DAMNING EVIDENCE
They found Dollops waiting in the little squared-in courtyard which led
down to the dungeons, and in a state bordering upon hysteria from the
excitement of all those exciting things which had just come to pass.
He blurted out his story of Jarvis's practical joke and its ultimate
consequences in a helter-skelter fashion, anxious to get on to this new
development, and except for a "By James!" from Mr. Narkom and a nod of
the head from Cleek, pursued his course without interruption.
"And when we'd walked a mile or so over them 'ills and dahn inter the
dales, Minnie ups and says ter me, 'Come an' 'ave a drink, Ginger-snap!'
And er course I was nuffin' loaf, as they s'y (though what bread 'as to
do with it I niver could tell). So we comes upon a pub in a little bit
of a shanty built of timber dahn in the nest of the 'ills, and she tykes
me by the arm and pulls me inter it."
"And what did you find there, Dollops?" put in Cleek, with a smile for
the lad's poetical expression.
"A bit of a bar full of Scotties wot looked as though they'd come 'ome
from a funeril, from the h'expression of their fyces," he returned
emphatically. "Them Scotties do take their pleasure sadly, not 'arf! Not
a blinkin' one of 'em got a bit er jollyin' left in 'em. ''Ello,
Minnie-gairl,' they s'ys to 'er wen we come in, 'who's the noo mon ye
ken?'--talkin' in their silly langwidge wot an Englishman can't
unnerstand. 'Pal o' mine,' s'ys Minnie, pert-like, 'come ter visit fer a
little time. Gen'leman's st'yin' at the Castle.'
"'Where that there wee beetie o' crrime has taken place?' puts in a
sandy-'eaded feller wiv beetling brows an' a complexion like a bit er
red granite. 'Yes,' says Minnie. 'Then better give 'im a wee drappier
ter warrm 'is freetened hearrt!'"
Dollops paused a moment, and Cleek threw back his head and gave vent to
a smothered laugh.
"You'll be the death of me yet, lad," he remarked merrily, "with your
Cockney and 'Scotch' rolled into one. But let's hear the end of the
story. What happened then?"
"They giv me a drink, Guv'nor, of very strong whisky it were, an' when I
asked 'em where it come from an 'oo made it, thinkin' I'd lay in a
bottle or two fer when we gets back ter Clarges Street, a feller wot
just come in (an' a bit tight 'e were, too) slaps me on the back and
says, 'Hoo noo, laddie? It's frae the valley, under the little brookies
and amangst th' gravel.'"
"And what did you say, Dollops?"
"I told him in good old English ter go tell that ter the marines and
stow the gaff, and he ups and larfs at me, and he says, says 'e, 'I'll
show ye if I speak the truith or no.' And then a lot o' 'em says,
'Hoots' and 'toots' and 'nah,' as though they was monkeys in the zoo,
and set up such a gabbling as you never 'eared of, and the end of it was
that ole Barmy tykes me by the arm and pushes me through the door. 'Come
from Lunnon, does yer?' he says ter me. 'Well, then, never any tellin'
but ye can gie us a han' wi' disposin' of our wares.' And with that he
ups and pulls Minnie along with him, in spite of them uvvers, and off we
goes dahn th' 'ill inter a deep sort of gravel-pit, and there--the
blinkin' thing was, sir, as large as life and twice as nateril!"
"My dear chap!--what the dickens does he mean, Cleek?" threw in Mr.
Narkom at this juncture.
"Simply what he says. And it was there, was it, Dollops?"
"It were, sir"; Dollops's tone was portentous with mystery; "and what's
more, there was that black-eyed Dago feller wiv the chase-me look and
the hearf-brush moustache, talkin' fifteen ter the dozen in sevin
different langwidges, and makin' more noise than all the rest of 'em put
together."
"Gad! you've surely found out something, Dollops, and done a good day's
work, bless your heart," said Cleek admiringly, slipping his arm
through the boy's on one side and through Mr. Narkom's on the other.
"Well, it's to the gravel-pit with the lot of us this evening--at least
for you and me, Dollops. You had better remain here at the Castle, Mr.
Narkom, while we're gone. And meet me at midnight under the big gate.
But let's not be seen, Dollops, else the fat will be in the fire with a
vengeance. Anything else?"
Dollops bent nearer to the man he loved best in all the world, and put
his mouth close up against Cleek's ear.
"One uvver fing, sir--an' wot I calls the piece of resisters," he said
in a low voice. "As I comes aw'y, 'oo should I see a-runnin' dahn the
'ill, side by side with Dicky-Dago, but that there young feller as they
calls Cyril (sickenin' sissy sort er nyme ter give a chap, too!), an' I
jumps back inter the bushes wiv Minnie clinging ter me arm, an' waits
till they've gorn parst. An' I 'ears the youngster s'y you nyme--'Mr.
Deland,' he says, an' 'clever'--and then summink else, wot I didn't
'ear, but wot made Dicky-Dago give out a sort er garsp and gurgle in 'is
froat, an' says something which sounded like a Russian patent medicine,
an'--that's all."
"And a very good 'all', too, Dollops," ejaculated Cleek, giving the
boy's arm a squeeze. "You have surely done your share of unravelling in
this case, at all events. What do you say about it, Mr. Narkom?...
There'll be a nice five-pound note to add to that growing account of
yours for this night's job, I promise you.... And so Cyril is mixed up
in it, too-- _Cyril!_ That boy! Gad! what does it mean, eh? And in
league with those scoundrels.... 'Ten o'clock for bedtime,' says he, so
frankly. Ten o'clock! And the young underhanded rascal roaming the
countryside just before that in company with an Italian of questionable
character! Looks bad, every way you look at it. And with Lady Paula's
actions and secret meetings taken into account as well, puts a pretty
black face upon _their_ little share in last night's tragedy. Now, I
wonder if this Dago, as Dollops calls him, is a lover of the lady's or
what?... Gad! Mr. Narkom, what's your opinion?"
The Superintendent waited a moment, and cleared his throat, and when he
spoke his voice was emphatic and a trifle bored.
"No two questions about it, to my way of thinking," said he quietly, as
they traversed the darkness together. "That Captain Macdonald did the
thing--because of those footprints of his outside the window--and as he
couldn't or wouldn't give the reason of why he was in the grounds here
last night at that identical time. And the person he was shielding was
obviously Lady Paula. She, too, has been involved in this, though
whether in the actual murder or not, I'm not prepared to say. And Ross
Duggan, too. I imagine the whole thing is a put-up job; don't you,
Cleek?"
"I can't rightly say," returned Cleek in an uncertain tone. "Sometimes
it points one way and sometimes another. And I'm inclined to agree with
you where Lady Paula is concerned. She knows a good deal more than she
says, and is wily--deuced wily, as all drug-takers are. And the motive
would be there all right, judging from what Maud Duggan told me was the
share which Sir Andrew had apportioned out for his widow and her boy.
She'll double that easily enough. But to _kill_ for such a thing seems
incredible--though I've known of worse crimes for less reason than that.
But Ross Duggan's is the greatest motive of all, taking into
consideration just when the thing happened--_before_ his name was
erased, you must remember, Mr. Narkom, and as he's a dabster at
electricity and the only person with an air-pistol in the house ...
well, circumstantial evidence looks pretty black against him, doesn't
it?"
"It certainly does." Mr. Narkom's voice was a trifle apologetic. "Well,
I hardly know what to think, Cleek. And you're such a beggar for
stringing evidence together, and never forgetting it! And there's such a
dickens of a lot of evidence in this case that a chap gets horribly
involved, and his memory is likely to play him tricks. And then that
Italian chap whom Dollops has seen such a lot of to-day--where does he
come in?"
"Right into the midst of the whole caboosh," returned Cleek
enigmatically, "and don't you make any mistake about that, my friend.
Dicky-Dago, to use Dollops's name, is one of the prime movers in this
little inheritance game, and in another one also. A dollar to a ducat he
knows the whole thing, and Tweed Coat's with him."
"Who the dickens is Tweed Coat?"
"The gentleman whom Dollops so aptly described a few moments ago,"
returned Cleek quietly. "Perhaps you didn't notice Ross Duggan's coat
this morning, Mr. Narkom? No? Well, it was made of a very sweetly
smelling cloth called Harris tweed; and when Dollops described the one
he saw to me this evening, I recognized it at once."
"Then Tweed Coat is Ross Duggan, Cleek?"
Mr. Narkom's voice was a trifle shrill. Cleek's eyes met his squarely,
and his eyebrows went up.
"Who else?" he said.