A DOCTOR’S CONFESSION
“Druze was illiterate, but, like all illiterate people, had acquired
a certain form of culture and was very clever to conceal this
misfortune. I think, in fact I know, she had the schooling of an
average child, but she was just incapable of learning. The Council
schools and even the public schools are full of people like that, of
girls and boys familiar with the most obscure sciences who have never
mastered these elementary arts.”
Leslie thought quickly.
“Her signature was on the passport?”
“I wrote it,” said the surprising woman. “She told me she wanted to go
across to France for a week-end trip and asked me if I would sign the
passport form. That was only a few weeks ago, so it is fresh in my
mind. Now tell me what I am to do? The police will come to me, and I
am prepared to tell them the truth, though I cannot see how I can help
them.”
“The whole truth?” asked Leslie significantly.
Jane Raytham looked at the girl for a long time before she answered.
“As much as I’ve told you--not as much as you guess,” she said, in her
even voice.
Leslie carried her cup of coffee to the desk.
“Would you like me to write down the gist of what you have said, and
sign the statement?” she asked. “That might save you an awful lot of
trouble.”
Jane hesitated.
“Is it necessary? I suppose it is,” she said. “Yes, if you would be so
kind.”
For ten minutes she watched the girl as her pen flew over the paper,
and took the pages from her as they were written.
“You have put my case more cleverly than I could have put it myself,”
she said with a little smile. “I almost think you’re sympathetic.”
“You don’t know how sympathetic I am,” said Leslie, rising from her
chair to make way for the other.
Lady Raytham sat down, read the last sheet again, and had dipped her
pen in the ink, when the sound of voices came from outside the door.
It was Lucretia’s raised protest, and a deeper voice, which Leslie
instantly recognized, and, running to the door, threw it open. The
Princess Anita Bellini stood on the landing, glaring through her
monocle at the defiant Lucretia.
“You can’t come in--Miss Maughan’s engaged,” she was saying. “I don’t
care if you’re a princess or if you’re the Queen of Sheba. When Miss
Maughan’s engaged, nobody can----!”
“That will do, Lucretia. Come in, Princess.”
The big woman strode into the apartment without a word of thanks, not
even deigning to look at the defiant maid.
“Where is----” she began, and then she saw Lady Raytham at the desk.
“What are you writing, Jane?” she demanded loudly. “You’re not being
such a fool as to make a statement to the police, are you?”
“Lady Raytham is merely telling me as much as I already know,” said
Leslie.
“Jane, you must not sign it. I forbid it!”
There was a tremor of anger in the hard voice, and, looking at the
woman, Leslie saw how deeply the tragedy must have affected her. She
seemed ten years older. The big slit of a mouth was turned down at the
ends, the eyes red and inflamed.
Very calmly Lady Raytham affixed her signature.
“Don’t be foolish, Anita,” she said quietly. “The police are entitled
to know certain things about Druze.”
“What have you told them? Can I see this precious document?”
She reached out her hand, but Leslie was before her.
“Let me read it to you, Princess,” she said, and placed the desk
between herself and her furious visitor. That Princess Bellini was in
a cold tremble of rage was patent.
She read without interruption to the end.
“Jane Raytham, you’re a fool to sign a thing like that!” stormed the
woman. “Let them find things out without committing yourself to paper.
This girl has tricked you into a confession----”
“Confession?” said Leslie, with a smile. “How absurd! Lady Raytham
knew that Druze was a woman; it was impossible that she should not.
And, as she says, she has only told us what we already knew, and what
you already knew.”
“I knew nothing,” said Anita Bellini harshly, her baleful eyes fixed
on the girl, “except that you have tricked Lady Raytham into making a
statement which will involve her in considerable trouble.”
Leslie faced her squarely, and for the first time Anita Bellini became
dimly and uncomfortably conscious of the strength of this
inconsiderable person. They had met before, and the honours of that
meeting had not rested with the princess. But she had thought of
Leslie as a girl with a certain glibness of tongue, a gift of smart
repartee, but without any of the especial qualities that she might
expect in a foe worthy of her heaviest metal. But now it had dawned
upon her that, whether she was “Coldwell’s pretty typist,” as she had
contemptuously referred to her, or whether she was “a Scotland Yard
underling,” she was certainly a factor to be considered and
forestalled. And if she had had any doubt on the subject, Leslie
Maughan’s first words would have dispelled it.
“Lady Raytham has made a statement, and you also will make a
statement, Princess,” she said, “either before or after the inquest.”
The woman surveyed her with an oddly sly look that was unnatural in
her.
“I don’t know how you can bring me in,” she began, and her tone was
milder than it had been.
“You employed Druze. Apparently you knew she was a woman, and are
acquainted with her early history,” said Leslie quietly. “That is
quite sufficient to bring you into any inquiry which the police set
afoot.”
Anita Bellini took out her monocle, polished it on her handkerchief
and returned it to her eye.
“Possibly I was rather precipitate,” she said. “But I think you should
make allowance for my--whatever I have said. I have been awfully upset
by Druze’s death. Would you read the statement again?”
It was a very simple record of the information which Lady Raytham had
given to the girl, and, when she had finished reading:
“No, there is nothing in that,” said the princess. “I suppose this
evidence has to come out. Does it mean that we shall be called at the
inquest? I couldn’t stand that, I couldn’t!”
In that instant Leslie detected a tremor in the woman’s voice. Anita
Bellini, the formidable, had a weak spot, after all. But she recovered
herself very quickly.
“If everybody had his due, Peter Dawlish would be under arrest,” she
said, and, ignoring the protests of Jane: “The man hated Druze; you
know that quite well, Jane. He threatened her; I can prove it!”
And then, in a conciliatory tone:
“I hope we’re not going to be bad friends, Miss Maughan. If I can help
you I will. Is there any more you can tell me than appears in the
evening newspaper?”
“Nothing,” said Leslie shortly.
They left together soon after, but before they departed, Leslie found
an opportunity of speaking a few words to Jane Raytham.
“I don’t want you to tell anybody about the necklace,” she said in a
low voice, as she accompanied her down the stairs. “Especially about
the emerald that was found in Druze’s hand. You promise me? Or have
you already told?”
Jane Raytham shook her head.
“I wondered why you hadn’t put that in the statement,” she suggested.
“But you may trust me. I shall not speak about it, even to Anita.”
At that moment the voice of the princess hailed her from the foot of
the stairs and further conversation became impossible.
Leslie arrived at Scotland Yard just before twelve, and was mounting
the stone stairs as Peter Dawlish came down.
“A clean bill,” he said with a smile. “At any rate, that is the
impression Coldwell gives me. It seems that your detective man’s
search was a very thorough one; I suppose you know that he searched me
also? And, by the way, Belinda sends her love.”
“Belinda?” Leslie was momentarily bewildered. “Oh, you mean that
little child, Elizabeth. How wicked! I had almost forgotten her!”
“She hasn’t forgotten you,” said Peter, and with a cheery wave of his
hand went on.
She found Mr. Coldwell in his big, comfortable office, the stub of a
cigar between his teeth, his bristling brows gathered in thought.
“Just going to phone you,” he mumbled. “I’ve seen that man of yours,
and I’m satisfied that he had nothing to do with the crime.”
“‘That man of mine’ being Peter Dawlish?” she said calmly. “You give
me quite a proprietorial feeling!”
From her bag she took the statement that Lady Raytham had signed and
laid it on the table before him. He read it through carefully, folded
it up and slipped it into a drawer.
“Did you tell Anita Bellini about the emerald we found in Druze’s
hand?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “That’s the last thing in the world I should have told
her; I asked Lady Raytham not to tell either. Why?”
He smiled grimly.
“Thought you hadn’t,” he said. “Her Serenity called me on the phone
five minutes ago, and said she’d read in one of the newspapers that
something very valuable had been found on Druze’s person. I haven’t
seen all the newspapers, but those I’ve read make no mention of the
emerald, and I don’t see why they should, unless they are psychic. The
princess suggested, rather than said, that you had confirmed this
mythical newspaper report.”
Leslie shook her head in admiration.
“That woman is certainly a quick worker,” she said. “What did you tell
her?”
Mr. Coldwell relit his cigar with the exasperating deliberation of his
age.
“I told her that we _had_ found something valuable--a packet of money.
She seemed kind of disappointed.”
The telephone bell shrilled; he picked up the receiver, listened in
silence for a time, and then:
“All right, I’ll come down,” he said.
“The Lambeth police have got a quaint clue--a kind of ready-made one,
but it should be investigated, as it has to do with your Peter. Would
you like to come along?”
She looked at him steadily.
“If you refer to him as my Peter again, I shall be very offensive to
you, Mr. Coldwell,” she said, and Coldwell scratched his chin.
“Somehow he seems to belong to you; I don’t know why I get that
impression.”
Her eyes wandered to a corner of the room and for the first time she
saw the two big travelling trunks. They were new and bore the label of
the Cunard Steamship Company.
“Druze’s,” he said laconically. “We’ll go through those when we come
back.”
It was at the corner of Severall Street that the taxicab stopped. The
local subdivisional inspector was waiting, and with him a detective.
“Let me have a look at that paper,” said Coldwell immediately, and
Leslie, who had not heard the one-sided conversation on the telephone,
wondered what was coming next.
The inspector took a dirty slip of paper from his pocketbook and
placed it in Coldwell’s hand. He fixed his glasses and read, then
passed the slip to the girl. The message was written in pencil and in
an illiterate hand:
Dawlish keeps his gun under a loose board in his bedroom just as you
go inside the door.
“Where did this come from?” asked Coldwell.
“It was delivered at the station just before I telephoned to you. A
street lad brought it along. He said it had been handed to him by a
man, who gave him a few coppers for his trouble. I thought it best
that you should know.”
They walked down the street toward Mrs. Inglethorne’s house and the
door was opened immediately by that lady, who was surprisingly clean
and spruce. She seemed surprised, but was certainly not agitated by
the appearance of the police officers.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Dawlish has just come in. Shall I call him down?”
“No, thank you; we’ll go up.”
Coldwell mounted the stairs and knocked at the door of the front room,
and a voice bade him come in. Over the inspector’s shoulder, Leslie
saw that Peter was sitting at a deal table, pen in hand, a stack of
addressed envelopes before him. He shifted his chair round and his
eyebrows rose in astonishment.
“Hello!” he said, obviously taken aback by the character of the call.
“Do you want to see me again, Inspector?”
Coldwell took in the room at a glance.
“I have information that you’ve a gun concealed under this floor,” he
said. “If you don’t mind I’ll make another search.”
“Fire ahead,” said Peter, without a moment’s hesitation.
Coldwell turned back to the door, lifted a corner of the faded carpet
and saw the loose board immediately. To lift it up was the work of a
second. Thrusting in his hand, he pulled out a long black Browning
pistol. Peter’s face went white; his jaw dropped in an amazement that
could not have been simulated.
“Anything more here?” asked Coldwell, and, kneeling, thrust in his
hand and groped about. Presently he found a small package wrapped in
cloth and brought it to the light. He unwrapped it slowly.
“My stars!” gasped out a hollow voice.
Mrs. Inglethorne had crept up the stairs and was an interested
spectator. There was reason enough for her astonishment, for in the
centre of that dirty rag lay three large diamond rings, the least
valuable of which must have been worth a hundred pounds.
“Do you know anything about these, Dawlish?”
Peter shook his head.
“No, I’m not a burglar,” he said, with a return of his old good
spirits. “That branch of the profession is not my forte, and that
little find has every appearance of being the proceeds of a very old
burglary.”
Coldwell looked at the wrapper; it was thick with dust. Even as he
turned back one corner of the rag, a fine cloud arose.
“Do you know anything about these, Mrs. Inglethorne?”
She shook her head.
“Or the pistol?”
The woman was paralyzed; her face had gone a ghastly gray as she
realized the enormous significance of that find. There they had lain
month after month, at least five hundred pounds’ worth of jewellery,
the results of one of her lodger’s little coups, and she none the
wiser.
“Never--seen--it!” Mrs. Inglethorne found a difficulty in breathing.
“This has been used as a hiding place before,” said the inspector, as
he laid the pistol and rings upon the deal table.
He examined the Browning, noted its make and number, and, having
carefully removed the magazine and dislodged the cartridges from the
chamber, smelled at the barrel.
“It has been fired recently, I should imagine: it still smells of
cordite. Is this yours, Dawlish?”
“No, sir: I’ve never seen it before.”
“Humph!” The inspector sat down on the bed in exactly the place where
the girl had sat the night before. He looked round for Mrs.
Inglethorne, but that woman had vanished.
“Nobody told you about that hiding place?”
“No, sir.”
“Hello, Elizabeth!” It was Leslie’s interruption. The frail child
stood in the doorway, shyly smiling at the beautiful lady of her
dreams.
She whispered something that the girl could not catch, and Leslie went
nearer to her, took the two thin hands in hers, and, stooping, kissed
the pale cheeks.
“Tea?” she said with a laugh. “No, dear, I don’t think we want tea. It
was very nice of you to come.”
The child’s eyes were fixed on the table; they were wide open, and in
their depths Leslie saw a look of fear.
“What is it?” asked Leslie.
“That big gun,” whispered the child. “Mother had it this morning, and
I was so frightened.”
The sharp-eared Coldwell heard.
“Your mother had it this morning, my dear?” he said kindly. “Where did
she have it?”
“In the kitchen. A gentleman left it--a little gentleman with a yellow
face. Mother brought it into the kitchen and said we all ought to be
killed.”
She clapped her hands to her mouth with an exclamation of fright, for
only then did she remember the strict injunctions laid upon her.
Coldwell strode out of the room to the head of the stairs and called
Mrs. Inglethorne in a stentorian voice. It was a long time before he
had an answer, and then by the tremulous voice he guessed that part of
the conversation between himself and the child had been overheard.
“Come up here,” he said curtly, and Mrs. Inglethorne came lumbering up
the stairs.
“This pistol came to your house this morning. From whom?”
The woman’s mouth was dry with terror. She blinked from one to the
other.
“A gentleman brought it,” she gasped out. “He said it belonged to Mr.
Dawlish, and would I put it under the floor--without a word of a lie,
sir--if I never move from here.”
Coldwell’s gimlet eyes searched her unwholesome face.
“You told me you had never seen the pistol before. Who sent it?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know, sir. I’ve never seen the man before in my life--if I
never move----”
“You’ll move!” said Coldwell grimly. “And darned quick, if you don’t
tell me the truth!”
But to her story she stuck, swearing by numerous gods, some of whom
were unfamiliar to Leslie, that she knew nothing whatever of the
pistol except that it had been brought there by a perfect stranger who
she thought was a friend of Peter Dawlish.
To Leslie Maughan’s astonishment the inspector appeared to accept this
story, and to find nothing venal in the act of concealment.
“You did a very foolish thing, Mrs. Inglethorne. The next time a
perfect stranger comes and asks you to conceal firearms in your
lodger’s room, you had better notify the police.”
He slipped the pistol into his pocket, and looked round for Elizabeth,
but she had vanished.
“That lets you out, Dawlish,” he said. “At least, it does for the
moment. If I were you, I would make an inspection of the room and see
if there are other likely hiding places where stuff could be planted.”
He had a consultation with the local inspector, and then he and Leslie
walked back to their cab.
“You’ve let her down rather lightly, haven’t you, Mr. Coldwell?”
He gave her a quick sidelong glance.
“Minnow fishing never did appeal to me,” he drawled, “especially while
one of the big pikes is hovering around, and it’s the pike I’m after.
And if this minnow doesn’t lead me to him, I’ll be astonished.”
“You accept Peter Dawlish’s story?”
He nodded, as he helped her into the cab. When he had followed and had
slammed the rackety door and the machine was in motion, he explained.
“The detective who searched the house last night found that loose
board and the hole underneath. He might have missed the diamond rings,
but he couldn’t have missed the gun. Therefore I knew it had been
planted since. Peter might have put it there, of course, but the odds
were all against that theory. The true story was the one told by the
child. The little yellow-faced gentleman was probably one of the three
who attacked Dawlish.”
For the first time she learned of that surprising outrage which had
been committed in Severall Street the night Peter had visited her.
He admitted a little irritably that the case had gone outside his own
experience.
“Here’s a woman who has been masquerading as a man for the past
fifteen years, found dead, with an emerald in her hand, worth, at a
rough guess, a thousand pounds. She was shot at close quarters with
the pistol I have in my pocket----”
She gasped.
“You don’t mean that?”
He nodded.
“I do mean it. I’d like to bet a month’s pay that I’m right. You think
a murderer would be crazy to put the very weapon in the hands of the
police, knowing that the pistol has a number and its purchase can be
traced--unless it was bought in Belgium, which is extremely likely.
You haven’t seen Druze since she was found, have you? Well, I’m not
advising you to; all the details about her can be passed on. There’s a
big black-powder burn at the base of her right thumb, that is to say
on the back of her hand. First thing I noticed when I examined the
body was that powder burn.”
“How did that come there?” asked Leslie.
“She fired an automatic--five or six shots in rapid succession--and
got the backfire. One shot wouldn’t have burned her; it must have been
at least five. Look!” He showed his own hand, and a raw red mark,
faintly tinged with black. “I was firing an automatic this morning to
see what would happen, and I’ve got exactly the same mark as she has.
I’m only making a guess, Leslie, but my guess is that Miss or Mrs.
Druze was killed in self-defense; that she started the gunplay and got
the worst of it.”
Leslie caught her breath.
“Then where is the other body?” she asked quickly.
He stared at her open-mouthed.
“Other body?”
“She killed somebody first,” said Leslie quickly. “Killed or
desperately wounded. Such a woman as Druze would not carry a pistol
unless she knew how to use it. If she knew how to use it and fired
first, then somebody was badly hurt.”
The old man took off his hat and scratched his head.
“That’s the natural conclusion to reach,” he said, “and I didn’t reach
it! And why I didn’t reach it I don’t know! Just let me think this
out, will ye?”
The silence was unbroken until they reached Scotland Yard.
“I’m still thinking it out,” he said dismally as he stepped out of the
cab behind her and paid the taxi man.
There was a bearded man in the hall, doctor written in every line of
him. He was talking to the officer at the desk, and evidently Coldwell
was being pointed out to him, for he walked to the door to meet the
inspector as he entered.
“You’re Mr. Coldwell? My name is Simmson. I am Doctor Simmson of
Marylebone Road.”
“Yes, Doctor?” said Coldwell, politely attentive.
“A friend of mine has suggested that I should go to Scotland Yard and
report rather a curious circumstance,” he said awkwardly. “I have
never done such a thing before, and I’m a little at sea as to how I
should begin. But I have a patient who is suffering from a gunshot
wound, and I am not quite satisfied as to how she received her injury,
which is a slight one.”
Coldwell was all attention now.
“Through the calf; no artery has been injured. And really, I feel I’m
being terribly disloyal to a patient----”
“What is her name?” asked Coldwell.
“Mrs. Greta Gurden,” was the reply.