Mr. Alexander MacInery, who, like a true Scotsman, never liked to be found at the small end of the horn upon any occasion, “after all, ’tis no more than I expected. I said it was accident that was at the bottom of it, and accident it’s turned out to be.”
“No doubt,” agreed Cleek, with one of his peculiar smiles. “But, personally, I always like to think that there’s a Power above, and when men—andnations—have played the game squarely——Shan’t we be going upstairs, Sir Charles? Mr. Narkom and I have a long ride back to town, and the afternoon is on the decline.”
It was still farther on that road, however, before he was able to actually tear himself away from the dockyard and be off home; for there were those little legal necessities which are the penalty of dealing with Government affairs to be attended to; there was the boring business of meeting high officials, and listening to compliments and congratulations, and he was really glad when the limousine, answering to orders, rolled up, the final good-byes were said, and he and Mr. Narkom swung off townward together.
But despite the fact that he had just carried to a successful conclusion a case which would go far to enhance his reputation and to hasten the day for which he had so long and so earnestly worked, Cleek was singularly uncommunicative, markedly abstracted, as they rode back through the streets of Portsmouth Town on their way to the highroad; and had the superintendent been more observant and less wrapped up in the glory that was to be theirs as the result of the day’s adventure, he might have discovered that, while his ally seemed to be dozing stupidly when he was not leaning back in a corner and smoking, he was all the time keeping a close watch of the crowded streets through which they were speeding as if looking for some one or something he expected to see. Nor did he relax this peculiar system of vigilance even after the town itself had dropped away into the far distance, and the car was scudding along over the broad stretches and the less-frequented thoroughfares of the open country.
“I shall not go all the way back with you, if you don’tmind, Mr. Narkom,” he said, breaking silence abruptly, as they raced along. “Just set me down at the place where you picked me up this morning, please, and I will do the rest of the journey by train.”
“Cinnamon! Why?”
“Oh, just a mere whim of mine, that’s all. No—don’t press me for an explanation, please. ‘Where ignorance is bliss,’ et cetera. Besides, I’m a whimsical beggar at best, you know—and who bothers to inquire why a donkey prefers thistles to hay? So just drop me down when we reach the outskirts of Guildford, if you will be so kind.”
Mr. Narkom was discreet enough to drop the subject at that and to make no further allusion to the matter until they came, in the fulness of time, to the place in question. Here he called Lennard to a halt, and Cleek alighted—not furtively, nor yet in haste—and, standing beside the car, reached in and shook hands with him.
“Until you want me again,” he smiled in his easy, offhand way. “And if that turns out to be a long time off I shan’t be sorry. Meanwhile, if you wish to do me a favour, look about for a limousine of another make and a quite different colour. I’ve an odd idea that this one is fast coming to the end of its career of usefulness. Good-bye. All right, Lennard—let her go.”
Then the door of the car closed with a smack, and he was off and away—so openly and at such a leisurely pace that it was clear he had neither need nor desire to effect a getaway unobserved.
“Well, I’ll be dashed!” was Mr. Narkom’s unspoken comment upon the proceeding—for, under his hat, he had come to the conclusion that Cleek had, in some way, by some unconfessed means, learned that Waldemar or the Apache had come back into the game and were again on his heels, but had said nothing for fear of worrying him. “Walking off as cool as you please and never the firstattempt to come any of his old Vanishing Cracksman’s dodges. Amazing beggar! What’s he up to now, I wonder?”
It is just possible that could he have followed he would have wondered still more, for Cleek was bearing straight down upon the populous portions of the town, and about ten minutes after the two had parted, struck into the High Street, walked along it for a short distance, studying the signs over the various buildings until, sighting one which announced that it was the Guildford Office of the Royal British Life Assurance Society, he crossed the street, and with great deliberation passed in under it, and disappeared from sight.
It was one of the contradictory points of his singularly contradictory character, that whereas he had chafed under the delay in getting away from the Royal dockyard at Portsea because he was eager to get back to his work in the little old walled garden, and all his thoughts were with the flowers he was preparing forher, in the end he did not see the place until after the moon was up, and all hope of gardening for that day had to be abandoned entirely, yet—he came back to Dollops whistling and as happy as a sandboy.
He was up with the first cock crow next morning, and dawn found him plying fork and rake and trowel among the flowers, and positively bubbling over with enthusiasm; for the budding roses were just beginning to show colour and to give promise of full bloom for the day of days—and more than that he did not ask of heaven.
Indeed, it was written that he might not, for the balance had again swung over, the call of Nature again sounded, and the Great Mother, taking him to her bosom, had again merged the Man in the Idealist and cradled him into forgetfulness of all spells but hers. So that all through the day he went in and out among his flowers whistling andsinging and living in a sort of ecstasy that ran on like a dream without end.
On the morrow the little garden was all finished and ready, and nothing now remained but to sit in idleness and wait.
May had smiled itself out and June had blushed itself in—the most wondrous June, in Cleek’s eyes, the world had ever seen. For the long waiting was over, the old order of things had changed, the little house in the meadowlands had its new tenant, andshewas in England again.
It did not fret him, as it otherwise might have done, that he and Dollops had been obliged to go back to the old business of lodging a week here and a week there in the heart of the town, rather than within reach of the green trees and the fragrant meadows he loved, for always there was the chance of stealing out to meet her in the glorious country-lands when the evening came, or of a whole day with her in the woods and fields when a whole day could be spared; and to a nature such as his these things were recompense enough.
Not that many days could be spared at present, for, although nothing had been seen or heard of Waldemar or the Apaches for weeks on end, these were strenuous times for Mr. Narkom and the forces of the Yard, and what with the Coronation of his Majesty close at hand, and every train discharging hordes of visitors into London day in and day out, and crooks of every description—homemade as well as imported—from the swell mobsman down to the common lag making it the Mecca of an unholy pilgrimage—they had their hands filled to overflowing, and were worked to their utmost capacity.
The result, so far as Cleek was concerned, scarcely needs recording. It was not in him to be guilty of that form of snobbishness which is known as “standing on his dignity”at such a time—when the man who had stood his friend was in need of help, indeed, might lose his official head if he were found wanting in such a crisis—so that, naturally, he came to Mr. Narkom’s assistance and took a hand in the “sorting out” process in the manner—yes, and at times, in the uniform, too—of the ordinary constable, and proved of such invaluable aid in the matter of scenting out undesirables and identifying professional crooks that things speedily fell into a more orderly shape, and he had just begun to look forward to a resumption of those happy days of wandering in the woods with Ailsa when out of the lull of coming peace there fell an official bombshell.
It took the form of a cablegram—a belated cipher communication from the police of America to the police of Great Britain—which on being decoded, ran thus:
“Just succeeded in tracing 218. Sailed ten days ago onTunisian—Allan Line—from Canada, under name of Hammond. Woman with him. Handsome blonde. Passing as sister. Believed to be 774.”
“Just succeeded in tracing 218. Sailed ten days ago onTunisian—Allan Line—from Canada, under name of Hammond. Woman with him. Handsome blonde. Passing as sister. Believed to be 774.”
Now as this little exchange of courtesies relative to the movements of the noted figures of the underworld is of almost daily occurrence between the police systems of the two countries in question, Mr. Narkom had only to consult his Code Book to get at the gist of the matter; and when he did get at it, his little fat legs bent under him like a couple of straws, his round little body collapsed into the nearest chair, and he came within a hair’s breadth of having a “stroke.”
For theTunisian, as it happened, had docked and discharged her passengers exactly thirteen hours before, so that it was safe to declare that the persons to whom those numerals alluded had unquestionably slipped unchallenged past the guardians of the port, and were safely housed at this minute within the intricacies of that vast brick-and-mortarpuzzle, London; yet here they were registered in the Code Book, thus:
“No. 218—Nicholas Hemmingway, popularly known as ‘Diamond Nick.’ American. Expert swindler, confidence man and jewel thief. Ex-actor and very skilful at impersonation. See Rogues’ Gallery for portrait.“No. 774—Ella Plawsen, variously known to members of the light-fingered fraternity as ‘Dutch Ella’ and ‘Lady Bell.’ German-American. Probably the most adroit female jewel thief in existence. Highly educated, exceedingly handsome, and amazingly plausible and quick witted. Usually does the ‘society dodge.’ Natural blonde, and about twenty-five years old. No photograph obtainable.”
“No. 218—Nicholas Hemmingway, popularly known as ‘Diamond Nick.’ American. Expert swindler, confidence man and jewel thief. Ex-actor and very skilful at impersonation. See Rogues’ Gallery for portrait.
“No. 774—Ella Plawsen, variously known to members of the light-fingered fraternity as ‘Dutch Ella’ and ‘Lady Bell.’ German-American. Probably the most adroit female jewel thief in existence. Highly educated, exceedingly handsome, and amazingly plausible and quick witted. Usually does the ‘society dodge.’ Natural blonde, and about twenty-five years old. No photograph obtainable.”
Within forty-five minutes after Mr. Narkom had mastered these facts he had rushed with them to Cleek, and there was a vacancy in the list of special constables from that time forth.
“Slipped in, have they?” said Cleek when he heard. “Well, be sure of one thing, Mr. Narkom: they will not have gone to a hotel—at least in the beginning—they are far too sharp for that. Neither will they house themselves in any hole and corner where their sallying forth in fine feathers to make their little clean-up would occasion comment and so lead to a clue. Indeed, I shouldn’t be surprised if they were far too shrewd to remain together in any place, but will elect to operate singly, appear to have no connection whatsoever, while they are here, and to have a sort of ‘happy reunion’ elsewhere after their little job has been pulled off successfully. But in any case, when we find them—if we ever do—depend upon it they will be located in some quiet, respectable, secluded district, one of the suburbs, for instance, and living as circumspectly as the most prudish of prying neighbours could desire.
“Let us then go in for a series of ‘walking tours’ about the outlying districts, Mr. Narkom, and see if we can’t stumbleover something that will be worth while. It is true I’ve never met nor even seen Hemmingway, but I fancy I should know if a man were made up or not for the rôle in which he appears. I did, however, brush elbows with Dutch Ella once. It was that time I went over to New York on that affair of the Amsterdam diamonds.Youremember? When I ‘split’ the reward with the fellow from Mulberry Street, whose daughter wanted to study music as a profession and he couldn’t afford to let her. I hobnobbed with some acquaintances of the—er—old days, over there, and went one night to the big French Ball at the Academy of Music, where, my companion of the night told me, there would be ‘a smashing big clean-up, as half the swell crooks in town would be there—for business.’
“They were, I dare say, for he kept pointing out this one and that to me and saying, ‘That’s so and so!’ as they danced past us. I shouldn’t know any of them again, so far as looks are concerned, for the annual French Ball in New York is a masked ball, as you are, perhaps, aware; and I shouldn’t know ‘Dutch Ella’ any better than the rest, but for one thing—although I danced with her.”
“Danced with her, Cleek? Danced?”
“Yes. For the purpose of ‘getting a line on her shape,’ so to speak, for possible future reference. I couldn’t see her face, for she was masked to the very chin; but there’s a curious, tumor-like lump, as big as a hen’s egg, just under her right shoulder-blade, and there’s the scar of an acid burn on the back of her left hand that she’ll carry to her grave. I shall know that scar if ever I see it again. And if by any chance I should run foul of a woman bearing one like it, and that woman should prove to have also a lump under the right shoulder-blade——Come along! Let’s get out and see if we can find one. ‘Time flies,’ as the anarchist said when he blew up the clock factory. Let’s toddle.”
They “toddled” forthwith, but on a fruitless errand, as it proved. Nevertheless, they “toddled” again the next day as hopefully as ever; and the next after that, and the next again, yet at the end of the fourth they were no nearer any clue to the whereabouts of Dutch Ella and Diamond Nick than they had been in the beginning. If, as Cleek sometimes fancied, they had not merely passed through England on their way to the Continent, but were still here, housed like hawks in a safe retreat from which they made predatory excursions under the very noses of the police, there was nothing to signalize it. No amazing jewel theft, no affair of such importance as one engineered by them would be sure to be, had as yet been reported to the Yard; and for all clue there was to their doings or their whereabouts one might as well have set out to find last summer’s roses or last winter’s snow as hope to pick it up by any method as yet employed.
Thus matters stood when on the morning of the fifth day Cleek elected to make Hampstead Heath and its environments the scene of their operations, and at nine o’clock set forth in company with the superintendent to put them into force in that particular locality, with the result that by noontime they found themselves in the thick of as pretty a riddle as they had fallen foul of in many a day.
It came about in this way:
Turning out of St. Uldred’s road into a quiet, tree-shaded avenue running parallel with the historic heath, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Vale of Health district, they looked up to discover that there was but one building in the entire length of the thoroughfare—a large, imposing residence set back from the road proper, and encircled by a high stone wall with curiously wrought iron gates leading into the enclosure—and that before that building two copper-skinned, turbaned, fantastically clothed Hindus were doing sentry duty in a manner peculiar unto themselves—theone standing as motionless as a bronze image before the barred gateway, and the other pacing up and down before him like a clockwork toy that had been well wound up.
“The Punjab for a ducat!” declared Cleek as he caught sight of them. “And the insignia of the Ranee of Jhang, or I’m a Dutchman. I knew the old girl was over here for the coronation, to be sure, but I’d no idea of stumbling over some of her attendants in this quarter, by Jip! Not putting up out here of late, is she, Mr. Narkom?”
“No. She’s still at Kensington. And what the dickens those johnnies are keeping guard over that place for beats us. Know it, don’t you? It’s the residence of Sir Mawson Leake—Leake & Leake, you know: Jewellers, Bond Street. Fine old place, isn’t it? Inherited it from his father, as he did the business, and——What’s that? No, not a young man—not a young man by any means. Grown children—two sons. One by his first wife, and——Hullo! that’s a rum trick, by James! See that, did you, old chap?”
“See what? The manner in which that clockwork johnnie stopped in his tracks and eyed us as we passed?”
“No. The woman. All muffled up to the eyes—and in weather like this. Just stepped out of the house door, saw those two niggers, and then bolted back indoors as if the Old Boy was after her.”
“Caught sight of us, very likely. You know what high-class Brahmans are where Europeans are concerned. It will be the old Ranee herself, three to one, paying a morning visit to the jeweller in reference to some of her amazing gems. That would explain the presence of the sentries. She travels nowhere without a guard.”
“To be sure,” admitted the superintendent, and walked on, dropping the matter from his mind entirely.
Ten minutes later, however, it was brought back to it ina rather startling manner; for, upon rounding the end of the thoroughfare along which they had been walking, and coming abreast of an isolated building (which was clearly the stable of the house they had recently passed), they were surprised to hear the sound of a muffled cry within, to catch a whiff of charcoal smoke as the door was flung wildly open by the same muffled female Mr. Narkom had observed previously, and something more than merely startled to have her rush at them the instant she caught sight of them, crying out distractedly:
“I was afraid of it, I knew it! I knew that he would! Oh, help me, gentlemen—help me for the love of God! I can’t lift him. I can’t drag him out—he is too heavy for me! My husband! In there! Inthere! He’ll die if you don’t get him out!”
They understood then, and for the first time, what she was driving at, and rushed past her into the stable—into what had once been designed for a coachman’s bedroom—to find an apartment literally reeking with the fumes that poured out from a charcoal furnace on the floor, and beside that the body of a man—inert, crumpled up, fast sinking into that hopeless state of unconsciousness which precedes asphyxiation by charcoal.
In the winking of an eye Cleek had caught up the deadly little firebrick furnace and sent it crashing through the plugged-up window into the grounds behind, letting a current of pure air rush through the place; then, while Narkom, with one hand over his mouth and nostrils, and the other swinging a pair of handcuffs by their chain, was doing a like thing with another window in the front wall, he gathered up the semi-conscious man, swung him sacklike over his shoulder, carried him out into the roadway, and propped him up against the side of the stable, while he chafed his hands and smacked his cheeks and, between times, fanned him with his hatbrim and swore at him for a “weak-backed, marrowlessthing to call itself a man, and yet go in for the poltroon’s trick of suicide!”
The woman was still there, squeezing her hands and sobbing hysterically, but although she had not as yet uncovered her face, it did not need that to attest the fact that she was no Hindu, but white like the man she had spoken of as her husband, and at the very first words she uttered when she saw that he was beyond danger, both Cleek and Narkom knew them for what they were—Sir Mawson and Lady Leake.
“Mawson, how could you!” she said reproachfully, going to him the very instant he was able to get on his feet, and folding him to her in an agonized embrace. “I suspected it when you left the house—but, oh, how could you?”
“I don’t know,” he made answer, somewhat shamefacedly yet with a note of agony in his voice that made one pity him in spite of all. “But it seemed too horrible a disgrace to be lived through. And now I shall have to face it! Oh, my God, Ada, it is too much to ask a man to bear! They are there, on guard, those Hindus, protecting me and mine until the Ranee’s steward comes to receive the Ladder of Light, as promised, at——”
“Sh-h!” she struck in warningly, remembering the presence of the others, and clapping her hand over his mouth to stay any further admission; for she had heard Cleek repeat after her husband—but with a soft significant whistle—“The Ladder of Light!” and supplement that with, “Well, I’m dashed!” and turned round on him instantly with a forced smile upon her lips but the look of terror still lingering in her fast-winking eyes.
“It is rude of me, gentlemen, to forget to thank you for your kind assistance, and I ask your forgiveness,” she said. “I owe you many, many thanks and I am endeavouring to express them. But as this is merely a little family affair I am sure you will understand.”
It was a polite dismissal. Narkom pivoted his little fat body on his heel, and prepared to take it. Cleek didn’t.
“Your pardon, but the Ladder of Light can never be regarded as a family affair inanyEnglish household whatsoever,” he said, blandly. “I can give you its exact history if you wish it. It is a necklace said to have once been the property of the Queen of Sheba and worn by her at the court of King Solomon. It is made up of twelve magnificent steel-white diamonds, cut semi-square, and each weighing twenty-eight and one half carats. They are joined together by slender gold links fitting into minute holes pierced through the edge of each stone. It is valued at one million pounds sterling and is the property of the Ranee of Jhang, who prizes it above all other of her marvellous and priceless jewels. She is not a pleasant old lady to cross, the Ranee. She would be a shrieking devil if anything were to happen to that necklace, your ladyship.”
She had been slowly shrinking from him as the history of the Ladder of Light proceeded; now she leaned back against her husband, full of surprise and despairing terror, and stared and stared in a silence that was only broken by little fluttering breaths of alarm.
“It is uncanny!” she managed to say at last. “You know of that? Of the necklace? You know even me?—us?—and yet I have not uncovered my face nor given you my name. Are you then gifted with clairvoyance, Mr.—Mr.——”
“Cleek,” he gave back, making her a polite bow. “Cleek is the name, Lady Leake. Cleek of Scotland Yard.”
“That man? Dear God! that amazing man?” she cried, her whole face lighting up, her drooping figure springing erect, revitalized.
“At your ladyship’s service,” he replied. “We are out this morning—Superintendent Narkom and I—in quest of what is probably the most skilful and audacious pair ofjewel thieves in the world—just the one particular pair in all the universe to whom a loot so valuable as the Ladder of Light would offer the strongest kind of an appeal. So, if by any chance, something has occurred which threatens the safety of that amazing necklace—and you and Sir Mawson are in a position to know the facts——Come! Take me into your confidence, and—perhaps! Who knows?”
Before he had fairly finished speaking, Lady Leake caught up his hand, and, holding it fast squeezed in both her own, looked up at him with bright, wet eyes.
“It must have been heaven itself that sent you to us this morning,” she cried. “If any man in the worldcanhelp us, I believe in my soul that you are the man. Mawson, you hear, dearest? It is Mr. Cleek. The wonderful Mr. Cleek. Why didn’t we think ofhimbefore? Tell him, Mawson—tell him everything, my dear.”
Sir Mawson acted upon the suggestion instantly.
“Mr. Cleek, I beg, I implore you to come to our assistance!” he exclaimed in a very transport of excitement. “Lady Leake is right. If any mancan, you are he! You ask if anything has happened with regard to that accursed necklace and if I can give you any information on the subject? To both questions, yes! It is gone! It is lost! It is stolen!”
“What’s that? Stolen? The Ladder of Light? Good heavens! When? Where? How?”
“Yesterday—from my keeping! From my house! And God have mercy on me, I have every reason to believe that the thief is my eldest son!”
It was a full minute later and in all that minute’s length no one had spoken, no one had made a single sound.
The shock, the shame, of such a confession, telling, as it did, why he had attempted to destroy himself, had crumpled the man up, taken all the vitality out of him. He faced round and leaned his bent arm against the wall of the stable, hid his face in the crook of it, and Cleek, pitying him, let him have that minute all to himself. Then:
“Come,” he said, very gently, going over to him and patting him on the shoulder. “Buck up! Buck up! There’s nothing in all the world so deceptive as appearances, Sir Mawson; perhaps, when I’ve heard the facts——Well, haven’t I told you that I am out for a pair of expert jewel thieves, and that that necklace is just the sort of thing they’d be likely to make play for? How do you know, then, that they didn’t?”
“I wish I could believe that, I wish I could even hope it,” he gave back miserably. “But you don’t know the facts, Mr. Cleek.”
“To be sure I don’t; and they’re what I’m after. Let’s have them, please. To begin with, how came the Ladder of Light to be in your possession at all?”
“It was brought to me yesterday—for repairing—by the Ranee’s ownmajor domo. Not a merecice, Mr. Cleek, but the most trusted of all her henchmen. Three of the narrow gold links which hold the stones together had worn thin and needed strengthening. It was four o’clock in theafternoon when he arrived, and the Ranee, he said, had selected our house for the work on the recommendation of royalty. There was several hours’ work on the thing—I saw that the instant I examined it. But I was appalled by the fearful responsibility of having a jewel of such fabulous value on the premises—with people constantly coming in and going out—and determined, therefore, to take it home and do the repairs myself. I informed the Ranee’smajor domoof that resolution, and demanded of him a guard of the Ranee’s own attendants to accompany me on the journey and to keep watch over my house until he should come in person to receive the necklace to-day.
“He accorded me this willingly; departed—still retaining possession of the jewel, for I would not have it left with me at any cost—returned with the guard an hour later, handed me the case containing the necklace, and I left for home a few minutes after five—and the Hindu guard with me. On arriving——”
“One moment, please,” interposed Cleek. “Did you examine the case to see if the Ladder of Light was still there before you started?”
“Yes, Mr. Cleek. I have no very great faith in Hindus at any time, so you may be sure I took that precaution the instant the man placed the case in my hands. The necklace was there. I even went further. Before leaving my place of business I submitted the stones to chemical test to be sure that no substitution had been made. They were absolutely genuine; so that there can be no shadow of doubt that it was the Ladder of Light itself I carried home with me. On arriving at my residence I stationed the two Hindu guards at the front gate, entered the house, and was upon the point of going immediately to my study to subject the stones to yet another chemical test—to make sure that no trickery had been practised upon me by the Hindus on the journey—when I was unexpectedly pounced upon inthe main hallway by my son, Henry, who was in a greatly excited state and attempted to renew the subject of our unpleasant interview of the day before.”
Here Sir Mawson’s voice grew curiously thick and unsteady. He paused a moment as if ashamed to go on, then stiffened himself and continued.
“Mr. Cleek,” he said, agitatedly, “it is necessary that I should tell you, at this point, something with regard to those who make up the members of my household.”
“You needn’t. I have already heard. Lady Leake is, I believe, your second wife, and you have two sons.”
“No—three,” he corrected. “Henry, my eldest, who is twenty-four and is the only survivor of the children of my first and most unhappy marriage; Curzon, who is just entering his twenty-first year, and Bevis, who has not yet turned seven, and is, of course, still in the nursery. I may as well admit to you, Mr. Cleek, that my first marriage was a failure; that it was none of my own choosing, but was consummated in deference to the will and wishes of my parents. We were utterly unsuited to each other, my first wife and I, and it is, no doubt, only natural that the son she left me when death delivered us both from an irksome bondage should reflect in himself some of those points of difference which made our union a mistake.
“Don’t misunderstand me, however. He is very dear to me—dear, too, to his stepmother, who loves him as her own, and the one strong feature in his character is the love he gives her in return. Then, too, he is my first born, my heir, and no man fails to love that first child that ever called him father.”
“No man could fail to love this particular one at all events, Mr. Cleek,” put in her ladyship. “Wild, reckless, extravagant—yes! But at heart, the dearest boy!”
“Just so!” interposed Cleek. “But let us get on, please. So this ‘dearest boy’ had an unpleasant interview with youthe day before yesterday, did he, Sir Mawson? What was it about?”
“The usual thing—money. He is extravagant to the point of insanity. I’ve paid his debts until my patience is quite worn out, hoping against hope that he will reform. At that interview, however, he asked for a thing I wouldnotlisten to—£200 to settle a gambling debt at his club: to take up an I. O. U. that would get him blacklisted as a defaulter if it were not met. ‘Then get blacklisted!’ I said to him, ‘if there’s no other way to cut you off from the worthless lot you associate yourself with. You’ll not get one farthing from me to settle any such disgraceful thing as a gambling debt, rest assured of that!’ Then I walked out of the room and left him, and that was the last I saw of him until he pounced upon me in the hall yesterday when I was going to my study with the case containing the Ranee’s necklace.
“That was the subject he wanted to renew. He’d been to town, he said, and had had a talk with the man to whom he had given the I. O. U., ‘and dad, if you’ll only do it just this once—just this one lastonce!’ he was saying when I interrupted him. ‘I’ve no time to listen now, and no inclination. I’ve important business to attend to,’ I said, then waved him aside and went into the study and locked the door while I attended to the matter of applying the acid test to the diamonds for the second time.
“Meanwhile, he had gone up to Lady Leake’s boudoir to implore her to use her influence with me, and he was still there when, after the stones had again answered to the acid test, I carried the necklace up there (to leave it in her charge for the brief time it would take me to prepare the tools and materials for the work in hand) and told her all about it. But I didn’t know that at the time, Mr. Cleek, for he was sitting in a deep, cushioned armchair at the far end of the room, and the tall back of that chair was turned toward me. Indeed, I hadn’t the faintest suspicion that there was anybody but Lady Leake and myself in the room until he got up suddenly and said, ‘Dad, you aren’t too busy to listen now! Won’t you let me ask you what I was going to do downstairs? Won’t you, dad? Please!’
Cleek hears that the fabulous “Ladder of Light” is back in London again.
Cleek hears that the fabulous “Ladder of Light” is back in London again.
Young Mawson overhears his parents discussing the problem of the jewel. “He is extravagant to the point of insanity,” said Sir Mawson.
Young Mawson overhears his parents discussing the problem of the jewel. “He is extravagant to the point of insanity,” said Sir Mawson.
“Of course he had heard what I had said, Mr. Cleek—although I never gave a thought to that at the time—and as Lady Leake had, womanlike, taken the gorgeous necklace out of the case, held it up to her neck and was then viewing herself in her dressing mirror, it followed that he also saw. But how could I dream of there being anything in that to regret, and he a son of mine? It was only—afterward—when it came back to my memory——Good God! it is too horrible to think of even now, much less to talk about!”
“Steady, steady, Sir Mawson!” sounded Cleek’s soothing voice. “Brakes on! Sidetrack your emotions if you can and stick to the mainline! Well, what followed?”
“I have no very clear recollection, Mr. Cleek, for just then Lady Leake chose to add her entreaties to his, and to ask me if I would permit her to draw her next quarter’s pin money in advance and let her take up the I. O. U. for him. But I was so furious at the thought of his skulking in like a beggar and a cad, and trying to ‘bleed’ her, that I flew into a violent rage, ordered him out of the room instantly, and forbade his stepmother to lend or give him one farthing either then or at any time thereafter. ‘There will be no gambler’s I. O. U.’s taken up for you by anybody in this house,’ I flung at him. ‘If you are in debt, get out of it in your own way and as best you can!’
“I think that even then I was conscious of a sense of gratification at the way he took that ultimatum, Mr. Cleek, for instead of whining like a whipped cur, he pulled himself up straight and strong, clicked his heels together, and said very quietly, ‘All right, sir, I’ll take you at your word.Thank you for past favours. Good-bye!’ and then walked out of the room. That was the last I have seen or heard of him.”
“H’m! Leave the house, did he?”
“Yes—but not then. That was a few minutes before seven. A servant saw him on the top landing coming out of his own room with something wrapped up in a parcel, after that. And another, who was busy cleaning up in the lower hall, saw him come down and go out at ten minutes past.”
“And in the meantime, the Ladder of Light had vanished?”
“Yes. After Henry had left the boudoir I had a few minutes’ heated argument with Lady Leake; then, remembering the work I had in hand, I left the necklace in her charge and hurried away to rig up a temporary workshop. It was about twenty minutes past seven when I finished doing that, and went back to Lady Leake’s boudoir to get the jewel. I found her in a state of the wildest excitement, flying about the room like an insane woman and searching everywhere. The necklace was gone! Only for one single minute of time had it been out of her sight, yet in that minute it had vanished, utterly and completely, and there was not a trace of it to be found anywhere.”
“H’m! Just so! Case gone, too, Sir Mawson?”
“No! That was still there, lying on her dressing-table, but it was empty.”
“I see. So, then, it could not have been that that was wrapped up in the parcel your son was seen carrying. Anybody in that room after Sir Mawson left you, your ladyship?”
“Not a living soul, Mr. Cleek.”
“Could no one have stolen it without your knowledge?”
“That would be impossible. I locked the door the instant Sir Mawson left me.”
“Ah, then, of course! Another question, please. Sir Mawson has spoken of there being ‘one single minute’ when the necklace was not directly under your eyes. When was that?”
“When I left the room, Mr. Cleek.”
“Oho! Then you did leave it, eh?”
“Yes. It was thoughtless of me, of course; but I only ran down to the foot of the staircase, when I remembered, and ran back in a perfect panic. Still I had locked the door in going out even then and the key was in my hand. It was still locked when I returned, but in that one single minute the necklace had disappeared. I was gratifying my woman’s vanity by holding it up to my throat and viewing myself in the glass just an instant before, and I remember perfectly, laying it down on the velvet lining of its open case at the time I recollected the matter which caused me to leave the room.”
“May I ask what that matter was?”
“Yes. A service I had promised to perform for Miss Eastman.”
“Miss Eastman? Who is she?”
“My son’s fiancée. She and her father are visiting us at present. Curzon met and became engaged to Miss Eastman on the occasion of her last visit to England, and this time her father is accompanying her.”
“Her lastvisit?Then the lady and her father are not English?”
“Oh, dear, no—Americans. They came over less than a week ago. Pardon? No, I do not at the moment recall the name of the vessel, Mr. Cleek, but whichever one it was it seems to have been a very ill-conditioned affair and gave them a very bad crossing, indeed. That is why I had to render Miss Eastman the service of which I spoke—the sudden recollection of which caused me to lay down the necklace and hurry from the room. I had forgotten allabout it until I happened to see the roll of lint on my dressing-table.”
“Lint, Lady Leake? What on earth had lint to do with the matter?”
“I had bought it for Miss Eastman when I was in town this morning. She asked me to, as she had used her last clean bandage yesterday. She had a very bad fall on shipboard, Mr. Cleek, and injured her left hand severely!”
Narkom made a curious sort of gulping sound, whipped out his handkerchief and began to dab his bald spot, and looked round at Cleek out of the tail of his eye. But Cleek neither moved nor spoke nor made any sign—merely pushed his lower lip out over his upper one and stood frowning at the stable door.
And here—just here—a strange and even startling thing occurred. With just one hoarse “Toot-toot!” to give warning of its coming, a public taxi swung round the curve of the road, jerked itself up to a sudden standstill within a rope’s cast of the spot where the four were standing, and immediately there rang forth a rollicking, happy youthful voice crying out, as the owner of it stood up and touched an upright forefinger to his numbered cap, in jolly mimicry of the Hanson cabman of other days: “Keb, sir? Keb, mum? Keb! Keb!” and hard on the heels of that flung out a laughing, “Hullo, mater? Hullo, dad? you dear old Thunder Box! I say! ‘How does this sort of thing get you?’ as Katie Eastman says. Buttons all over me, like a blooming Bobby! What?”
And it needed no more than that to assure Cleek and Mr. Narkom that in the bright-eyed, bonny-faced, laughing young fellow who jumped down from the driver’s seat at this, and stood up straight and strong, and displayed his taxicabman’s livery unabashed and unashamed, they were looking upon Sir Mawson Leake’s eldest son and—heir!
“Henry!” The voice was Lady Leake’s, and there waspain and surprise and joy and terror all jumbled up in it curiously, as she ran to him. “Henry! Is it reallyyou?”
“‘Sure thing!’—to quote Katie again. Just took a spin over to show myself off. Plenty of brass trimmings! What? I thought, dad, you’d like to be sure that I really am done with the clubs at last. Not because they blacklisted me—for they didn’t—but because—oh well,youknow. No taxicabmen need apply—that sort of thing. I’ll be invited to resign from every blessed one of them to-morrow, and there’s not a chap connected with any one of ’em who’d be seen taking a match from me to light his cigarette with after this. All the same, though, I go out of them with a clean slate, and that’s all I cared about. I did get that two hundred after all, pater. Curzon and Katie raised it for me between them—out of their own private accounts, you know—and as driving a car is the only thing I really do understand, I’m earning the money to pay them back this way.”
“That’s the stuff, by Jupiter! That’s the stuff!” rapped out Cleek, impulsively. “You ought to have known from the first, Sir Mawson, that they don’t make thieves of this sort of material?”
“Thieves? What do you mean by thieves? And who the dickens are you, anyway? I say, dad, who’s this johnnie? What’s he driving at? What does he mean by talking about thieves?”
“The necklace—the Ranee’s necklace! The Ladder of Light!” bleated Sir Mawson feebly. “It is gone! It is lost! It went whenyouwent. There has been no trace of it since.” Then he joined Lady Leake, and plucked at the boy’s sleeve, and between them out came the whole miserable story.
“And you think that I stole it? You dare to think that?” flung out his son, jerking back from him and brushing aside Lady Leake’s solicitous hand. “Very well, then,think what you jolly well please! I’m done with the lot of you!”
And after that—the Deluge! Speaking, he turned on his heel and rushed back to his taxi, wrenched open its door, revealing what none of them had suspected before, because of the drawn curtains: that the vehicle was occupied—and sang out in a fine fury, “Pull up the blinds, Curz. Come out, old chap. Come out, Major! Come out, Katie—all of you—at once! There isn’t going to be any ‘jolly lark,’ any ‘pleasant surprise,’ any ‘killing of the fatted calf.’ This isn’t a comedy—it’s a tragedy! Hop out lively—the lot of you! I’m done with my father, and I’ve got to get back to my place in the ranks as fast as I can fly. I’ll pay you back, Katie. I’ll pay you back, Curz, old chap! Yes, by God! I will if I drive this thing night and day without sleeping!”
Then came a sudden banging of the taxi’s door, a hoot from the horn as he jumped back to his seat and sounded a warning note, and in the winking of an eye he was off and away, and there in the road stood a stout, pleasant-faced old gentleman, a youth with a budding moustache, and a bright-faced, fairylike little lady of about eighteen, all three of whom were standing stock still and staring after the vanishing taxi in the blankest of blank amazement. Of a sudden, however:
“My goodness, popper, I guess Curzon and I have sort of muffed it somehow!” the little lady said, forlornly.
“I guess you have, honey—I guess you have. Anyhow, something’s gone bust, that’s a sure thing! Let’s go and ask Sir Mawson what it’s all about.”
“Yes, let us by all means,” put in the younger man. “Come on!”
Mr. Narkom, who heard these things, drew closer to Cleek, looked up at him anxiously, and contrived to whisper an inquiry which fell only upon his ally’s ears.
“Found out anything, old chap?”
“Yes. From their words it is clear that Sir Mawson has taken nobody in the house—even his son, Curzon—into his confidence regarding the lost necklace.”
“I don’t mean that—I’m alluding to the others. Found out anything aboutthem?”
“Yes, and a very important thing, too: They arenotDiamond Nick and Dutch Ella. Not in the least like them, neither are they disguised. Also, Miss Eastman’s injury is only a sprained wrist, it appears. You observe she does not even attempt to cover the back of her hand. I’m afraid, Mr. Narkom, you’ve been barking up the wrong tree.”
By this time the major, his daughter, and young Curzon Leake, full of deep and earnest solicitude for the long-erring Henry, and fairly bristling with questions and entreaties, had crossed the intervening space and were at Sir Mawson’s side; but as the details of what was said and done for the next ten minutes have no bearing upon the case in hand, they may well be omitted from these records. Suffice it then, that, on the plea of “having some very important business with these gentlemen, which will not permit of another moment’s delay,” and promising to “discuss the other matter later on,” Sir Mawson managed to get rid of them, with the story of the lost necklace still unconfessed, and was again free to return to the subject in hand.
“Of course, I can understand your reluctance, with those Indian chaps about, to take anybody into your confidence regarding the loss of the jewel, Sir Mawson,” said Cleek, as soon as the others were well out of hearing; “but sometimes a policy of silence is wise, and sometimes it is a mistake. For instance: if any of a man’s servants should know of a circumstance which might have a bearing upon a robbery they are not likely to mention it if they don’t even know that a robbery has been committed. However, we shall know more about that after I’ve been over the ground and poked about a bit. So, if you and her ladyship will be so kind, I should like to have a look indoors, particularly in Lady Leake’s boudoir, as soon as possible.”
Upon what trivial circumstances do great events sometimes hinge! Speaking, he turned toward the curve of theroad to go back to the guarded gates of the house which he had so recently passed, when Lady Leake’s hand plucked nervously at his sleeve.
“Not that way! Not for worlds, with those Hindus on the watch!” she exclaimed agitatedly. “Heaven knows what they might suspect, what word they might send to the Ranee’s steward, if they saw us returning to the house without having seen us leave it. Come! there is another and a safer way. Through the grounds and round to the door of the music room, at the back of the building. Follow me.”
They followed forthwith, and in another moment were taking that “other way” with her, pushing through a thick plantation, crossing a kitchen garden, cutting through an orchard, and walking rapidly along an arboured path, until they came at last to the final obstacle of all—a large rock garden—which barred their progress to the smooth, close-clipped lawn at whose far end the house itself stood. This rock garden, it was plain from the course she was taking, it was Lady Leake’s intention to skirt, but Cleek, noting that there was a path running through the middle of it, pointed out that fact.
“One moment!” he said. “As time is of importance, would not this be the shorter and the quicker way?”
“Yes,” she gave back, without, however, stopping in her progress around the tall rocks which formed its boundary. “But if we took it we should be sure to meet Bevis. That is his especial playground, you know, and if he were to see his father and me we shouldn’t be able to get rid of him again. No! Don’t misunderstand, Mr. Cleek. I am not one of those mothers who find their children a nuisance in their nursery stage. Bevis is the dearest little man! But he is so full of pranks, so full of questions, so full of life and high spirits—and I couldn’t stand that this morning. Besides, he has no one to play with him to-day. This is Miss Miniver’s half holiday. Pardon? Yes—his nursery governess.She won’t be back until three. I only hope he will stay in the rock garden and amuse himself with his pirates’ cave until then.”
“His——”
“Pirates’ cave. Miss Miniver took him to a moving-picture show one day. He saw one there and nothing would do him but his father must let him have one for himself; so the gardeners made one for him in the rock garden and he amuses himself by going out on what he calls ‘treasure raids’ and carries his spoils in there.”
“His spoils, eh? H’m! I see! Pardon me, Lady Leake, but do you think it is possible that this affair we are on may be only a wild goose chase after all? In other words, that, not knowing the value of the Ranee’s necklace, your little son may have made that a part of his spoils and carried it off to his pirates’ cave?”
“No, Mr. Cleek, I do not. Such a thing is utterly impossible. For one thing, the boudoir door was locked, remember; and, for another, Bevis had been bathed and put to bed before the necklace was lost. He could not have got up and left his room, as Miss Miniver sat with him until he fell asleep.”
“H’m!” commented Cleek. “So that’s ‘barking up the wrong tree’ for a second time. Still, of course, the necklace couldn’t have vanished of its own accord. Hum-m-m! Just so! Another question, your ladyship: You spoke of running down to the foot of the stairs with the lint for Miss Eastman and running back in a panic when you remembered the necklace. How, then, did you get the lint to Miss Eastman, after all?”
“I sent it to her with apologies for not being able to do the bandaging for her.”
“Sent it to her, your ladyship? By whom?”
“Jennifer—one of the servants.”
“Oho!” said Cleek, in two different tones. “So then youdidunlock the door of your boudoir for a second time, and somebody other than Sir Mawson and your stepsondidsee the inside of the room, eh?”
“Your pardon, Mr. Cleek, but you are wrong in both surmises. Jennifer was the servant who was working in the lower hall at the time—the one who says he saw Henry leave the house at ten minutes past seven. The instant I reached the foot of the stairs and thought of the necklace, I called Jennifer to me, gave him the lint with orders to take it at once to Miss Eastman’s maid with the message mentioned, and then turned round and ran back to my boudoir immediately.”
“H’m! I see. I suppose, your ladyship, it isn’t possible that this man Jennifer might, in going to carry that message——But no! I recollect: the door of your boudoir was locked. So even if he had managed to outstrip you by going up another staircase——”
“Oh, I see what you mean!” she declared, as they reached the edge of the lawn and set out across it. “But, Mr. Cleek, such a thing would not bear even hinting at, so far as Jennifer is concerned. He is the soul of honesty, for one thing; and, for another, he couldn’t have outstripped me, as you put it, had I returned at a snail’s pace. He is very old, and near-sighted. There! look! That is he, over there, sweeping the leaves off the terrace. You can see for yourself how impossible it would be for him to run upstairs.”
Cleek did see. Looking in the direction indicated, he saw an elderly man employed as stated, whose back was bowed, and whose limping gait betokened an injury which had left him hopelessly lame.
“His leg had to be amputated as the result of being run over by an omnibus in the streets of London,” explained her ladyship, “and, in consequence, he wears a wooden one. He has been in the employ of the family for more than forty years. Originally he was a gardener, and, after his accident,Sir Mawson was for pensioning him off so that he could end his days in quiet and comfort. But he quite broke down at the thought of leaving the old place, and as he wouldn’t listen to such a thing as being paid for doing nothing, we humoured his whim and let him stay on as a sort of handy man. I am sorry to say that Bevis, little rogue, takes advantage of his inability to run, and plays no end of pranks upon him. But he adores the boy, and never complains.”
Cleek, who had been studying the man fixedly with his narrowed eyes—and remembering what had been said of Diamond Nick’s skill at impersonation, the while they were crossing the lawn—here twitched his head, as if casting off a thought which annoyed him, and turned a bland look upon Lady Leake.
“One last question, your ladyship,” he said. “I think you said that Jennifer was cleaning the hall at the time your stepson left the house; and, as, presumably, you wouldn’t overwork a crippled old chap like that, how happened it that he was still at his labours at ten minutes past seven o’clock in the evening? That’s rather late to be cleaning up a hall, isn’t it?”
“Yes, muchtoolate,” she acknowledged. “But it couldn’t be helped in the present instance. The gasfitters didn’t finish their work as early as we had hoped, and as he couldn’t begin until theyhadfinished, he was delayed in starting.”
“The gasfitters, eh? Oho! So you had those chaps in the house yesterday, did you?”
“Yes. There had been an unpleasant leakage of gas in both the music room and the main hall, for two or three days, and as the men had to take down the fixtures to get to the seat of the trouble, Jennifer improved the opportunity to give the chandelier and the brackets a thorough cleaning, since he couldn’t of course start to clear up the mess the workmen made until after they had finished and gone.But—Mr. Cleek!Theycouldn’t have had anything to do with the affair, for they left the house at least ten minutes before the Ladder of Light came into it. So, naturally——This is the door of the music room, gentlemen. Come in, please.”
The invitation was accepted at once, and in another half minute Cleek and Mr. Narkom found themselves standing in a wonderful white-and-gold room, under a huge crystal chandelier of silver and cut glass, and looking out through an arched opening, hung with sulphur-coloured draperies, into a sort of baronial hall equipped with armour and tapestries, and broad enough to drive a coach through without danger to its contents.
From this hall, as they discovered, when Lady Leake led them without delay toward the scene of the necklace’s mysterious vanishment, a broad, short flight of richly carpeted stairs led to a square landing, and thence another and a longer flight, striking off at right angles, communicated with the passage upon which her ladyship’s boudoir opened.
“It was here that I stood, Mr. Cleek, when I recollected about the necklace as I called Jennifer to me,” she explained, pausing on the landing at the foot of this latter flight of stairs just long enough to let him note, over the broad rail of the banister, that the great hall was clearly visible below. “He was there, just under you, drying the globes of the music-room chandelier when I called to him. Now come this way, please, and you will see how impossible it is for any one to have entered and left the boudoir during my brief absence without my seeing or hearing.”
It was; for the door of the boudoir, which was entirely detached from the rest of the suite occupied by herself and her husband, was immediately opposite the head of the staircase and clearly visible from the landing at its foot.
She unlocked this one solitary door, and let them see that the only other means of possibly entering the room was byway of a large overhanging bay window overlooking the grounds. But this was a good twenty feet above the surface of the earth and there was not a vine nor a tree within yards and yards of it, and as the space beneath was so large and clear that no one could have manipulated a ladder without the certainty of discovery, Cleek saw at a glance that the window might be dismissed at once as a possible point of entry.
Nor did anything else about the room offer a hint more promising. All that he saw was just what one might have expected to see in such a place under such circumstances as these.
On the dressing-table, surrounded by a litter of silver and cut-glass toilet articles, lay the case which had once contained the famous necklace, wide open and empty. Over the back of a chair—as if it had been thrown there under the stress of haste and great excitement—hung a negligée of flowered white silk trimmed with cascades of rich lace, and across a sofa at the far end of the room, a dinner gown of gray satin was carefully spread out, with a pair of gray silk stockings and gray satin slippers lying beside it.
“Everything is exactly as it was, Mr. Cleek, at the time the necklace disappeared,” explained her ladyship, noting the manner in which his glances went flickering about the room, skimming the surface of all things but settling on none. “Everything, that is, but that negligée there.”
“Wasn’t that in the room, then?”
“Oh, yes, but it wasn’t on the chair; it was on me. I had come up to dress for dinner a short time before Henry made his appearance—indeed, I had only just taken off my street costume and started to dress when he rapped at the door and implored me to let him come in and speak to me for a minute or two. ‘For God’s sake, mater!’ was the way he put it, and as haste seemed to be of vital importance, I slipped on my negligée and let him in as quickly as I could.Afterward, when Sir Mawson came in with the wonderful necklace——”
She stopped abruptly, and her voice seemed to die away in her throat; and when she spoke again it was in a sort of panic.
“Mr. Cleek!” she cried, “Mr. Cleek!What is it? What’s the matter? Good heavens, Mawson, has the man gone out of his mind?”
In the circumstances the question was an excusable one. A moment before, she had seen Cleek walk in the most casual manner to the chair where the lace-clouded negligée hung, had seen him pick it up to look at the chair seat under it, and was collectedly proceeding with the account of the events of yesterday, when, without hint or warning, he suddenly yapped out a sound that was curiously like a dog that had mastered the trick of human laughter, flung the negligée from him, dropped on his knees, and was now careering round the room like a terrier endeavouring to pick up a lost scent—pushing aside tables, throwing over chairs, and yapping, yapping.
“Cleek, old chap!” It was Narkom that spoke, and the hard, thick hammering of his heart made his voice shake. “Good lud, man! in the name of all that’s wonderful——”