ENTER CYRIL
Within the space of a half-hour Miss Duggan was back again in the big
drawing-room, and Cleek, having had a short confidential talk with Mr.
Narkom, and gleaned a few of that good gentleman's ideas, entered the
room by the French windows that led on to the terrace just as she came
in by the hall door.
"Hello!" he said with a smile. "Brought your bootmaker's department with
you, eh? Now we'll really be able to establish somebody's innocence on
_that_! Come, let's have a look at it."
She brought the paper to him, a sort of blank wonderment written in her
eyes as they scanned his face.
"It's the strangest thing," she said with a shake of the head, "the very
strangest! But every single man in this establishment has the same-size
foot, Mr. Deland. There's nothing but tens among them. It seems a queer
coincidence, surely!"
Cleek pursed his lips up to a whistle of amazement.
"Gad! it certainly does. Every man-jack of 'em, then? Jarvis, and
Batchett, and your bailiff Tavish, and McGubbins? Every one of them?"
"What a memory you have!" she countered amazedly. "Yes, every one of
them. Except Mr. Tavish. And his are elevens, he tells me."
"Didn't give away any reason for asking, I hope, Miss Duggan?" put in
Cleek at this juncture, with an arching of the brows and a keen look
into her upthrown face.
"Indeed I didn't. In fact, I threw them off the scent most successfully
by taking a pair of Ross's boots along with me and pretending I didn't
know whose they were. Batchett soon put me right. 'Them's Mr.
Ross's--Sair Ross, if ye please, m'm,' he said, using Ross's new title
(poor old boy! He won't like it a bit, either. He thinks titles are
anathema!). But Mr. Tavish, of course, didn't know whose they were, nor
did the old gardener, McGubbins, nor Jarvis, either. Only they said they
weren't _theirs_. And then, of course, told me the sizes they took. So,
you see, Mr. Deland, you can't blame Angus for _that_, can you?"
He smiled at her and shook his head.
"You've missed your vocation. You ought to have been a lady-detective,
using those methods," he replied lightly. "But it's odd--deuced odd!
I'll take a look at their feet whenever I get the chance. Don't bother
any more, Miss Duggan. I'll get to the bottom of this thing somehow or
other, before the next few days, and don't make any mistake about that.
That's all you can do for me. So go along, and lie down and have a
proper rest. I'm going to interview Mr. Narkom again. What time is tea,
by the way?"
"Half-past four. If you'd like it sent to your rooms with Mr.
Narkom----"
"No, thanks; we'd prefer to take it with _you_." ("And use our eyes for
ourselves," he supplemented silently.) Then, without more ado, bowed and
left her, and went off in pursuit of the Superintendent, who had been
spending a quiet hour investigating the scene of last night's tragedy,
and trying to solve the riddle of it.
Halfway there Cleek encountered young Cyril, wandering disconsolately
about, hands in pockets and head downthrown, and at sight of Cleek he
fairly ran up to him, his brows black as thunder, his young mouth set
into an ugly line.
"Look here," he demanded, in his shrill young voice, planting himself in
Cleek's way and looking up into his face, "they've been telling me you
suspect my stepbrother Ross of murdering my father last night, and I've
been waiting to catch you and to tell you it's a damned lie!"
"Easy, easy, my young enthusiast," returned Cleek, with a throb of
admiration for this fearless young person, nevertheless. "They'll never
make a detective of _you_ if your methods of attack don't improve
hastily. Let's hear what you're worrying over. Now, then, all over
again. I'm going along this way to see the Superintendent, and you can
come with me if you like."
Cyril's face went a dull brick-red at Cleek's bantering tone, and his
lips twitched. He swung into step beside Cleek as they traversed the
long hall toward the library.
"They've been telling me," he reiterated, "that you think my stepbrother
Ross killed Father last night, and----"
"Who's 'they,' may I ask?"
"Oh--Mother--Miss Dowd, Cynthia--the whole bally lot of 'em. Said you'd
threatened to arrest Ross and put--put him in prison. But it isn't true,
sir, is it?"
Cleek looked down at the eager young face, and sighed.
"Partly," he returned, "and partly not. I've made no accusation, Cyril,
but--things point very blackly to your brother, and it will take pretty
strong evidence to say he is innocent at this juncture of the case, at
any rate. There are--others--whom I doubt, but at the present moment
doubts are all that can be expected of me. Certainties will follow
later.... Now, look here, you can help considerably. Tell me, who's been
tinkering with the electric switches in the library lately?"
Of a sudden the boy's face went red and whity by turns. Then he averted
his head and pretended to inspect a fly that was crawling upon the
opposite wall.
"Er--I don't really know," he replied in a confused voice. "I haven't
the faintest----"
"You do!" Cleek had caught him by the shoulders and whirled him around
so that eye met eye squarely, and he saw that the boy dropped his.
"Come, now. Play the game. I can't expect to find the true murderer
unless you tell the truth. Listen to me, Cyril. Was it your brother
Ross?"
Came a long silence, followed by a quickly drawn breath. Then:
"_I_ have."
"You? What the dickens did you do? Tell me all about it, quickly. I
found a bit of flexible wire upon the carpet yesterday morning when I
was looking over the house with your stepsister, and came to the
conclusion that someone had been altering the lights. And it was you,
was it?"
Again the flushed cheeks and quickly drawn breath. Oh, this quixotic
family!--that muddled a decent man up in trying to do his duty by their
perpetual affections and efforts to shield one another.
"Yes--and no. It was the day before yesterday. Ross and Mr. Tavish were
in the library going over some land accounts and looking at the weekly
wages bill, which is part of Ross's work for Father that he's been doing
the past two years. I was there, too, mending a damaged switch which
wouldn't go right, and Ross had promised to help me when his business
was finished. Well, when it was done, and they had smoked a cigarette
together-- Mr. Tavish is awfully popular with the whole place, you know,
Mr. Deland, and Ross liked him immensely--well, as I was saying, when
they'd done, they came over to me, where I was tinkering away at the
switch by the wall, and while Ross explained to me what exactly was the
matter, Mr. Tavish stood over us and made remarks."
"Can you remember what any of those remarks were?"
"Yes. He said he thought I was growing to be a clever youngster, with a
turn for electricity which ought to drive my father nearly mad, and then
he shook his head, and Ross laughed sort of uncomfortably, and agreed
with him. And then Ross asked Mr. Tavish if he knew anything of
electricity. 'Not a blessed thing!' Mr. Tavish said, with a loud laugh.
'I don't know the difference between a short circuit and a Bath bun.'
And of course we all laughed again, and then Ross explained a little of
it to him, and he seemed to catch on awfully quick, and asked some jolly
interestin' questions."
"And what were the 'jolly interestin' questions,' may I ask?"
"Oh-- I've really forgotten. Whether one could get a shock from that
sort of thing when you were working at it, and Ross said you could; and
electricity could kill a person instantly. And then they began to talk
about electrocution and the electric chair which criminals had to sit in
instead of being hanged, as they used to do in the old days. And Ross,
who simply loves anything to do with the subject as much as I do, Mr.
Deland, began to explain how a man could be killed by leaving a live
wire somewhere near where he could grasp hold of it, and then taking a
long piece of flexible wire in his hands, he wired it along the edge of
the room from the ground plug to the window, just to show what he meant
by it."
"Oh, he did, did he? And what colour was the flexible wire?"
"Crimson. Usual shade. Mr. Tavish was awfully interested at what Ross
did, and Ross got so enthusiastic that he carried the piece of wire up
to the window and left the raw edge of the wire exposed, and when he put
a piece of stuff against it, it singed up immediately, and, my word!
there _was_ a stink!"
"Naturally. And then?"
"Ross said a lot of things about the power of electricity that seemed to
interest Mr. Tavish, and of course _I_ was frightfully struck, as you
can imagine, and kept my ears open. And just then, who should come in
but Mother, and of course Ross and all of us stowed the conversation for
the time being, and Ross nipped off the length of unnecessary wire with
his pincers and left Mother with Tavish to discuss some changes she
wanted made in the poultry runs. She's rather interested in chickens,
you know, sir."
"I see. But this was a bird of another colour, eh? What's that? No, my
lad, you've said nothing to incriminate anybody, and I'll keep your
confidence about this conversation, if you're worrying about it. Now,
then, you'd better nip along, as it's nearly tea-time, and when I was
your age clean hands were an absolute necessity even in
the--er--austerity of my home! I've no doubt they're the same in yours."
"But I haven't said anything to--to incriminate Ross, have I, sir?"
reiterated Cyril anxiously. "That thing about shooting a chap with the
aid of electricity--of course it couldn't be done, I suppose, and Mr.
Tavish didn't know enough about it to contradict Ross--and anyhow he was
only gassing and not really meaning it at all. I--I'd give my right
hand, sir, for Ross. He comes next to my mother in my estimation. And
that's saying a good deal!"
"Not so much as you might think--if you know that lady as well as I do,
my lad," apostrophized Cleek as the boy sped down the passageway and
left him alone. "Gad! here's a new outlook altogether. And that
conversation actually took place! He wasn't lying, the straight young
devil. And he never realized that he was plunging that precious brother
of his deeper and deeper into the mire!... I say-- Cyril!"
The boy turned at the end of the passage and came slowly back to him.
"Yes, sir?"
"By the way, what size shoes do you take? Gad! your foot's pretty hefty
for a sixteen-year-old, I must say! What's the number of those delicate
little trotters?"
Cyril laughed self-consciously.
"They are rather huge, aren't they?" he replied. "But they're tens. Same
size as Ross, you know, so that I can often borrow his shoes--and
Captain Macdonald's as well. Funny we should all be the same size, isn't
it?"
"Yes--deuced funny," returned Cleek, sucking in his lips suddenly and
his face gone grim. "Tens--eh? Thought it was sixes for you and sevens
for your brother."
"Who the dickens told you that fairy-tale, sir?"
"Oh, nobody particular. I must have dreamt it, I suppose," returned
Cleek with a shrug of the shoulders. "And-- I say, Cyril. Your man
Jarvis seems to have trotters, too. What size are his boots now, I
wonder?"
Cyril's eyes flew wide.
"You must have made a mistake," he said in a surprised voice. "For
Jarvis's feet are awfully small. Eights, I believe. Anyway, I can't get
'em on because I tried once. Stole his dress clothes and dressed up in
'em. But the mater was furious! Hello! there's the tea-gong. I must be
off!"
Then he went off forthwith. Meanwhile Cleek, with his finger upon his
chin, stood stock-still in the middle of the hallway and pinched up his
brows.
"Now, why the dickens did she lie to me--unless she wanted to shield her
precious brother?" he said ruminatively. "And why in heaven's name are
they all so anxious to pervert Justice and to deny truth?"
But there was no one to give him any answer to that most difficult
question, and he had perforce to possess his soul in patience for the
present.