Gimblet finished speaking and sat watching the face of the younger man. Sidney looked troubled, but his manner was confident as he gave his opinion.
“If she has not been heard of,” he said, “it is because for some reason she is unable to communicate with anyone. I have heard all your arguments attentively, Mr. Gimblet, and I must confess that youhave not in the least convinced me that there is anything in your idea. It all sounds very plausible, no doubt, but if you knew the young lady as I have the pleasure of doing you would see that the whole thing is ridiculous. No one can be what she is and act in the way you suggest. Her nature is such as to put it out of the question. I can only repeat that the thing is ludicrously impossible, and that if you knew her you would be the first to see it. However, I agree with you that the best way of proving what I say is to find the real murderer. My only fear is that to-morrow you may discover that she too has been killed and buried in the garden.”
“I am not afraid of that,” said Gimblet, “because, as I tell you, if her presence had not been desirable she would never have been near the place. She would have been kept as unaware of its existence as you were yourself. The first essential of such a plan as the murderer must have concocted would be to get hold of Mrs. Vanderstein alone and unsuspected by anyone who was not a confederate.”
Sidney made an impatient movement.
“I am absolutely convinced that Miss Turner had nothing whatever to do with it,” he said.
“Well,” returned Gimblet as he rose to go, “I hope you are right and that further investigations will lead me to share your view. If we can lay hands on Mr. West we shall get at the truth, and unless he is very careful how he disposes of the jewels we are sure to catch him. From what I hear, Mrs. Vanderstein’s rope of pearls is well known to every jeweller in Europe; and, if he tries to sell so much as one of them, he’ll find a very different sort of rope around his neck. Now I must be off; they are expecting me at Scotland Yard.”
Itwas long past one when at last Gimblet got to bed. He had had a long and tiring day, full of strain and excitement, and his head was no sooner on the pillow than he slept soundly and dreamlessly. It seemed to him that he had only just shut his eyes when Higgs awoke him the next morning by coming in with his hot water. He rolled over yawning and rubbing his eyes, as his servant pulled up the blinds and laid ready his clothes. When he had finished and gone away, the detective turned over again for another snooze; but in a minute Higgs was back again.
“The young man from Ennidge and Pring has called, sir,” he said, “the clerk who came with the key last evening, you know, sir. He wants to know if the inquest is to be to-day, as, if not, he has been given a holiday and is going to spend it in the country.”
“He can go,” said Gimblet; “the inquest won’t be till to-morrow.”
He was thoroughly awakened by now, and went to his bath as soon as Higgs had departed.
Breakfast was on the table when he entered the dining-room, and he helped himself to omelet and sat down and poured out his tea before he took up the morning paper, which lay beside his plate.
As he folded back the sheet and cast his eye over the page, he uttered a startled exclamation and sat staring incredulously at the paper as he read:
MYSTERY OF MISSING LADIES PROVES MYTHICAL.Mrs. Vanderstein is Staying at Boulogne.“Our correspondent at Boulogne telegraphs that Mrs. Vanderstein, of 90 Grosvenor Street, is staying at the Hôtel de Douvres in that town. Having observed her name in the visitors’ book of the hotel, our correspondent inquired of the manager if the lady could be she who had been reported missing for the last two or three days, and learnt that, while the manager was unaware of the anxiety which has been felt in England on her account, it is certainly Mrs. Vanderstein, of 90 Grosvenor Street, who is at present beneath his roof. Further conversation with the affable and obliging host of the Hôtel de Douvres elicited the information that the lady arrived early on Tuesday morning with the intention of staying for one night only. She complained of feeling indisposed, however, and sent for a doctor, who ordered complete rest; so that Mrs. Vanderstein kept her room till this evening, when, her health being improved, she dined in her apartment as usual, but afterwards went out to the Casino.“As luck would have it, the manager was relating these details to our correspondent at the very moment—about 11 p.m.—when a carriage drove up to the door, and the lady herself re-entered the hotel. On our correspondent’s introducing himself and explaining that grave anxiety was being felt on her behalf in this country, she expressed considerable astonishment, and said that this explained the fact that letters she had written had not been answered. She conjectured further that they could not even have been delivered, remarking that the French postal system left much to be desired. In reply to further questions, the lady proclaimed her aversion to beinginterviewed, and said merely that she would send some telegrams in the morning; upon which our correspondent withdrew, and she entered the lift and mounted to the first floor, where she has a suite of rooms.“Mrs. Vanderstein, who appeared to be entirely recovered in health, was elegantly dressed in a black and white casino costume, with a rose coloured toque trimmed with an osprey, which was very becoming to her dark hair and superb complexion. She was wearing some of the magnificent jewels with which rumour has been so busy during the last few days.”
MYSTERY OF MISSING LADIES PROVES MYTHICAL.
Mrs. Vanderstein is Staying at Boulogne.
“Our correspondent at Boulogne telegraphs that Mrs. Vanderstein, of 90 Grosvenor Street, is staying at the Hôtel de Douvres in that town. Having observed her name in the visitors’ book of the hotel, our correspondent inquired of the manager if the lady could be she who had been reported missing for the last two or three days, and learnt that, while the manager was unaware of the anxiety which has been felt in England on her account, it is certainly Mrs. Vanderstein, of 90 Grosvenor Street, who is at present beneath his roof. Further conversation with the affable and obliging host of the Hôtel de Douvres elicited the information that the lady arrived early on Tuesday morning with the intention of staying for one night only. She complained of feeling indisposed, however, and sent for a doctor, who ordered complete rest; so that Mrs. Vanderstein kept her room till this evening, when, her health being improved, she dined in her apartment as usual, but afterwards went out to the Casino.
“As luck would have it, the manager was relating these details to our correspondent at the very moment—about 11 p.m.—when a carriage drove up to the door, and the lady herself re-entered the hotel. On our correspondent’s introducing himself and explaining that grave anxiety was being felt on her behalf in this country, she expressed considerable astonishment, and said that this explained the fact that letters she had written had not been answered. She conjectured further that they could not even have been delivered, remarking that the French postal system left much to be desired. In reply to further questions, the lady proclaimed her aversion to beinginterviewed, and said merely that she would send some telegrams in the morning; upon which our correspondent withdrew, and she entered the lift and mounted to the first floor, where she has a suite of rooms.
“Mrs. Vanderstein, who appeared to be entirely recovered in health, was elegantly dressed in a black and white casino costume, with a rose coloured toque trimmed with an osprey, which was very becoming to her dark hair and superb complexion. She was wearing some of the magnificent jewels with which rumour has been so busy during the last few days.”
Gimblet read the paragraph twice, and then pushing back his chair walked restlessly about the room. His appetite was gone for the time being; his eyes glowed again with the excitement of a new problem. One second he spared, in which to be glad that Mrs. Vanderstein still lived; he was glad for Sir Gregory’s sake, and for Sidney’s sake, and even a little for her own, though he had never to his knowledge set eyes on her. But from the first he had felt an indefinable sympathy for the fastidious lady whose house was scented with the delicate, delicious perfume that he associated with her name. But, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Vanderstein, alive and well and disporting herself at Boulogne, slipped quickly out of the place in Gimblet’s interest hitherto filled by Mrs. Vanderstein dead and cruelly murdered. His mind now occupied itself busily and eagerly with the questions raised by this shifting of rôles in the tragedy of Scholefield Avenue.
If Mrs. Vanderstein had not played the piteous part of the victim on that fatal Monday night, who had? Not Miss Barbara Turner, for she was described as having very fair hair, while that of the murdered woman was very dark. And if Miss Turner were not flyingfrom justice, where was she? Could she and Mrs. Vanderstein have combined to kill their hostess, when they visited the house hired by Mr. West of tropical origin? In any case here was a tangled knot to unravel, and a black crime to bring home to its perpetrator. Gimblet saw that he was not likely to solve the puzzle off-hand, and reflected that in the meantime he had better fortify himself with food while he had the opportunity. His breakfast was rather cold by the time he again sat down to it.
What, in heaven’s name, had Mrs. Vanderstein and Miss Turner been doing in that house on Monday night? Had Miss Finner been mistaken, after all, and was it not they whom she had seen before the door? If so, by what astounding coincidence had he been led to search there of all places, by what incredible freak had Fortune taken him to the scene of this black and cold-blooded crime? His brain, while he ate, busied itself with these and such-like riddles.
Soon after breakfast a high official from the Yard called for him in accordance with arrangements made the night before, and they set forth together in a taxi for Fianti’s.
“For,” said the official, as they went, “whether it was Mrs. Vanderstein or some one else whose body you found, we want the man who did it equally badly, and we want your help in finding him. I suppose your commission from Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones dies a natural death now?”
“I suppose so,” said Gimblet, “but I’ll see him presently and let you know. There’s still Miss Turner to account for, but I daresay she’s at Boulogne too.”
“As likely as not,” agreed his companion. “It’s just the sort of little detail they’d forget to mention.”
“Well, we shall soon know,” was Gimblet’s only comment.
At Fianti’s they sent up their cards by the detective of the regular force who was always in attendance on the Prince and Princess of Targona, with a request for the favour of an audience. They had not long to wait, and were very graciously received by Prince Felipe, who listened with grave attention to the explanation of the object of their visit, and read the note presented for his inspection by Gimblet with a lively curiosity.
No, His Highness was afraid he could not assist them in this matter. The writing paper was certainly his—how obtained he could offer no suggestion—the writing was of course a forgery, if that could be called a forgery which made absolutely no pretence of resembling the original. He had no notion to whom the appellation of Madame Q. might refer. No doubt more than one lady whose name began with that initial had been presented to him on different occasions, but he could not for the moment recall.... Possibly some of his suite could be of more assistance.
But no one of the Prince’s household could give them any help. In the matter of the writing paper, it was suggested that the hotel servants might know something as to how it was obtained, but nothing definite could be found out about it.
The Prince sent for them again before they left, but it was only to say that they had his best wishes for the success of their investigations, and to ask a few questions as to points of English police procedure in which he appeared to be interested.
“Truly, a strange country!” he murmured from time to time on receiving the answers to his inquiries.
Before they were dismissed, Gimblet once more produced the crumpled paper which bore the Targona arms over the Prince’s name, and asked the Prince if he could detect a certain odour which clung about it.
“Delicious,” said Prince Felipe, when he had pressed it to his nose, “a delicate, pungent fragrance! But no, I do not know what it is.”
The official parted from Gimblet at the door of Fianti’s and while the one returned in a hurried taxi to his sanctum at Scotland Yard, the other strolled across the street to Mrs. Vanderstein’s house.
He found a relieved and rejoicing household.
“You’ve seen the news, of course, sir,” said Blake, himself opening the door in answer to the detective’s ring. “And we’ve had a telegram this morning. Here it is.”
He handed it to Gimblet, who read:
“Blake 90 Grosvenor Street London W. Think letters must have missed am staying at Hotel de Douvres Boulogne till further notice writing.“Vanderstein.”
“Blake 90 Grosvenor Street London W. Think letters must have missed am staying at Hotel de Douvres Boulogne till further notice writing.
“Vanderstein.”
The telegram had been sent off at 8.14 that morning.
“I suppose Miss Turner is with her, sir,” Blake was saying, as Gimblet gave him back the paper, “the newspaper doesn’t mention her.”
“No,” said Gimblet. “Still, as you say, I daresay she is there all the same. It is Mrs. Vanderstein, and above all Mrs. Vanderstein’s jewels, that the public is interested in.”
He went back to his flat, where he found Sidney and Sir Gregory, both radiant.
“What splendid news!” Sir Gregory greeted him as they met, with a joyful cry. “I could not believe it at first; it seems too good to be true. But oh, Mr. Gimblet! what a night I have spent! I shall send that reporter man a fiver. These newspaper chaps sometimes have their uses, after all!”
“I hope you see now,” Sidney remarked, “what amistake it is to suspect people of doing impossible things.”
Sir Gregory looked towards them with a puzzled expression. Gimblet, however, merely smiled.
“I am delighted to be in the wrong, Mr. Sidney,” was all he said.
“She will laugh when she hears what a fuss I’ve been making,” resumed Sir Gregory, pursuing his own thoughts. “I think I shall run over to Boulogne to-morrow and see her. I assure you, Mr. Gimblet, I feel ten years younger again. What a nightmare it has been!”
“I found a wire for me at the club,” put in Sidney; “she says she is sorry we have been worried, and that her letter must have missed the post. It’s jolly good of her to wire to me; I didn’t think she meant to have anything more to do with me when I last saw her.”
“It looks as if she had forgiven you, doesn’t it?” said Gimblet.
He was thinking that it was not every young man in Sidney’s position who would have looked so delighted to hear that his aunt was alive after all, when all his difficulties seemed removed by her supposed death.
“She doesn’t say a word about Miss Turner,” Sidney continued. “She might have, you’d think. Of course she doesn’t realise in the least that we’ve been imagining her murdered.”
“I telegraphed this morning as soon as I’d seen the paper,” said Sir Gregory, “and said we had been most anxious and that I trusted they were both well. I expect there will be an answer for me by the time I get back. Must be going now in fact. You see she has been ill; kept her room till last night, the hotel man said.”
“It’s a very odd business,” said Gimblet. “I have done a little telegraphing on my own account, I maytell you, for I want to know whether Mrs. Vanderstein did go to Scholefield Avenue, or whether Miss Finner took some one else for her. I ought to get the reply any minute. And the police are sending a man of theirs over to see her, by the afternoon boat. They want me to help them with investigations of the tragedy we discovered yesterday. I suppose, Sir Gregory, that I can be of no further use to you?”
“Thankee, Mr. Gimblet, I hope I shan’t trouble you any more.”
After a little more mutual congratulation the two visitors took themselves off, and Gimblet composed himself to await the answer to his telegram, which was now due.
He was sitting contemplating his Teniers, the beauties of which he had not had much leisure to gaze at of late, and munching sweets as he mused, when the expected ring came at the door of the flat; but instead of the message he thought to receive it was Inspector Jennins from Scotland Yard, an astute and good-humoured officer, who had before now been his associate in more than one important case.
“I came round to tell you, Mr. Gimblet,” he exclaimed as he was shown in, “that the young lady has been found.”
“What, Miss Turner?”
“That’s it. She’s in the Middlesex Hospital and, what’s more, has been there all the time.”
“Then how in the world was it that no one knew it? That was one of the first places I inquired at, and I daresay you did too.”
“Yes; she was brought in on Wednesday morning about 3 a.m. by a police constable who had been on night duty in Regent’s Park. He saw her knocked down by a man, and picked her up unconscious, and she has been so ever since. The man got away in thedark, and at the hospital no one recognised the young lady from the description given in the inquiries that were made, as the account of the clothes she wore was all wrong. But there have been a lot of photographs of her and Mrs. Vanderstein in the papers to-day and yesterday, and this morning one of the nurses who’d been studying her portrait recognised the original in spite of her wounds. The hospital authorities communicated with us, and I’m off to the hospital now. I thought perhaps you’d like to come.”
“I should, certainly,” said Gimblet, and they were soon on their way.
“I have only once seen Miss Turner, and that was only a passing glimpse,” Gimblet said as the taxi sped along. “Don’t you think it would be a good plan to take one of the Grosvenor Street servants with us to identify the young lady? It is possible that the nurse may be mistaken; people look so different in a horizontal position. And their saying that her clothes were wrongly described looks to me as if there were some error somewhere.”
“I think that’s a very good idea of yours,” agreed Jennins, and putting his head out of the window he told the driver to go to 90 Grosvenor Street.
They called for Amélie, Mrs. Vanderstein’s maid, who appeared after a few minutes, in high delight and excitement at the prospect of assisting the police. She looked rather reproachfully at Gimblet, as though she would have liked to point out to him that it was to be regretted that he had hitherto failed to appreciate how valuable her co-operation might be. “Ah, cette pauvre demoiselle,” she murmured as they got into the cab; and her manner indicated that she would have liked to add: “How different it would have been if you had consulted me earlier.”
At the hospital there was a little delay before theywere led upstairs and handed over to the guidance of a pleasant-faced nurse who led them to a ward full of casualty cases, which had suffered various injuries at the hands of Fortune.
In one bed was a woman who had been knocked down by a van; in the next a child who had fallen into the kitchen fire; in the third a woman whose husband had kicked her to the very verge of the grave; the fourth held a girl with an arm crushed in the machinery of the factory she worked in—so the nurse informed the inspector.
She led the party through the ward, keeping up a running commentary as they advanced, till they reached the end bed of all, in which lay a young girl whose head was covered with bandages, and who lay quiet and still as if asleep.
“Here she is,” said their guide.
Gimblet looked at Amélie.
“Mais oui, monsieur,” she answered his unspoken question. “C’est bien Mademoiselle Turner. Ah, là là! the poor one, what have they done to her?”
Barbara looked terribly white and fragile. Her face had grown thin to emaciation, and there were deep blue lines under her eyes.
“Poor young lady,” said the nurse, “she’s got concussion of the brain, and it must have been a frightful blow that did it.”
When they left the ward Gimblet asked: “How was it Miss Turner was not recognised till to-day?”
“Well,” said the nurse, “you see the pictures in the papers aren’t very good, and her hair is so hidden by the bandages that it’s rather hard to see the likeness. But what really put us off here was the description of the clothes she was supposed to have been wearing. Of course no one ever thought of connecting her with ayoung lady in a white evening dress and a red opera cloak!”
“Why,” asked Jennins, “were those not the colours she wore?”
“Just wait a moment,” said the nurse; “I’ll show you her things.”
She hurried away and returned in a minute with a bundle of apparel.
“Look at them,” she said, and held them up for them to see. “Look at this old black coat and skirt; do you see how threadbare and old-fashioned it is? It isn’t even very clean. And this horrible hat,” she pointed to a battered straw, “it is almost in pieces; and the boots are, quite. Her underclothes were of such coarse, stiff calico that you would take them for workhouse things, and all darned and mended till you could hardly see the original stuff. The stockings weren’t even mended. They were just one large hole. And there was no blouse under the coat at all. Nothing but a chemise. How was one to imagine that this was the young lady who was being inquired for? There’s a tremendous amount in appearances, and she appeared to be the poorest of the poor.”
Gimblet seized upon the miserable garments and examined them eagerly. But they rendered him no information. Nothing was marked, the boots were odd ones and of a prehistoric age; there was no distinctive feature about any of the things.
With injunctions that they should be telephoned to if Miss Turner awoke to consciousness, they left the hospital and dismissed Amélie, who went back to Grosvenor Street to pack and return to the hospital with some of Barbara’s belongings, so that she might find them there if they were needed.
“Now what I want is to see the constable whobrought that young lady into the hospital,” Gimblet said to Jennins.
“So do I,” said the inspector. “He’s been sent for and should be at the Yard by now,” and they drove off in another taxi.
Police-Constable Matterson of S division had already arrived, and was awaiting them when they reached Scotland Yard. Jennins called him into his private office, and there, in response to their questions, he told his story.
“At about 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning,” said he, “it being a dark, wet night, with the rain pouring down like water out of a bucket, and the thunder claps as near overhead, and as frequent, as ever I heard, I was on duty near St. Mark’s Church just outside Regent’s Park. There is a small bridge for foot passengers across the canal opposite and I crossed it on my way to the outer circle of the Park. I was just resting a minute on the bridge, for I didn’t like to stay under the trees more than I need with that storm so close, when a flash of lightning that must have been almost over me, it was that bright, showed up the canal below, as I leant on the parapet, so clear that I could have counted every blade of grass. There was the canal winding out of sight, and the surface of it all jumping and hissing as the rain-drops hit it; and there were the banks on either side and the trunks of the trees lit up as light as day. But the thing that caught my eye was the sight of two people struggling on the bank, a few yards from the water. It was a man and a woman, and he seemed to be trying to catch hold of her round the neck, while she was dodging and defending herself as best she could. It was all very clear for half a second and then the dark swallowed everything up again, and the thunder burst, as it seemed, just on my head.
“Apart from what I had seen it seemed to me thatfolks wouldn’t be out for any good in that weather, and at that hour and place; and when the noise of the clap rumbled away I caught the sound of the tail end of a scream which made me sure of it. I turned my lantern towards the place and hollered back, running to get over the fence and down to the canal as I did so.
“As I came near to where I’d seen the pair, two successive flashes coming close one after the other showed them up again no more than a few yards away, and they saw me in the same instant. The man had got a great spade in his hand, and when he caught sight of me he lifted it up sideways and aimed a fearful blow at the woman with the edge of it. She ducked and dodged again—very active she was, poor thing—and he missed, so that the blade glanced off her shoulder and he as near as possible lost his balance. But he recovered himself at once and threw up his arms again with the spade clutched in both hands, as I saw by the second flash, and brought it down with all his force flat on the top of her head.
“I didn’t see her go down, for the light went before the blow had fallen, and in the dark I lost him, and he got clear away.
“While I was groping about with my lantern, I fell over the body of the girl, lying where he had struck her to the ground, and at the first start off I thought he had done for her sure enough. So I let her lie for a few minutes, while I blew my whistle and kept on searching around for the scoundrel. Two more of our men came up after a time and we had a regular hunt, but he’d got a good start and we never saw him. On turning our attention to the girl again, we found that she was still alive, though unconscious, so we got an ambulance and took her to the hospital. There was nothing to show who she was, but from her clothes I judged her to be one of the lowest and poorest class. Ireported the occurrence at the time, and made a further search by daylight on the spot. I picked up the spade near by, where the fellow had evidently dropped it as he ran; it had a piece of stout cord attached to the handle about four or five feet long, but was otherwise without distinguishing mark of any kind. It’s outside, if you wish to see it, sir.”
Jennins told him to bring it in.
“Of course,” he said to Gimblet, “no one ever thought of connecting this story of violence and brutality with the two missing ladies. The report didn’t come my way, as it happens, but I don’t suppose for a moment I should have been a scrap the wiser if it had. Still, it makes one feel a bit foolish now, I’ll own.”
Matterson returned with the spade and cord, which proved to be very ordinary; and Gimblet’s inquiring lens could discover nothing about them in any way remarkable.
“What was the man like?” he asked the policeman.
“I didn’t have much time to take notice, sir,” replied Matterson, “but he was a dark fellow with a black beard, and tall.”
“Did you see if he wore gloves?”
“Come to think of it, now you ask me, sir, I believe he did. I saw his hands plain enough as he lifted the spade, and I ought to know. But I couldn’t swear to it, I’m afraid, though my impression is that he did, and that it struck me as curious at the time, in the sort of way a thing will strike you for a moment and then slip out of your memory like a dream does.”
“I bet it’s our man,” said Gimblet, as Jennins dismissed the constable.
“Well, he must have altered his appearance if he is Mr. West, the gentleman from South America, unless Matterson’s account is very wrong indeed,” was Jennins’ only comment. “Aren’t you going a bit out of your way, Mr. Gimblet,” he asked, “to see any connection between this violent attempt on Miss Turner’s life and the actual murder which has taken place at 13 Scholefield Avenue? For my part I don’t see any reason to think the two affairs have anything to do with each other. I admit it looked as if Miss Turner and Mrs. Vanderstein had been in the house, but surely that theory is disposed of now and it is clear that your friend the actress was mistaken in thinking it was them she saw. Remember, she didn’t even know them by sight, but merely guessed at their identity from the description in the advertisement: two ladies in white, one wearing a red cloak and the other a mauve one. Why, there may have been dozens of couples dressed in these colours going about London on Monday, or any other night!”
“But the jewels,” said Gimblet, “she saw them too, you know.”
“Mrs. Vanderstein hasn’t a monopoly of diamonds. And besides, at that distance, and at the pace Miss Finner was going, she could only have received the vaguest impression, in any case.”
“I suppose I have got my head full of Scholefield Avenue,” said Gimblet. “I admit that I find it very hard to remember that Mrs. Vanderstein, at all events, is a very long way from that spot. And I daresay you are right, and Miss Turner never was much nearer to it. Still....” Gimblet fell into an introspective silence from which he soon roused himself with a start. “Tell me what you think, Jennins,” he said. “Have you any theory?”
“I haven’t any theory about the Scholefield Avenue business,” replied Jennins reluctantly, “but there doesn’t seem much mystery about the other affair, to my way of thinking. Surely it is clear that when Mrs. Vanderstein went off so secretly to Boulogne, for some reason she wished it to appear that Miss Turner went with her, while as a matter of fact the young lady remained in London. Ten to one we shall find that Mrs. Vanderstein had a more compromising companion with her in France than she left in England. Miss Turner, no doubt, retired to some secluded spot till her presence should be again required, probably to lodgings near Regent’s Park. Very likely she stayed indoors all day for fear of meeting acquaintances who might call for troublesome explanations as to her presence there, and being in want of exercise and fresh air went for a walk at night in order to procure them. Is it surprising that this ruffian of whom Matterson caught a glimpse, meeting her at such an hour and in so lonely a place, should not have spared her his unwelcome advances? Matterson saw him trying to put an arm round her neck, and it was very natural for her to scream in such circumstances. On our man running up, the black-bearded loafer, thinking himself caught, struck out at the girl in a fit of temper, and then took to his heels just in time to save himself.”
“All very fine, Jennins,” said Gimblet, “but I canpick holes in that theory till you’ll take it for a sieve. To put aside the question whether such a young lady as Miss Turner is said to be would lend herself to the deception you suggest, is it conceivable that, if she did go out to seek fresh air after dark, she should defer doing so till two in the morning and then choose a particularly violent thunderstorm to walk about in? Would her desire for exercise have led her to stand half way up the embankment of the canal when the rain was falling in torrents, and had been doing so since midnight? There is another thing as inexplicable, and that is the attire in which she took this midnight ramble. The clothes we saw at the hospital were mere rags. It seems incredible that this young lady, whom we know to have been clad on Monday night in purple and fine linen, should have been going about on Wednesday morning in garments which were not only threadbare and indescribably ancient but actually dirty. The battered state of the hat may be due to the blow from the spade, and all the garments were of course drenched by the rain, but there is something beyond that in their repulsiveness. I can’t imagine how she can have brought herself to wear such things.
“Apart from this behaviour of hers, which is in itself a mystery, what was the black-bearded one doing in the same place and hour and in the same unpropitious conditions? They could hardly both have been wandering there for the innocuous purpose you attribute to Miss Turner. And, mark you, the man was no destitute waif devoid of the means of procuring himself shelter from the rain. He carried a good serviceable spade which would have got him the price of a night’s lodging whenever he liked to pawn it. Now the kind of rough you are thinking of does not carry a spade or anything so suggestive of hard and honest labour. On the other hand, who does use thatimplement in a town like this? A gardener might have one, or a scavenger; or one or two other people. I think one of the most likely, especially at night, would be a gravedigger.”
“There you go!” exclaimed Jennins; “your mind is running on bodies buried in the flower pots! I suppose you think this fellow was going to bury the girl in one of the beds in the park!”
“It’s all very strange,” mused Gimblet, unheeding the inspector’s jeering tones. “The rope now. That is a puzzle. What could he be going to do with a rope? And why was it tied to a spade? Had he got the thing in his hands when he was trying to put his arms round Miss Turner’s neck? It must have hampered him a good deal and perhaps helped her to avoid his clutches.” Gimblet, with unseeing eyes, stared fixedly at his companion, his mind busy with the problem. Suddenly a light seemed to fall upon it. “By Jove!” he cried, “I believe I see the whole thing. If only Matterson were certain about the gloves.”
“What is it?” asked Jennins eagerly.
“No, no,” said Gimblet. “It is too wild an idea at present, though indeed I do not think I can be mistaken. But you have all the facts before you, Jennins, and are as able to come to the right conclusion as myself. I will leave you to think over the puzzle, while I go back to my flat and see if the answer to the wire I sent to Mrs. Vanderstein has yet arrived. It ought to be there by now.”
But he found no telegram awaiting him. He was annoyed and surprised at this, but the time taken by foreign telegrams is always uncertain, and Mrs. Vanderstein might have been out when his reached Boulogne. Lunch was being kept warm for him, and he made a hearty meal of Scotch woodcock and asparagus;with which he drank iced coffee and ate sponge cake instead of bread. There were strawberries to finish up with, and he left the dining-room with a peaceful smile on his face.
It was three o’clock, and the telegram was still undelivered.
Gimblet decided to wait in for it, and, having now leisure to think of others, rang up Sidney on the telephone and told him of the discovery of Barbara Turner’s whereabouts.
Incoherent questions came to him over the wire, but after a minute or two Sidney said “good-bye” and rang off hastily. The detective smiled as he hung up the receiver. In his mind’s eye he saw the young man dash out and drive swiftly in the direction of the hospital, and indeed the picture his imagination drew for him could not have been more accurate.
The afternoon passed and the evening wore away, and yet no wire came from Mrs. Vanderstein. It was tiresome, and Gimblet felt irritated with the lady for her lack of courtesy. Surely she might have replied by now. He felt that she held the clue to many things which perplexed him, and he could not understand her failure to give it to him. His own telegram had been very urgent. Well, the police were sending a man to see her; he was to go over by the 2.20 from Charing Cross, and by now he would be arriving at Boulogne. There could not be much more delay, telegram or no telegram.
Gimblet gave up waiting and went out again. He felt he must go to Scholefield Avenue once more. The tragedy that had taken place there filled his thoughts; and, being convinced in spite of Jennins’ contemptuous incredulity that the two mysteries were in some remote way connected, he was inclined to go and see if there were not some trifling point about things atNo. 13 which he had overlooked, instead of waiting longer for the minute glimmer of light which Mrs. Vanderstein might be able to throw upon the darkness with which the whole affair was enveloped.
Scholefield Avenue looked very quiet and peaceful in the evening light; the few boys who still hovered about the gate, survivals of the crowd which the report of the murder had gathered there earlier in the day, wore the tranquil air of those to whom time is no object, and Gimblet, looking up and down the road, where the shadows lay long and the air was cool in the green twilight of the overhanging trees, thought again what a good place the murderer had chosen for his deed. Who would ever suspect evil in so calm and bright an oasis among the mazes of dusty, traffic-worn streets which surrounded it on every hand?
The house was in charge of a couple of policemen, who let Gimblet in without demur when he showed them his card, and followed him with their eyes with looks in which curiosity and admiration were blended. He went over the garden again, examining half-obliterated footmarks, and poking about between flowering plants lest something should be thrust away there and had escaped his notice. Then into the house, where he renewed his search, but without result. He looked into the drawing-room again, where all was as he had left it except that the body had been removed to a bedroom, then went into the library and gazed again at the dirty finger marks on the white paint of the door. Whose fingers were they, he wondered, which had left so many imprints? Was it the murdered woman who had been shut up in that room? Had Mrs. Vanderstein and her companion been there too, or was Jennins right, and their presence in that vicinity on Monday night been a figment of Miss Finner’s excited imagination?
His thoughts reverted to the powder puff and the forged note, and he took the folded paper from his pocket book and sniffed at it again. The odour of scent, now faint indeed, but still clinging sweetly to the impassioned words, was unmistakably that which hovered about the house in Grosvenor Street. Arome de la Corse, it was called, he remembered, and Amélie had said that Mrs. Vanderstein had it sent to her direct from Paris. Such extraordinary things happen every day that anything short of a miracle hardly attracts attention, but surely it would be a strain on the long arm of coincidence to suppose that, having strayed on to the scene of a murder owing to the mistaken idea that he was on the track of Mrs. Vanderstein, he should then find that not only did the dead woman resemble that lady and wear similar clothes but that she even used the same uncommon perfume! Gimblet’s whole soul revolted at such an impossibility. In the name of common sense, he said to himself, it must be Mrs. Vanderstein who had been seen on the doorstep on Monday night, and none other, in spite of all probability to the contrary; though what she was doing in thatgalèrecertainly seemed incomprehensible from nearly every point of view.
No contingency was ever dismissed by Gimblet as too wild for consideration, and the only reasonable explanation of her presence, he felt, was that she was in some way mixed up with the murder, an accomplice at least, if not the actual author of the deed; but this view involved so complete a shifting of ideas, that he put it aside for further consideration in the light of the information which the man sent by Scotland Yard to Boulogne might be able to furnish. If only the walls could speak! he thought, as he finally realised that nothing more was to be gathered, and, before leaving the room, strolled over to the mantelpiece in order tohave a nearer look at the picture which hung there, and which he had noticed the day before.
It was a small oil painting, dark with dirt and age, and much of the detail lost in a general blackness. Still the figures, those of a man in blue and another in greenish brown in the act of lighting a long pipe, could be clearly enough distinguished, together with enough of the background to make it plain that this represented an interior. Gimblet studied it with the keenest appreciation; it was just the class of picture he most delighted in. A longing took him to remove it from its nail and carry it to the light, and with rather a guilty glance back at the door, which he had, however, shut as he entered, he put up his hand and lifted it off.
As he delicately lowered his prize he caught sight of something which made him very nearly drop it.
On the square of wall paper which had been hidden by the picture was some pencilled writing, scrawled irregularly in a large round hand:
“I am locked in this room. I write this hoping it may be the means of delivering these people to justice, for I am sure they intend no good. I can see that by the fact that the man with the black beard has promised to help me to escape. Why should there be need to escape? But I do not believe he will keep his word. I have been here so long, I do not know how long, but many hours, perhaps days, and God knows what dreadful thing they are doing in the drawing-room to Mr”
“I am locked in this room. I write this hoping it may be the means of delivering these people to justice, for I am sure they intend no good. I can see that by the fact that the man with the black beard has promised to help me to escape. Why should there be need to escape? But I do not believe he will keep his word. I have been here so long, I do not know how long, but many hours, perhaps days, and God knows what dreadful thing they are doing in the drawing-room to Mr”
The writing broke off abruptly about half way down the square of darker colour, where the paper had been prevented from fading by the protecting picture. Gimblet gazed at it with all the emotions of thescientist whose theory has stood the decisive test. His hands fumbled in his excitement, as he hastily snatched out his notebook, and sought in it for the telegraph form Higgs had obtained from the Piccadilly office. He flattened it against the wall below the pencilled words, more in order to gloat over this proof of the soundness of his deductions than for the sake of comparing the two handwritings, for it had only needed the first glance to make it plain to him that they were one and the same. The writing on the wall was larger; the letters followed each other unevenly, and while some of the lines drooped lower and lower as they advanced, others rose crookedly to meet them, so that one or two actually overlapped and were rather hard to decipher, but the essential character of the hand was clearly identical with that of the telegram. There was no mistaking the slant of the short line of the h’s or the oval converging lines of the w’s and the low crossing of the t’s, besides a hundred other small points which left the trained eye in no doubt as to the authorship of the message.
“I wonder what Jennins will say to this,” thought Gimblet, as he copied down the words on a page of his notebook. “That Scholefield Avenue has got on my brain, I suppose.”
Excited as he was, he did not forget his original purpose in taking down the painting, but carried it to the window and examined it closely by the now diminishing light. On nearer inspection it proved to be of less interest than he had expected, and he hung it up again with the less regret.
“But even Jennins will have to admit that a leaning towards Art comes in very useful sometimes,” he thought, as he once more hid the scrawled message from view.
It was long past eight when the detective returnedto his flat, only to find that there was still no answer to his telegram to Boulogne.
“Nothing has come and no one has been to see us since you went out, sir,” Higgs told him.
Higgs always spoke of himself as “us” when he was engaged on Gimblet’s affairs, just as he alluded, with a fine impartiality, to matters in which his master alone was concerned as “ours.”
“They’ve been ringing us up from the Yard,” he went on, “been ringing every few minutes for the last half-hour, and said I was to ask you to speak to them on the telephone the minute you come in. There they go again,” he concluded, as the bell tinkled violently in the library at the same moment as there came a ring at the front door.
Gimblet hurried to the instrument and Higgs went to answer the door.
“Are you there?”
“Yes, is that Mr. Gimblet? Hold the line, please, sir.”
In a moment Jennins’ voice sounded in his ear.
“Mr. Gimblet, that you? Oh, Mr. Gimblet, our man has wired from Boulogne and it appears that things have taken a very unexpected turn. I daresay you’ve seen an evening paper?”
Gimblet had heard so much when the library door burst open, and Sir Gregory rushed into the room.
“Look at this,” he almost screamed, evidently beside himself with some painful emotion. “Look at this!”
He waved an evening paper.
“Oh, do go away, Sir Gregory,” said Gimblet; “can’t you see I’m busy? Hullo, Jennins! Jennins, are you there?”
But Sir Gregory would not be denied. Seizing Gimblet’s arm he tore him away from the telephone,and holding the newspaper under his eyes pointed to it with a shaking hand. He would have spoken, but sobs choked his utterance, and, glancing at him for the first time and in no very friendly humour, Gimblet was surprised to see that tears were rolling down the kindly pink face.
“Why, what’s the matter?” he said, but Sir Gregory only pointed to the unfolded sheet. The detective’s eyes at last followed the outstretched finger, and he read:
“Murder of Mrs. Vanderstein.
“Missing Lady Found Dead in Her Hotel at Boulogne.”
“What do you think about going over to Boulogne, Mr. Gimblet?”
It was the following morning, and Jennins was sitting in Gimblet’s rooms. He had come round to talk matters over and discuss plans and methods of carrying them out.
“I think I may be more useful if I stay here,” Gimblet said, in answer to his question. “Your fellow, Burford, who is over there, is a good sound man who will, at least, not overlook the obvious, and Bonnot, the French detective, who is said to have been summoned, is a master of his profession. These murders are certainly the work of the same gang, and it may be easier to trace them here in London, if it is, as it appears to be, their starting point, than it will be to do so in a foreign country. There is no more news from Burford, I suppose?”
“Nothing new since last night. And no more than the papers have, anyhow. These reporters are the deuce.”
“They are,” Gimblet agreed. “Let’s see again what they say about it.” He took up a paper, turned to the sinister headline, and read aloud: