CHAPTER XVIIA SINGULAR DISMISSAL
Perhapsit may be wondered why I didn’t at once make a frank statement of my part in the mystery to my kind-hearted chief and throw myself on his mercy.
I was withheld by more than one reason. In the first place I couldn’t feel sure that I should be believed. I had no means of proving my innocence. The circumstantial evidence against me was as strong as it could be. I had the strongest motive to kill the monster who was trying to put my secret to the basest use; I had been on the spot, and been there in disguise; and I had given him a drug which was only less dangerous than the one that had caused his death. Who would believe that I had stopped short there? And Sir Frank Tarleton had shown by this time that he did not believe me. To him, as to everyone else, it must appear evident that the man who was prepared to commit a crime in defence of a woman would be prepared to tell a lie as well.
Then, again, the relations between my chief and me were not merely private ones. Both of us were Government officials, and I owed my own post to his recommendation. His official conscience might well be different from his private one. He might be willing to make excuses for me personally, and yetfeel it his duty to report to the Department we both served that I was no longer worthy of its confidence.
And, lastly, there was the consideration that had controlled my action all along. My secret was Violet’s secret. To no living being had I a right to tell it without her consent. That consent I need not say no peril to myself would have tempted me to ask. The only question I now put to myself was whether I ought not to put her on her guard by letting her know what I had come to fear.
I slept, or tried to sleep, that night without coming to my decision. In the morning Sir Frank extracted from the pile of letters beside his plate on the breakfast-table one with an earl’s coronet on the flap of the envelope.
He did not show me the contents, but said carelessly, “I shall be out to lunch. Lord Ledbury is anxious to see me in John Street.”
The news decided me. Before Violet was exposed to any further questioning from my shrewd chief she must be warned how things stood. I couldn’t complain of not being included in the invitation. In Lord Ledbury’s eyes naturally I was a mere subordinate, only acting under Tarleton’s orders.
There was another letter that interested the consultant more than the Earl’s. It came from New Scotland Yard.
“Sarah Neobard and her mother have gone abroad,” he remarked with something like satisfaction.“Charles has sent a man after them. They seem to have gone to Paris. You must have frightened that young woman rather badly.”
I forced my wandering mind back to the subject of the letters. Had they come into Sarah’s hands, and, if so, had she taken them with her? After all, this was a more pressing matter than any danger of mine.
“Will it be possible for them to hide in Paris?” I asked anxiously.
The specialist shook his head.
“Charles knows his business—up to a certain point. Depend on it a smart officer will have been there to meet them at the Gare du Nord, if the French police were notified in time. I don’t think there is much chance of two Englishwomen slipping between the fingers of the Paris detective force.”
“Then what will be the next step?” I inquired vaguely.
“I shall leave for Paris by to-night’s mail.”
The announcement was made curtly. The day before it was I who had been charged with this part of the case. I was to have interviewed Mrs. Weathered and appealed to her womanly feelings on behalf of her husband’s victims. Now it seemed that my chief had changed his mind, and intended to see her himself. I dared not even ask if I was to go with him. A shadow had fallen between us which it was not for me to pierce.
I held my tongue, and went on quietly with mybreakfast. The consultant went through his mail, passing on to me such letters as I was accustomed to deal with on his behalf—requests for appointments and consultations with other doctors, and so forth. There was no sign that he had withdrawn his confidence in me except when the mystery of the Domino Club was concerned.
The meal was just over when a loud summons at the front door was followed by the entrance of Tarleton’s man showing in Inspector Charles.
The Inspector was in a state of excitement. In his hand he carried a newspaper which he waved at us both.
“Have you seen this morning’s paper?” he called out before the door was closed. “The advertisement in the Agony Column?”
Tarleton glanced at me before answering, and I remembered his prediction to Lord Ledbury as he spoke.
“What, have they got to work already? What does it say?”
Captain Charles read out from the paper in a round, commanding voice:
“Dr. Weathered, deceased. Any patients of the late Dr. Weathered desiring to have their letters to him returned are requested to apply, mentioning number, to Messrs. James, Halliday and James, Solicitors, Carmichael House, Chancery Lane, E.C.4.” He did not spare us even the 4.
Sir Frank nodded approvingly. “Very wellworded, very well worded, indeed. It sounds like a perfectly respectable offer.”
It sounded so to me. But the Inspector was puzzled.
“What does it mean?” he exclaimed. “Why should they advertise? Why not return the letters at once, or write to the patients? And why should they want to know the exact numbers?”
“Ah, that is part of the case that I haven’t had an opportunity of going into with you yet, Charles. Won’t you sit down. The fact is, I have been rather expecting some approach of this kind. Dr. Cassilis and I have ascertained that Weathered induced some of his patients to write him letters of a rather compromising kind. The arrangement was that the letters should be signed with a number instead of a name, probably they bore no address. The object of this advertisement is to find out who the writers are. The demand for money will come later.”
“Blackmail!” the Inspector gasped in horror.
“I’m afraid so. An honest person who had found such a correspondence would have burnt it. You see now one of my reasons for not dropping the case to oblige that Crown Prince of Slavonia.”
One of the reasons only. I had little doubt as to another. Captain Charles looked extremely subdued.
“I had no idea of anything like this in the background, I needn’t say, Sir Frank. I will look up these solicitors at once. Chancery Lane—there arebetter addresses than that, and there are worse. Unless you have anything else to advise.”
“I should advise you to find out what you can about the solicitors, certainly. But I doubt if they are in possession of the letters. I shouldn’t be surprised if the letters were in Paris by this time.”
Captain Charles struck his forehead.
“Of course! The widow has carried them abroad to be out of reach in case of trouble. It was fortunate that we heard of their flight so soon. We know where they are already. They have some smart men in the Rue Jerusalem.”
“I shall be glad if you will write me a line of introduction to the French police,” Tarleton responded. “By the way, have you secured me that finger-print yet?”
“I have it here, Sir Frank.” The Inspector took out a substantial pocket-book and extracted a mounted photograph, which my chief slipped into his own pocket without giving it a glance. Charles looked as if he were as much in the dark as I was as to the meaning of this proceeding.
“It may come in useful,” was all the consultant said. “But you were going to tell us where Mrs. Weathered and her daughter were hiding.”
“They don’t seem to be hiding, that’s the curious part of it. Perhaps they don’t understand the law about extradition. They’ve put up at a respectable hotel on Cook’s list, a hotel swarming withEnglish tourists, the Hotel St. Catherine in the Rue Tivoli.”
Tarleton knitted his brows at this intelligence. “We don’t know yet the reason for their flight, if it is a flight,” he observed thoughtfully. “We have nothing against either of them so far, remember.”
He drew out his mascot and played with it gently for a minute while Charles and I watched him in keen suspense. Suddenly he looked up and spoke to the Inspector in a brisk voice.
“We mustn’t lose time. Some unfortunate victim may be answering that advertisement already. Luckily, I have come across one of Weathered’s correspondents whose letters to him were quite innocent,—that Mrs. Baker your man reported on for me. I want you to see her at once, using my name if necessary, and get her authority to deal with these solicitors on her behalf. Ask for the letters first, and if they make some excuse for not parting with them, ask who is instructing them. If they refuse to give you their client’s name we shall know the worst.”
It seemed to me that we knew the worst already, if my chief was right. As he had said, an honest woman, finding such letters after her husband’s death, would have put them in the fire. It was more than ever imperative that I should see Violet at once. She might have read the advertisement by now, and taken it in good faith.
Directly after Captain Charles had left us I made some excuse for going out on business, andhailed the first taxi I saw. It was still early when I got to John Street, Mayfair, where the Earl of Ledbury’s modest town house stood. The door was opened by the same man whom I had made a friend of down at Tyberton, and I was careful to confirm the friendship in the surest way. He was much more smartly dressed on this occasion, and everything about the house indicated that Lord Ledbury had taken Tarleton’s advice to heart, and was preparing to give his daughter her proper position in the fashionable world.
Violet, too, was changed. Her dress was still a little lacking in those touches which only the most expensive houses can impart, but she bore herself quite differently. Her father’s new-born care for her had given her confidence, and done something to banish the look of hopelessness and resignation I had last seen on her face. I hate to confess it, but glad as I was on her account I felt a little sorry on my own. The old gulf between us I was beginning to hope had shrunk, but now a new one seemed to have opened. Who was I, what was plain Bertrand Cassilis, M.D., that he should venture to go on loving the bright star set high above him in the social firmament?
“I think I know why you have come,” was her greeting. She did not offer me her white hand. “They are offering to return those letters. I can’t tell you how thankful I shall be.”
It was what I had feared. I would have givenanything to leave her in ignorance, but the risk was too great.
“Have you answered the advertisement yet?” I asked.
“Not yet. I was tempted to go there at once, but I thought I had better consult you first. Why, is there anything wrong?”
She must have seen there was by this time from my air. Yet at that very moment the knowledge that she had thought of me, that she had put her trust in me and no one else, made my courage rise; and I answered her with a boldness that surprised myself.
“Thank Heaven for that! I came here the first moment I could to warn you to take no notice of that advertisement. It shows that they don’t know whom the letters are from, or they would have written to you direct. Trust me; the matter is in good hands; those letters shall either be returned to you or destroyed unread, I swear it.”
“Thank you, Bertrand. I do trust you. I know it isn’t your fault if they haven’t been destroyed already.”
The words rolled a great burden from my heart. I was on the point of murmuring that I hadn’t deserved her trust, but some instinct bade me refrain from the least reference to the past. I believed that the sad old wound was beginning to heal, and that the best chance for both of us was to bury the pastin silence, and never to conjure up its ghost by one single word.
Already Violet was forgetting her own trouble to think of mine. She went on before I had found anything to say.
“But what about yourself? Has anything more been discovered about the murder?”
It was necessary for me to tell her what I feared. “We have found what caused Weathered’s death,” I answered. “It was a poison that only Sir Frank Tarleton knew of. He recognized the symptoms from the first, and now he has found out where it was obtained from.” And I briefly related the story of the stolen bottle.
Violet looked relieved when she had heard it.
“Then he must have stolen the bottle himself. Did he commit suicide, do you think?”
“I’m afraid that’s not what Sir Frank thinks. Unless I am mistaken he suspects me of having taken the bottle from Mrs. Baker. His manner towards me has quite changed. He is going to Paris to-night on the track of the letters, but he isn’t taking me with him.”
I had alarmed her more than I meant. She uttered a cry of despair.
“Bertrand! It isn’t true! Will he have you arrested? Shall you be——” She began to sob.
“No, no; it isn’t as bad as that. There’s not going to be any arrest if the police can help it. Any way, I don’t believe Sir Frank would let them arrestme. But I shall have to resign my post, I expect, and I may have to leave the country.”
She looked at me through her tears. “That will be almost as bad, won’t it?”
It was all I could do to keep from answering, “Not if you come with me.” But I could not take advantage of her like that.
“I shall always have my profession,” I said. “Sir Frank has confidence in me as a doctor, I know. But I didn’t mean to distress you like this. I shouldn’t have said anything to you about it, but Sir Frank is coming here to lunch to-day, and I was afraid he might find out something from you.”
“Surely you didn’t think that,” she protested. “You don’t think I should betray you. If you had killed that villain it would have been for my sake. And he deserved to be killed.”
My heart glowed within me. I spoke out.
“And I would have killed him if I had seen no other way. No, I didn’t think for a moment that you would give me away knowingly; but Tarleton is a past master in the art of sounding people and extracting information from them unawares. I only wanted to put you on your guard, lest you should think that you could trust him as a friend of mine.”
“I certainly thought he was. He looked so kind and good,” Violet said thoughtfully.
Perhaps I was a little irritated. “He impresses all women in that way,” I said with a touch of jealousy. “I could see that he admired you.”
Violet’s eyes brightened. “I must try to make a friend of him. If I let him see that—that I should be sorry if any harm came to anyone through me, perhaps that may influence him.”
I ought to have been very grateful, but I’m afraid my response was lacking in warmth.
“Don’t tell him I have been here,” I said as I rose to go. And she smiled at me rather pathetically as she promised.
I had a rather dismal lunch by myself, wondering what was passing at Lord Ledbury’s. When I saw Tarleton again I was staggered by his gay appearance. He had blossomed out in a new coat and a white waistcoat and a fancy tie. Most wonderful of all, the shabby black ribbon by which he was so fond of swinging his watch had been replaced by a brilliant gold chain that I had never seen before. It was evident that he had decked himself to make an impression in John Street.
He had not long been back when we had another call from Captain Charles. He came in looking grave, and greeted my chief with increased respect.
“I have been to Chancery Lane, as you advised, Sir Frank, and seen the principal. There is only one. The names in the advertisement are bogus ones, unless he bought the good-will of some old firm going out of business. The man’s real name is Stillman. I saw it on his notepaper. And he strikes me as hot stuff.”
“What did he say?”
“It was just what you expected. Made an excuse for not giving me Mrs. Baker’s letters. Said he was only authorized to hand them over to the writer in person. And when I asked who was instructing him, said he wasn’t authorized to give his client’s name.”
Tarleton shrugged his shoulders.
“Clever, very clever,” he repeated. “There’s nothing for you to take hold of, so far. If you go back again with Mrs. Baker you will put him in a corner, and very likely her letters will be given up, as they contain nothing serious. It’s a nasty business.”
“What had we better do?”
“Do nothing till you hear from me again. I am off to Paris to-night, and when I come back I shall know where the letters are, if I don’t bring them back with me.”
The Inspector bowed himself out quite meekly. My curiosity prompted me to venture on a rash question.
“Do you think it possible that Miss Neobard has the letters?”
My chief swung himself slowly round in his chair and gave me a steady look, under which I quailed inwardly.
“I don’t think I ought to tell you, Cassilis. It seems to me that you are an interested party.”
So my fear had been well grounded. I listened breathlessly for more.
“From the beginning of this investigation youhave shown a bias that is fatal in one who is playing the part of a detective, or aspiring to play it. A man in your position should be absolutely impartial. He should not let himself be swayed for a moment by personal prejudices or personal preferences. Now you have all along showed a disposition to screen Lady Violet Bredwardine. You have made excuses for her to me, and you have defended her to others. At the same time you have shown an inclination to think the worst of Sarah Neobard. And your animus against her came out most strongly when she showed herself Lady Violet’s enemy.”
What could I say? I was only too thankful that he had spared me any reference to the omission of Violet’s name from the list I had copied for Inspector Charles. That was a clear breach of duty, as I had to admit to myself.
Sir Frank’s voice was perfectly bland as he continued:
“Lady Violet is worthy of any man’s admiration, and I am quite as determined as you are to protect her from any dastardly use of her correspondence. I should not have blamed you severely for anything you might have done for her protection if you had been acting in a private capacity. But you are here in a responsible position. You owe it to the Home Office and to me to conduct the inquiry into this murder without fear or favour, whatever may be the consequences, and whoever may be guilty. You must ask yourself if you have done so.”
I am afraid I asked myself instead how much he really knew. So far he had made no definite accusation. He had charged me with nothing but a display of personal sympathy and antipathy, a charge which it would have been foolish to deny.
“It is a question of temperament, it seems to me,” pursued the consultant in the same even tones. “Sympathy is a valuable quality in a doctor, but it is fatal in a criminal investigator. I think I made a mistake in inviting you to enter the Government service. You would get on better in private practice.”
The blow had fallen and I had only to make the best of it. “Of course, I am in your hands, sir. If that is your opinion I will send in my resignation.”
Australia, Canada, South Africa passed before my mind’s eye as I spoke, as possible refuges for a penniless medico. I could not hope for anything in England after being practically dismissed from the Home Office.
My prompt offer, however, seemed to have greatly softened my judge.
“We will talk of that after I have come back from Paris,” he said kindly. “For your own sake I don’t advise any sudden step. And there is Lady Violet to consider. As I said before, you have acted as her champion. Anything like a public slur on you, or an admission on your part that you were to blame, would be certain to give her pain, even if it didn’t reflect on her. She spoke of you to me this morning in a very friendly way.”
Poor Violet. So she had done the very worst thing she could have done in my interest. To praise a young man to an elderly admirer—what other result could it have but to ensure his being driven from the field?
I was too much cast down to make any response to Sir Frank’s well-meant advice, beyond a silent bow. He was as friendly as ever the next minute, invited me to come to Charing Cross to see him off, and shook my hand cordially at parting. I preferred to walk home afterwards, dreading the dull hours till bedtime. So miserable was I that, when I came in, I should have gone straight upstairs without looking to see if there were any letters for me if I had not been arrested by a faint fragrance that had many memories for me.
I looked down, and there was a delicate blue envelope beckoning me by name.
Dear Bertrand,I write at once to tell you that you have nothing to fear from dear Sir Frank. He spoke of you most highly to my father, said you had a distinguished career before you, and that he would not take £3,000 a year for your practice in a few years’ time.Yours,Violet.
Dear Bertrand,
I write at once to tell you that you have nothing to fear from dear Sir Frank. He spoke of you most highly to my father, said you had a distinguished career before you, and that he would not take £3,000 a year for your practice in a few years’ time.
Yours,Violet.