THE SECRET OF THE SINGING WHEEL
The scene that followed this startling announcement can well be imagined
rather than described. For even as the man stood glowering at them, his
mouth muttering the curses that his heart held, came a new diversion
from another quarter. For Catherine Dowd had called out sharply, "Quick!
quick! some smelling-salts here--and brandy!" and as the women of the
party endeavoured to produce one item, while the men more successfully
produced the other, it was seen that Johanna McCall was the object of
this aid, for she half-lay, half-sprawled upon the floor, mouth open,
face twitching, eyes already glazing over, and the white froth forming
about her pale lips.
Cleek leaned down and lifted her head in his uninjured arm; and looked
down into her upthrown ghastly face.
"Gad!" he said under his breath, "and now the other one--self-confessed!
Who'd have thought it?--who, indeed? And for what reason, I wonder?"
"For him--for Ross--for the man I love," the pale lips framed the words
brokenly as the strength of the girl sagged and ebbed slowly away. "He
would have disinherited him--disinherited Ross, turned him
out--penniless! Cruel--wicked--I stabbed him with--the stiletto--the
light went out--caught it off the table--wiped it on _her_ dress--must
have been mad--mad--but you can't get me. It's poison--arsenic. I had it
ready. And I needn't have done it--after all!"
Then she sighed a little, opened her eyes suddenly and closed them
again, and then slumped forward in Cleek's arms--dead.
Cleek caught at a cushion, pushed it under the sagging head, slipped his
own arm out from under it, and got slowly to his feet. His face was
pale, his lips set.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said quietly, pointing a hand at the still
figure, so pitifully small and childlike, huddled together upon the
floor, "the other--murderer. Poor, misguided little creature! Of such
folly can Love only be held to blame. A hopeless passion, a breaking
heart, a suddenly maddening resolution made and carried out in a red-hot
moment, and--another soul gone to meet its Maker with the red blot of
death upon it. Tragic, is it not?... Lady Paula, take a seat. There is
so much more to tell, and this has slightly precipitated matters.
Tavish, my friend, you will do better not to glower and struggle like
that. The Law has you, and _the Law will make you pay_--in spite of all
your efforts to fix the blame upon someone else. I think, my friends, if
we might adjourn to the drawing-room, the rest of the riddle would make
easier and better telling. It is hardly fitting--here and now."
"You're right, Mr. Deland, perfectly right," threw in Ross at this
juncture, jumping to his feet and catching his fiancee by the arm.
"Come, all of you. Out of this room and into the next. I want to hear
the end of the tangle, Mr. Deland, and find exactly how you implicated
_me_."
Cleek looked up suddenly with a slight smile.
"Not Deland, my friend, just Cleek--Cleek of Scotland Yard, at your
service," he made reply smoothly, smiling at the amazed faces which
greeted this statement. "So you see, Tavish, you had greater odds
against you than you knew. We'll have your other prisoner, please,
Constable. The worthy Antoni Matei shall tell us something before the
day is out. Of that I am certain. And I have promised him a good price
for his loose tongue. Tavish, never trust a lying comrade. This is the
friend who saw you through--and then split afterward upon you. Choose
birds of another colour next time you practise such tricks--only, I'm
afraid it is a trifle late to start new methods--_now_."
Speaking, he passed out of that tragic room, waving his hand with a
gesture which was almost theatrical to the others to follow him, and
when they were all assembled around him in the drawing-room, went on
with his amazing story.
* * * * *
"You want to hear the whole story from start to finish? Well, it will
make long telling, I'm afraid," he said, as Maud Duggan put the
question, glancing a trifle anxiously at the slumped figure of the
Italian which stood manacled between two burly constables, waiting his
turn to speak up and tell what he knew. "To begin with, I must confess I
was a little mistaken in my calculations. _To begin with._
Circumstantial evidence does not always prove guilt, Miss Duggan,
although it's generally a good pointer in a broad way. And your brother
had many pieces of evidence against him. That bit of red flexible
electric wire, you know, that I picked up in the library that first day
you showed me around. I admit I thought it belonged to him, particularly
when young Cyril here told such an excellent story of how Sir Ross (I
must give you your proper title, you know!) wired the room temporarily,
just to show James Tavish how it could be done. But it didn't, you see.
That fragment was found in Tavish's own bedroom. Then, when I went down
into the dungeons, I discovered--something else."
His hand dived into his pocket and brought forth a crumpled
handkerchief, slightly bloodstained, and handed it to her. "Can you
identify that?"
She looked up, startled.
"Of course. It's yours, Ross, isn't it? See, here are your initials. And
yet you found it down there--with something else, Mr.--Cleek?"
"I certainly did, my dear young lady. With a syphon of soda, a tumbler
and a bottle that smelt of very good raw whisky. Rather strong for _my_
liking, but still--we'll let that pass for the present. I'll have
something to say about that later which may interest you, Mr. Narkom. I
found it there--and, as you say, I found something else, too. And when I
saw the initials I naturally thought of your brother--which just goes to
prove that human nature is apt to make mistakes, even when it thinks
itself pretty expert upon certain subjects. As a matter of fact, Miss
McCall had borrowed that handkerchief--she supervises the laundering,
you told me, Miss Duggan--for James Tavish when he cut his finger, and
he had never given it back, obviously. When I discovered that, that was
the first pointer in his direction. The others followed fairly
rapidly.... Then the air-pistol, you know. You yourself told me your
brother had one--and then regretted the telling afterward, like every
loving and foolish woman who wants to preserve her kin from possible
blame, even in the face of her own suspicions. That was Number Two
against him. Number Three came from this young lady here--Miss Dowd--who
brought me the stiletto that had been used to stab your poor father, and
admitted, strictly against all her scruples, that, as far as she knew,
it had been last used by Sir Ross to cut the edges of a book upon
Poisons which he had been reading. I don't much admire your taste in
literature, Sir Ross, but that is hardly to do with me. A man can choose
his own companions and his own library, thank God, although Life itself
chooses almost everything else for him. But I must confess that the
spinning wheel got me guessing, as our American cousins say. I've Mr.
Narkom to thank for that discovery. And he made it in rather a
remarkable way. Leaned against the wheel and experienced a slight shock.
After that, the thing was as easy as A. B. C. We simply traced the
wiring to the window-sill, where we discovered a switch hidden in the
ivy, turned it on, and--there you were! I nearly got potted by the
devilish contrivance myself, only some sixth sense told me to get out of
the way in time. But the aim was amazingly accurate. The second bullet
fell a matter of half an inch below the first. A perfect marvel of
ingenuity, contrived by a man who had obviously made electricity his
study for years--in spite of his confessed ignorance of it. Worked out
to a nicety. The failing lights were his idea also, and quite simple to
manage, really. The drumming dynamo made a very good imitation of the
'singing of the wheel,' in accordance with the old story. And a less
enlightened household than yours, Sir Ross, might have put all sorts of
constructions upon that--except, of course, the right one.... That, my
friends, was how the diabolical thing was done."
For a moment a silence held, fraught with mute astonishment; then
exclamations of amazement fell from every one of that little company,
and Ross Duggan was just about to speak when Lady Paula broke hurriedly
in.
"And my brother?--my poor unfortunate brother?" cried she in a wrung
voice. "He had no share in the crime, I'll swear it, Mr. Cleek. Even
your magic cannot prove that."
"Not in the crime actually, Lady Paula, but in--other things," he
replied a trifle grimly, glancing again at the flushed face of the
prisoner. "For as a blackmailer I fancy he is something of an artist.
That fact you already know--to your cost, I fancy. And I think I'm not
wrong in saying that it was he who suggested to you the stealing of the
will and----"
"I begged him not to, Mr. Cleek! I implored. I did-- I swear it. And I
never stole the will, that I can promise!" she broke in distractedly,
beating her hands together. "Antoni suggested--yes--he wished to destroy
it, so that my share of the estate might be greater as widow than that
which had been apportioned to me, and of course he would have a portion
of that, too. But I implored him not--that is true, is it not, Antoni?
You can answer to that? I begged you, and you promised! And he
threatened me even with exposure if I did not agree to the preposterous
idea! I complied, only upon the promise that it should not be destroyed.
But who took it I do not know."
"But I think I can pretty well guess," responded Cleek serenely, with a
quick look at Cyril's suddenly flushed face. "Your son, Lady Paula, has
much of his uncle's blood in his veins. And he acted, no doubt, upon
_forceful_ advice, and carried the thing through quite successfully.
Perhaps he will tell us just when he decided to steal his own father's
will--at the instigation of an unscrupulous relation."
Came a slight pause in the telling, meanwhile a startled exclamation
broke from Ross Duggan's lips, while every eye in that little assembly
fastened upon the unfortunate boy. He broke into quiet sobbing, darting
his eyes here and there for possible sympathy.
"Yes, I took it, sir--when Uncle Antoni told me," he broke out between
sobs. "It was--just after it had happened. I heard Mother's scream, and
then she ran into my room and told me of--the dreadful thing that had
happened! About half an hour afterward Uncle Antoni appeared at the
balcony which opens out from my bedroom window, and told me I must steal
the will for him. I was terrified--oh, I was!--but he threatened me
with--with a pistol----"
"That's a lie!" gave out the prisoner with a maledictory eye upon his
unfilial nephew.
"It isn't--it isn't! You told me to get it--just how to get it. That it
was lying upon the table-top; and so I slipped down in my stockinged
feet, and waited in the passage until I saw Ross slip out of the room
after everyone else had gone back to bed, and--and _you_ had come out,
Mr. Cleek, and were talking to Maud in the ante-room. So I crept into
the room--oh, it was dreadful, with Father lying there--like
that--snatched it up and fled back to my bedroom in terror. Uncle Antoni
was still waiting on the balcony, and when he got it he climbed down the
balustrade again and--and--that is all I know. Oh, I wish--I wish I'd
never had anything to do with it!"
Cleek nodded.
"I'm sure you do," he said quietly. "So it was really not your fault,
Cyril. You acted under considerable pressure. That I'll admit. But it
might have been better if you had confided in--someone else after the
deed was done. It would have helped clear up the mystery sooner, at any
rate. But that cannot be helped now. To proceed with the story. Here, by
the way, is the missing will, Lady Paula. I found it muffling the
clapper of Rhea's bell--a very ingenious hiding-place--and in the
finding discovered your--er--worthy brother at the same time. That was
how I happened to get hold of him. He gave me a few tips of quite useful
information afterward, upon promise of a light sentence, and helped to
lead me finally to the true murderer. So we will hold that in his
favour, at any rate. Sir Ross, I'd prefer you to keep that document
until it can be placed in the hands of your family lawyer. We don't want
any more disappearing tricks for the present, do we?"
"Hardly. Gad! it's amazing, positively extraordinary how you've found
all this out!" threw in that gentleman with deep emphasis. "Please
accept my apologies now for those unforgivable things I said to you, Mr.
Cleek. But when a chap's just been practically accused of killing his
own father----"
"You must expect a little heat. That's all right, my friend. Don't
bother about it further. Only, I was obliged to throw the scent upon
someone other than the real man--or we'd have lost him. You understand
that, of course?"
"Certainly. Only tell us how you traced the murder to its proper source,
and _why_ James Tavish should have done such a thing."
"That I will, and in the shortest way possible. But you must let me tell
my story in my own particular manner," replied Cleek, with a slight
smile and a warmth of feeling toward this very impetuous and
generous-hearted young man. "There's still a good deal to be cleared up
before you can understand, and I'm afraid some of it won't make
particularly good hearing. But that I cannot help. Men are frail things,
Sir Ross, where temptation is concerned. And when there is a pretty
woman in the question ... it's all right, Lady Paula; it all happened
long before _you_ entered your husband's life, so that there is nothing
for _you_ to forgive--but, as I say, when a pretty woman enters at one
door, a man's discretion very often flies out at another.
"I found, among other things yesterday, when I was looking for the will
in your father's desk, after having appropriated his keys first, a
bundle of old love-letters, written upon paper which I ascertained had
been bought in the village, and bearing a post-mark which was local, and
signed with the name 'Jeannette.' I confess I did not know just where
these entered into the case at all, but something told me that they were
a big factor. My intuition--policeman's sixth sense--call it what you
will. I looked into the matter, and then discovered, after some probing
through my man Dollops (who, by the way, Mr. Narkom, deserves high
commendation in this case), that they were actually written by James
Tavish's sister, Jeannette, and that--to put it baldly, for which I
trust you will forgive me--that your father had been carrying on a
secret liaison with this girl for some years, upon promise of marriage,
and had, in fact, got her into very unfortunate trouble."
"But he never married her--he married _me_-- I am his legal wife, I
swear that!" struck in Lady Paula, in a high-pitched, terrified voice.
"I knew nothing of this woman at all--everything in our marriage was in
order----"
"Of that there is not the smallest doubt, Lady Paula," returned Cleek
gravely. "I said only 'under _promise_ of marriage.' That is where man
is unfortunately so unfaithful. He merely left her to bear her trouble
alone--after, of course, providing for her and the possible issue of
their unhappy union--and, being a faithful woman, it broke her heart,
and both she and her child died as a consequence of this neglect. When
the wish to live is gone, there is little else to bind one to this earth
at such times, my friends, and so she and her unwanted little one passed
out to a happier realm. Much of this I have gleaned from those same
letters; much I have deduced in the natural course of events. The final
clue was discovered in James Tavish's own room, where this photograph,
bearing the date of her death and that of her child, and having one word
written across the face of it, was discovered in a box on his
dressing-table."
He handed the piece of pictured pasteboard across to each of them in
turn, watching their faces to see the effect of it upon them
individually. Mute astonishment, dull grief showed in Ross and Maud
Duggan's eyes as they looked upon it. It was as though they had
discovered suddenly that their idol had feet of clay. For across the
front of the pictured face was written one word in heavy black scrawl,
and the word was "_Avenged!_"