"I imagine you are right," said Rupert. "The estate on which that tobacco was grown is one of the smallest in Cuba, but it is on the old rich belt. My manager is a scientist. He knows to half an ounce per acre how much sulphate of potash to add each year."
"Sulphate of potash?" questioned Winter, ever ready to assimilate fresh lore on the subject of the weed.
"Yes, that is the secret of the flavor, plus the requisite conditions of soil and climate, of course. The tobacco plant is a great consumer of mineral constituents. A rusty nail, a pinch of salt, and a small lump of lime, placed respectively near the roots of three plants in the same row, will produce three absolutely different varieties of tobacco, but all three will be inferior to the plants removed from such influences."
"Dear me!" said Winter, "how very interesting!"
But to his own mind he was saying: "Why in the world did Furneaux refuse to meet this nice young fellow? Really, this affair grows more complex every hour."
Osborne momentarily forgot his troubles in the company of this affable official. It was comforting, too, that his hospitality should be accepted. Somehow,he felt certain that Winter would have declined it if any particle of suspicion had been attached to the giver, and therein his knowledge of men did not deceive him. With a lighter heart, therefore, than he would have thought possible a few minutes earlier, he, too, lit a cigar.
Winter saw that Rupert was waiting for him to resume the conversation momentarily broken. He began with a straightforward question.
"Now, Mr. Osborne," he said, "will you kindly tell me if it is true that you were about to marry Mademoiselle de Bercy?"
"It is quite true."
"How long have you known her?"
"Since she came to London last fall."
"I suppose you made no inquiries as to her past life?"
"No, none. I never gave a thought to such a thing."
"I suppose you see now that it would have been wiser had you done something of the kind?"
"Wisdom and love seldom go hand in hand."
The Chief Inspector nodded agreement. His profession had failed utterly to oust sentiment from his nature.
"At any rate," he said, "her life during the past nine months has been an open book to you?"
"We soon became friends. Since early in the spring I think I could tell you of every engagement Mademoiselle de Bercy fulfilled, and name almostevery person she met, barring such trivialities as shopping fixtures and the rest."
"Ah; then you would know if she had an enemy?"
"I—think so. I have never heard of one. She had hosts of friends—all sympathetic."
"What was the precise object of your visit on Tuesday?"
"I took her a book on Sicily. We—we had practically decided on Taormina for our honeymoon. As I would be occupied until a late hour, she arranged to dine with Lady Knox-Florestan and go to the opera to hearPagliacci. It was played afterPhilémon et Baucis, so the dinner was fixed for half-past eight."
"Would anyone except yourself and Lady Knox-Florestan be aware of that arrangement?"
"I think not."
"Why did she telephone to Lady Knox-Florestan at 7.30 and plead illness as an excuse for not coming to the dinner?"
Rupert looked thoroughly astounded. "That is the first I have heard of it," he cried.
"Could she have had any powerful reason for changing her plans?"
"I cannot say. Not tomyknowledge, most certainly."
"Did she expect any visitor after your departure?"
"No. Two of her servants were out for the evening, and the housemaid would help her to dress."
Winter looked at the American with a gleam of curiosity when the housemaid was mentioned.
"Did this girl, the housemaid, open the door when you left?" he asked.
"No. I just rushed away. She admitted me, but I did not see her afterwards."
"Then she may have fancied that you took your departure much later?"
"Possibly, though hardly likely, since her room adjoins the entrance, and, as it happened, I banged the door accidentally in closing it."
Winter was glad that a man whom he firmly believed to be innocent of any share in the crime had made an admission that might have told against him under hostile examination.
"Suppose—just suppose—" he said, "that the housemaid, being hysterical with fright, gave evidence that you were in Feldisham Mansions at half-past seven—how would you explain it?"
"Your own words 'hysterical with fright' might serve as her excuse. At half-past seven I was arguing against the ever-increasing height of polo ponies, with the rest of the committee against me. Does the girl say any such thing?"
"Girls are queer sometimes," commented Winter airily. "But let that pass. I understand, Mr. Osborne, that you have given instructions to the undertaker?"
Rupert flinched a little.
"What choice had I in the matter?" he demanded."I thought that Mademoiselle de Bercy was an orphan—that all her relatives were dead."
"Ah, yes. Even now, I fancy, you mean to attend the funeral to-morrow?"
"Of course. Do you imagine I would desert my promised wife at such an hour—no matter what was revealed——"
"No, Mr. Osborne, I did not think it for one instant. And that brings me to the main object of my visit. Please be advised by me—don't go to the funeral. Better still, leave London for a few days. Lose yourself till the day before the adjourned inquest."
"But why—in Heaven's name?"
"Because appearances are against you. The public mind—I had better be quite candid. The man in the street is a marvelous detective, in his own opinion. Being an idler, he will turn up in his thousands at Feldisham Mansions and Kensal Green Cemetery to-morrow afternoon, and, if you are present, there may be a regrettable scene. Moreover, you will meet a warped old peasant named Jean Armaud and a narrow-souled village girl in his daughter Marguerite. Take my advice—pack a kit-bag, jump into a cab, and bury yourself in some seaside town. Let me know where you are—as I may want to communicate with you—and—er—when you send your address, don't forget to sign your letter in the same way as you sign the hotel register."
Rupert rose and looked out of the window. He could not endure that another man should see the agony in his face.
"Are you in earnest?" he said, when he felt that his voice might be trusted.
"Dead in earnest, Mr. Osborne," came the quiet answer.
"You even advise me to adopt an alias?"
"Call it anom de voyage," said Winter.
"I shall be horribly lonely. May I not take my valet?"
"Take no one. I suppose you can leave some person in charge of your affairs?"
"I have a secretary. But she and my servants will think my conduct very strange."
"I shall call here to-morrow and tell your secretary you have left London for a few days at my request. What is her name?"
"Prout—Miss Hylda Prout. She comes here at 11 a.m. and again at 3 p.m."
"I see. Then I may regard that matter as settled?"
Again there was silence for a time. Oddly enough, Rupert was conscious of a distinct feeling of relief.
"Very well," he said at last. "I shall obey you to the letter."
"Thank you. I am sure you are acting for the best."
Winter, whose eyes had noted every detail of theroom while Rupert's back was turned, rose as if his mission were accomplished.
"Won't you have another cigar?" said Rupert.
"Well, yes. It is a sin to smoke these cigars so early in the day——"
"Let me send you a hundred."
"Oh, no. I am very much obliged, but——"
"Please allow me to do this. Don't you see?—if I tell Jenkins, in your presence, to pack and forward them, it will stifle a good deal of the gossip which must be going on even in my own household."
"Well—from that point of view, Mr. Osborne——"
"Ah, I cannot express my gratitude, but, when all this wretched business is ended, we must meet under happier conditions."
He touched a bell, and Jenkins appeared.
"Send a box of cigars to Chief Inspector Winter, at Scotland Yard, by special messenger," said Rupert, with as careless an air as he could assume.
Jenkins gurgled something that sounded like "Yes, sir," and went out hastily. Rupert spread his hands with a gesture of utmost weariness.
"You are right about the man in the street," he sighed. "Even my own valet feared that you had come to arrest me."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Winter.
But when Jenkins, discreetly cheerful, murmured "Good-day, sir," and the outer door was closed behindhim, Winter's strong face wore its prizefighter aspect.
"Clarkewouldhave arrested him," he said to himself. "But that man did not kill Mirabel Armaud. Then who did kill her?Idon't know, yet I believe that Furneaux guesses.Whodid it? Damme, it beats me, and the greatest puzzle of all is to read the riddle of Furneaux."
No sooner did Rupert begin to consider ways and means of adopting Winter's suggestion than he encountered difficulties. "Pack a kit-bag, jump into a cab, and bury yourself in some seaside town" might be the best of counsel; but it was administered in tabloid form; when analyzed, the ingredients became formidable. For instance, the Chief Inspector had apparently not allowed for the fact that a man in Osborne's station would certainly carry his name or initials on his clothing, linen, and portmanteaux, and on every article in his dressing-case.
Despite his other troubles—which were real enough to a man who loathed publicity—Rupert found himself smiling in perplexity when he endeavored to plan some means of hoodwinking Jenkins. Moreover, he could not help feeling that his identity would be proclaimed instantly when a sharp-eyed hotel valet or inquisitive chambermaid examined his belongings. He was sure that some of the newspapers would unearth a better portrait of himself than the libelous snapshot reproduced that day, in which event no very acute intelligencewould be needed to connect "Osborne" or "R. G. O." with the half-tone picture. Of course, he could buy ready-made apparel, but the notion was displeasing; ultimately, he abandoned the task and summoned Jenkins.
Jenkins was one of those admirable servants—bred to perfection in London only—worthy of a coat of arms with the blazoned motto: "Leave it to me." His sallow, almost ascetic, face brightened under the trust reposed in him.
"It is now half-past ten, sir," he said. "Will it meet your convenience if I have everything ready by two o'clock?"
"I suppose so," said his master ruefully.
"What station shall I bring your luggage to, sir?"
"Oh, any station. Let me see—say Waterloo, main line."
"And you will be absent ten days or thereabouts, sir."
"That is the proposition as it stands now."
"Very well, sir. I shall want some money—not more than twenty pounds——"
Rupert opened a door leading to the library. He rented a two-story maisonette in Mayfair, with the drawing-room, dining-room, library, billiard-room and domestic offices grouped round the hall, while the upper floor was given over to bedrooms and dressing-rooms. His secretary was not arrived as yet; but he had already glanced through a pile ofletters with the practiced eye of one who receives daily a large and varied correspondence.
He wrote a check for a hundred pounds, and stuffed the book into a breast pocket.
"There," he said to Jenkins, "cash that, buy what you want, and bring me the balance in five-pound notes."
"Yes, sir, but will you please remember to pack the clothes you are now wearing into a parcel, and post them to me this evening?"
"By gad, Jenkins, I should have forgotten that my name is stitched on to the back of the coat I am wearing. How will you manage about my other things?"
"Rip off the tabs, sir, and get you some new linen, unmarked."
"Good. But I may as well leave my checkbook here."
"No, sir, take it with you. You may want it. If you do, the money will be of more importance than the name."
"Right again, Socrates. I wish I might take you along, too, but our Scotland Yard friend said 'No,' so you must remain and answer callers."
"I have sent away more than a dozen this morning, sir."
"Oh? Who were they?"
"Newspaper gentlemen, sir, every one of 'em, though they tried various dodges to get in and have a word with you. If I were you, sir, I would driveopenly in the motor to some big hotel, and let your car remain outside while you slip out by another door."
"Jenkins, you seem to be up to snuff in these matters."
"Well, sir, I had a good training with Lord Dunningham. His lordship was a very free and easy sort of gentleman, and I never did meet his equal at slipping a writter. They gave it up at last, and went in for what they call substitooted service."
A bell rang, and they heard a servant crossing the hall.
"That will be Miss Prout, sir," said Jenkins. "What shall I tell her?"
"Nothing. Mr. Winter will see her in the morning. Now, let us be off out of this before she comes in."
Rupert was most unwilling to frame any subterfuge that might help to explain his absence to his secretary. She had been so manifestly distressed in his behalf the previous day, that he decided to avoid her now, being anxious not to hurt her feelings by any display of reticence as to his movements. As soon as the library door closed behind the newcomer, he went to his dressing-room and remained there until his automobile was in readiness. He was spoken to twice and snapshotted three times while he ran down the steps and crossed the pavement; but he gave no heed to his tormentors, andhis chauffeur, quick to appreciate the fact that a couple of taxicabs were following, ran into Hyde Park by the nearest gate, thus shaking off pursuit, since vehicles licensed to ply for hire are not allowed to enter London's chief pleasure-ground.
"Yes," said Rupert to himself, "Winter is right. The solitary cliff and the deserted village for me during the next fortnight. But where are they to be found? England, with August approaching, is full to the brim."
He decided to trust to chance, and therein lay the germ of complications which might well have given him pause, could he have peered into the future.
Having successfully performed the trick of the cab "bilker" by leaving his motor outside a hotel, Rupert hurried away from the main stream of fashion along several narrow streets until his attention was caught by a tiny restaurant on which the day's eatables were scrawled in French. It was in Soho; an open-air market promised diversion; and he was wondering how winkles tasted, extracted from their shells with a pin, when some commotion arose at the end of an alley. A four-wheeled cab had wormed its way through a swarm of picturesque loafers, and was drawn up close to the kerb. Pavement and street were pullulating with child life, and the appearance from the interior of the cab of a couple of strongly-built, square-shouldered menseemed to send an electric wave through adults and children alike.
Instantly there was a rush, and Rupert was pinned in the crowd between a stout Frenchwoman and a young Italian who reeked of the kitchen.
"What is it, then?" he asked, addressing madame in her own language.
"They are police agents, those men there," she answered.
"Have they come to make an arrest?"
"But no, monsieur. Two miserables who call themselves Anarchists have been sent back to France, and the police are taking their luggage. A nice thing, chasing such scarecrows and letting that bad American who killed Mademoiselle de Bercy go free. Poor lady! I saw her many times. Ah,mon Dieu, how I wept when I read of her terrible end!"
Rupert caught his breath. So he was judged and found guilty even in the gutter!
"Perhaps the police know that Monsieur Osborne did not kill her," he managed to say in a muffled tone.
"Oh, là, là!" cried the woman. "He has money,ce vilainOsborne!"
The ironic phrase was pitiless. It denounced, condemned, explained. Rupert forced a laugh.
"Truly, money can do almost anything," he said.
A detective came out of the passage, laden with dilapidated packages. The woman smiled broadly, saying:
"My faith, they do not prosper, those Anarchists."
Rupert edged his way through the crowd. On the opposite side of the street the contents bills of the early editions of the evening newspapers glared at him: "West End murder—Relatives sail from Jersey." "Portrait sketch of Osborne"; "Paris Life of Rose de Bercy"; the horror of it all suddenly stifled his finer impulses: from that hour Rupert squared his shoulders and meant to scowl at the jeering multitude.
Probably because he was very rich, he cultivated simple tastes in the matter of food. At one o'clock he ate some fruit and a cake or two, drank a glass of milk, and noticed that the girl in the cashier's desk was actually looking at his own "portrait sketch" when he tendered her a shilling. About half-past one he took a hansom to Waterloo Station, where he bought a map and railway guide at the bookstall, and soon decided that Tormouth on the coast of Dorset offered some prospect of a quiet anchorage.
So, when Jenkins came with a couple of new leather bags, Rupert bought a third-class ticket. Traveling in a corridor compartment, he heard the Feldisham Mansions crime discussed twice during the afternoon. Once he was described as a "reel bad lot—one of them fellers 'oo 'ad too little to do an' too much to do it on." When, at Winchester, these critics alighted, their places were taken by a coupleof young women; and the train had hardly started again before the prettier of the two called her companion's attention to a page in an illustrated paper.
"Poor thing! Wasn't she a beauty?" she asked, pointing to a print of the Academy portrait of Mademoiselle de Bercy.
"You can never tell—them photographs are so touched up," was the reply.
"There's no touching up of Osborne, is there?" giggled the other, looking at the motor-car photograph.
"No, indeed. He looks as if he had just done it," said the friend.
A lumbering omnibus took him to Tormouth. At the Swan Hotel he haggled about the terms, and chose a room at ten shillings per diem instead of the plutocratic apartment first offered at twelve and six. In the register he signed "R. Glyn, London," and at once wrote to Winter. He almost laughed when he found that Jenkins's address on the label was some street in North London, where that excellent man's sister dwelt.
He found that Tormouth possessed one great merit—an abundance of sea air. It was a quiet old place, a town of another century, cut off from the rush of modern life by the frenzied opposition to railways displayed by its local magnates fifty years earlier. Rupert could not have selected a better retreat. He dined, slept, ate three heartymeals next day, and slept again with a soundness that argued him free from care.
But newspapers reached even Tormouth, and, on the second morning after his arrival, Osborne's bitter mood returned when he read an account of Rose de Bercy's funeral. The crowds anticipated by Winter were there, the reporters duly chronicled Rupert's absence, and there could be no gainsaying the eagerness of the press to drag in his name on the slightest pretext.
But the arrows of outrageous fortune seemed to be less barbed when he found himself on a lonely path that led westward along the cliffs, and his eyes dwelt on the far-flung loveliness of a sapphire sea reflecting the tint of a turquoise sky. A pleasant breeze that just sufficed to chisel the surface of the water into tiny facets flowed lazily from the south. From the beach, some twenty feet or less beneath the low cliff, came the murmur of a listless tide. On the swelling uplands of Dorset shone glorious patches of gold and green, with here and there a hamlet or many-ricked farm, while in front, a mile away, the cliff climbed with a gentle curve to a fine headland that jutted out from the shore-line like some great pier built by a genie for the caravels of giants. It was a morning to dispel shadows, and the cloud lifted from Rupert's heart under its cheery influence. He stopped to light a cigar, and from that moment Rupert's regeneration was complete.
"It is a shame to defile this wonderful atmospherewith tobacco smoke," he mused, "so I must salve my conscience by burning incense to the spirit of the place. That sort of spirit is invariably of the female gender. Where is the lady? Invisible, of course."
Without the least expectation of discovering either fay or mortal on the yellow sands that spread their broad highway between sea and cliff, Rupert stepped off the path on to the narrow strip of turf that separated it from the edge and looked down at the beach. Greatly to his surprise, a girl sat there, painting. She had rigged a big Japanese umbrella to shield herself and her easel from the sun. Its green-hued paper cover, gay with pink dragons and blue butterflies, brought a startling note of color into the placid foreground. The girl, or young woman, wore a very smart hat, but her dress was a grayish brown costume, sufficiently indeterminate in tint to conceal the stains of rough usage in climbing over rocks, or forcing a way through rank vegetation. Indeed, it was chosen, in the first instance, so that a dropped brush or a blob of paint would not show too vivid traces; and this was well, for some telepathic action caused the wearer to lift her eyes to the cliff the very instant after Rupert's figure broke the sky-line above the long grasses nodding on the verge. The result was lamentable. She squeezed half a tube of crimson lake over her skirt in a movement of surprise at the apparition.
She was annoyed, and, of course, blamed the man.
"What do you want?" she demanded. "Why creep up in that stealthy fashion?"
"I didn't," said Rupert.
"But you did." This with a pout, while she scraped the paint off her dress with a palette knife.
"I am very sorry that you should have cause to think so," he said. "Will you allow me to explain——"
As he stepped forward, lifting his hat, the girl cried a warning, but too late; a square yard of dry earth crumbled into dust beneath him, and he fell headlong. Luckily, the strata of shale and marl which formed the coast-line at that point had been scooped by the sea into a concavity, with a ledge, which Rupert reached before he had dropped half-way. Some experience of Alpine climbing had made him quick to decide how best to rectify a slip, and he endeavored now to spring rather than roll downward to the beach, since he had a fleeting vision of a row of black rocks that guarded the foot of the treacherous cliff. He just managed to clear an ugly boulder that would have taken cruel toll of bruised skin, if no worse, had he struck it, but he landed on a smooth rock coated with seaweed. Exactly what next befell neither he nor the girl ever knew. He performed some wild gyration, and was brought up forcibly by the bamboo shaft of the umbrella, to which he found himself clinging in a sitting posture. His trousers were split across bothknees, his coat was ripped open under the left arm, and he felt badly bruised; nevertheless, he looked up into the girl's frightened face, and laughed, on which the fright vanished from her eyes, and she, too, laughed, with such ready merriment and display of white teeth, that Rupert laughed again. He picked himself up and stretched his arms slowly, for something had given him a tremendous thump in the ribs.
He found himself clinging to the bamboo shaft
He found himself clinging to the bamboo shaft
He found himself clinging to the bamboo shaft
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"Are you hurt?" cried the girl, anxiety again chasing the mirth from her expressive features.
"No," he said, after a deep breath had convinced him that no bones were broken. "I only wished to explain that your word 'stealthy' was undeserved."
"I withdraw it, then.... I saw you were a stranger, so it is my fault that you fell. I ought to have told you about that dangerous cliff instead of pitching into you because you startled me."
"I can't agree with you there," smiled Rupert. "We were both taken by surprise, but I might have known better than to stand so near the edge. Good job I was not a mile farther west," and he nodded in the direction of the distant headland.
"Oh, please don't think of it, or I shall dream to-night of somebody falling over the Tor."
"Is that the Tor?" he asked.
"Yes; don't you know? You are visiting Tormouth, I suppose?"
"I have been here since the day before yesterday, but my local knowledge is nil."
"Well, if I were you, I should go home and change my clothes. How did your coat get torn? Are you sure you are not injured?"
He turned to survey the rock on which his feet had slipped. Between it and the umbrella the top of a buried boulder showed through the deep sand, ever white and soft at highwater mark.
"I am inclined to believe that I butted into that fellow during the hurricane," he said. Then, feeling that an excuse must be forthcoming, if he wished to hear more of this girl's voice, and look for a little while longer into her face, he threw a plaintive note into a request.
"Would you mind if I sat down for a minute or so?" he asked. "I feel a bit shaken. After the briefest sort of rest I shall be off to the Swan."
"Sit down at once," she said with ready sympathy. "Here, take this," and she made to give him the canvas chair from which she had risen at the first alarm.
He dropped to the sand with suspicious ease.
"I shall be quite comfortable here," he said. "Please go on with your painting. I always find it soothing to watch an artist at work."
"I must be going home now," she answered. "I obtain this effect only at a certain stage of tide, and early in the day. You see, the Torchanges his appearance so rapidly when the sun travels round to the south."
"Do you live at Tormouth?" he ventured to ask.
"Half a mile out."
"Will you allow me to carry something for you? I find that I have broken two ribs—of your umbrella," he added instantly, seeing that those radiant eyes of hers had turned on him with quick solicitude.
"Pity," she murmured, "bamboo is so much harder to mend than bone. No—you will not carry anything. I think, if you are staying at the Swan, you will find a path up a little hollow in the cliff about a hundred yards from here."
"Yes, and if you, too, are going——"
"In the opposite direction."
"Ah, well," he said, "I am a useless person, it seems. Good-by. May I fall at your feet again to-morrow?"
The absurd question brought half a smile to her lips. She began to reply: "Worship so headlong——"
Then she saw that which caused her face to blanch.
"Why, your right hand is smothered in blood—something has happened——"
He glanced at his hand, which a pebble had cut on one of the knuckles; and he valiantly resisted the temptation that presented itself, and stood upright.
"It is a mere scratch," he assured her. "If I wash it in salt water it will be healed before I reach Tormouth. Good-by—mermaid. I believe you livein a cavern—out there—beneath the Tor. Some day soon I shall swim out among the rocks and look for you."
With that he stooped to recover his hat, walked seaward to find a pool, and held his hand in the water until the wound was cauterized. Then he lit another cigar, and saw out of the tail of his eye that the girl was now on the top of the cliff at some distance to the west.
"I wonder who she is," he murmured. "A lady, at any rate, and a very charming one."
And the girl was saying:
"Who is he?—A gentleman, I see. American? Something in the accent, perhaps. Or perhaps not. Americans don't come to torpid old Tormouth."
On that same morning of the meeting on the sands at Tormouth, Inspector Clarke, walking southward down St. Martin's Lane toward Scotland Yard, had a shock. Clarke was hardly at the moment in his best mood, for to the natural vinegar of his temperament a drop of lemon, or of gall, had been added within the last few days. That morning at breakfast he had explained matters with a sour mouth to Mrs. Clarke.
"Oh, it was all a made-up job between Winter and Furneaux, and I was only put on to the Anarchists to make room for Furneaux—that was it. The two Anarchists weren't up to any mischief—'Anarchists' was all a blind, that's what 'Anarchists' was. But that's the way things are run now in the Yard, and there's no fair play going any more. Furneaux must have Feldisham Mansions, of course; Furneaux this, and Furneaux that—of course. But wait: he hasn't solved it yet! and he isn't going to; no, and I haven't done with it yet, not by a long way.... Now, where do you buy these eggs? Just look at this one."
The fact was, now that the two Anarchists, Descartes and Janoc, had been deported by the Court, and were gone, Clarke suddenly woke to find himself disillusioned, dull, excluded from the fun of the chase. But, as he passed down St. Martin's Lane that morning, his underlooking eyes, ever on the prowl for the "confidence men" who haunt the West End, saw a sight that made him doubt if he was awake. There, in a little by-street to the east, under the three balls of a pawnbroker's, he saw, or dreamt that he saw—Émile Janoc!—Janoc, whom heknewto be in Holland, and Janoc was so deep, so lost, in talk with a girl, that he could not see Clarke standing there, looking at him.
And Clarke knew the girl, too! It was Bertha Seward, the late cook of the murdered actress, Rose de Bercy.
Could he be mistaken as to Janoc? he asked himself. Couldtwomen be so striking to the eye, and so alike—the lank figure, stooping; the long wavering legs, the clothes hanging loose on him; the scraggy throat with the bone in it; the hair, black and plenteous as the raven's breast, draping the sallow-dark face; the eyes so haggard, hungry, unresting. Few men were so picturesque: few so greasy, repellent. And there could be no mistake as to Bertha Seward—a small, thin creature, with whitish hair, and little Chinese eyes that seemed to twinkle with fun—it was she!
And how earnest was the talk!
Clarke saw Janoc clasp his two long hands together, and turn up his eyes to the sky, seeming to beseech the girl or, through her, the heavens. Then he offered her money, which she refused; but, when he cajoled and insisted, she took it, smiling. Shaking hands, they parted, and Janoc looked after Bertha Seward as she hurried, with a sort of stealthy haste, towards the Strand. Then he turned, and found himself face to face with Clarke.
For a full half-minute they looked contemplatively, eye to eye, at one another.
"Janoc?" said Clarke.
"That is my name for one moment, sare," said Janoc politely in a very peculiar though fluent English: "and the yours, sare?"
"Unless you have a very bad memory you know mine! How on earth come you to be here, Émile Janoc?"
"England is free country, sare," said Janoc with a shrug; "I see not the why I must render you account of movement. Only I tell you this time, because you are so singular familiarly with my name of family, you deceive yourself as to my little name. I have, it is true, a brother named Émile——"
Clarke looked with a hard eye at him. The resemblance, if they were two, was certainly very strong. Since it seemed all but impossible that Émile Janoc should be in England, he accepted the statement grudgingly.
"Perhaps you wouldn't mind letting me see your papers?" he asked.
Janoc bowed.
"That I will do with big pleasure, sare," he said, and produced a passport recently viséd in Holland, by which it appeared that his name was not Émile, but Gaston.
They parted with a bow on Janoc's side and a nod on Clarke's; but Clarke was puzzled.
"Something queer about this," he thought. "I'll keep my eye onhim.... What was he doing talking like that—so earnest—to the actress's cook? Suppose she was murdered by Anarchists? It is certain that she was more or less mixed up with them—more, perhaps, than is known. Why did those two come over the night after her murder?—for it's clear that they had no design against the Tsar. I'll look into it on my own. Easy, now, Clarke, my boy, and may be you'll come out ahead of Furneaux, Winter, and all the lot in the end."
When he arrived at his Chief's office in the Yard, he mentioned to Winter his curious encounter with the other Janoc, but said not a word of Bertha Seward, since the affair of the murder was no longer his business, officially.
Winter paid little heed to Janoc, whether Émile or Gaston, for Furneaux was there with him, and the two were head to head, discussing the murder, and the second sitting of the inquest was soon to come. Indeed, Clarke heard Winter say to Furneaux:
"I promised Mr. Osborne to give some sort of excuse to his servants for his flight from home. I was so busy that I forgot it. Perhaps you will see to that, too, for me."
"Glad you mentioned it. I intended going there at once," Furneaux said in that subdued tone which seemed to have all at once come upon him since Rose de Bercy was found lying dead in Feldisham Mansions.
"Well, then, from henceforth everything is in your hands," said Winter. "Here I hand you over our dumb witness"—and he held out to Furneaux the blood-soiled ax-head of flint that had battered Rose de Bercy's face.
He was not sure—he wondered afterwards whether it was positively a fact—but he fancied that for the tenth part of a second Furneaux shrank from taking, from touching, that object of horror—a notion so odd and fantastic that it affected Winter as if he had fancied that the poker had lifted its head for the tenth part of a second. But almost before the conceit took form, Furneaux was coolly placing the celt in his breast-pocket, and standing up to go.
Furneaux drove straight, as he had said, to Mayfair, and soon was being ushered into Osborne's library, where he found Miss Prout, the secretary, with her hat on, busy opening and sorting the morning's correspondence.
He introduced himself, sat beside her, and, while she continued with her work, told her what had happened—howOsborne had been advised to disappear till the popular gale of ill-will got stilled a little.
"Ah, that's how it was," the girl said, lifting interested eyes to his. "I was wondering," and she pinned two letters together with the neatness of method and order.
Furneaux sat lingeringly with her, listening to an aviary of linnets that prattled to the bright sunlight that flooded the library, and asking himself whether he had ever seen hair so glaringly red as the lady secretary's—a great mass of it that wrapped her head like a flame.
"And where has Mr. Osborne gone to?" she murmured, making a note in shorthand on the back of one little bundle of correspondence.
"Somewhere by the coast—I think," said Furneaux.
"West coast? East coast?"
"He didn't write to me: he wrote to my Chief"—for, though Furneaux well knew where Osborne was, his retreat was a secret.
The girl went on with her work, plying the paper-knife, now jotting down a memorandum, now placing two or more kindred letters together: for every hospital and institution wrote to Osborne, everyone who wanted money for a new flying machine, or had a dog or a hunter to sell, or intended to dine and speechify, and send round the hat.
"It's quite a large batch of correspondence," Furneaux remarked.
"Half of these," the girl said, "are letters of abuse from people who never heard Mr. Osborne's name till the day after that poor woman was killed. All England has convicted him before he is tried. It seems unfair."
"Yes, no doubt. But 'to understand is to pardon,' as the proverb says. They have to think something, and when there is only one thing for them to think, they think it—meaning well. It will blow over in time. Don't you worry."
"Oh, I!—What do I care what forty millions of vermin choose to say or think?"
She pouted her pretty lips saucily.
"Forty—millions—of vermin," cried Furneaux; "that's worse than Carlyle."
Hylda Prout's swift hands plied among her papers. She made no answer; and Furneaux suddenly stood up.
"Well, you will mention to the valet and the others how the matter stands as to Mr. Osborne. He is simply avoiding the crowd—that is all. Good-day."
Hylda Prout rose, too, and Furneaux saw now how tall she was, well-formed and lithe, with a somewhat small face framed in that nest of red hair. Her complexion was spoiled and splashed with freckles, but otherwise she was dainty-featured and pretty—mouth, nose, chin, tiny, all except the wide-open eyes.
"So," she said to Furneaux as she put out herhand, "you won't let me know where Mr. Osborne is? I may want to write to him on business."
"Why, didn't I tell you that he didn't write to me?"
"That was only a blind."
"Dear me! A blind.... It is the truth, Miss Prout."
"Tell that to someone else."
"What, don't you like the truth?"
"All right, keep the information to yourself, then."
"Good-by—I mustn't allow myself to dally in this charming room with the linnets, the sunlight, and the lady."
For a few seconds she seemed to hesitate. Then she said suddenly: "Yes, it's very nice in here. That door there leads into the morning room, and that one yonder, at the side——"
Her voice dropped and stopped; Furneaux appeared hardly to have heard, or, if hearing, to be merely making conversation.
"Yes, it leads where?" he asked, looking at her. Now, her eyes, too, dropped, and she murmured:
"Into the museum."
"The—! Well, naturally, Mr. Osborne is a connoisseur—quite so, only I rather expected you to say 'a picture gallery.' Is it—open to inspection? Can one——?"
"It is open, certainly: the door is not locked, But there's nothing much——"
"Oh, do let me have a look around, and come with me, if it will not take long. No one is more interested in curios than I."
"I—will, if you like," said the girl with a strange note of confidence in her voice, and led the way into the museum.
Furneaux found himself in a room, small, but full of riches. On a central table were several illuminated missals and old Hoch-Deutsch MSS., some ancient timepieces, and a collection of enameled watches of Limoges. Around the walls, open or in cabinets, were arms, blades of Toledo, minerals arranged on narrow shelves, an embalmed chieftain's head from Mexico, and many other bizarre objects.
Hylda Prout knew the name and history of every one, and murmured an explanation as Furneaux bent in scrutiny.
"Those are what are called 'celts,'" she said; "they are not very uncommon, and are found in every country—made of flint, mostly, and used as ax-heads by the ancients. These rough ones on this side are called Palæolithic—five hundred thousand years old, some of them; and these finer ones on this side are Neolithic, not quite so old—though there isn't much to choose in antiquity when it comes to hundreds of thousands! Strange to say, one of the Neolithic ones has been missing for some days—I don't know whether Mr. Osborne has given it away or not?"
The fact that onewasmissing was, indeed, quiteobvious, for the celts stood in a row, stuck in holes drilled in the shelf; and right in the midst of the rank gaped one empty hole, a dumb little mouth that yet spoke.
"Yes, curious things," said Furneaux, bending meditatively over them. "I remember seeing pictures of them in books. Every one of these stones is stained with blood."
"Blood!" cried the girl in a startled way.
"Well, they were used in war and the chase, weren't they? Every one of them has given agony, every one would be red, if we saw it in its true color."
Red was also the color of Furneaux's cheek-bones at the moment—red as hectic; and he was conscious of it, as he was conscious also that his eyes were wildly alight. Hence, he continued a long time bending over the "celts" so that Miss Prout might not see his face. His voice, however, was calm, since he habitually spoke in jerky, clipped syllables that betrayed either no emotion or too much.
When he turned round, it was to move straight to a little rack on the left, in which glittered a fine array of daggers—Japanese kokatanas, punals of Salamanca, cangiars of Morocco, bowie-knives of old California, some with squat blades, coming quickly to a point, some long and thin to transfix the body, others meant to cut and gash, each with its label of minute writing.
Furneaux's eye had duly noted them before, buthe had passed them without stopping. Now, after seeing the celts, he went back to them.
To his surprise, Miss Prout did not come with him. She stood looking on the ground, her lower lip somewhat protruded, silent, obviously distrait.
"And these, Miss Prout?" chirped he, "are they of high value?"
She neither answered nor moved.
"Perhaps you haven't studied their history?" ventured Furneaux again.
Now, all at once, she moved to the rack of daggers, and without saying a word, tapped with the fore-finger of her right hand, and kept on tapping, a vacant hole in the rack, though her eyes peered deeply into Furneaux's face. And for the first time Furneaux made acquaintance with the real splendor of her eyes—eyes that lived in sleep, torpid like the dormouse; but when they woke, woke to such a lambency of passion that they fascinated and commanded like the basilisk's.
With eyes so alight she now kept peering at Furneaux, standing tall above him, tapping at the empty hole.
"Oh, I see," muttered Furneaux,hiseyes, too, alight like live coals, "there's an article missing here, also—one from the celts, one from the daggers."
"He is innocent!" suddenly cried Hylda Prout, in a tempest of passionate reproach.
"She loves him," thought Furneaux.
And the girl thought: "He knew before now thatthese things were missing. His acting would deceive every man, but not every woman. How glad I am that I drew him on!"
Now, though the fact of the discovery of the celt by Inspector Clarke under the dead actress's piano had not been published in the papers, the fact that she had been stabbed through the eye by a long blade with blunt edges was known to all the world. There was nothing strange in this fierce outburst of Osborne's trusted secretary, nor that tears should spring to her eyes.
"Mr. Furneaux, he is innocent," she wailed in a frenzy. "Oh, he is! You noticed me hesitate just now to bring you in here: well,thiswas the reason—this, this, this——" she tapped with her forefinger on the empty hole—"for I knew that you would see this, and I knew that you would be jumping to some terrible conclusion as to Mr. Osborne."
"Conclusion, no," murmured Furneaux comfortingly—"I avoid conclusions as traps for the unwary. Interesting, of course, that's all. Tell me what you know, and fear nothing. Conclusion, you say! I don't jump to conclusions. Tell me what was the shape of the dagger that has disappeared."
She was silent again for many seconds. She was wrung with doubt, whether to speak or not to speak.
At last she voiced her agony.
"Either I must refuse to say, or I must tell the truth—and if I tell the truth, you will think——"
She stopped again, all her repose of manner fled.
"You don't know what I will think," put in Furneaux. "Sometimes I think the most unexpected things. The best way is to give me the plain facts. The question is, whether the blade that has gone from there was shaped like the one supposed to have committed the crime in the flat?"
"It was labeled 'Saracen Stiletto: about 1150,'" muttered the girl brokenly, looking Furneaux straight in the face, though the fire was now dead in her eyes. "It had a square bone handle, with a crescent carved on one of the four faces—a longish, thin blade, like a skewer, only not round—with blunt-edged corners to it."
Furneaux took up a little tube containing radium from a table at his hand, looked at it, and put it down again.
Hylda Prout was too distraught to see that his hand shook a little. It was half a minute before he spoke.
"Well, all that proves nothing, though it is of interest, of course," he said nonchalantly. "How long has that stiletto been lying there?"
"Since—since I entered Mr. Osborne's employment, twelve months ago."
"And you first noticed that it was gone—when?"
"On the second afternoon after the murder, when I noticed that the celt, too, was gone."
"The second—I see."
"I wondered what had become of them! I could imagine that Mr. Osborne might have given the celtto some friend. But the stiletto was so rare a thing—I couldn't think that he would give that. I assumed—I assume—that they were stolen. But, then, by whom?"
"That's the question," said Furneaux.
"Was it this same stiletto that I have described to you that the murder was done with?" asked Hylda.
"Now, how can I tell that?" said Furneaux. "Iwasn't there, you know."
"Was not the weapon, then, found in the unfortunate woman's flat?"
"No—no weapon."
"Well, but that is excessively odd," she said in a low voice.
"Why so excessively odd?" demanded Furneaux.
"Why? Because—don't you see?—the weapon would be blood-stained—of course; and I should expect that after committing his horrid deed, the murderer would be only too glad to get rid of it, and would leave it——"
"Oh, come, that is hardly a good guess, Miss Prout. I shall never make a lady detective of you. Murderers don't leave their weapons about behind them, for weapons are clews, you see."
He was well aware that if the fact of the discovery of the celt had been published in the papers, Hylda might justly have answered: "Butthismurderer did leaveoneof his weapons behind, namely the celt; and it is excessively odd that, since he left one, thesmaller one, he did not leave the other, the larger one."
As it was, the girl took thought, and her comment was shrewd enough:
"All murderers do not act in the same way, for some are a world more cunning and alert than others. I say that itisodd that the murderer did not leave behind the weapon that pierced the woman's eye, and I will prove it to you. If the stiletto was stolen from Mr. Osborne—and it really must have been stolen—and if that was the same stiletto that the deed was done with, then, the motive of the thief in stealing it was to kill Mademoiselle de Bercy with it. But why should one steal a weapon to commit a murder? And why should the murderer have chosenMr. Osborneto steal his weapon from? Obviously, because he wanted to throw the suspicion upon him—in which case he wouldnaturallyleave the weapon behind as proof of Mr. Osborne's guilt. Now, then, have I proved my point?"
Though she spoke almost in italics, and was pale and flurried, she looked jauntily at Furneaux, with her head tossed back; and he, with half a smile, answered:
"I withdraw my remark as to your detective qualifications, Miss Prout. Yes, I think you reason well. If there was a thief, and the thief was the murderer, he would very likely have acted as you say."
"Then, why was the stiletto not found in the flat?" she asked.
"The fact that it was not found would seem to show that there wasnota thief," he said; and he added quickly: "Perhaps Mr. Osborne gave it, as well as the celt, to someone. I suppose you asked him?"
"He was gone away an hour before I missed them," Hylda answered. She hesitated again. When next she spoke it was with a smile that would have won a stone.
"Tell me where he is," she pleaded, "and I will write to him about it. You may safely tellme, you know, for Mr. Osborne has no secrets fromme."
"I wish I could tell you.... Oh, but he will soon be back again, and then you will see him and speak to him once more."
Some tone of badinage in these jerky sentences brought a flush to her face, but she tried to ward off his scrutiny with a commonplace remark.
"Well, that's some consolation. I must wait in patience till the mob finds a new sensation."
Furneaux took a turn through the room, silently meditating.
"Thanks so much for your courtesy, Miss Prout," he said at last. "Our conversation has been—fruitful."
"Yes, fruitful in throwing still more suspicion upon an innocent man, if that is what you mean. Are not the policequiteconvinced yet of Mr. Osborne's innocence, Inspector Furneaux?"
"Oh, quite, quite," said he hastily, somewhat taken aback by her candor.
"Two 'quites' make a 'not quite,' as two negatives make an affirmative," said she coldly, fingering and looking down at some wistaria in her bosom.
She added with sudden warmth: "Oh, but you should, Inspector Furneaux! You should. He has suffered; his honest and true heart has been wounded. And he has his alibi, which, though in reality it may not be so good as you think, is yet quite good enough. But I know what it is that poisons your mind against him."
"You are full of statements, Miss Prout," said Furneaux with an inclination of the head; "what is it, now, that poisons my mind against that gentleman?"
"It is that taxicabman's delusion that he took him from the Ritz Hotel to Feldisham Mansions and back, added to the housekeeper's delusion that she saw him here——"
Furneaux nearly gasped. Up to that moment he had heard no word about a housekeeper's delusion, or of a housekeeper's existence even. A long second passed before he could answer.
"Well, she was no doubt mistaken. I have not yet examined her personally, but I have every reason to believe that she is in error. At what hour, by the way, does she say that she thought she saw him here?"
"Shesays she thinks it was about five minutes toeight. But at that time, I take it from the evidence, he must have been writing those two letters at the Ritz. If she were right, that would make out that after doing the deed at about 7.40 or so, he would just have time to come back here by five to eight, and change his clothes. But he was at the Ritz—he was at the Ritz! And Mrs. Bates only saw his back an instant going up the stairs—his ghost's back, she means, his double's back, not his own. He was at the Ritz, Inspector Furneaux."
"Precisely," said Furneaux, with a voice that at last had a quiver in it. "If any fact is clear in a maze of doubt, that, at least, is established beyond cavil. And Mrs. Bates's other name—I—forget it?"
"Hester."
"That's it. Is she here now?"
"She is taking a holiday to-day. She was dreadfully upset."
"Thanks. Good-by."
He held out his hand a second time, quite affably. Hylda Prout followed him out to the library and, when the street door had closed behind him, peeped through the curtains at his alert, natty figure as he hastened away.
Furneaux took a motor-bus to Whitehall, and, what was very odd, the 'bus carried him beyond his destination, over Westminster Bridge, indeed, he was so lost in meditation.
His object now was to see Winter and fling athis chief's head some of the amazing things he had just learned.
But when he arrived at Scotland Yard, Winter was not there. At that moment, in fact, Winter was at Osborne's house in Mayfair, whither he had rushed to meet Furneaux in order to whisper to Furneaux without a moment's delay some news just gleaned by the merest chance—the news that Pauline Dessaulx, Rose de Bercy's maid, had quarreled with her mistress on the morning of the murder, and had been given notice to quit Miss de Bercy's service.
When Winter arrived at Osborne's house Furneaux, of course, was gone. To his question at the door, "Is Mr. Furneaux here?" the parlor-maid answered: "I am not sure, sir—I'll see."
"Perhaps you don't know Mr. Furneaux," said Winter, "a small-built gentleman——"
"Oh, yes, sir, I know him," the girl answered. "I let him in this morning, as well as when he called some days ago."
No words in the English tongue could have more astonished Winter, for Furneaux had not mentioned to him that he had even been to Osborne's. What Furneaux could have been doing there "some days ago" was beyond his guessing. Before his wonderment could get out another question, the girl was leading the way towards the library.
In the library were Miss Prout, writing, and Jenkins handing her a letter.
"I came to see if Inspector Furneaux was here," Winter said; "but evidently he has gone."
"Only about three minutes," said Hylda Prout, throwing a quick look round at him.
"Thanks—I am sorry to have troubled you," he said. Then he added, to Jenkins: "Much obliged for the cigars!"
"Do not mention it, sir," said Jenkins.
Winter had reached the library door, when he stopped short.
"By the way, Jenkins, is this Mr. Furneaux's first visit here?—or don't you remember?"
"Mr. Furneaux came here once before, sir," said Jenkins in his staid official way.
"Ah, I thought perhaps—when was that?"
"Let me see, sir. It was—yes—on the third, the afternoon of the murder, I remember."
The third—the afternoon of the murder. Those words ate their way into Winter's very brain. They might have been fired from a pistol rather than uttered by the placid Jenkins.
"The afternoon, you say," repeated Winter. "Yes—quite so; he wished to see Mr. Osborne. At what exacthourabout would that be?"
Jenkins again meditated. Then he said: "Mr. Furneaux called, sir, about 5.45, as far as I can recollect. He wished to see my master, who was out, but was expected to return. So Mr. Furneaux was shown in here to await him, and he waited a quarter of an hour, if I am right in saying thathe came at 5.45, because Mr. Osborne telephoned me from Feldisham Mansions that he would not be returning, and as I entered the museum there, where Mr. Furneaux then was, to tell him, I heard the clock strike six, I remember."
At this Hylda Prout whirled round in her chair.
"The museum!" she cried. "How odd, how exceedingly odd! Just now Mr. Furneaux seemed to be rather surprised when I told him that there was a museum!"
"He doubtless forgot, miss," said Jenkins, "for he had certainly gone in there when I entered the library."
"Thanks, thanks," said Winter lightly, "that's how it was—good-day"; and he went out with the vacant air of a man who has lost something, but knows not what.
He drove straight to Scotland Yard. There in the office sat Furneaux.
For a long time they conferred—Winter with hardly a word, one hand on his thigh, the other at his mustache, looking at Furneaux with a frown, with curious musing eyes, meditating, silent. And Furneaux told how the celt and the stiletto were missing from Osborne's museum.
"And the inference?" said Winter, speaking at last, his round eyes staring widely at Furneaux.
"The inference, on the face of it, is that Osborne is guilty," said Furneaux quietly.
"An innocent man, Furneaux?" said Winter almostwith a groan of reproach—"an innocent man?"
Furneaux's eyes flashed angrily an instant, and some word leapt to his lips, but it was not uttered. He stood up.
"Well, that's how it stands for the moment. Time will show—I must be away," he said.
And when he had gone out, Winter rose wearily, and paced with slow steps a long time through the room, his head bent quite down, staring. Presently he came upon a broken cigar, such as Furneaux delighted in smelling. Then a fierce cry broke from him.
"Furneaux, my friend! Why, this is madness! Oh, d—n everything!"