THE FACE AT THE BROKEN WINDOW.
Miss Clara sat down--perhaps I should say collapsed down. But for the
fact that a huge Chesterfield stood immediately at her back, ready to
receive the fair burden of her charms, I am persuaded that her ultimate
destination would have been the floor. The suddenness of my statement
"dropped" her as neatly as a good marksman "drops" his bird.
Sinking--"all of a flutter," as she afterwards described it, thus
unconsciously confirming the aptness of my bird imagery--upon the
Chesterfield, this truly remarkable woman merely observed, "Well, I
never!" and then as speedily recovering herself, sat up and said,
quietly:
"I knew there was something behind it all along."
This was said, I may observe, not in relation to the Chesterfield which
had so fortunately been behind _her_, but to my story.
"Of course you did," I said. "Anyone could see that with half an eye.
There are two things behind it. First, I want you to help me to marry
your niece, and second, I want to help you to get your brother out of
the hands of these blackmailers."
In thus coupling our common interests, and in thus bespeaking, if not
assuming, her assistance on my behalf, I was taking a good deal for
granted, but she did not seem to resent it.
"You have plenty of impudence, young man," she said, smiling grimly.
"You'll be wanting someone to help you to marry me next."
"That," I answered, "is the one regret I shall have, if I succeed in
winning your niece. It will prevent me from ever hoping to win the
heart and hand (and what a pretty hand it is too!) of her charming and
accomplished aunt."
Then I told of my well-deserved ducking in the lake, admitting frankly
that I had lied when I had said I could not swim, but pleading my cause
and the excuses to be urged in my favour with all the eloquence at my
command, and, judging by her increasing friendliness, not altogether
without success.
"And now," I said, when I had made an end of it, "now about your
brother and the kidnapping?"
"Yes," she replied, "we have to think of that. I expect you think that
both Kate and I have taken it coolly, considering. But, you see, you
don't know my brother. If you did, you'd have very little fear about
his being able to take care of himself, wherever he is. What do you
propose?"
"First of all," I said, "I'll ask you to ascertain whether the house is
still being watched. You are taking me very much on trust, and if it
should turn out that the shadower has returned to his post, or another
shadower has been put on duty, it will go a little way to confirm my
story, and to prove that I'm not altogether an impostor."
"I either trust people altogether, or don't trust them at all," she
answered. "But you've been frank with me, so I'll tell you now that I
haven't taken you so entirely upon trust as you imagine. There's an
evening paper on that table which has an account of the finding of the
bodies, just as you mentioned; and when I went upstairs to speak to my
niece, I took the opportunity to peep up and down the road from behind
the blinds. There _is_ a man watching this house, and also a house
somewhere in Taunton Square, just as you said. It certainly is very
curious. Come in!"
The last two words were spoken in response to a knock. The door, when
opened, revealed Metcalfe with a telegram on a salver. She read the
slip of orange paper quite coolly, and then passed it to me, saying,
"From my brother."
It was as follows:--
Hope Kate and you not anxious last night. Letter I wrote early
yesterday morning explaining was called to Glasgow on business not
posted by oversight. Only just discovered it in my pocket. So sorry.
May be away some days.--JOHN.
"So, you see, he's safe enough," Miss Clara said, smiling. "Do you
really think you're right in thinking he is one of the millionaires
they want to kidnap? I admit it is a curious coincidence that someone
should be watching the house."
"Perhaps I _have_ jumped to conclusions somewhat," I said. "But
if someone is really watching the house again, I ought to be at
work, not wasting any more of your time and my time by gossiping
here--especially as it turns out after all that Mr. Carleton is safe.
If there is any back door I could slip out by, I think I'll either
follow the shadower myself, and see if I can't find out where he comes
from, or perhaps even try to get New Scotland Yard to arrest him on
suspicion. He's the only clue I've got to the whereabouts of the
Dumpling, and it won't do for me to lose sight of him. What's that
noise, I wonder, in the street? There's something amiss, clearly. It
won't do for me to be seen leaving the house. Would you mind letting
your servant inquire?"
"Certainly, if you wish it," she said, ringing the bell.
"Metcalfe, just find out what that disturbance in the street is," she
said, when the man appeared, "and come back to report to me."
"I have been out to see already, m'm," Metcalfe answered respectfully.
"A man's been stabbed--killed, too. They say he's a brother of Mr.
Grant the detective, who lives at No. 10, Taunton Place, and very like
him, and that a man who has been hanging about the street all day
stabbed him just as he was coming out of No. 10. Why he did it nobody
knows, unless the murderer's a criminal that Mr. Grant was after, and
stabbed the brother, thinking it was the detective himself. And the
worst of it is he's got away, too! But what's that?"
From the back of the house there came a sound that was suspiciously
like the stealthy breaking of glass.
It so happens that I have extraordinary sharp hearing, and was able
with some exactness to locate the direction whence the sound came.
Calling out "Follow me, Metcalfe!" I dashed down the stairs and through
a door which led to a corridor, at the end of which was a conservatory.
A cold wind indicated either an open door or window--perhaps a broken
window. As I raced along the corridor--the bewildered Metcalfe so far
behind me that I could hear his heavy steps descending the stairs--I
saw that though all the other plants in the conservatory were perfectly
still, one white-blossomed flower in a pot was swaying and moving as if
in a draught, and the next moment there peered, through a broken pane
of glass behind it, the white and wicked face of the Dumpling.