IN WHICH RHEA TAKES A HAND
The silence that followed this last solemn remark of Cleek's was fraught
with unknown, tremendous issues. One could have heard a pin drop in the
still room. Then at last Lady Paula stirred.
"You have finished, Mr. Deland-- Mr. Narkom? I may go now?"
"In one more moment, Lady Paula. There is simply the matter of the will
now to be thrashed out before you disperse and leave us to work out the
problem as best we may. You have, no doubt, put it away, Mr. Duggan? I
didn't see it here when I investigated early this morning."
"I've done nothing of the sort, Mr. Deland."
"Oh!---is that so? I beg you pardon. Then perhaps you, Miss Duggan?"
"Certainly not. I've never laid a finger upon it!" returned she, with a
shake of the head and amazement written all over her countenance. "I've
never thought about it again from that moment to this! Why, of course it
must have been upon the table when--when poor Father met his--death. He
was just about to alter the name when the light went out."
"Then you were using the electric switch last night instead of the
customary lamp, I take it?"
"Yes. Father did use it at intervals, and I suppose in this case he
thought it better for seeing with. For it was certainly on. A lamp could
never have failed as that light did, Mr. Deland. No doubt it would have
been better if we had not used the electricity, for the dreadful thing
could never have taken place then, could it?"
"And so we must put that down to Ross, and lay the whole blame upon
_him_, at any rate!" snapped out Lady Paula in an angry voice; and Cleek
thought, for a woman so shortly bereft, she was singularly well
recovered from the shock--if it had ever been one in the first instance.
"For if he had not installed this dreadful thing, then surely, surely my
poor, poor husband would never have met with his death at all!'
"Oh, have done with your nagging, Paula!" responded Ross irritably as
she ceased speaking.
And Cleek obtained silence simply by stepping into the breach himself.
"Well," he said serenely, "the will has disappeared, at any rate. No
servant has touched it, I suppose? Or entered this room last night
before I came, Miss Duggan?"
"None that I know of. It's peculiar, to say the least of it."
H'm. Then among this little company around and about him Cleek
registered the fact that one might include a thief and a murderer. Not
any too pleasant a thought, when the guilt could not definitely be fixed
upon any single one. But stay!--there was the boy Cyril, and if that
will had been stolen, why should not he have done it as much as anybody?
He and his mother would benefit more if the will disappeared entirely
than by the simple bequests which Maud Duggan had told him had been left
to them. A widow had always a third share by law, that was an understood
thing; and a third share of this enormous estate meant a good deal more
than one at first imagined. The boy Cyril must be interviewed in due
course.
Then there was another point to be taken up, the question of Captain
Macdonald's presence in these grounds last night, shortly after the
murder had taken place. That gentleman must account for his movements in
the proper quarter. And if by any chance there were footprints outside
that very window, then--b'gad! he, too, might be included in the circle
of possible criminals.
He strode quickly over to the window and leaned out of it, looking down
upon the flower-bed beneath it, just a matter of three feet or so, and
the little walled-in courtyard that girt it about. Eh? what? There were
marks in the soft earth, and plenty of 'em!
Then the assembled company fairly gasped at his next action, while Mr.
Narkom, knowing him better than they did, pelted over to the window and
leaned out of it. For Cleek had climbed upon the ledge and had let
himself down--light as a cat--down on to the bed, and stood looking in
through the window at them with serenely smiling face.
"Gad!" he ejaculated excitedly. "Well, and why not? Footprints!...
Constable, just nip along into the village, and fetch me back Captain
Angus Macdonald. I want to speak to him rather particularly. Tell him
it's the Law--and that he's got to come--and he'll come along pretty
lively, I can promise you."
The constable nipped along forthwith, while of a sudden Maud Duggan's
flushed face went white as a dead face, and her eyes fairly blazed at
him.
"Captain Macdonald! Oh, it's ridiculous, Mr. Deland!--absurd! What on
earth are you dragging _him_ in for? You must be mad to think for one
moment----"
Cleek held up a silencing hand before he dropped to the ground and began
peering at the footprints in the soft earth through a magnifying glass.
"I don't think, Miss Duggan--it's a policeman's business to _know_," he
retorted; and then set about his task, while those others in the fateful
room crowded about the open window and stood looking down at him with
blank, unhappy faces.
Carefully he measured their length with his little foot-rule and noted
the size down in his pocketbook. Then he fitted one of his own slim feet
into the indentation, saw that it was rather larger and broader, stepped
back upon the courtyard and faced them, all clustering about him, with
serene countenance.
"A fair-sized boot, ladies and gentlemen," he remarked; "quite a
fair-sized boot! Number tens, if I know anything of sizes. And looks
like hunting-boots, too. Evidently a chap who rides. Now, this Captain
Macdonald, Lady Paula----"
"One of the finest horsemen in the country," she returned, with a
shrugging of shoulders and an uplifting of brows.
"Ah! Just so. That was what I imagined when I saw--when I encountered
him here in these grounds last night. Light of foot, and the proper
build, too. He'll no doubt be along in the course of another three
quarters of an hour (if Jameson doesn't have a dickens of a job locating
him), so in the meanwhile, if Mr. Narkom is willing, we'll take a little
turn together and talk over things, and then come back to you here in
the allotted time. Willing, Mr. Narkom?"
"Perfectly willing."
And so it came about that, arm in arm, the two friends went off together
down by the wide driveway that led to the great doors of wrought-iron
which Rhea so ably guarded, and Cleek, stopping in the pathway, pointed
up to the statue etched out against the sky in sinister outline, and
told Mr. Narkom the story of it.
"Cinnamon! But what a magnificent thing it is!" ejaculated that
gentleman with awe, when the tale was finished. "That's something to be
proud of--eh, old chap? Now, if I had a fellow like that for an ancestor
there'd be no living with me at all! These old families!--there's
certainly something in this thing they call Birth and Race--though for
the life of me I never can make it out."
"No," thought Cleek, with a smile, "you wouldn't." But he said nothing,
merely passed on toward the iron gates, and seeing that they had been
left ajar, clanged them to sharply behind them.
"He'll ring his great bell when the latch falls--that's his ceremonious
way of welcoming the coming and speeding the parting guest," threw in
Cleek with a laugh. "I'm going to shove down the latch now, so watch
him, my friend. Here goes!"
He sent the door clanging to with a vigorous pull, but--not a sound rang
out over the still air. Rhea had failed in his duty for once in his
whole long, dutiful lifetime. Cleek spun round and looked at him, face
gone suddenly blank.
"What the--that's the funniest thing! It's never failed before, except
last night, when I found it conveniently ajar," he ejaculated, staring
up at the sky. "Unless--perhaps it would have failed last night, too.
There's no knowing. But Miss Duggan assured me positively that the
thing had never been stopped. But if it _had_ been stopped for this very
happening last night, to silence the approach of an unwanted visitor,
what's to prevent 'em from swaddling the clapper up--and not had time to
undo it again? And yet, when the Inspector came it rang all right.
No--_that_ theory won't hold water, my friend."
"What's that you're mumbling about, Cleek?" threw in Mr. Narkom at this
juncture. "Clapper swaddled up? You surely don't think the bell's been
stopped for any purpose?"
"No--simply to protect the sensitive ears of the housekeeper," threw
back Cleek with a contemptuous laugh; and then whirled around upon him
and caught him by the shoulder. "Forgive me, old friend. My tongue
scampers ahead of my heart sometimes, which is a very poor trait for a
policeman to possess. What I mean to say is simply this: Up to yesterday
that bell rang--even when we came here for the first time--for I have
the evidence of my own ears to prove it. And now--it doesn't ring. So
what's prevented it? I'm going up to see."
"Cleek, my dear fellow!--to climb that height! And in daylight, too!"
"What's the harm? say I--if you'll keep watch and tell me of approaching
visitors. Here goes! Keep your eyes peeled upon the high-road, Mr.
Narkom, because it wouldn't do to be seen, y'know and if any one
approaches, whistle 'God Save the King,' and I'll slip into a
hiding-place somewhere until the coast's clear. And don't tell any
strangers who you are, will you?"
Mr. Narkom acceded to all these requests with a quick nod, took up his
post by the gateway leading out upon the road, and let his startled eyes
travel backward now and again at Cleek's nimble, crawling figure
climbing steadily up the sides of the huge gates, like a lizard upon a
wall. Up, up, up he went, scaling the height and clinging here and there
to the twists of iron and bronze that made an easy foot-hold--until,
just as the summit was reached, and he was standing abreast of the
enormous figure and looking up into its great face, with the bell
dangling from the bar of iron upon which he stood, he heard the sound of
"God Save the King" floating up to him in Mr. Narkom's whistle, darted
quickly through the giant's legs, and drew himself up against the back
of him and--hoped for luck. The sound of two men's voices--and one of
them the Superintendent's--reached him where he stood upon the narrow
ledge. He recognized the other as that of the bailiff, James Tavish,
whom he had encountered upon the high-road only yesterday.
Mr. Narkom dallied with him for so long, passing the time of day and
making tactless inquiries about the murder, in his blunderbuss fashion
("Dear old bungler!" Cleek apostrophized him inwardly), that he began
to wonder when the man would ever go. Then at length the voices ceased,
and he saw Tavish's fine, well-set-up figure swing off in front of him
up the driveway, and then himself slid back to the outer side of the
statue, lest the bailiff look back, and waited until Mr. Narkom whistled
"Coast all clear" again.
This done, Cleek swung himself down carefully, clinging on with knees
and feet in a most impossible and seemingly dangerous position which
brought a hasty warning from Mr. Narkom, and--found the clapper of the
bell at last. It wasn't such a big bell--not much bigger than a man's
head, but wrought of solid bronze, which made it almost impossible for
him to swing it up on its chain to the platform upon which he hung
poised above it. But somehow he managed to do the thing, and Mr. Narkom,
watching with his heart in his mouth, saw his hand dive down inside of
the bell and fumble there a moment. Then he heard Cleek's quick whistle
of surprise as he swung the bell silently back again, and came down once
more--empty-handed!
"Well, what did you discover?" hastily exclaimed the Superintendent as
Cleek came to earth at last and stood dusting himself. "Or wasn't there
anything at all? Was the bell muffled _before_ last night's tragedy,
Cleek--or is it simply a bird's nest that's lodged there and stopped
the thing? I'm on tenterhooks to know."
"And know you shall, old friend," said Cleek, straightening himself from
his self-imposed task and giving his cravat a twitch with nimble fingers
to its correct position once more. "It wasn't a bird's nest--not by a
long chalk! More like a hornet nest, I should say, between you and me;
but that's apart from the question. And it wasn't muffled before the
tragedy, either, Mr. Narkom. It was muffled _after_! Pretty strange,
isn't it?... Yes, I thought you'd think so. Well, anyhow, I'm coming
to-night to remove the 'muffling' object when the rest of the people are
in bed, and I want you to help me by keeping on the watch-out. We're due
for a full moon to-night, and that'll help matters. So Rhea's in the
mystery, too, is he? Umm. A difficult subject to tackle as well, on
account of his silence. But he's told me something this day that has
unravelled _one_ portion of the riddle, at all events. And when I've
unravelled the remainder, you shall hear what it is.
"Now for Dollops, and the Three Fishers. I'm anxious to hear that 'Crown
and Anchor' story from his own lips. And I've other work for him. So
come along."