“Is your trouble of mind or body incurable? Do you hesitate on the brink of the abyss? Does courage fail you? Write to Benefactor, Box——”
“Is your trouble of mind or body incurable? Do you hesitate on the brink of the abyss? Does courage fail you? Write to Benefactor, Box——”
“What is this?” asked Michael, frowning.
“It was found in the pocket of an old waistcoat that Elmer was wearing a few days before he disappeared. Mrs. Elmer was going through his clothes with the idea of selling them, when she found this. It appeared in theMorning Telegramof the fourteenth—that is to say, three or four days before Elmer vanished. The box number at the end, of course, is the box number of the newspaper to which replies were sent. There is a record that four letters reached the ‘Benefactor,’ who, so far as we have been able to discover, had these particular letters readdressed to a little shop in Stibbington Street, London. Here they were collected by a woman, evidently of the working class, and probably a charlady from the appearance which has been circulated. Beyond that, no further trace has been obtainable. Similar advertisements have been found by search in other newspapers, but in these cases the letters were sent to an accommodation address in South London, where apparently the same woman collected them. With every new advertisement the advertiser changes his address. She was a stranger to each neighbourhood, by the way; and from what shopkeepers have told Scotland Yard, she seemed to be a little off her head, for she was in the habit of mumbling and talking to herself. Her name is Stivins—at least, that is the name she always gave. And the notes she brought were usually signed ‘Mark’—that is to say, the notes authorizing the shopkeepers to hand the letters to her. That she is a native of London there is no doubt, but so far the police have not trailed her.”
“And suppose they do?” asked Michael. “Do you connect the advertisement with the murders?”
“We do and we do not,” replied the other. “I merely point out that this advertisement is a peculiar one, and in all the circumstances a little suspicious. Now what is the theory you wanted to give me?”
For an hour Michael spoke, interrupted at intervals by questions which Staines put to him.
“It is a queer idea, almost a fantastical one,” said Staines gravely, “but if you feel that you’ve got so much as one thread in your hands, go right ahead. To tell you the truth,” in a burst of confidence, “I had a horrible feeling that you had fallen down; and since I do not want our department to be a source of amusement to Scotland Yard, I thought I’d come along and give you the result of my own private investigations. I agree with you,” he said later, as they sat at breakfast, “that you want to go very, very carefully. It is a delicate business. You haven’t told the Scotland Yard men your suspicions?”
Michael shook his head.
“Then don’t,” said the other emphatically. “They’d be certain to go along and put the person you suspect under arrest, and probably that would destroy the evidence that would convict. You say you have made a search of the house?”
“Not a search: I’ve made a rough inspection.”
“Are there cellars?”
“I should imagine so,” said Michael. “That type of house usually has.”
“Outhouses where——?”
Michael shook his head.
“There are none, so far as I have been able to see.”
Michael walked down to the railway station with his chief, who told him he was leaving in a much more cheerful frame of mind than he had been in when he arrived.
“There’s one warning I’ll give to you, Mike,” said Staines as the train was about to pull out of the station, “and it is to watch out for yourself! You’re dealing with a ruthless and ingenious man. For heaven’s sake do not underrate his intelligence. I don’t want to wake up one morning to learn that you have vanished from the ken of man.”
CHAPTER XXITHE ERASURE
Mike’sway back did not lead through the little street where Adele Leamington lived—at least, not his nearest road. Yet he found himself knocking at the door, and learnt, with a sense of disappointment, that the girl had been out since seven o’clock in the morning. Knebworth was shooting on the South Downs, and the studio, when he arrived, was empty, except for Knebworth’s secretary and the new scenario editor, who had arrived late on the previous evening.
“I don’t know the location, Mr. Brixan,” said Dicker, the secretary, “but it’s somewhere above Arundel. Miss Mendoza was here this morning, asking the same question. She wanted Miss Leamington to go out to lunch with her.”
“Oh, she did, did she?” said Michael softly. “Well, if she comes again, you can tell her from me that Miss Leamington has another engagement.”
The other nodded wisely.
“I hope she won’t keep you waiting,” he said. “You never know, when Jack’s on location——”
“I did not say she had an engagement with me,” said Michael loudly.
“That reminds me, Mr. Brixan,” said the secretary suddenly. “Do you remember the fuss you made—I mean, there was—about a sheet of manuscript that by some accident had got into Miss Leamington’s script?”
Michael nodded.
“Has the manuscript been found?” he asked.
“No, but the new scenario editor tells me that he was looking through the book where Foss kept a record of all the manuscripts that came in, and he found one entry had been blacked out with Indian ink.”
“I’d like to see that book,” said the interested Michael, and it was brought to him, a large foolscap ledger, ruled to show the name of the submitted scenario, the author, his address, the date received and the date returned. Mike put it down on the table in Knebworth’s private office and went carefully through the list of authors.
“If he sent one he has probably sent more,” he said. “There are no other erasures?”
The secretary shook his head.
“That is the only one we’ve seen,” he said. “You’ll find lots of names of local people—there isn’t a tradesman in the place who hasn’t written a scenario or submitted an idea since we’ve been operating.”
Slowly Michael’s finger went up the column of names. Page after page was turned back. And then his finger stopped at an entry.
“The Power of Fear: Sir Gregory Penne,” he read, and looked round at Dicker.
“Did Sir Gregory submit scenarios, Mr. Dicker?”
Dicker nodded.
“Yes, he sent in one or two,” he said. “You’ll find his name farther back in the book. He used to write scenarios which he thought were suitable for Miss Mendoza. He’s not the man you’re looking for?”
“No,” said Michael quickly. “Have you any of his manuscript?”
“They were all sent back,” said Dicker regretfully. “He wrote awful mush! I read one of them. I remember Foss trying to persuade old Jack to produce it. Foss made quite a lot of money on the side, we’ve discovered. He used to take fees from authors, and Mr. Knebworth discovered this morning that he once took two hundred pounds from a lady on the promise that he’d get her into the pictures. He wrote Foss a stinging letter this morning about it.”
Presently Michael found Sir Gregory’s name again. It was not remarkable that the owner of Griff Towers should have submitted a manuscript. There was hardly a thinking man or woman in the world who did not believe he or she was capable of writing for the films.
He closed the book and handed it back to Dicker.
“It is certainly queer, that erased entry. I’ll speak to Foss about it as soon as I can find him,” he said.
He went immediately to the little hotel where Foss was staying, but he was out.
“I don’t think he came home last night,” said the manager. “If he did, he didn’t sleep in his bed. He said he was going to London,” he added.
Michael went back to the studio, for it had begun to rain, and he knew that that would drive the company from location. His surmise was correct: the big yellow char-à-banc came rumbling into the yard a few minutes after he got there. Adele saw him, and was passing with a nod when he called her to him.
“Thank you, Mr. Brixan, but we lunched on location, and I have two big scenes to read for to-morrow.”
Her refusal was uncompromising, but Michael was not the type who readily accepted a “No.”
“What about tea? You’ve got to drink tea, my good lady, though you have fifty scenes to study. And you can’t read and eat too. If you do, you’ll get indigestion, and if you get indigestion——”
She laughed.
“If my landlady will loan me her parlour, you may come to tea at half-past four,” she said; “and if you have another engagement at five o’clock, you’ll be able to meet it.”
Jack Knebworth was waiting for him when he went into the studio.
“Heard about that entry in the scenario book?” he asked. “I see you have. What do you think of it?” Without waiting for a reply: “It looks queer to me. Foss was an unmitigated liar. That fellow couldn’t see straight. I’ve got a little bone to pick with him on the matter of a fee he accepted from a screen-struck lady who wished to be featured in one of my productions.”
“How’s the girl?” asked Michael.
“You mean Adele? Really, she’s wonderful, Brixan! I’m touching wood all the time”—he put his hand on the table piously—“because I know that there’s a big shock coming to me somewhere and somehow. Those things do not happen in real life. The only stars that are born in a night are the fireworks produced by crazy vice-presidents who have promised to do something for Mamie and can’t break their word. And Mamie, supported by six hundred extras and half a million dollars’ worth of sets, two chariot races and the fall of Babylon, all produced regardless of expense, manages to get over by giving a fine imitation of what the Queen of Persia would look like if she’d been born a chorus girl and trained as a mannequin. And she’s either got so few clothes that you don’t look at her face, or so many clothes that you don’t notice her acting.
“Those kind of stars are like the dust of the Milky Way: there is so much splendour all round them that it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t there at all. But this girl Leamington, she’s getting over entirely and absolutely by sheer, unadulterated grey matter. I tell you, Brixan, it’s not right. These things do not happen except in the imagination of press agents. There’s something wrong with that kid.”
“Wrong?” said Michael, startled.
Knebworth nodded.
“Something radically wrong. There’s a snag somewhere. She’s either going to let me down by vanishing before the picture’s through, or else she’s going to be arrested for driving a car along Regent Street in a highly intoxicated condition!”
Michael laughed.
“I think she’ll do neither,” he said.
“Heard about Mendoza’s new company?” asked old Jack, filling his pipe.
Michael pulled up a chair and sat down.
“No, I haven’t.”
“She’s starting a new production company. There’s never a star I’ve fired that hasn’t! It gets all written out on paper, capital in big type, star in bigger! It’s generally due to the friends of the star, who tell her that a hundred thousand a year is a cruel starvation wage for a woman of her genius, and she ought to get it all. Generally there’s a sucker in the background who puts up the money. As a rule, he puts up all but enough, and then she selects a story where she is never off the screen, and wears a new dress every fifty feet of film. If she can’t find that sort of story, why, she gets somebody to write her one. The only time you ever see the other members of the company is in the long shots. Half-way through the picture the money dries up, the company goes bust, and all the poor little star gets out of it is the Rolls-Royce she bought to take her on location, the new bungalow she built to be nearer the lot, and about twenty-five per cent. of the capital that she’s taken on account of royalties.”
“Mendoza will not get a good producer in England?”
“She may,” nodded Jack. “Thereareproducers in this country, but unfortunately they’re not the men on top. They’ve been brought down by the craze for greatness. A man who produces with a lot of capital behind him can get easy money. He doesn’t go after the domestic stories, where he’d be found out first time; he says to the money-bags: ‘Let’s produce the Fall of Jerusalem. I’ve got a cute idea for building Ezekiel’s temple that’s never been taken before. It’ll only cost a mere trifle of two hundred thousand dollars, and we’ll have five thousand extras in one scene, and we’ll rebuild the Colosseum and have a hundred real lions in the arena! Story? What do you want a story for? The public love crowds.’ Or maybe he wants to build a new Vesuvius and an eruption at the rate of fifty dollars a foot. There’s many a big reputation been built up on sets and extras. Come in, Mr. Longvale.”
Michael turned. The cheery old man was at the door, hat in hand.
“I am afraid I am rather a nuisance,” he said in his beautiful voice. “But I came in to see my lawyer, and I could not deny myself the satisfaction of calling to see how your picture is progressing.”
“It is going on well, Mr. Longvale, thank you,” said Jack. “You know Mr. Brixan?”
The old man nodded and smiled.
“Yes, I came in to see my lawyer on what to you will seem to be a curious errand. Many years ago I was a medical student and took my final examination, so that I am, to all intents and purposes, a doctor, though I’ve not practised to any extent. It is not generally known that I have a medical degree and I was surprised last night to be called out by—er—a neighbour, who wished me to attend a servant of his. Now, I am so hazy on the subject that I wasn’t quite sure whether or not I’d broken the law by practising without registration.”
“I can relieve your mind there, Mr. Longvale,” said Michael. “Once you are registered, you are always registered, and you acted quite within your rights.”
“So my lawyer informed me,” said Longvale gravely.
“Was it a bad case?” asked Michael, who guessed who the patient was.
“No, it was not a bad case. I thought there was blood poisoning, but I think perhaps I may have been mistaken. Medical science has made such great advance since I was a young man that I almost feared to prescribe. Whilst I am only too happy to render any service that humanity demands, I must confess that it was rather a disturbing experience, and I scarcely slept all night. In fact, it was a very disturbing evening and night. Somebody, for some extraordinary reason, put a motor-bicycle in my garden.”
Michael smiled to himself.
“I cannot understand why. It had gone this morning. And then I saw our friend Foss, who seemed very much perturbed about something.”
“Where did you see him?” asked Michael quickly.
“He was passing my house. I was standing at the gate, smoking my pipe, and bade him good night without knowing who he was. When he turned back, I saw it was Mr. Foss. He told me he had been to make a call, and that he had another appointment in an hour.”
“What time was this?” asked Michael.
“I think it must have been eleven o’clock.” The old man hesitated. “I’m not sure. It was just before I went to bed.”
Michael could easily account for Foss’s conduct. Sir Gregory had hurried him off and told him to come back after the girl had gone.
“My little place used to be remarkable for its quietness,” said Mr. Longvale, and shook his head. “Perhaps,” turning to Knebworth, “when your picture is finished you will be so good as to allow me to see it?”
“Why, surely, Mr. Longvale.”
“I don’t know why I’m taking this tremendous interest,” chuckled the old man. “I must confess that, until a few weeks ago, film-making was a mystery to me. And even to-day it belongs to the esoteric sciences.”
Dicker thrust his head in the door.
“Will you see Miss Mendoza?” he asked.
Jack Knebworth’s expression was one of utter weariness.
“No,” he said curtly.
“She says——” began Dicker.
Only the presence of the venerable Mr. Longvale prevented Jack from expressing his views on Stella Mendoza and all that she could say.
“There’s another person I saw last night,” nodded Mr. Longvale. “I thought at first you must be shooting—is that the expression?—in the neighbourhood, but Mr. Foss told me that I was mistaken. She’s rather a charming girl, don’t you think?”
“Very,” said Jack dryly.
“A very sweet disposition,” Longvale went on, unconscious of the utter lack of sympathy in the atmosphere. “Nowadays, the confusion and hurry which modernity brings in its trail do not make for sweetness of temper, and one is glad to meet an exception. Not that I am an enemy of modernity. To me, this is the most delightful phase of my long life.”
“Sweet disposition!” almost howled Jack Knebworth when the old man had taken a dignified farewell. “Did you get that, Brixan? Say, if that woman’s disposition is sweet, the devil’s made of chocolate!”
CHAPTER XXIITHE HEAD
WhenMike went out, he found Stella at the gate of the studio, and remembered, seeing her, that she had been invited to lunch at Griff Towers. To his surprise she crossed the road to him.
“I wanted to see you, Mr. Brixan,” she said. “I sent in word to find if you were there.”
“Then your message was wrongly delivered to Mr. Knebworth,” smiled Mike.
She lifted one of her shoulders in demonstration of her contempt for Jack Knebworth and all his works.
“No, it was you I wanted to see. You’re a detective, aren’t you?”
“I am,” said Michael, wondering what was coming next.
“My car is round the corner: will you come to my house?”
Michael hesitated. He was anxious, more than anxious, to speak to Adele, though he had nothing special to tell her, beyond the thing which he himself did not know and she could never guess.
“With pleasure,” he said.
She was a skilful motorist, and apparently so much engrossed in her driving that she did not speak throughout the journey. In the pretty little drawing-room from which he had a view of the lovely South Downs, he waited expectantly.
“Mr. Brixan, I am going to tell you something which I think you ought to know.”
Her face was pale, her manner curiously nervous.
“I don’t know what you will think of me when I have told you, but I’ve got to risk that. I can’t keep silence any longer.”
A shrill bell sounded in the hall.
“The telephone. Will you excuse me one moment?”
She hurried out, leaving the door slightly ajar. Michael heard her quick, angry reply to somebody at the other end of the wire, and then a long interregnum of silence, when apparently she listened without comment. It was nearly ten minutes before she returned, and her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed.
“Would you mind if I told you what I was going to tell you a little later?” she asked.
She had been on the telephone to Sir Gregory: of that Michael was sure, though she had not mentioned his name.
“There’s no time like the present, Miss Mendoza,” he said encouragingly, and she licked her dry lips.
“Yes, I know, but there are reasons why I can’t speak now. Would you see me to-morrow?”
“Why, certainly,” said Michael, secretly glad of his release.
“Shall I drive you back?”
“No, thank you, I can walk.”
“Let me take you to the edge of the town: I’m going that way,” she begged.
Of course she was going that way, thought Michael. She was going to Griff Towers. He was so satisfied on this matter that he did not even trouble to inquire, and when she dropped him at his hotel, she hardly waited for him to step to the side-walk before the car leapt forward on its way.
“There’s a telegram for you, sir,” said the porter. He went into the manager’s office and returned with a buff envelope, which Michael tore open.
For a time he could not comprehend the fateful message the telegram conveyed. And then slowly he read it to himself.
“A head found on Chobham Common early this morning. Come to Leatherhead Police Station at once.“Staines.”
“A head found on Chobham Common early this morning. Come to Leatherhead Police Station at once.
“Staines.”
An hour later a fast car dropped him before the station. Staines was waiting on the step.
“Found at daybreak this morning,” he said. “The man is so far unknown.”
He led the way to an outhouse. On a table in the centre of the room was a box, and he lifted the lid.
Mike took one glance at the waxen face and turned white.
“Good God!” he breathed.
It was the head of Lawley Foss.
CHAPTER XXIIICLUES AT THE TOWER
Michaelgazed in fascinated horror at the tragic spectacle. Then reverently he covered the box with a cloth and walked out into the paved courtyard.
“You know him?” asked Staines.
Michael nodded.
“Yes, it is Lawley Foss, lately scenario editor of the Knebworth Picture Corporation. He was seen alive last night at eleven o’clock. I myself heard, if I did not see him, somewhere about that time. He was visiting Griff Towers, Sir Gregory Penne’s place in Sussex. Was there the usual note?” he asked.
“There was a note, but it was quite unusual.”
He showed the typewritten slip: it was in the station inspector’s office. One characteristic line, with its ill-aligned letters.
“This is the head of a traitor.” That and no more.
“I’ve had the Dorking police on the ’phone. It was a wet night, and although several cars passed none of them could be identified.”
“Has the advertisement appeared?” asked Michael.
Staines shook his head.
“No, that was the first thing we thought of. The newspapers have carefully observed, and every newspaper manager in the country has promised to notify us the moment such an advertisement is inserted. But there has been no ad. of any suspicious character.”
“I shall have to follow the line of probability here,” said Michael. “It is clear that this man was murdered between eleven o’clock and three in the morning—probably nearer eleven than three; for if the murderer is located in Sussex, he would have to bring the head to Chobham, leave it in the dark and return before it was light.”
His car took Michael back to Chichester at racing pace. Short of the city he turned off the main road, his objective being Griff Towers. It was late when he arrived, and the Towers presented its usual lifeless appearance. He rang the bell, but there was no immediate reply. He rang again, and then the voice of Sir Gregory hailed him from one of the upper windows.
“Who’s there?”
He went out of the porch and looked up. Sir Gregory Penne did not recognize him in the darkness, and called again:
“Who’s there?” and followed this with a phrase which Michael guessed was Malayan.
“It is I, Michael Brixan. I want to see you, Penne.”
“What do you want?”
“Come down and I will tell you.”
“I’ve gone to bed for the night. See me in the morning.”
“I’ll see you now,” said Michael firmly. “I have a warrant to search this house.”
He had no such warrant, but only because he had not asked for one.
The man’s head was hastily withdrawn, the window slammed down, and such a long interval passed that Michael thought that the baronet intended denying him admission. This view, however, was wrong. At the end of a dreary period of waiting the door was opened, and, in the light of the hall lamp, Sir Gregory Penne presented an extraordinary appearance.
He was fully dressed: around his waist were belted two heavy revolvers, but this fact Michael did not immediately notice. The man’s head was swathed in bandages; only one eye was visible; his left arm was stiff with a surgical dressing, and he limped as he walked.
“I’ve had an accident,” he said gruffly.
“It looks a pretty bad one,” said Michael, observing him narrowly.
“I don’t want to talk here: come into my room,” growled the man.
In Sir Gregory’s library there were signs of a struggle. A long mirror which hung on one of the walls was shattered to pieces; and, looking up, Michael saw that one of the two swords was missing.
“You’ve lost something,” he said. “Did that occur in course of the ‘accident’?”
Sir Gregory nodded.
Something in the hang of the second sword attracted Michael’s attention, and, without asking permission, he lifted it down from its hook and drew the blade from the scabbard. It was brown with blood.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked sternly.
Sir Gregory swallowed something.
“A fellow broke into the house last night,” he said slowly, “a Malayan fellow. He had some cock and bull story about my having carried off his wife. He attacked me, and naturally I defended myself.”
“And had you carried off his wife?” asked Michael.
The baronet shrugged.
“The idea is absurd. Most of these Borneo folk are mad, and they’ll run amok on the slightest provocation. I did my best to pacify him——”
Michael looked at the stained sword.
“So I see,” he said dryly. “And did you—pacify him?”
“I defended myself, if that’s what you mean. I returned him almost as good as he gave. You don’t expect me to sit down and be murdered in my own house, do you? I can use a sword as well as any man.”
“And apparently you used it,” said Michael. “What happened to Foss?”
Not a muscle of Penne’s face moved.
“Whom do you mean?”
“I mean Lawley Foss, who was in your house last night.”
“You mean the scenario writer? I haven’t seen him for weeks.”
“You’re a liar,” said Michael calmly. “He was in here last night. I can assure you on this point, because I was in the next room.”
“Oh, it was you, was it?” said the baronet, and seemed relieved. “Yes, he came to borrow money. I let him have fifty pounds, and he went away, and that’s the last I saw of him.”
Michael looked at the sword again.
“Would you be surprised to learn that Foss’s head has been picked up on Chobham Common?” he asked.
The other turned a pair of cold, searching eyes upon his interrogator.
“I should be very much surprised,” he said coolly. “If necessary, I have a witness to prove that Foss went, though I don’t like bringing in a lady’s name. Miss Stella Mendoza was here, having a bit of supper, as you probably know, if it was you in the next room. He left before she did.”
“And he returned,” said Michael.
“I never saw him again, I tell you,” said the baronet violently. “If you can find anybody who saw him come into this house after his first visit you can arrest me. Do you thinkIkilled him?”
Michael did not answer.
“There was a woman upstairs in the tower. What has become of her?”
The other wetted his lips before he replied.
“The only woman in the tower was a sick servant: she has gone.”
“I’d like to see for myself,” said Michael.
Only for a second did the man cast his eyes in the direction of Bhag’s den, and then:
“All right,” he said. “Follow me.”
He went out into the corridor and turned, not toward the hall but in the opposite direction. Ten paces farther down he stopped and opened a door, so cunningly set in the panelling, and so placed between the two shaded lights that illuminated the corridor, that it was difficult to detect its presence. He put in his hand, turned on a light, and Michael saw a long flight of stairs leading back toward the hall.
As he followed the baronet, he realized that the “tower” was something of an illusion. It was only a tower if viewed from the front of the house. Otherwise it was an additional two narrow storeys built on one wing of the building.
They passed through a door, up a circular staircase, and came to the corridor where Michael had seen Bhag squatting on the previous night.
“This is the room,” said Penne, opening a door.
CHAPTER XXIVTHE MARKS OF THE BEAST
“Onthe contrary, it is not the room,” said Michael quietly. “The room is at the end of the passage.”
The man hesitated.
“Can’t you believe me?” he asked in an almost affable tone of voice. “What a sceptical chap you are! Now come, Brixan! I don’t want to be bad friends with you. Let’s go down and have a drink and forget our past animosities. I’m feeling rotten——”
“I want to see that room,” said Michael.
“I haven’t the key.”
“Then get it,” said Michael sharply.
Eventually the baronet found a pass-key in his pocket, and, with every sign of reluctance, he opened the door.
“She went away in a bit of a hurry,” he said. “She was taken so ill that I had to get rid of her.”
“If she left here because she was ill she went into an institution of some kind, the name of which you will be able to give me,” said Michael, as he turned on the light.
One glance at the room told him that the story of her hasty departure may have been accurate. But that the circumstances were normal, the appearance of the room denied. The bed was in confusion; there was blood on the pillow, and a dark brown stain on the wall. A chair was broken; the carpet had odd and curious stains, one like the print of a bare foot. On a sheet was an indubitable hand-print, but such a hand as no human being had ever possessed.
“The mark of the beast,” said Michael, pointing. “That’s Bhag!”
Again the baronet licked his lips.
“There was a bit of a fight here,” he said. “The man came up and pretended to identify the servant as his wife——”
“What happened to him?”
There was no reply.
“What happened to him?” asked Michael with ominous patience.
“I let him go, and let him take the woman with him. It was easier——”
With a sudden exclamation, Michael stooped and picked up from behind the bed a bright steel object. It was the half of a sword, snapped clean in the middle, and unstained. He looked along the blade, and presently found the slightest indent. Picking up the chair, he examined the leg and found two deeper dents in one of the legs.
“I’ll reconstruct the scene. You and your Bhag caught the man after he had got into this room. The chair was broken in the struggle, probably by Bhag, who used the chair. The man escaped from the room, ran downstairs into the library and got the sword from the wall, then came up after you. That’s when the real fighting started. I guess some of this blood is yours, Penne.”
“Some of it!” snarled the other. “All of it, damn him!”
There was a long silence.
“Did the woman leave this room—alive?”
“I believe so,” said the other sullenly.
“Did her husband leave your library—alive?”
“You’d better find that out. So far as I know—I was unconscious for half an hour. Bhag can use a sword——”
Michael did not leave the house till he had searched it from attic to basement. He had every servant assembled and began his interrogation. Each of them except one spoke Dutch, but none spoke the language to such purpose that they made him any wiser than he had been.
Going back to the library, he put on all the lights.
“I’ll see Bhag,” he said.
“He’s out, I tell you. If you don’t believe me——” Penne went to the desk and turned the switch. The door opened and nothing came out.
A moment’s hesitation and Michael had penetrated into the den, a revolver in one hand, his lamp in another. The two rooms were scrupulously clean, though a strange animal smell pervaded everything. There was a small bed, with sheets and blankets and feather pillow, where the beast slept; a small larder, full of nuts; a running water tap (he found afterwards that, in spite of his cleverness, Bhag was incapable of turning on or off a faucet); a deep, well-worn settee, where the dumb servitor took his rest; and three cricket balls, which were apparently the playthings of this hideous animal.
Bhag’s method of entering and leaving the house was now apparent. His exit was a square opening in the wall, with neither window nor curtain, which was situated about seven feet from the ground; and two projecting steel rungs, set at intervals between the window and the floor, made a sort of ladder. Michael found corresponding rungs on the garden side of the wall.
There was no sign of blood, no evidence that Bhag had taken any part in the terrible scene which must have been enacted the night before.
Going back to the library, he made a diligent search, but found nothing until he went into the little drawing-room where he had hidden the night before. Here on the window-sill he found traces enough. The mark of a bare foot, and another which suggested that a heavy body had been dragged through the window.
By this time his chauffeur, who, after dropping him at Griff Towers, went on to Chichester, had returned with the two police officers, and they assisted him in a further search of the grounds. The trail of the fugitive was easy to follow: there were bloodstains across the gravel, broken plants in a circular flower-bed, the soft loam of which had received the impression of those small bare feet. In the vegetable field the trail was lost.
“The question is, who carried whom?” said Inspector Lyle, after Michael, in a few words, had told him all that he had learnt at the Towers. “It looks to me as if these people were killed in the house and their bodies carried away by Bhag. There’s no trace of blood in his room, which means no more than that in all probability he hasn’t been there since the killing,” said Inspector Lyle. “If we find the monkey we’ll solve this little mystery. Penne is the Head-Hunter, of course,” the Inspector went on. “I had a talk with him the other day, and there’s something fanatical about the man.”
“I am not so sure,” said Michael slowly, “that you’re right. Perhaps my ideas are just a little bizarre; but if Sir Gregory Penne is the actual murderer, I shall be a very surprised man. I admit,” he confessed, “that the absence of any footprints in Bhag’s quarters staggered me, and probably your theory is correct. There is nothing to be done but to keep the house under observation until I communicate with headquarters.”
At this moment the second detective, who had been searching the field to its farthermost boundary, came back to say that he had picked up the trail again near the postern gate, which was open. They hurried across the field and found proof of his discovery. There was a trail both inside and outside the gate. Near the postern was a big heap of leaves, which had been left by the gardener to rot, and on this they found the impression of a body, as though whoever was the carrier had put his burden down for a little while to rest. In the field beyond the gate, however, the trail was definitely lost.
CHAPTER XXVTHE MAN IN THE CAR
Lifeis largely made up of little things, but perspective in human affairs is not a gift common to youth. It had required a great effort on the part of Adele Leamington to ask a man to tea, but, once that effort was made, she had looked forward with a curious pleasure to the function.
At the moment Michael was speeding to London, she interviewed Jack Knebworth in his holy of holies.
“Certainly, my dear: you may take the afternoon off. I am not quite sure what the schedule was.”
He reached out his hand for the written time-table, but she supplied the information.
“You wanted some studio portraits of me—‘stills,’ ” she said.
“So I did! Well, that can wait. Are you feeling pretty confident about the picture, eh?”
“I? No, I’m not confident, Mr. Knebworth; I’m in a state of nerves about it. You see, it doesn’t seem possible that I should make good at the first attempt. One dreams about such things, but in dreams it is easy to jump obstacles and get round dangerous corners and slur over difficulties. Every time you call ‘camera!’ I am in a state of panic, and I am so self-conscious that I am watching every movement I take, and saying to myself ‘You’re raising your hands awkwardly; you’re turning your head with a jerk.’ ”
“But that doesn’t last?” he said sharply, so sharply that she smiled.
“No: the moment I hear the camera turning, I feel that Iamthe character I’m supposed to be.”
He patted her on the shoulder.
“That is how youshouldfeel,” he said, and went on: “Seen nothing of Mendoza, have you? She isn’t annoying you? Or Foss?”
“I’ve not seen Miss Mendoza for days—but I saw Mr. Foss last night.”
She did not explain the curious circumstances, and Jack Knebworth was so incurious that he did not ask. So that he learnt nothing of Lawley Foss’s mysterious interview with the man in the closed car at the corner of Arundel Road, an incident she had witnessed on the previous night. Nor of the white and womanly hand that had waved him farewell, nor of the great diamond which had sparkled lustrously on the little finger of the unknown motorist.
Going home, Adele stopped at a confectioner’s and a florist’s, collected the cakes and flowers that were to adorn the table of Mrs. Watson’s parlour. She wondered more than a little just what attraction she offered to this man of affairs. She had a trick of getting outside and examining herself with an impartial eye, and she knew that, by self-repression and almost self-obliteration, she had succeeded in making of Adele Leamington a very colourless, characterless young lady. That she was pretty she knew, but prettiness in itself attracts only the superficial. Men who are worth knowing require something more than beauty. And Michael was not philandering—he was not that kind. He wanted her for a friend at least: she had no thought that he desired amusement during his enforced stay in a very dull town.
Half-past four came and found the girl waiting. At a quarter to five she was at the door, scanning the street. At five, angry but philosophical, she had her tea and ordered the little maid of all work to clear the table.
Michael had forgotten!
Of course, she made excuses for him, only to demolish them and build again. She was hurt, amused and hurt again. Going upstairs to her room, she lit the gas, took the script from her bag and tried to study the scenes that were to be shot on the following day, but all manner of distractions interposed between her receptive mind and the typewritten paper. Michael bulked largely, and the closed car, and Lawley Foss, and that waving white hand as the car drove off. Curiously enough, her speculations came back again and again to the car. It was new and its woodwork was highly polished and it moved so noiselessly.
At last she threw the manuscript down and rose, with a doubtful eye on the bed. She was not tired; the hour was nine. Chichester offered few attractions by night. There were two cinemas, and she was not in the mood for cinemas. She put on her hat and went down, callingen routeat the kitchen door.
“I am going out for a quarter of an hour,” she told her landlady, who was in an approving mood.
The house was situate in a street of small villas. It was economically illuminated, and there were dark patches where the light of the street lamps scarcely reached. In one of these a motor-car was standing—she saw the bulk of it before she identified its character. She wondered if the owner knew that its tail light was extinguished. As she came up to the machine she identified the car she had seen on the previous night—Foss had spoken to its occupant.
Glancing to the left, she could see nothing of its interior. The blinds on the road side were drawn, and she thought it was empty, and then . . .
“Pretty lady—come with me!”
The voice was a whisper: she caught the flash and sparkle of a precious stone, saw the white hand on the edge of the half-closed window, and, in a fit of unreasoning terror, hurried forward.
She heard a whirr of electric starter and the purring of engines. The machine was following her, and she broke into a run. At the corner of the street she saw a man and flew toward him, as she made out the helmet of a policeman.
“What’s wrong, miss?”
As he spoke, the car flashed past, spun round the corner and was out of sight instantly.
“A man spoke to me—in that car,” she said breathlessly.
The stolid constable gazed vacantly at the place where the car had been.
“He didn’t have lights,” he said stupidly. “I ought to have taken his number. Did he insult you, miss?”
She shook her head, for she was already ashamed of her fears.
“I’m nervy, officer,” she said with a smile. “I don’t think I will go any farther.”
She turned back and hurried to her lodgings. There were disadvantages in starring—even on Jack Knebworth’s modest lot. It was nervous work, she thought.
She went to sleep that night and dreamt that the man in the car was Michael Brixan and he wanted her to come in to tea.
It was past midnight when Michael rang up Jack Knebworth with the news.
“Foss!” he gasped. “Good God! You don’t mean that, Brixan? Shall I come round and see you?”
“I’ll come to you,” said Michael. “There are one or two things I want to know about the man, and it will create less of a fuss than if I have to admit you to the hotel.”
Jack Knebworth rented a house on the Arundel Road, and he was waiting at the garden door to admit his visitor when Michael arrived.
Michael told the story of the discovery of the head, and felt that he might so far take the director into his confidence as to retail his visit to Sir Gregory Penne.
“That beats everything,” said Jack in a hushed tone. “Poor old Foss! You think that Penne did this? But why? You don’t cut up a man because he wants to borrow money.”
“My views have been switching round a little,” said Michael. “You remember a sheet of manuscript that was found amongst some of your script, and which I told you must have been written by the Head-Hunter?”
Jack nodded.
“I’m perfectly sure,” Michael went on, “and particularly after seeing the erasure in the scenario book, that Foss knew who was the author of that manuscript, and I’m equally certain that he resolved upon the desperate expedient of blackmailing the writer. If that is the case, and if Sir Gregory is the man—again I am very uncertain on this point—there is a good reason why he should be put out of the way. There is one person who can help us, and that is——”
“Mendoza,” said Jack, and the two men’s eyes met.