CLEEK MAKES A STARTLING ASSERTION
Cleek and Mr. Narkom spent a busy fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, the
Superintendent learned of the tragedy which had taken place and of what
evidence Cleek had got together for him, had a cursory look round the
library and at the body itself (which they examined more minutely), and
generally took a survey of the whole appalling affair.
"Cinnamon!" ejaculated the Superintendent for the thirty-third time
since the recital of the thing. "It's a teaser, I swear! If someone in
the house hasn't done it, who the dickens _has_? When your wire came for
me to run up here, yesterday, I was up to my eyes in work. But I knew
you wouldn't send unless you really wanted me, and when _you_ do
that----"
He stopped speaking and let the rest of the sentence go by default. But
Cleek had seen, and Cleek _knew_. The friendliness in their two pairs of
eyes deepened to a fellowship which is rare--and good to see.
"I know, old chap. But we mustn't go wandering down those particular
primrose paths just now. You're a bully old boy, and I'd back you
against every other man in the kingdom. And you've been a sort of a
guardian angel and a blithering idiot all rolled into one! And that's a
combination which I for one, have strong leanings for!... Now, then,
what about it?"
What, indeed! He swung around in his tracks, hands out-thrown, and
surveyed the Superintendent with tilted head and narrowed eyes. "Any
ideas, eh?"
"Not a single, at the moment. Have you?"
"Oh--several. But they're too uncertain at present for utterance.
There's one thing I do know: That if I could find out certain items that
went to the laundry from this household last week I'd know a great deal
more than I do now. And I'd be able to nail--someone--with a good share
in this beastly business. Also.... You saw Dollops, of course?"
"Yes. Young beggar!--he was on tenterhooks. Afraid some ghostly lady had
caught you last night and hugged you to death, or some such rubbish.
Until I assured him that your biceps were equal to all the ghosts in the
world. Yes, I saw Dollops, all right. And he said he'd got work to do
for you, or something. Some constable had called with a note early in
the morning...."
Cleek looked up quickly from a survey of the window-sill.
"Yes--yes. Had he discovered what I asked him to?"
There was a sort of dumb tolerance in the Superintendent's unimaginative
countenance. He shrugged his shoulders off-handedly.
"My dear chap," he responded, "here's his identical message, only I
can't imitate his inimitable accent. 'Tell the Guv'ner, sir, as that
there "Crahn and Anchor" wot he wants ter know abaht is an inmate of the
post-office!...' Now, if you can make any sense out of that, Cleek...."
"Deland, my dear chap, Deland, I beg of you!" interposed Cleek hastily,
whirling about with upraised hands. "Not a soul in the place knows who I
really am. Even Highland fastnesses, you know, have their leaking
spots--and I'll show you one of 'em by-and-by that'll make you sit
up!... But he _did_ get it, the young beggar! Well, well, well! that
points nearer home, anyway, and it'll be something to go on.... What's
that? A clue? Well, perhaps, and perhaps not. Anyhow, it's not clue
enough at present to hang any ideas on. But the stiletto's done the
thing in one instance, and the air-pistol in the other. But how?--but
where?--but----" Then he whirled around suddenly and stood a moment
looking at the spinning wheel as though, of a sudden, it had actually
come to life of its own accord, and then darting forward scanned the
spindle. "H'm. Perhaps not the stiletto--perhaps _this_, and the
peasant-girl story to make a cloak of! The points are much the
same--stiletto or spindle? But--which?"
"What the dickens are you mumbling over?" threw in Mr. Narkom at this
juncture, as Cleek stood surveying this instrument of a by-gone year,
and pinching his chin between thumb and forefinger thoughtfully the
while. "Spindle? You don't suppose the spindle of _that_ thing could
have anything to do with it, eh?"
"Stranger things have happened, my dear friend, though I'm inclined to
think that in this case they have not!" responded Cleek serenely. "The
spindle theory is thin--deuced thin. But it's often in the thinnest
material that the thickest things are hid.... Now, if we could only find
the bloodstained article with which the stiletto was wiped, we'd settle
that question once and for all. I-- Gad! yes, I remember now! I'll ask
her later on what they were. H'm--ah! That's possibly where it is."
But Mr. Narkom's patience was running a close race with his curiosity,
and both in the same direction. He gave an exasperated sigh and rubbed
the top of his bald head disconsolately.
"You're the most amazin' beggar," he gave out finally, in a tense voice.
"Mumbling away like a lunatic, of laundry-bills and spinning wheels and
'crowns and anchors' which are 'inmates of village post-offices,' and I
don't know what all! If I didn't know something about you, I'd say
you'd gone suddenly balmy, and light out for little old London before
you turned your hand on _me_! But you might let a chap have an
inkling----"
"When you've been in this house as long as I have, you'll have more than
an inkling--you'll probably _know_," returned Cleek with a little laugh.
"But, look here, my friend, we've got to get the body out of
here--presto!--or we'll be having the ladies fainting away and upsetting
the apple cart with a vengeance! They're due in here inside of a quarter
of an hour, when I'm going to give a little 'turn' of the whole thing
again, and see if we can't reconstruct it a bit. The constable outside
will lend a hand. Here, Peters!"
"Yessir?"
"Get your friend from the outside window for a moment and give a hand to
get--This--out of the room before the ladies come. I want to reconstruct
the whole affair in the presence of all concerned. And we'll take away
all the gruesomeness that's possible.... Poor old chap! Poor old
tight-fisted laird! Eh, man, but you've got a sterner judge to face now
than ever you were yourself! And this time Justice has to be done, and
no gainsaying the fact, either!"
The unpleasant task was barely finished before the sound of footsteps
and the humming of many voices in the hallway without told those within
that the family were reassembling for the "performance." Cleek, with a
hasty glance to see that all was right, threw wide the door.
"Come in, come in," he said in a pleasant, friendly voice. "There's
nothing now to be seen but that which all may see, Lady Paula, so
neither you nor Miss Duggan nor any other member of the party need fear.
If you will all kindly take your places exactly as you took them last
night, I'd be immensely grateful. At any rate, Mr. Narkom here"--he
introduced him to the assembly with a slight bow--"will be able to get
some kind of an idea of exactly how things were when the--tragedy
happened. Hello! Where's Miss--Miss--er--McCall? Wasn't she a member of
the party, too?"
Lady Paula entered the room with a rustling of soft black silk, and came
toward him with sadly smiling countenance.
"I hardly thought, you know, that you would require her presence, Mr.
Deland, and so I told her she might attend to her duties instead. But of
course if you wish----"
"I do wish----"
"Then she shall be immediately sent for. Maud, my dear, will you kindly
call her?"
Maud, thus addressed, turned silently away and went out of the room, but
in a few moments was back again, the slim, shrinking form of the girl
following closely behind her.
Cleek came toward her and smiled down into her pale face.
"If you would be so kind, Miss McCall, as to take up your position as it
was last night when--when the murder was committed, I should be
exceedingly grateful. Thanks very much. You really needn't be so
frightened, you know. It's only a sort of grim dress rehearsal after the
show instead of before. Just to get some sort of idea.
"Now, then, Sir Andrew, I take it, sat here in this chair"--he seated
himself forthwith at the desk, and looked about him. "And you, Mr.
Duggan, were in the centre, opposite, with your sister here at your
left. You were at your husband's right hand, a little way back, Lady
Paula? Oh, I see--just halfway behind his chair, in case he might need
you. Of course, of course. The right position for a lord's lady to
be.... Now, let me see. You, Miss Dowd, stood at the left hand, right
back against the wall, with Miss Debenham on _your_ left--oh, a little
forward, eh? And Miss McCall on the other side of her. That's it. Now, I
suppose, we are all in our places. Now, Mr. Narkom, if you'd be so good
as to take up my present position and represent the ill-fated gentleman
for one moment, I'll hop up and look about a bit. The scene's set, and
we'll try and reconstruct the drama from anything any one would like to
tell me. I believe one of the windows was open, was it not, Lady
Paula?"
He turned to her so swiftly that she was taken back, and in her
nervousness went a shade pale under her olive tan.
"I--don't know, Mr. Deland. I really never noticed...."
"But _I_ did." It was Catherine Dowd who spoke, a note of decision in
her clear voice. "The centre window was open, Mr. Deland--from the
bottom. Wide open."
"Yes--of course it was," Maud Duggan broke in excitedly. "I remember
noticing how the curtains blew while poor Father was speaking. Don't
you, Ross?"
He shook his head miserably.
"I don't remember anything but what actually took place," he returned,
in a low, unhappy voice. "I was so furious, Maud; you must remember the
ignominy of--of Father calling in everyone like this to see my name
struck out of the will! If he'd done it in private, even, it would not
have been so bad, but in front of others, people who were not of our
family"--his glance travelled from Johanna's mouse-like countenance to
the inscrutable Catherine's. "It--it seemed hardly cricket to me, and I
was boiling over. I wish to God I hadn't been! It would have made it
much easier to bear--now!"
"My poor Ross!"
Cynthia's voice, very low and tender, crept across to him, and he gave
her a weary smile in acknowledgment.
"Well, now," said Cleek evenly, "let's start away at this wretched
affair. Mr. Duggan, you were the only other gentleman present besides
your father. Perhaps you will tell me how things went. The ladies look
somewhat pale. It's rather an ordeal, I'm afraid, but a very necessary
one. Your father, I understand, seated himself and began to denounce you
in a loud voice, and you----"
"Retaliated, Mr. Deland. Yes, I'm afraid I did. Poor old Dad! But I was
pretty well strung up. And then, just as he had sat down again--he was
standing up before, waving his fist in the air and calling me all sorts
of names"--his voice broke a tone or two and then recovered
itself--"just as he had taken up the pen and was about to scratch out my
name and substitute my sister's, out went the lights; we were plunged
immediately into utter darkness, and in the midst of it----"
"We heard distinctly the sound of the spinning wheel, humming just as
the Peasant Girl said it would hum upon the approaching death of any
male member of the family," supplemented Maud Duggan feverishly and with
much excitement. "Hum-hum-hum! it went, Mr. Deland; then there was a
swishing sound as of someone moving hurriedly--a sort of
half-gasp--a--a--oh! how shall I describe it?----"
"A whizz and a whirr, and then the lights came up and there lay Sir
Andrew in his chair--dead."
The finale came from Catherine Dowd, who spoke in a low, tense voice,
every note of which sounded in that quiet room, and made the atmosphere
vibrate with the feeling of it.
"My God!"
The exclamation came from Lady Paula's and Mr. Narkom's lips
simultaneously, but from very different causes. For the lady had gone
suddenly white as death and fallen back against the wall, both hands
pressed to her face and her shoulders shaking.
Maud Duggan hastened to her immediately, while Miss McCall, like the
perfectly trained companion she was, produced smelling-salts from the
capacious pocket of her blue serge coat-frock, and held it under her
mistress's nose. A dose of brandy set the lady to rights, and her
Southern emotionalism subsided when she sat down in front of the open
window.
She looked up into Cleek's downbent face with wide eyes.
"I am so sorry," she said. "But it brought it all back--so
dreadfully--so terribly! Oh, I shall never forget it--never! Miss
McCall, my smelling-salts, again, please.... Thank you. Mr. Deland, you
have still--much more to proceed with?"
He nodded.
"A good deal, I'm afraid. In the first place, I must tell you that we
have discovered one of the weapons--the stiletto which stabbed your
husband, Lady Paula. There remains but the air-pistol--and that will not
be a difficult matter, either, I imagine." He looked significantly at
Ross, whose face went suddenly scarlet.
"I say--if you dare to accuse--_me_...."
"Not so fast, my friend; I'm accusing nobody," returned Cleek serenely,
"and too much protestation often hides a guilty conscience. Please say
nothing until you are questioned. It is the safest way. First--the
stiletto."
He drew it from his pocket and held it aloft where they could all see
it, the sunshine fighting upon its fine blade and turning it into a
narrow ribbon of brilliancy.
"Can any one claim this, please?"
There was an instant's hush of amazement as all looked at the thing, as
of the stillness before the storm, and then Maud Duggan hurried forward
and seized it in her two hands.
"It is my stepmother's!" she exclaimed emphatically, and at the sound of
her voice Lady Paula sprang to her feet, instantly upon the defence, and
her faintness forgotten in this exciting moment.
"Mine--mine! Oh, of course it is mine!" she shrilled like a veritable
harpy. "Every one of you would like to accuse me of this terrible crime,
I suppose. Mine?--yes, it is mine. But who had it last, I ask you? That
is another question to answer. Who but yourself, Maud?"
"Not yesterday, Paula."
"The day before, then----"
"It was I you lent it to the day before, if you remember, Paula," struck
in Ross's voice quietly. "Please try to stick to facts as much as
possible."
"Well, you, then--or your wretched sister--one or the other of you," she
returned vehemently, stung out of all thought of good-breeding by the
sudden appearance of this thing of ill-repute. "What does it matter, so
long as it was used by one of you?"
"And you will remember, if you think back, that I myself brought it up
to your boudoir and handed it to you, Paula, and I myself saw you place
it in your top drawer," interposed Ross, still in that ice-cold terrible
voice which is so much more horrible to bear than red-hot anger.
"You lie!--you lie!"
"He does not!" It was Johanna McCall who spoke at this
juncture--Johanna, with two red spots of colour in her usually pale
cheeks and her eyes fairly blazing. "I saw him do it, too-- _I_ saw you,
Mr. Duggan. Don't believe what she says, Mr. Deland! It is she who
lies-- I swear that!"
To and fro the evil words flew like vultures seeking to peck each
other's hearts out in the combat. In the sudden hush which followed this
last denouncement, while Lady Paula was accumulating her forces to
retaliate, Cleek held up his hand.
"Then I take it," he said, "that the stiletto is the property of Lady
Paula, but that it was last used by Mr. Duggan, who returned it to Lady
Paula in the presence of a witness, and she put it back into her drawer.
That is correct, is it not?"
"A lie--an absolute lie!"
"Perfectly correct, Mr. Deland."
"Thank you, Mr. Duggan. At any rate, the ownership of the thing is
established, which, by the way, Lady Paula, makes no assertion whatever
as to incriminating _you_ in this disastrous affair. Miss Debenham,
would you mind coming over here for a moment? I would like to look at
your dress----"
"My _dress_, Mr. Deland?"
He smiled at her with disarming frankness.
"No wonder you think I am mad, but--ah, yes! see, right here on this
panel--I thought I was not mistaken. If you wouldn't mind turning round
a little more toward the middle of the room, Miss Debenham--thank
you--right here; those dark stains." He went down on his knees suddenly
and sniffed them, rubbed them with his fingers, and then beckoned the
mystified Mr. Narkom, who joined him immediately. "You see, Mr. Narkom,
what it is? Rather peculiar, isn't it?"
"What the devil are you driving at?" demanded Ross at this juncture,
striding around the desk and taking up a stand beside his fiancee as
though to shield her from the hands of these merciless probers of human
hearts. "I wish to God you and your kind had never showed up here at
all, I do, indeed! You always bring trouble in your wake."
"_Follow_ trouble, I think you mean, my friend," supplemented Cleek
quietly. "The trouble is generally there first. It is our business to
see that it is thrust upon--the right shoulders."
"Then Cynthia--what are you driving at now?"
There was a moment's tense silence. Then Cleek's voice sounded clearly:
"Simply this. Those three stains there--long, narrow ones--upon Miss
Debenham's gown (I noticed them this morning at breakfast)
are--bloodstains, Mr. Duggan--_bloodstains_!"