Whilst Henry Leroux collected his thoughts, Dr. Cumberly glanced across at the writing-table where lay the fragment of paper which had been clutched in the dead woman's hand, then turned his head again toward the inspector, staring at him curiously. Since Dunbar had not yet attempted even to glance at the strange message, he wondered what had prompted the present line of inquiry.
“My wife,” began Leroux, “shared a studio in Paris, at the time that I met her, with an American lady a very talented portrait painter—er—a Miss Denise Ryland. You may know her name?—but of course, you don't, no! Well, my wife is, herself, quite clever with her brush; in fact she has exhibited more than once at the Paris Salon. We agreed at—er—the time of our—of our—engagement, that she should be free to visit her old artistic friends in Paris at any time. You understand? There was to be no let or hindrance.... Is this really necessary, Inspector?”
“Pray go on, Mr. Leroux.”
“Well, you understand, it was a give-and-take arrangement; because I am afraid that I, myself, demand certain—sacrifices from my wife—and—er—I did not feel entitled to—interfere”...
“You see, Inspector,” interrupted Dr. Cumberly, “they are a Bohemian pair, and Bohemians, inevitably, bore one another at times! This little arrangement was intended as a safety-valve. Whenever ennui attacked Mrs. Leroux, she was at liberty to depart for a week to her own friends in Paris, leaving Leroux to the bachelor's existence which is really his proper state; to go unshaven and unshorn, to dine upon bread and cheese and onions, to work until all hours of the morning, and generally to enjoy himself!”
“Does she usually stay long?” inquired Dunbar.
“Not more than a week, as a rule,” answered Leroux.
“You must excuse me,” continued the detective, “if I seem to pry into intimate matters; but on these occasions, how does Mrs. Leroux get on for money?”
“I have opened a credit for her,” explained the novelist, wearily, “at the Credit Lyonnais, in Paris.”
Dunbar scribbled busily in his notebook.
“Does she take her maid with her?” he jerked, suddenly.
“She has no maid at the moment,” replied Leroux; “she has been without one for twelve months or more, now.”
“When did you last hear from her?”
“Three days ago.”
“Did you answer the letter?”
“Yes; my answer was amongst the mail which Soames took to the post, to-night.”
“You said, though, if I remember rightly, that he was out without permission?”
Leroux ran his fingers through his hair.
“I meant that he should only have been absent five minutes or so; whilst he remained out for more than an hour.”
Inspector Dunbar nodded, comprehendingly, tapping his teeth with the head of the fountain-pen.
“And the other servants?”
“There are only two: a cook and a maid. I released them for the evening—glad to get rid of them—wanted to work.”
“They are late?”
“They take liberties, damnable liberties, because I am easy-going.”
“I see,” said Dunbar. “So that you were quite alone this evening, when”—he nodded in the direction of the writing-table—“your visitor came?”
“Quite alone.”
“Was her arrival the first interruption?”
“No—er—not exactly. Miss Cumberly...”
“My daughter,” explained Dr. Cumberly, “knowing that Mr. Leroux, at these times, was very neglectful in regard to meals, prepared him an omelette, and brought it down in a chafing-dish.”
“How long did she remain?” asked the inspector of Leroux.
“I—er—did not exactly open the door. We chatted, through—er—through the letter-box, and she left the omelette outside on the landing.”
“What time would that be?”
“It was a quarter to twelve,” declared Cumberly. “I had been supping with some friends, and returned to find Helen, my daughter, engaged in preparing the omelette. I congratulated her upon the happy thought, knowing that Leroux was probably starving himself.”
“I see. The omelette, though, seems to be upset here on the floor?” said the inspector.
Cumberly briefly explained how it came to be there, Leroux punctuating his friend's story with affirmative nods.
“Then the door of the flat was open all the time?” cried Dunbar.
“Yes,” replied Cumberly; “but whilst Exel and I searched the other rooms—and our search was exhaustive—Mr. Leroux remained here in the study, and in full view of the lobby—as you see for yourself.”
“No living thing,” said Leroux, monotonously, “left this flat from the time that the three of us, Exel, Cumberly, and I, entered, up to the time that Miss Cumberly came, and, with the doctor, went out again.”
“H'm!” said the inspector, making notes; “it appears so, certainly. I will ask you then, for your own account, Mr. Leroux, of the arrival of the woman in the civet furs. Pay special attention”—he pointed with his fountain-pen—“to the TIME at which the various incidents occurred.”
Leroux, growing calmer as he proceeded with the strange story, complied with the inspector's request. He had practically completed his account when the door-bell rang.
“It's the servants,” said Dr. Cumberly. “Soames will open the door.”
But Soames did not appear.
The ringing being repeated:—
“I told him to remain in his room,” said Dunbar, “until I rang for him, I remember—”
“I will open the door,” said Cumberly.
“And tell the servants to stay in the kitchen,” snapped Dunbar.
Dr. Cumberly opened the door, admitting the cook and housemaid.
“There has been an unfortunate accident,” he said—“but not to your master; you need not be afraid. But be good enough to remain in the kitchen for the present.”
Peeping in furtively as they passed, the two women crossed the lobby and went to their own quarters.
“Mr. Soames next,” muttered Dunbar, and, glancing at Cumberly as he returned from the lobby:—“Will you ring for him?” he requested.
Dr. Cumberly nodded, and pressed a bell beside the mantelpiece. An interval followed, in which the inspector made notes and Cumberly stood looking at Leroux, who was beating his palms upon his knees, and staring unseeingly before him.
Cumberly rang again; and in response to the second ring, the housemaid appeared at the door.
“I rang for Soames,” said Dr. Cumberly.
“He is not in, sir,” answered the girl.
Inspector Dunbar started as though he had been bitten.
“What!” he cried; “not in?”
“No, sir,” said the girl, with wide-open, frightened eyes.
Dunbar turned to Cumberly.
“You said there was no other way out!”
“There IS no other way, to my knowledge.”
“Where's his room?”
Cumberly led the way to a room at the end of a short corridor, and Inspector Dunbar, entering, and turning up the light, glanced about the little apartment. It was a very neat servants' bedroom; with comfortable, quite simple, furniture; but the chest-of-drawers had been hastily ransacked, and the contents of a trunk—or some of its contents—lay strewn about the floor.
“He has packed his grip!” came Leroux's voice from the doorway. “It's gone!”
The window was wide open. Dunbar sprang forward and leaned out over the ledge, looking to right and left, above and below.
A sort of square courtyard was beneath, and for the convenience of tradesmen, a hand-lift was constructed outside the kitchens of the three flats comprising the house; i. e.:—Mr. Exel's, ground floor, Henry Leroux's second floor, and Dr. Cumberly's, top. It worked in a skeleton shaft which passed close to the left of Soames' window.
For an active man, this was a good enough ladder, and the inspector withdrew his head shrugging his square shoulders, irritably.
“My fault entirely!” he muttered, biting his wiry mustache. “I should have come and seen for myself if there was another way out.”
Leroux, in a new flutter of excitement, now craned from the window.
“It might be possible to climb down the shaft,” he cried, after a brief survey, “but not if one were carrying a heavy grip, such as that which he has taken!”
“H'm!” said Dunbar. “You are a writing gentleman, I understand, and yet it does not occur to you that he could have lowered the bag on a cord, if he wanted to avoid the noise of dropping it!”
“Yes—er—of course!” muttered Leroux. “But really—but really—oh, good God! I am bewildered! What in Heaven's name does it all mean!”
“It means trouble,” replied Dunbar, grimly; “bad trouble.”
They returned to the study, and Inspector Dunbar, for the first time since his arrival, walked across and examined the fragmentary message, raising his eyebrows when he discovered that it was written upon the same paper as Leroux's MSS. He glanced, too, at the pen lying on a page of “Martin Zeda” near the lamp and at the inky splash which told how hastily the pen had been dropped.
Then—his brows drawn together—he stooped to the body of the murdered woman. Partially raising the fur cloak, he suppressed a gasp of astonishment.
“Why! she only wears a silk night-dress, and a pair of suede slippers!”
He glanced back over his shoulder.
“I had noted that,” said Cumberly. “The whole business is utterly extraordinary.”
“Extraordinary is no word for it!” growled the inspector, pursuing his examination.... “Marks of pressure at the throat—yes; and generally unhealthy appearance.”
“Due to the drug habit,” interjected Dr. Cumberly.
“What drug?”
“I should not like to say out of hand; possibly morphine.”
“No jewelry,” continued the detective, musingly; “wedding ring—not a new one. Finger nails well cared for, but recently neglected. Hair dyed to hide gray patches; dye wanted renewing. Shoes, French. Night-robe, silk; good lace; probably French, also. Faint perfume—don't know what it is—apparently proceeding from civet fur. Furs, magnificent; very costly.”...
He slightly moved the table-lamp in order to direct its light upon the white face. The bloodless lips were parted and the detective bent, closely peering at the teeth thus revealed.
“Her teeth were oddly discolored, doctor,” he said, taking out a magnifying glass and examining them closely. “They had been recently scaled, too; so that she was not in the habit of neglecting them.”
Dr. Cumberly nodded.
“The drug habit, again,” he said guardedly; “a proper examination will establish the full facts.”
The inspector added brief notes to those already made, ere he rose from beside the body. Then:—
“You are absolutely certain,” he said, deliberately, facing Leroux, “that you had never set eyes on this woman prior to her coming here, to-night?”
“I can swear it!” said Leroux.
“Good!” replied the detective, and closed his notebook with a snap. “Usual formalities will have to be gone through, but I don't think I need trouble you, gentlemen, any further, to-night.”
Dr. Cumberly walked slowly upstairs to his own flat, a picture etched indelibly upon his mind, of Henry Leroux, with a face of despair, sitting below in his dining-room and listening to the ominous sounds proceeding from the study, where the police were now busily engaged. In the lobby he met his daughter Helen, who was waiting for him in a state of nervous suspense.
“Father!” she began, whilst rebuke died upon the doctor's lips—“tell me quickly what has happened.”
Perceiving that an explanation was unavoidable, Dr. Cumberly outlined the story of the night's gruesome happenings, whilst Big Ben began to chime the hour of one.
Helen, eager-eyed, and with her charming face rather pale, hung upon every word of the narrative.
“And now,” concluded her father, “you must go to bed. I insist.”
“But father!” cried the girl—“there is some thing”...
She hesitated, uneasily.
“Well, Helen, go on,” said the doctor.
“I am afraid you will refuse.”
“At least give me the opportunity.”
“Well—in the glimpse, the half-glimpse, which I had of her, I seemed”...
Dr. Cumberly rested his hands upon his daughter's shoulders characteristically, looking into the troubled gray eyes.
“You don't mean,” he began...
“I thought I recognized her!” whispered the girl.
“Good God! can it be possible?”
“I have been trying, ever since, to recall where we had met, but without result. It might mean so much”...
Dr. Cumberly regarded her, fixedly.
“It might mean so much to—Mr. Leroux. But I suppose you will say it is impossible?”
“It IS impossible,” said Dr. Cumberly firmly; “dismiss the idea, Helen.”
“But father,” pleaded the girl, placing her hands over his own, “consider what is at stake”...
“I am anxious that you should not become involved in this morbid business.”
“But you surely know me better than to expect me to faint or become hysterical, or anything silly like that! I was certainly shocked when I came down to-night, because—well, it was all so frightfully unexpected”...
Dr. Cumberly shook his head. Helen put her arms about his neck and raised her eyes to his.
“You have no right to refuse,” she said, softly: “don't you see that?”
Dr. Cumberly frowned. Then:—
“You are right, Helen,” he agreed. “I should know your pluck well enough. But if Inspector Dunbar is gone, the police may refuse to admit us”...
“Then let us hurry!” cried Helen. “I am afraid they will take away”...
Side by side they descended to Henry Leroux's flat, ringing the bell, which, an hour earlier, the lady of the civet furs had rung.
A sergeant in uniform opened the door.
“Is Detective-Inspector Dunbar here?” inquired the physician.
“Yes, sir.”
“Say that Dr. Cumberly wishes to speak to him. And”—as the man was about to depart—“request him not to arouse Mr. Leroux.”
Almost immediately the inspector appeared, a look of surprise upon his face, which increased on perceiving the girl beside her father.
“This is my daughter, Inspector,” explained Cumberly; “she is a contributor to the Planet, and to various magazines, and in this journalistic capacity, meets many people in many walks of life. She thinks she may be of use to you in preparing your case.”
Dunbar bowed rather awkwardly.
“Glad to meet you, Miss Cumberly,” came the inevitable formula. “Entirely at your service.”
“I had an idea, Inspector,” said the girl, laying her hand confidentially upon Dunbar's arm, “that I recognized, when I entered Mr. Leroux's study, tonight”—Dunbar nodded—“that I recognized—the—the victim!”
“Good!” said the inspector, rubbing his palms briskly together. His tawny eyes sparkled. “And you would wish to see her again before we take her away. Very plucky of you, Miss Cumberly! But then, you are a doctor's daughter.”
They entered, and the inspector closed the door behind them.
“Don't arouse poor Leroux,” whispered Cumberly to the detective. “I left him on a couch in the dining-room.”...
“He is still there,” replied Dunbar; “poor chap! It is”...
He met Helen's glance, and broke off shortly.
In the study two uniformed constables, and an officer in plain clothes, were apparently engaged in making an inventory—or such was the impression conveyed. The clock ticked merrily on; its ticking a desecration, where all else was hushed in deference to the grim visitor. The body of the murdered woman had been laid upon the chesterfield, and a little, dark, bearded man was conducting an elaborate examination; when, seeing the trio enter, he hastily threw the coat of civet fur over the body, and stood up, facing the intruders.
“It's all right, doctor,” said the inspector; “and we shan't detain you a moment.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Mr. Hilton, M. R. C. S.” he said, indicating the dark man—“Dr. Cumberly and Miss Cumberly.”
The divisional surgeon bowed to Helen and eagerly grasped the hand of the celebrated physician.
“I am fortunate in being able to ask your opinion,” he began....
Dr. Cumberly nodded shortly, and with upraised hand, cut him short.
“I shall willingly give you any assistance in my power,” he said; “but my daughter has voluntarily committed herself to a rather painful ordeal, and I am anxious to get it over.”
He stooped and raised the fur from the ghastly face.
Helen, her hand resting upon her father's shoulder, ventured one rapid glance and then looked away, shuddering slightly. Dr. Cumberly replaced the coat and gazed anxiously at his daughter. But Helen, with admirable courage, having closed her eyes for a moment, reopened them, and smiled at her father's anxiety. She was pale, but perfectly composed.
“Well, Miss Cumberly?” inquired the inspector, eagerly; whilst all in the room watched this slim girl in her charming deshabille, this dainty figure so utterly out of place in that scene of morbid crime.
She raised her gray eyes to the detective.
“I still believe that I have seen the face, somewhere, before. But I shall have to reflect a while—I meet so many folks, you know, in a casual way—before I can commit myself to any statement.”
In the leonine eyes looking into hers gleamed the light of admiration and approval. The canny Scotsman admired this girl for her beauty, as a matter of course, for her courage, because courage was a quality standing high in his estimation, but, above all, for her admirable discretion.
“Very proper, Miss Cumberly,” he said; “very proper and wise on your part. I don't wish to hurry you in any way, but”—he hesitated, glancing at the man in plain clothes, who had now resumed a careful perusal of a newspaper—“but her name doesn't happen to be Vernon—”
“Vernon!” cried the girl, her eyes lighting up at sound of the name. “Mrs. Vernon! it is! it is! She was pointed out to me at the last Arts Ball—where she appeared in a most monstrous Chinese costume—”
“Chinese?” inquired Dunbar, producing the bulky notebook.
“Yes. Oh! poor, poor soul!”
“You know nothing further about her, Miss Cumberly?”
“Nothing, Inspector. She was merely pointed out to me as one of the strangest figures in the hall. Her husband, I understand, is an art expert—”
“He WAS!” said Dunbar, closing the book sharply. “He died this afternoon; and a paragraph announcing his death appears in the newspaper which we found in the victim's fur coat!”
“But how—”
“It was the only paragraph on the half-page folded outwards which was in any sense PERSONAL. I am greatly indebted to you, Miss Cumberly; every hour wasted on a case like this means a fresh plait in the rope around the neck of the wrong man!”
Helen Cumberly grew slowly quite pallid.
“Good night,” she said; and bowing to the detective and to the surgeon, she prepared to depart.
Mr. Hilton touched Dr. Cumberly's arm, as he, too, was about to retire.
“May I hope,” he whispered, “that you will return and give me the benefit of your opinion in making out my report?”
Dr. Cumberly glanced at his daughter; and seeing her to be perfectly composed:—“For the moment, I have formed no opinion, Mr. Hilton,” he said, quietly, “not having had an opportunity to conduct a proper examination.”
Hilton bent and whispered, confidentially, in the other's ear:—
“She was drugged!”
The innuendo underlying the words struck Dr. Cumberly forcibly, and he started back with his brows drawn together in a frown.
“Do you mean that she was addicted to the use of drugs?” he asked, sharply; “or that the drugging took place to-night.”
“The drugging DID take place to-night!” whispered the other. “An injection was made in the left shoulder with a hypodermic syringe; the mark is quite fresh.”
Dr. Cumberly glared at his fellow practitioner, angrily.
“Are there no other marks of injection?” he asked.
“On the left forearm, yes. Obviously self-administered. Oh, I don't deny the habit! But my point is this: the injection in the shoulder was NOT self-administered.”
“Come, Helen,” said Cumberly, taking his daughter's arm; for she had drawn near, during the colloquy—“you must get to bed.”
His face was very stern when he turned again to Mr. Hilton.
“I shall return in a few minutes,” he said, and escorted his daughter from the room.
Matters of vital importance to some people whom already we have met, and to others whom thus far we have not met, were transacted in a lofty and rather bleak looking room at Scotland Yard between the hours of nine and ten A. M.; that is, later in the morning of the fateful day whose advent we have heard acclaimed from the Tower of Westminster.
The room, which was lighted by a large French window opening upon a balcony, commanded an excellent view of the Thames Embankment. The floor was polished to a degree of brightness, almost painful. The distempered walls, save for a severe and solitary etching of a former Commissioner, were nude in all their unloveliness. A heavy deal table (upon which rested a blotting-pad, a pewter ink-pot, several newspapers and two pens) together with three deal chairs, built rather as monuments of durability than as examples of art, constituted the only furniture, if we except an electric lamp with a green glass shade, above the table.
This was the room of Detective-Inspector Dunbar; and Detective-Inspector Dunbar, at the hour of our entrance, will be found seated in the chair, placed behind the table, his elbows resting upon the blotting-pad.
At ten minutes past nine, exactly, the door opened, and a thick-set, florid man, buttoned up in a fawn colored raincoat and wearing a bowler hat of obsolete build, entered. He possessed a black mustache, a breezy, bustling manner, and humorous blue eyes; furthermore, when he took off his hat, he revealed the possession of a head of very bristly, upstanding, black hair. This was Detective-Sergeant Sowerby, and the same who was engaged in examining a newspaper in the study of Henry Leroux when Dr. Cumberly and his daughter had paid their second visit to that scene of an unhappy soul's dismissal.
“Well?” said Dunbar, glancing up at his subordinate, inquiringly.
“I have done all the cab depots,” reported Sergeant Sowerby, “and a good many of the private owners; but so far the man seen by Mr. Exel has not turned up.”
“The word will be passed round now, though,” said Dunbar, “and we shall probably have him here during the day.”
“I hope so,” said the other good-humoredly, seating himself upon one of the two chairs ranged beside the wall. “If he doesn't show up.”...
“Well?” jerked Dunbar—“if he doesn't?”
“It will look very black against Leroux.”
Dunbar drummed upon the blotting-pad with the fingers of his left hand.
“It beats anything of the kind that has ever come my way,” he confessed. “You get pretty cautious at weighing people up, in this business; but I certainly don't think—mind you, I go no further—but I certainly don't think Mr. Henry Leroux would willingly kill a fly; yet there is circumstantial evidence enough to hang him.”
Sergeant Sowerby nodded, gazing speculatively at the floor.
“I wonder,” he said, slowly, “why the girl—Miss Cumberly—hesitated about telling us the woman's name?”
“I am not wondering about that at all,” replied Dunbar, bluntly. “She must meet thousands in the same way. The wonder to me is that she remembered at all. I am open to bet half-a-crown that YOU couldn't remember the name of every woman you happened to have pointed out to you at an Arts Ball?”
“Maybe not,” agreed Sowerby; “she's a smart girl, I'll allow. I see you have last night's papers there?”
“I have,” replied Dunbar; “and I'm wondering”...
“If there's any connection?”
“Well,” continued the inspector, “it looks on the face of it as though the news of her husband's death had something to do with Mrs. Vernon's presence at Leroux's flat. It's not a natural thing for a woman, on the evening of her husband's death, to rush straight away to another man's place”...
“It's strange we couldn't find her clothes”...
“It's not strange at all! You're simply obsessed with the idea that this was a love intrigue! Think, man! the most abandoned woman wouldn't run to keep an appointment with a lover at a time like that! And remember she had the news in her pocket! She came to that flat dressed—or undressed—just as we found her; I'm sure of it. And a point like that sometimes means the difference between hanging and acquittal.”
Sergeant Sowerby digested these words, composing his jovial countenance in an expression of unnatural profundity. Then:—
“THE point to my mind,” he said, “is the one raised by Mr. Hilton. By gum! didn't Dr. Cumberly tell him off!”
“Dr. Cumberly,” replied Dunbar, “is entitled to his opinion, that the injection in the woman's shoulder was at least eight hours old; whilst Mr. Hilton is equally entitled to maintain that it was less than ONE hour old. Neither of them can hope to prove his case.”
“If either of them could?”...
“It might make a difference to the evidence—but I'm not sure.”
“What time is your appointment?”
“Ten o'clock,” replied Dunbar. “I am meeting Mr. Debnam—the late Mr. Vernon's solicitor. There is something in it. Damme! I am sure of it!”
“Something in what?”
“The fact that Mr. Vernon died yesterday evening, and that his wife was murdered at midnight.”
“What have you told the press?”
“As little as possible, but you will see that the early editions will all be screaming for the arrest of Soames.”
“I shouldn't wonder. He would be a useful man to have; but he's probably out of London now.”
“I think not. He's more likely to wait for instructions from his principal.”
“His principal?”
“Certainly. You don't think Soames did the murder, do you?”
“No; but he's obviously an accessory.”
“I'm not so sure even of that.”
“Then why did he bolt?”
“Because he had a guilty conscience.”
“Yes,” agreed Sowerby; “it does turn out that way sometimes. At any rate, Stringer is after him, but he's got next to nothing to go upon. Has any reply been received from Mrs. Leroux in Paris?”
“No,” answered Dunbar, frowning thoughtfully. “Her husband's wire would reach her first thing this morning; I am expecting to hear of a reply at any moment.”
“They're a funny couple, altogether,” said Sowerby. “I can't imagine myself standing for Mrs. Sowerby spending her week-ends in Paris. Asking for trouble, I call it!”
“It does seem a daft arrangement,” agreed Dunbar; “but then, as you say, they're a funny couple.”
“I never saw such a bundle of nerves in all my life!”...
“Leroux?”
Sowerby nodded.
“I suppose,” he said, “it's the artistic temperament! If Mrs. Leroux has got it, too, I don't wonder that they get fed up with one another's company.”
“That's about the secret of it. And now, I shall be glad, Sowerby, if you will be after that taxi-man again. Report at one o'clock. I shall be here.”
With his hand on the door-knob: “By the way,” said Sowerby, “who the blazes is Mr. King?”
Inspector Dunbar looked up.
“Mr. King,” he replied slowly, “is the solution of the mystery.”
The house of the late Horace Vernon was a modern villa of prosperous appearance; but, on this sunny September morning, a palpable atmosphere of gloom seemed to overlie it. This made itself perceptible even to the toughened and unimpressionable nerves of Inspector Dunbar. As he mounted the five steps leading up to the door, glancing meanwhile at the lowered blinds at the windows, he wondered if, failing these evidences and his own private knowledge of the facts, he should have recognized that the hand of tragedy had placed its mark upon this house. But when the door was opened by a white-faced servant, he told himself that he should, for a veritable miasma of death seemed to come out to meet him, to envelop him.
Within, proceeded a subdued activity: somber figures moved upon the staircase; and Inspector Dunbar, having presented his card, presently found himself in a well-appointed library.
At the table, whereon were spread a number of documents, sat a lean, clean-shaven, sallow-faced man, wearing gold-rimmed pince-nez; a man whose demeanor of business-like gloom was most admirably adapted to that place and occasion. This was Mr. Debnam, the solicitor. He gravely waved the detective to an armchair, adjusted his pince-nez, and coughed, introductorily.
“Your communication, Inspector,” he began (he had the kind of voice which seems to be buried in sawdust packing), “was brought to me this morning, and has disturbed me immeasurably, unspeakably.”
“You have been to view the body, sir?”
“One of my clerks, who knew Mrs. Vernon, has just returned to this house to report that he has identified her.”
“I should have preferred you to have gone yourself, sir,” began Dunbar, taking out his notebook.
“My state of health, Inspector,” said the solicitor, “renders it undesirable that I should submit myself to an ordeal so unnecessary—so wholly unnecessary.”
“Very good!” muttered Dunbar, making an entry in his book; “your clerk, then, whom I can see in a moment, identifies the murdered woman as Mrs. Vernon. What was her Christian name?”
“Iris—Iris Mary Vernon.”
Inspector Dunbar made a note of the fact.
“And now,” he said, “you will have read the copy of that portion of my report which I submitted to you this morning—acting upon information supplied by Miss Helen Cumberly?”
“Yes, yes, Inspector, I have read it—but, by the way, I do not know Miss Cumberly.”
“Miss Cumberly,” explained the detective, “is the daughter of Dr. Cumberly, the Harley Street physician. She lives with her father in the flat above that of Mr. Leroux. She saw the body by accident—and recognized it as that of a lady who had been named to her at the last Arts Ball.”
“Ah!” said Debnam, “yes—I see—at the Arts Ball, Inspector. This is a mysterious and a very ghastly case.”
“It is indeed, sir,” agreed Dunbar. “Can you throw any light upon the presence of Mrs. Vernon at Mr. Leroux's flat on the very night of her husband's death?”
“I can—and I cannot,” answered the solicitor, leaning back in the chair and again adjusting his pince-nez, in the manner of a man having important matters—and gloomy, very gloomy, matters—to communicate.
“Good!” said the inspector, and prepared to listen.
“You see,” continued Debnam, “the late Mrs. Vernon was not actually residing with her husband at the date of his death.”
“Indeed!”
“Ostensibly”—the solicitor shook a lean forefinger at his vis-a-vis—“ostensibly, Inspector, she was visiting her sister in Scotland.”
Inspector Dunbar sat up very straight, his brows drawn down over the tawny eyes.
“These visits were of frequent occurrence, and usually of about a week's duration. Mr. Vernon, my late client, a man—I'll not deny it—of inconstant affections (you understand me, Inspector?), did not greatly concern himself with his wife's movements. She belonged to a smart Bohemian set, and—to use a popular figure of speech—burnt the candle at both ends; late dances, night clubs, bridge parties, and other feverish pursuits, possibly taken up as a result of the—shall I say cooling?—of her husband's affections”...
“There was another woman in the case?”
“I fear so, Inspector; in fact, I am sure of it: but to return to Mrs. Vernon. My client provided her with ample funds; and I, myself, have expressed to him astonishment respecting her expenditures in Scotland. I understand that her sister was in comparatively poor circumstances, and I went so far as to point out to Mr. Vernon that one hundred pounds was—shall I say an excessive?—outlay upon a week's sojourn in Auchterander, Perth.”
“A hundred pounds!”
“One hundred pounds!”
“Was it queried by Mr. Vernon?”
“Not at all.”
“Was Mr. Vernon personally acquainted with this sister in Perth?”
“He was not, Inspector. Mrs. Vernon, at the time of her marriage, did not enjoy that social status to which my late client elevated her. For many years she held no open communication with any member of her family, but latterly, as I have explained, she acquired the habit of recuperating—recuperating from the effects of her febrile pleasures—at this obscure place in Scotland. And Mr. Vernon, his interest in her movements having considerably—shall I say abated?—offered no objection: even suffered it gladly, counting the cost but little against”...
“Freedom?” suggested Dunbar, scribbling in his notebook.
“Rather crudely expressed, perhaps,” said the solicitor, peering over the top of his glasses, “but you have the idea. I come now to my client's awakening. Four days ago, he learned the truth; he learned that he was being deceived!”
“Deceived!”
“Mrs. Vernon, thoroughly exhausted with irregular living, announced that she was about to resort once more to the healing breezes of the heather-land”—Mr. Debnam was thoroughly warming to his discourse and thoroughly enjoying his own dusty phrases.
“Interrupting you for a moment,” said the inspector, “at what intervals did these visits take place?”
“At remarkably regular intervals, Inspector: something like six times a year.”
“For how long had Mrs. Vernon made a custom of these visits?”
“Roughly, for two years.”
“Thank you. Will you go on, sir?”
“She requested Mr. Vernon, then, on the last occasion to give her a check for eighty pounds; and this he did, unquestioningly. On Thursday, the second of September, she left for Scotland”...
“Did she take her maid?”
“Her maid always received a holiday on these occasions; Mrs. Vernon wired her respecting the date of her return.”
“Did any one actually see her off?”
“No, not that I am aware of, Inspector.”
“To put the whole thing quite bluntly, Mr. Debnam,” said Dunbar, fixing his tawny eyes upon the solicitor, “Mr. Vernon was thoroughly glad to get rid of her for a week?”
Mr. Debnam shifted uneasily in his chair; the truculent directness of the detective was unpleasing to his tortuous mind. However:—
“I fear you have hit upon the truth,” he confessed, “and I must admit that we have no legal evidence of her leaving for Scotland on this, or on any other occasion. Letters were received from Perth, and letters sent to Auchterander from London were answered. But the truth, the painful truth came to light, unexpectedly, dramatically, on Monday last”...
“Four days ago?”
“Exactly; three days before the death of my client.” Mr. Debnam wagged his finger at the inspector again. “I maintain,” he said, “that this painful discovery, which I am about to mention, precipitated my client's end; although it is a fact that there was—hereditary heart trouble. But I admit that his neglect of his wife (to give it no harsher name) contributed to the catastrophe.”
He paused to give dramatic point to the revelation.
“Walking homeward at a late hour on Monday evening from a flat in Victoria Street—the flat of—shall I employ the term a particular friend?—Mr. Vernon was horrified—horrified beyond measure, to perceive, in a large and well-appointed car—a limousine—his wife!”...
“The inside lights of the car were on, then?”
“No; but the light from a street lamp shone directly into the car. A temporary block in the traffic compelled the driver of the car, whom my client described to me as an Asiatic—to pull up for a moment. There, within a few yards of her husband, Mrs. Vernon reclined in the car—or rather in the arms of a male companion!”
“What!”
“Positively!” Mr. Debnam was sedately enjoying himself. “Positively, my dear Inspector, in the arms of a man of extremely dark complexion. Mr. Vernon was unable to perceive more than this, for the man had his back toward him. But the light shone fully upon the face of Mrs. Vernon, who appeared pale and exhausted. She wore a conspicuous motor-coat of civet fur, and it was this which first attracted Mr. Vernon's attention. The blow was a very severe one to a man in my client's state of health; and although I cannot claim that his own conscience was clear, this open violation of the marriage vows outraged the husband—outraged him. In fact he was so perturbed, that he stood there shaking, quivering, unable to speak or act, and the car drove away before he had recovered sufficient presence of mind to note the number.”
“In which direction did the car proceed?”
“Toward Victoria Station.”
“Any other particulars?”
“Not regarding the car, its driver, or its occupants; but early on the following morning, Mr. Vernon, very much shaken, called upon me and instructed me to despatch an agent to Perth immediately. My agent's report reached me at practically the same time as the news of my client's death”...
“And his report was?”...
“His report, Inspector, telegraphic, of course, was this: that no sister of Mrs. Vernon resided at the address; that the place was a cottage occupied by a certain Mrs. Fry and her husband; that the husband was of no occupation, and had no visible means of support”—he ticked off the points on the long forefinger—“that the Frys lived better than any of their neighbors; and—most important of all—that Mrs. Fry's maiden name, which my agent discovered by recourse to the parish register of marriages—was Ann Fairchild.”
“What of that?”
“Ann Fairchild was a former maid of Mrs. Vernon!”
“In short, it amounts to this, then: Mrs. Vernon, during these various absences, never went to Scotland at all? It was a conspiracy?”
“Exactly—exactly, Inspector! I wired instructing my agent to extort from the woman, Fry, the address to which she forwarded letters received by her for Mrs. Vernon. The lady's death, news of which will now have reached him, will no doubt be a lever, enabling my representative to obtain the desired information.”
“When do you expect to hear from him?”
“At any moment. Failing a full confession by the Frys, you will of course know how to act, Inspector?”
“Damme!” cried Dunbar, “can your man be relied upon to watch them? They mustn't slip away! Shall I instruct Perth to arrest the couple?”
“I wired my agent this morning, Inspector, to communicate with the local police respecting the Frys.”
Inspector Dunbar tapped his small, widely-separated teeth with the end of his fountain-pen.
“I have had one priceless witness slip through my fingers,” he muttered. “I'll hand in my resignation if the Frys go!”
“To whom do you refer?”
Inspector Dunbar rose.
“It is a point with which I need not trouble you, sir,” he said. “It was not included in the extract of report sent to you. This is going to be the biggest case of my professional career, or my name is not Robert Dunbar!”
Closing his notebook, he thrust it into his pocket, and replaced his fountain-pen in the little leather wallet.
“Of course,” said the solicitor, rising in turn, and adjusting the troublesome pince-nez, “there was some intrigue with Leroux? So much is evident.”
“You will be thinking that, eh?”
“My dear Inspector”—Mr. Debnam, the wily, was seeking information—“my dear Inspector, Leroux's own wife was absent in Paris—quite a safe distance; and Mrs. Vernon (now proven to be a woman conducting a love intrigue) is found dead under most compromising circumstances—MOST compromising circumstances—in his flat! His servants, even, are got safely out of the way for the evening”...
“Quite so,” said Dunbar, shortly, “quite so, Mr. Debnam.” He opened the door. “Might I see the late Mrs. Vernon's maid?”
“She is at her home. As I told you, Mrs. Vernon habitually released her for the period of these absences.”
The notebook reappeared.
“The young woman's address?”
“You can get it from the housekeeper. Is there anything else you wish to know?”
“Nothing beyond that, thank you.”
Three minutes later, Inspector Dunbar had written in his book:—Clarice Goodstone, c/o Mrs. Herne, 134a Robert Street, Hampstead Road, N. W.
He departed from the house whereat Death the Gleaner had twice knocked with his Scythe.