DISCUSSING THE MYSTERY
At precisely half-past nine the next morning, Mr. Weatherley entered
his office in Tooley Street. His appearance, as he passed through
the outer office, gave rise to some comment.
"The governor looks quite himself again," young Tidey remarked,
turning round on his stool.
Mr. Jarvis, who was collecting the letters, nodded.
"It's many months since I've heard him come in whistling," he
declared.
Arnold, in the outer office, received his chief's morning salutation
with some surprise. Mr. Weatherley was certainly, to all appearance,
in excellent spirits.
"Glad to see your late hours don't make any difference in the
morning, Chetwode," he said, pleasantly. "You seem to be seeing
quite a good deal of the wife, eh?"
Arnold was almost dumbfounded. Any reference to the events of the
preceding evening was, for the moment, beyond him. Mr. Weatherley
calmly hung up his silk hat, took out the violets from the
button-hole of his overcoat and carried them to his desk.
"Come along, Jarvis," he invited, as the latter entered with a
rustling heap of correspondence. "We'll sort the letters as quickly
as possible this morning. You come on the other side, Chetwode, and
catch hold of those which we keep to deal with together. Those Mr.
Jarvis can handle, I'll just initial. Let me see--you're sure those
bills of lading are in order, Jarvis?"
Mr. Jarvis plunged into a few particulars, to which his chief
listened with keen attention. For half an hour or so they worked
without a pause. Mr. Weatherley was quite at his best. His
instructions were sage, and his grasp of every detail referred to in
the various letters was lucid and complete. When at last Mr. Jarvis
left with his pile, he did not hesitate to spread the good news. Mr.
Weatherley had got over his fit of depression, from whatever cause
it had arisen; a misunderstanding with his wife, perhaps, or a
certain amount of weariness entailed by his new manner of living. At
all events, something had happened to set matters right. Mr. Jarvis
was quite fluent upon the subject, and every one started his day's
work with renewed energy.
Mr. Weatherley's energy did not evaporate with the departure of his
confidential clerk. He motioned Arnold to a chair, and for another
three-quarters of an hour he dictated replies to the letters which
he had sorted out for personal supervision. When at last this was
done, he leaned back in his seat, fetched out a box of cigars,
carefully selected one and lit it.
"Now you had better get over to your corner and grind that lot out,
Chetwode," he said pleasantly. "How are you getting on with the
typing, eh?"
"I am getting quicker," Arnold replied, still wondering whether the
whole events of last week had not been a dream. "I think, with a
little more practice, I shall be able to go quite fast enough."
"Just so," his employer assented. "By the bye, is it my fancy, or
weren't you reading the newspaper when I came in? No time for
newspapers, you know, after nine o'clock."
Arnold rose to his feet. This was more than he could bear!
"I am sorry if I seemed inattentive, sir," he said. "Under the
circumstances, I could not help dwelling a little over this
paragraph. Perhaps you will look at it yourself, sir?"
He brought it over to the desk. Mr. Weatherley put on his spectacles
with great care and drew the paper towards him.
"Hm!" he ejaculated. "My eyesight isn't so good as it was, Chetwode,
and your beastly ha'penny papers have such small print. Read it out
to me--read it out to me while I smoke."
He leaned back in his padded chair, his hands folded in front of
him, his cigar in the corner of his mouth. Arnold smoothed the paper
out and read:
TERRIBLE DEATH OF AN UNKNOWN MAN.
FOUND DEAD IN A TAXICAB.
Early this morning, a taxicab driver entered the police
station at Finchley Road North, and alleged that a
passenger whom he had picked up some short time before,
was dead. Inspector Challis, who was on duty at the time,
hastened out to the vehicle and found that the driver's
statement was apparently true. The deceased was carried
into the police station and a doctor was sent for. The
chauffeur's statement was that about midnight he was
hailed in the Grove End Road, Hampstead, by four men, one
of whom, evidently the deceased, he imagined to be the
worse for drink. Two of them entered the taxicab, and one
of the others directed him to drive to Finchley. After
some distance, however, the driver happened to glance
inside, and saw that only one of his passengers was
there. He at once stopped the vehicle, looked in at the
window, and, finding that the man was unconscious, drove
on to the police station.
Later information seems to point to foul play, and there
is no doubt whatever that an outrage has been committed.
There was a wound upon the deceased's forehead, which the
doctor pronounces as the cause of death, and which had
evidently been dealt within the last hour or so with some
blunt instrument. The taxicab driver has been detained,
and a full description of the murdered man's companions
has been issued to the police. It is understood that
nothing was found upon the deceased likely to help
towards his identification.
Arnold looked up as he finished. Mr. Weatherley was still smoking.
He seemed, indeed, very little disturbed.
"A sensational story, that, Chetwode," he remarked. "You're not
supposing, are you, that it was the same man who broke into my house
last night?"
"I know that it was, sir," Arnold replied.
"You know that it was," Mr. Weatherley repeated, slowly. "Come, what
do you mean by that?"
"I mean that after I left your house last night, sir," Arnold
explained, "I realized the impossibility of that man having been
carried down your drive and out into the road, with a policeman on
duty directly opposite, and a cabstand within a few yards. I
happened to remember that there was an empty house next door, and it
struck me that it might be worth while examining the premises."
Mr. Weatherley withdrew the cigar from his mouth.
"You did that, eh?"
"I did," Arnold admitted. "I made my way to the back, and I found a
light in the room which presumably had been the kitchen. From a
chink in the boarded-up window I saw several men in the room,
including the man whom we discovered in your wife's boudoir, and who
had been spirited away. He was lying motionless upon the table, and
one of the others was apparently trying to restore him. When they
found that it was useless, they took him off with them by the back
way into Grove Lane. I saw two of them enter a taxicab and the other
two make off."
"And what did you do then?" Mr. Weatherley asked.
"I went and told Count Sabatini what I had seen," Arnold replied.
"And after that?"
"I went home."
"You told no one else but Count Sabatini?" Mr. Weatherley persisted.
"No one," Arnold answered. "I bought a paper on my way to business
this morning, and read what I have just read to you."
"You haven't been rushing about ringing up to give information, or
anything of that sort?"
"I have done nothing," Arnold asserted. "I waited to lay the matter
before you."
Mr. Weatherley knocked the ash from his cigar, and, discovering that
it was out, carefully relit it.
"Chetwode," he said, "I have advanced you from something a little
better than an office-boy, very rapidly, because it seemed to me
that you had qualities. The time has arrived to test them. The
secret of success in life is minding your own business. I am going
to ask you to mind your own business in this matter."
"You mean," Arnold asked, "that you do not wish me to give any
information, to say anything about last night?"
"I do not wish my name, or the name of my wife, or the name of my
house, to be associated with this affair at all," Mr. Weatherley
replied. "Mrs. Weatherley would be very much upset and it is,
besides, entirely unnecessary."
Arnold hesitated for a moment.
"It is a serious matter, sir, if you will permit me to say so," he
said slowly. "The man was murdered--that seems to be clear--and,
from what you and I know, it certainly seems that he was murdered in
your house."
Mr. Weatherley shook his head.
"That is not my impression," he declared. "The man was found dead in
Mrs. Weatherley's boudoir, but there was no one in the house or
apparently within reach who was either likely to have committed such
a crime, or who even could possibly have done so. On the other hand,
there are this man's companions, desperate fellows, no doubt, within
fifty yards all the time. My own impression is that he was killed
first and then placed in the spot where he was found. However that
may be, I don't want my house made the rendezvous of all the
interviewers and sightseers in the neighborhood. You and I will keep
our counsel, Arnold Chetwode."
"Might I ask," Arnold said, "if you knew this man--if you had ever
come into contact with him or seen him before?"
"Certainly not," Mr. Weatherley replied. "What business could I
possibly have with a person of that description? He seems to have
been, if not an habitual criminal himself, at least an associate of
criminals, and he was without doubt a foreigner. Between you and
me, Chetwode, I haven't the least doubt that the fellow was one of a
gang of the worst class of burglars. Wherever he got that blow from,
it was probably no more than he deserved."
"But, Mr. Weatherley," Arnold protested, "don't you think that you
ought to have an investigation among your household?"
"My dear young fellow," Mr. Weatherley answered, testily, "I keep no
men-servants at all except old Groves, who's as meek-spirited as a
baby, and a footman whom my wife has just engaged, and who was out
for the evening. A blow such as the paper describes was certainly
never struck by a woman, and there was just as certainly no other
man in my house. There is nothing to inquire about. As a matter of
fact, I am not curious. The man is dead and there's an end of it."
"You will bear in mind, sir," Arnold said, "that if it comes to
light afterwards, as it very probably may, that the man was first
discovered in Mrs. Weatherley's boudoir, the scandal and gossip will
be a great deal worse than if you came forward and told the whole
truth now."
"I take my risk of that," Mr. Weatherley replied, coolly. "There
isn't a soul except Groves who saw him, and Groves is my man. Now be
so good as to get on with those letters, Chetwode, and consider the
incident closed."
Arnold withdrew to his typewriter and commenced his task. The day
had commenced with a new surprise to him. The nervous, shattered Mr.
Weatherley of yesterday was gone. After a happening in his house
which might well have had a serious effect upon him, he seemed not
only unmoved but absolutely restored to cheerfulness. He was reading
the paper for himself now, and the room was rapidly becoming full of
tobacco smoke. Arnold spelled out his letters one by one until the
last was finished. Then he took them over to his employer to sign.
One by one Mr. Weatherley read them through, made an alteration here
and there, then signed them with his large, sprawling hand. Just as
he had finished the last, the telephone by his side rang. He took
the receiver and placed it to his ear. Arnold waited until he had
finished. Mr. Weatherley himself said little. He seemed to be
listening. Towards the end, he nodded slightly.
"Yes, I quite understand," he said, "quite. That was entirely my own
opinion. No case at all, you say? Good!"
He replaced the receiver and leaned back in his chair. For the first
time, when he spoke his voice was a little hoarse.
"Chetwode," he said, "ring up my house--16, Post Office, Hampstead.
Ask Groves to tell his mistress that I thought she might be
interested to hear that Mr. Starling will be discharged this
morning. The police are abandoning the case against him, at present,
for lack of evidence."
Arnold stood for a moment quite still. Then he took up the receiver
and obeyed his orders. Groves' voice was as quiet and respectful as
ever. He departed with the message and Arnold rang off. Then he
turned to Mr. Weatherley.
"Have you any objection to my ringing up some one else and telling
him, too?" he asked.
Mr. Weatherley looked at him.
"You are like all of them," he remarked. "I suppose you think he's a
sort of demigod. I never knew a young man yet that he couldn't twist
round his little finger. You want to ring up Count Sabatini, I
suppose?"
"I should like to," Arnold admitted.
"Very well, go on," Mr. Weatherley grumbled. "Let him know. Perhaps
it will be as well."
Arnold took from his pocket the note which Sabatini had written to
him, and which contained his telephone number. Then he rang up. The
call was answered by his valet.
"In one moment, sir," he said. "The telephone rings into His
Excellency's bedchamber. He shall speak to you himself."
A minute or two passed. Then the slow, musical voice of Sabatini
intervened.
"Who is that speaking?"
"It is I--Arnold Chetwode," Arnold answered. "I am speaking from the
office in the city. I heard some news a few minutes ago which I
thought might interest you."
"Good!" Sabatini replied, stifling what seemed to be a yawn. "You
have awakened me from a long sleep, so let your news be good, my
young friend."
"Mr. Weatherley hears from a solicitor at Bow Street that the police
have abandoned the charge against Mr. Starling," Arnold announced.
"He will be set at liberty as soon as the court opens."
There was a moment's silence. It was as though the person at the
other end had gone away.
"Did you hear?" Arnold asked.
"Yes, I heard," Sabatini answered. "I am very much obliged to you
for ringing me up, my young friend. I quite expected to hear your
news during the day. No one would really suppose that a respectable
man like Starling would be guilty of such a ridiculous action.
However, it is pleasant to know. I thank you. I take my coffee and
rolls this morning with more appetite."
Arnold set down the telephone. Mr. Weatherley, had risen to his feet
and walked as far as the window. On his way back to his place, he
looked at the little safe which he had made over to his secretary.
"You've got my papers there all right, Chetwode?" he asked.
"Certainly, sir," Arnold answered. "I hope, however, we may never
need to use them."
Mr. Weatherley smiled. He was busy choosing another cigar.