THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF ELTON CARLYLE
"Won't 'old another blessed thing, sir," said Dollops, regretfully,
trying hard to stuff a bundle of highly coloured ties and a cocoa-nut
into a Gladstone bag already filled to overflowing.
Cleek, shirt-sleeves turned up, kneeling before a similar bag, looked up
with a quizzical smile on his face.
"It certainly won't hold any more cocoanuts, you voracious young
monkey," he said with an amused laugh. "I should say you've got enough
things in there to last for a month at the Pole, instead of a couple of
days on a houseboat. Hurry and get strapped up, or--who knows?--we shall
have Mr. Narkom popping in with another case."
Dollops hurried up at once, gasping as he did so, "If he does, I'll eat
my 'at. Lor' lumme, sir! but we ain't goin' to be done out of _this_
'oliday, are we?"
Cleek shook his head. But even as he opened his mouth to speak there
came a sound which caused Dollops to assume a most dejected
expression--a very ordinary sound, too, a hastily driven motor being
sharply drawn up to the curb.
Cleek sprang to his feet.
"Lennard! A ducat to a guinea but it's Lennard!" he muttered under his
breath, as Dollops, with the ease of an acrobat, took a flying leap over
both bags to the window and peeped through the curtains.
It did not need his heartfelt groan of despair to tell Cleek that his
conjecture was right, and the sound of hurried footsteps in the passage
outside warned him of Mr. Narkom's approach only a minute before the
door was thrown open and that gentleman stood in the doorway,
breathless, but beaming complacently.
"Thank Heaven I'm in time, old chap," said he with a sigh of relief,
advancing toward Cleek.
"Sorry we can't reciprocate the feeling, Mr. Narkom," said Cleek with a
rueful smile; "but we can't, can we, Dollops? It's too bad, you
interloper. I've ordered the taxi, there's a boat waiting for us out
Hampton Court way, and in another quarter of an hour----" He stopped
significantly, and threw out his hand with a gesture indicative of the
most utter despair.
Mr. Narkom nodded.
"It is hard lines," he agreed, "and I wouldn't worry you, only it's
something very important. And if _you_ fail me----"
"Well, old friend, you want me, and here I am. I suppose you are going
to carry me off, so where do we go, and when?"
"Now, if you will," said Mr. Narkom. "I've got one car here, and Petrie
and Hammond have gone off with another, made up so as to take followers
off our trail. I want to catch the one o'clock from Waterloo," he said,
consulting his watch, "and unless we hurry, there's no chance."
"Waterloo? Too far for us to go in the limousine, then?" said Cleek,
picking up his light overcoat.
"Yes, it's just beyond Portsmouth, as a matter of fact, and we shan't be
down there even now until late in the evening, but----"
"But me no buts," threw in Cleek with a little laugh. "Let's be off.
Now, then, Dollops."
He gave the boy a few hurried instructions, turned upon his heel, seized
Mr. Narkom by his substantial arm, and went clattering down the stairs
like a schoolboy on the first day of the holidays.
"Now fire away," he said as he seated himself in the limousine beside
the Superintendent, and drew out his cigarette-case. "Is the matter
really a very important one?"
"I should think it is," was the emphatic reply. "I had the tip from a
very high personage indeed to give the matter close attention. The
actual client is a gentleman of considerable wealth and social standing.
You may possibly have heard of him. He is Brian Desmond, the only son of
the wealthiest banker in the kingdom, and recently made head of his
father's firm."
"Of course I have heard of him," said Cleek with a nod. "Who hasn't?
Wasn't that the man who owned 'Black Prince,' the last Derby winner? Not
only has he been famous for outdoor sports, but no one can forget the
fuss made in the papers over his marriage two years ago with the most
beautiful débutante of the season, Lady Beryl Summerton."
"That's the man," said the Superintendent. "But all his sporting
days--and ways--are over, for since he has become head of the great
banking business he has devoted all his time to straight finance and
hard work. Every day he spends at the provincial office in Portsmouth,
near which is his country seat."
"Another case of Prince Hal, eh?" said Cleek, thoughtfully. "All right,
old chap, don't worry over your history dates now--go ahead. What's
wrong? I saw his cousin, Elton Carlyle, last week. He hasn't given up
_his_ sporting proclivities, because he was walking down Bond Street
with a bookie, I'll stake my life on that."
"Poor chap!" said Mr. Narkom, softly. "The news of Elton Carlyle's death
came to me this morning. It's been murder--cunning, crafty, diabolically
planned murder. And there is no clue as to how the murderer got into the
house unseen, much less how he managed to chloroform a man to death
without a sign of a struggle. Yet the man evidently died last night. Mr.
Desmond sent off for the police, and wrote me fullest particulars."
"Very thoughtful of him," said Cleek, pinching up his chin. "Should have
thought he would have been too upset to have got a letter off in time to
catch the post. That special midnight mail, I presume? H'm!"
"Yes," agreed the Superintendent. "I never thought of that, I was so
glad to get all the facts. I had been in communication with him over the
robberies all last week, and was going down when----"
Cleek sat up suddenly.
"What's that?" he snapped. "Robberies? What has been stolen from where?"
"So far, only gold has been taken, but now----Here's Waterloo, and the
rest must be kept until we are in the train. What's that? Get the
tickets and join you on the platform afterward. All right. And the coach
next to the engine if I can manage it? Anything you say goes."
With this the Superintendent jumped nimbly out of the car and, with some
instructions to Lennard, hastily made for the booking-office. There were
evidently a goodly number of people going to Portsmouth, and Mr. Narkom
frowned and fretted impatiently as he had to take his place in the
queue. He noted with some alarm the presence of one man who was
obviously of French birth, and but for the fact that this person took
his ticket for a station some fifty miles from Portsmouth, the
Superintendent would have given the fact more attention.
To his disgust there were no signs of Cleek on the platform, and he was
still more angered by discovering that there was no empty carriage to be
obtained. As a final reason for exasperation the carriage behind the
engine was not only marked "Engaged" but was occupied by another
Frenchman, an individual with long hair and Vandyke beard, who was
leaning out of the window imploring every guard who came within hearing
to tell him if "zis was ze right train for Dovaire." As he should have
been going in exactly the opposite direction, and had been told so by
every official on the platform, and as he still continued to argue the
question in perfect French, they had, one and all, given him up in
despair.
Mr. Narkom was also in despair as he saw the gate of the platform shut
against a surging crowd of people who had arrived too late, and still
there was no sign of Cleek.
That his ally had failed him intentionally he would not believe, and he
halted disconsolately just outside the Frenchman's reserved carriage.
The man had opened the door as if uncertain whether or not to get out at
the last moment, and then as the whistle sounded, a guard, his green
flag aloft, bundled both the Frenchman and Mr. Narkom unceremoniously
into the same carriage, and bade them "Fight it out" between them.
Another shrill whistle, and the train moved out of the station, and Mr.
Narkom, to the accompaniment of shrill vituperations from his French
fellow-passenger, sank down into the opposite corner, the image of
gloomy despair.
"Poor old chap! Sorry to----"
But the soft, laughing voice got no further, for with an acrobatic leap,
worthy of Dollops himself, the Superintendent fairly hurled himself on
his companion and tugged at his square black beard.
"Cleek!" said he in a voice that held some anger and a great deal of
relief. "I might have known it, but what a scare you gave me!"
"You'd have had a worse one, my friend, if you had kept your eyes open,
as I did," answered Cleek with a little shrug of disgust. "From the
limousine I saw him. No less a person than Gustave Borelle, Margot's
half-brother. What do you think of that?"
Mr. Narkom's brain flew to the booking-office, and his cheeks paled.
"The Frenchman in the queue!" he ejaculated, mopping his forehead with a
silk handkerchief and looking the picture of pathetic despair. "I
noticed him, old chap, but he booked his ticket to Tarrington, so I felt
assured."
"Let's hope it's only pure coincidence," said Cleek, thoughtfully. "Of
course, he may have recognized the Yard car, and then again he may not.
Anyhow, I don't think he would have recognized me in that get-up. Well,
my friend, weren't you telling me something about a series of robberies
in this precious new case of yours?"
The professional light came into the Superintendent's face, even as the
anxious one went out of it.
"'Pon my soul," he said, briskly, "I was nearly forgetting what I was
travelling for! Yes, robberies from a time-lock safe, in the study of
Mr. Brian Desmond, at Desmond House. I expect you know the sort of
thing."
"H'm, yes," said Cleek. "I ought to," he added, smiling a trifle sadly,
"considering the amount of trouble I used to have in opening them. But
that's another story. Anyhow, I know the apparatus; and one belongs to
Mr. Desmond, eh? And money has been taken from it despite the time-lock
precautions. Blown, I suppose?"
"No," replied Mr. Narkom with a grim smile. "For weeks and weeks sums of
money have been disappearing from this safe overnight, and the mechanism
of the lock has been absolutely intact, without scratch or blemish. The
money has been put in at night, after the bridge parties are over."
"What's that?" rapped out Cleek. "Bridge parties? What has that
hard-working, pleasure-shunning, late sportsman-banker, Brian Desmond,
got to do with bridge parties?"
"He doesn't play himself. They are his wife's affair. Lady Beryl is
devoted to the game. She gave up everything when she married
Desmond--she might have married a duke, by the way--friends, parents,
hobbies, all except bridge. That she still continued, having people
down for the week-end solely to play."
"Oho! And where does Elton Carlyle come in in this pleasant little
ménage? Is he the tame cat of the house, or master of the revels?"
"Well, something like that," admitted Mr. Narkom with a nod, "though he
was called Brian's secretary. He was always a man-about-town, but he and
Brian were inseparable. Now, on top of these robberies comes the news
this morning of the murder of Elton Carlyle and the disappearance of the
Eugenie pearl."
Cleek suddenly showed tremendous interest.
"What's that? What's that?" he rapped out. "You don't mean to say that
any fool man bought that ill-fated jewel at Christie's last week? But
yes, of course, he did, I remember now. Never anything but trouble has
followed in the wake of that unhappy bauble of vanity since it first put
in its appearance. It belonged originally to the Duchess Amelia Eugenie,
from whom it acquired its name. Some stones seem to reflect the
unhappiness of their various owners, and this pearl is the very
embodiment of ill-luck. Desmond, I should think, with superstitious
Irish blood in his veins, might have thought twice before he gave his
wife such a jewel as that!"
"Well, he didn't," snorted Mr. Narkom, "and now it's gone."
For a time there was silence in the compartment. Neither spoke, neither
stirred. Then suddenly Cleek jerked himself upright.
"Then that's what they're after!" said he with a crooked little smile.
"I wonder. I wonder. It might be, and yet, Margot's no fool--no fool!"
With that he relapsed into silence again, a silence which lasted almost
until the express landed them at Portsmouth Station.