THE WILL
Flash Fred looked upon the intruder, a picture of comical amazement.
“You don’t lose no time, do you?” The protest was forced from him, and
Larry laughed softly.
“For carrying concealed weapons, you’re pinched, Fred.”
“It’s no crime in this country,” growled the other, putting up his
gun.
By this time Dr. Judd had recovered himself.
“You know our friend, Mr. Grogan,” he said easily. “He’s a member of
our amateur dramatic society, and we were practising a scene from ‘The
Corsican Brothers.’ I suppose it looked rather alarming.”
“Thought it was ‘Julius Cæsar,’” said Larry dryly. “The scene between
Cassius and Brutus, though I don’t remember the gun play.”
The doctor looked at Flash Fred and then at Larry.
“I’m afraid I don’t know you,” he said. He was still rather white, but
his tone had recovered its good nature.
“I am Inspector Larry Holt from Scotland Yard,” said Larry. “Now
seriously, Dr. Judd, are you charging this man with anything?”
“No, no, no,” said Judd with a laugh. “Honestly, we were only doing a
little harmless fooling.”
Larry looked from one to the other. The managing director of an
insurance company, even a small company, does not fool with a known
criminal.
“You know this man, I suppose?”
“I’ve met him several times,” said Judd easily.
“You know also that he’s a member of the criminal classes, and that he
is in fact ‘Flash Fred,’ who has served penal servitude in this
country and a term of imprisonment in France?”
The doctor said nothing for a while.
“I’m afraid I guessed that, too,” he said in a low voice, “and in
consequence my association with the man must seem rather curious to
you--but I cannot explain.”
Larry nodded. The one perturbed person in the room was Flash Fred. He
was in an agony of apprehension lest Dr. Judd tell his secret and the
reason for his visit. But Judd had no such intention.
“You can go now,” he said curtly, and Fred, trying to summon up some
of his old swagger, lit a cigar with a hand that trembled, and Larry
watched the operation.
“You want ‘Nervine for the Nerves,’ Fred,” he said. “I saw a chemist’s
shop open at the corner of the street when I came along.”
Fred walked out with a pitiable attempt at indifference, and Larry
watched him go. Then he turned to the doctor.
“I’m sorry I came in at such an inconvenient moment,” he said, “though
I don’t think you were in any danger. Fred gets all his fine dramatic
effects by pulling, not by shooting.”
“I don’t think so either,” said the doctor with a laugh. “Sit down,
Mr. Holt. I certainly didn’t expect to see you. I work rather late
here at nights.”
“There was nobody down below when I came,” said Larry, “and that is my
excuse for coming up unannounced.”
The doctor nodded.
“I sent the commissionaire out to buy me some cigarettes, and here he
is.”
There was a tap at the door and the commissionaire came in and laid a
packet on the table in confirmation.
“Now what can I do for you?” asked Judd, as he took a cigarette from
the packet and lit it. “I suppose it is the Stuart case? I’ve seen one
of your men to-day.”
Larry nodded.
“It is the Stuart case,” he said. “I wanted a few additional details.
I’ve only just taken charge of the business, and interrupted my
investigation of the--remains, in order to see you before you left the
office.”
“I know very little,” said the doctor, smoking comfortably. “He came
with me to the theatre the night before last. A queer, quiet, reticent
man. I met him quite by accident. As a matter of fact, I was in a car
that collided with his taxicab and I was slightly injured; he called
upon me, and that is how the friendship began--if you can call it a
friendship.”
“Tell me about the night before last,” asked Larry, and the doctor
looked up at the ceiling.
“Now let me think. I can give you the exact time almost, for I am a
somewhat methodical person. I met him at the entrance to the theatre
at seven-forty-five, and we both went into Box A. That is the last box
on the left, or O. P. side. The box is on a level with the street, the
stalls and pit being below the level. We sat there through two acts,
and then, just before the curtain came down on the second act, he made
an excuse and went out of the box, and he was never seen again.”
“None of the attendants saw him?”
“No,” said the doctor, “but that, I think, is easily explained. It was
a first night, and, as you know, the attendants are very interested in
the action of a play, and fill the doorways and the entrances to
gangways, looking at the stage, when of course they should be
attending to their business.”
“Did you know he was Stuart, a semi-millionaire?” asked Larry.
“I hadn’t the slightest idea,” said the doctor truthfully. “I knew
nothing whatever about his past life except that he had come from
Canada.”
Larry was disappointed.
“I hoped I was going to get a lot of information from you,” he said.
“Nobody seems to have known Stuart, and naturally I thought that you
would have been in his confidence.”
“Neither I nor his bank manager was in his confidence,” said the
doctor. “It was only this morning that I heard from the manager of the
London and Chatham that he was a client of theirs. We knew absolutely
nothing of him except that he had plenty of money.”
A few minutes later Larry was walking down Bloomsbury Pavement, and he
was a very thoughtful man. What had Flash Fred been doing in that
office? What was the significance of that flashing of the revolver and
the white face of Dr. Judd? It was another little mystery, into which
he had not time to investigate, and any way it was no concern of his.
Ahead of him, his iron-shod stick tapping the pavement, was a man who
walked slowly and deliberately. Larry passed him, and, waiting for a
cab which he had signalled, saw him again.
“Blind,” he noted casually, not interrupting his thought of Fred and
the doctor.
But he had no time for side trails and side issues, and, entering the
cab, he drove to Westminster.
He was not going back to the Yard immediately. First he had a gruesome
little duty to perform. At the Westminster mortuary, whither the cab
had taken him, he found two Scotland Yard officers awaiting him.
The examination of the body was a brief one. The only mark was an
abrasion of the left ankle, and then Larry began an inspection of the
clothing, which had been placed in an adjoining room.
“There is the shirt, sir,” pointing to a garment which had been
roughly folded. “I can’t understand those blue marks on the breast.”
Larry carried the garment under a light. It was a dress shirt, rough
dried, and the purple specks on the breast were clearly visible.
“Made by an indelible pencil,” said Larry, and in a flash remembered
the missing pencil-case. But what meant those specks, which formed
three rough lines of indecipherable pothooks and hangers?
And then the solution came to Larry, and quickly he turned the dress
front inside out and uttered an exclamation. Written on the inside
were three lines, and it was the indelible pencil markings which had
soaked through that had caused the speckly appearance of the front of
the shirt.
The water had made the purple pencil markings run, but the words were
distinct.
In the fear of death I, Gordon Stuart, of Merryhill Ranch, Calgary,
leave all my possessions to my daughter, Clarissa, and I pray the
courts to accept this as my last will and testament.
Gordon Stuart.
Underneath was written:
It is now clear to me that I have been betrayed by----
There followed a letter which looked like an “O,” but at this point
the writing abruptly terminated.
Larry raised his eyes and met those of his subordinate.
“Here is the strangest will that has ever been made,” he said in a
hushed voice.
He put down the shirt and walked back to the mortuary chamber, and
again examined the body. One hand was clenched, and evidently this
fact had been overlooked by the doctors. Using all his strength, he
forced the fingers apart, and something fell with a tinkle to the
stone floor. He stooped and picked it up. It was a broken sleeve-link
of a peculiar pattern. The centre was of black enamel, the rim was of
tiny diamonds. He made a further inspection without discovering
anything new.
Then he looked at his companion, and his forehead was wrinkled. What
did this mean? What association had all these circumstances with each
other? They could be connected, he felt sure of that--the strange
encounter between Flash Fred and Dr. Judd, the will on the shirt, and
now this new clue. An atmosphere of impenetrable mystery enveloped
this case like a fog behind which strange and inhuman shapes were
moving, dimly glimpsed and as dimly suspected.
Murder!
He knew it, he felt it--every shadowy shape he passed on his way to
his office whispered the word “Murder!”