THE MYSTERY OF THE "ROSE OF FIRE"
Some few days later, Mr. Narkom, breathing noisily and obviously hard
pressed for time, pushed open the door of Cleek's apartment on Portman
Square and carefully inserted his head into the room. His face lighted
up and he drew a deep sigh of relief as he caught sight of Cleek,
reclining in an easy-chair and apparently day-dreaming.
He glanced up as the Superintendent entered.
"Well, for once you have caught me napping, Mr. Narkom," he said. "I was
so deep in thought, I never heard a sound. But sit down, old friend. You
look worried."
"I am," admitted the Superintendent. "I was on pins and needles for fear
this gorgeous day might have drawn you up the river, and I didn't dare
use the public telephone."
"Which tells me very plainly that you have not come directly from the
Yard. So I may assume it is a case of some importance that has brought
you here in post haste," said Cleek.
"It is indeed," said Narkom, "and it is a case connected with jewels.
"You remember that young American chap I pointed out in a motor last
week--the fellow who came over about the Panama Canal, intending to go
back, but wound up by getting engaged to an English girl and settling
down here...?"
"Anthony Winton, do you mean? Yes, of course I do. If my memory holds
right, he is the son of a California millionaire, and with a pretty
taste in jewels. Made a hobby of outlandish settings, photographs were
in the _Connoisseur_. The woman who marries him will never go short of
unique jewels. Wasn't he to have been married to-day, by the way,
according to the papers?"
"'Was' is the correct word, Cleek," said Narkom in a hushed tone. "There
will be no wedding for him, poor chap. The man has been murdered----"
"Murdered!" Cleek interrupted, sitting up suddenly. "Winton murdered!
How? When?"
"Last night," said Narkom. "Robbery is supposed to have been the motive,
and suspicion points in half-a-dozen directions."
"What has been stolen, something from his collection?"
"Yes. As you yourself said, he had a mania for queer jewels, and the one
that is missing is the queerest of the lot--rubies mounted on a stem. A
Burmese thing, known as the 'Rose of Fire,' made of priceless
pigeon-blood rubies, and supposed to have been stolen from the temple of
Buddha in Mandalay.
"I was told it was a rose with ruby petals and emerald stem and worth
thousands."
"Of course; everyone knows of it. Thousands won't replace it," said
Cleek. "Its historical value alone makes it priceless. It is supposed to
have belonged to Buddha himself. But to come back to Winton. How was he
killed? Stabbed? Shot?"
"I can't say for certain," said Narkom, "save that he was certainly not
shot or stabbed. There is no mark or blemish on the body at all. All
that is positive, according to the doctor, who did not arrive until
after his death, is that he had been asphyxiated by some unknown fumes.
He was found by his servant, who says he heard him struggling with an
assailant, but when he forced the door in, the room was empty, the
windows shut, and he was only just in time to reach his master and hear
him say with his last gasp 'Death's Head!' Then he fell back, dead as
the skeleton to which he pointed."
"'Death's Head'," repeated Cleek, knitting his brows. "Does anybody know
what he meant?"
"Not unless he was still thinking of his words with Miss Parradine, the
bride-to-be."
"What had she to do with it?" asked Cleek.
"A great deal, I should say. As you know, Winton had queer taste in
jewels and it seems that he had had some of his finest diamonds mounted
in skull-and-crossbones brooches as his present to the bride and as
bridesmaid gifts. He was obsessed with breaking superstitions--insisted
on sitting down thirteen at table when possible, had the knives crossed,
had skull and crossbones on his notepaper and cutlery. He defied, in
fact, every legend and superstition known, even to having a skeleton
present at the table."
"H'm, cheerful companion! Every man has some whim, but for a young man
all this was peculiar, to say the least of it. I suppose he wanted his
future wife to indulge in the same tricks, eh?"
"Yes, that's just it, Cleek, and evidently she resisted. Anyhow, with
the exception of Calvert, the valet, she was the last person to see him
alive last night. She arrived unexpectedly during the evening, and was
shown in to him. It seems that they were not entirely on the best of
terms. Both have, or had I suppose I must say, strong wills, and Miss
Parradine was obviously in a furious temper, for Calvert declared that
he heard her voice raised high and shrill more than once. He even goes
further than that, for he swears that as he was passing the door, just
before she flung herself out, flushed with rage and mortification, he
heard her say distinctly: 'I won't have it. I'd sooner see you a skull
and crossbones yourself than ask such a thing'."
"Humph," commented Cleek. "I wonder if Calvert is to be trusted. Sure he
wasn't making the words fit those of the dying man? Possibly Miss
Parradine was angry at the gift and carried away by temper. Vanity
plays a great part with women at the best of times, and a wedding, after
all, is a trying experience."
"In this case vanity, or rather wealth, plays the chief part, I fear,
Cleek, for to all accounts the lady only consented to the marriage
because of the pressure brought to bear upon her by her family, and
secondly because of her own love of precious stones. According to the
marriage settlements, on his death all jewels go to her."
"Oho!" said Cleek in two different inflections.
"The lady herself," continued Mr. Narkom, "was really engaged to a
neighbouring land-owner, Robert Bristol, but she had to give him up.
Probably Winton had a financial hold over her father. Anyhow, the
marriage was hastened, and Winton had decided to take his bride back to
America before settling down here."
"And where did the murder take place--in London?" queried Cleek, diving
for his cigarette-case.
"No, in Essex, in the village of Grays, where Winton had leased a very
old solidly built manor house, and had had his jewel collection, which
he made while travelling from place to place, transferred to the big
picture gallery there. This collection included the famous 'Rose of
Fire'."
"H'm. I see. And considering that the Burmese priests will never rest
till they regain that holy relic, it was positively asking for trouble.
The Death's Head, sign of the skull and crossbones, is an emblem of one
of their rites, I believe, and if one of them were in the neighbourhood,
might Winton not have recognized the instigator of his death? The
hypothesis is rather far-fetched, I admit, but still----Well, continue
with the story, please. How long had the lady left before Calvert began
to suspect trouble?"
"About ten minutes. As a matter of fact, she let herself out,
apparently. Calvert was called away by the telephone down another
passage, and when he came back she was gone. He took the 'phone message
to Mr. Winton and found the door locked. According to him, he called,
and at last broke in the door on hearing a funny scuffling noise inside,
but getting no answer to his knocks found his master dying, and later
discovered the loss of the 'Rose of Fire' from his table. That is as far
as I can get."
"How was it that Miss Parradine was able to make such an inopportune
call? Does she live in Grays, too?"
"Yes, she does. She is, as you doubtless are aware, the daughter of
Colonel Parradine, late of the Bengal Lancers, and----"
"Stop a moment," cut in Cleek, sharply. "It isn't often my memory fails
me. Wasn't it about '74 when the Bengal Lancers were stationed at
Mandalay? I seem to remember some yarns about ragging. If I am not
wrong, I expect it must have been that same Colonel, or Captain
Parradine as he then was, who nearly got cashiered. Is he still up to
high jinks?"
"Well, he acts pretty queerly," said Narkom, "according to Winton's
butler, Wills. It was he, by the way, who went flying off for the doctor
when they found that the telephone was out of order at the same time as
the lights."
"What's that? The lights wrong?"
"Yes, he said, and Calvert, too, that every light in the place went out
just as Calvert got into the room. Then they flashed on again, and
that's how he looked for the jewels, directly he saw his master was
dead, in order to find whether they had been stolen."
"Very thoughtful of him," put in Cleek, pinching up his chin. "Very!"
"Yes, and that's not the only funny thing. Nothing else but the 'Rose'
was missing, although other stones of the collection were there. Winton
had evidently been polishing or looking at them. You would have thought
the thief would have cleared the lot."
"Possibly! And yet, too, he might have banked on one single jewel not
being missed immediately and let him get a good start away."
"But to come back to Colonel Parradine," said Narkom. "Wills tells me he
met him half-way down the lane as he was going for the doctor either
very ill and shaken or much the worse for drink. His clothes were dusty
and awry as if he had had a fall, and that's how he accounted for his
condition. He said he had been knocked down by a motor on his way from
the station. But there were scratches on his face and hands which gave
him the appearance of having dropped from a high window rather than of
having been in a motor accident. As Winton's gallery is a sheer drop of
thirty feet from the ground, you can imagine it looks strange. Anyhow,
Wills told him what had happened and left the Colonel to come on to the
Manor Lodge as best he could."
"Looks bad, I must say. Still, if he had had any hand in it, he would
hardly have been hanging about the lane near the scene of the murder.
But you never know. Anyhow, it's easy to round up someone who saw or
heard of that accident. It remains to be seen what the Colonel has to
say. Any possibility of his secreting the jewel himself?"
"Hardly," said Narkom. "Considering that he drew my attention to its
loss. Besides, to make things worse, I phoned through to headquarters on
my way up and learned that some loose rubies were pawned in London at
nine o'clock this morning by a woman who answers vaguely a description
of Miss Parradine herself."
"That looks worst of all," said Cleek. "Give me five minutes to jump
into another suit, Mr. Narkom, and we'll see what Mr. George Headland
can do."