The shock caused me by this discovery was indescribable.
My first action on recovering was to alarm those in the house, but it
was found that Ash, Roddy's man, was absent.
The three occupants of the other chambers, men I knew, entered, and
endeavoured to restore their friend to consciousness. But all efforts
were in vain. A doctor from Burlington Street was quickly fetched, and
after a brief examination pronounced that life had been extinct about
half an hour, but there being no sign of violence he could make no
surmise as to the cause of death without a post-mortem.
Roddy had evidently been sitting beside the fire reading the newspaper
and smoking when he expired, for at his side his cigar had dropped and
burned a hole in the carpet, while the newspaper was still between his
stiffening fingers.
A detective and a constable were very soon on the scene, but as the
doctor expressed an opinion that it was a case of sudden death, most
probably from syncope, the appearance of the body leading to that
conclusion, the plain-clothes officer merely made a few notes, and
awaited with me the return of the man Ash, in order to question him.
In the meantime the others left the presence of the dead, and I had an
opportunity of glancing round the place. I was well acquainted with
Roddy's chambers, for I often smoked with him of an evening, therefore I
knew their arrangement almost as well as I knew that of my own. But
this discovery was to me a staggering blow. Over the mantel-shelf was a
mirror, and stuck in its frame were a truly miscellaneous collection of
cards of invitation for all sorts and descriptions of festivities. One
card, however, attracted my attention as being unusual, and I took it
down to examine it. It was not a card of invitation, but a small,
oblong piece of pasteboard ruled in parallel squares, each column being
headed by the letter "N," alternate with the letter "R." In the squares
were hurriedly scribbled a curious collection of numbers.
At first I could not recollect where I had seen a similar card before,
but it suddenly dawned upon me that it was one of those used by
professional gamblers at Monte Carlo, to record the numbers which come
up at the roulette-table, the "R" standing for Rouge, and the "N" for
Noir. The discovery was interesting. I carefully examined the
pencilled figures, and saw they were in Roddy's own hand.
Did not this bear out Aline's allegation that he had been to Monte
Carlo?
I said nothing to the detective, but replaced the card in the frame of
the mirror.
The detective strolled around the other rooms in an aimless sort of way,
and when he returned I asked--
"What is your opinion of this affair?"
"I really don't know, sir," he answered in a puzzled tone. "It may be
suicide."
"Suicide!" I gasped, recollecting Aline's declaration. "What causes
you to surmise that?"
"From the fact that the valet is absent," he answered. "The gentleman,
if he desired to take his own life, would naturally send his servant out
on an errand."
"But the cigar on the carpet? How do you account for that?" I
inquired. "If he meant to deliberately take his life he would
instinctively cast his lighted cigar into the fire."
The officer was silent. He was a keen, shrewd, clean-shaven man of
about forty, whose name I afterwards learnt was Priestly.
"Your argument is a sound one," he answered after a long pause. "But
when a man is suffering from temporary insanity, there is no accounting
for his actions. Of course, it's by no means evident that your friend
has committed suicide, because there is absolutely no trace of such a
thing. Nevertheless, I merely tell you my suspicion. We shall know the
truth to-morrow, when the doctor has made his post-mortem. At the
station, when I go back, I'll give orders for the removal of the body to
the mortuary. I presume that you will communicate the news to his
friends. You said, I think, that his uncle was the Duke of Chester, and
that he was a Member of Parliament. Are his parents alive?"
"No. Both are dead," I answered, glancing again around the room,
bewildered because of Aline's strange statements only an hour before.
Could she, I wondered, have known of this? Yet when I remembered the
doctor's assertion that poor Roddy had not been dead half an hour, it
seemed plain that at the time she had alleged he had committed suicide
at Monte Carlo he was still alive and well.
The room was undisturbed. Nothing appeared out of place. In the window
looking down into Duke Street, that quiet thoroughfare so near the noisy
bustle of Piccadilly, and yet so secluded and eminently respectable,
stood the writing-table, which he set up after his election, in order to
attend to his correspondence. "I must send some letters to my
constituents and to the local papers now and then," he laughingly
explained when I chaffed him about it. "Scarcely a day goes past but
what I have to write, excusing myself from being present at some local
tea-fight or distribution of school-prizes. To every sixpenny
muffin-tussle I'm expected to give my patronage, so that they can stick
my name in red letters on the bill announcing the event. Politics are a
hollow farce."
His words all came back to me now as I glanced at that table. I
recollected how merry and light-hearted he had been then, careless of
everybody, without a single thought of the morrow. Yet of late a change
had certainly come upon him. In my ignorance I had attributed it to the
weight of his Parliamentary honours, knowing that he cared nothing about
politics, and had been forced into them by his uncle. Yet there might
have been an ulterior cause, I reflected. Aline herself might have been
the cause of his recent melancholy and despair.
She had evidently known him better than I had imagined.
Upon the table I noticed lying a large blue envelope, somewhat soiled,
as if it had been carried in his pocket for a long time. It was
linen-lined, and had therefore resisted friction, and instead of wearing
out had become almost black.
I took it up and drew out the contents, a cabinet photograph and a sheet
of blank paper.
I turned the picture over and glanced at it. It was a portrait of
Aline!
She had been taken in a _decollete_ dress, a handsome evening costume,
which gave her an entirely different character from the plain dress she
had worn when we had first met. It was a handsome bodice, beautifully
trimmed; and her face, still childlike in its innocence, peered out upon
me with a tantalising smile. Around her slim throat was a necklet
consisting of half a dozen rows of seed-pearls, from which some thirty
amethysts of graduated sizes were suspended, a delicate necklet probably
of Indian workmanship. The photograph was beautifully taken by the
first of the Paris photographers.
There was no address on the envelope; the sheet of note-paper was quite
plain. Without doubt this picture had been in his possession some
considerable time.
The detective, who had covered the dead man's face with a handkerchief,
had passed into the bedroom and was searching the chest of drawers,
merely out of curiosity, I suppose, when my eyes caught sight of a scrap
of paper in the fireplace, and I picked it up. It was half-charred, but
I smoothed it out, and then found it to be a portion of a torn letter.
Three words only remained; but they were words which were exceedingly
curious. They were "_expose her true_..." The letter had been torn in
fragments and carefully burned even to this fragment, but it had only
half consumed, and probably fallen from the bars.
At first I was prompted to hand it to the detective; but on reflection
resolved to retain it. I alone held a key to the mystery, and was
resolved to act independently with care and caution in an endeavour to
elucidate the extraordinary affair.