All the servants of the household, drawn by Aline's screams, now
crowded upon the steps and looked on with frightened faces. From them
issued a confusion of hazarded explanations, all wide of the truth.
Madame had started to go out and had had a stroke of some sort; Madame
had shot herself; Madame had been lured outside by a bandit and struck
with a club, the object being to secure her pearls. Yet, no--the
pearls were not missing, there they were around her neck, stained dark
with blood. Ah! ... what a terrible sight! Then it was not robbery
after all. What could it be, then?
The neck of the bottle hung around her throat caused complete
mystification, likewise the fact that upon the feet were no shoes, only
the cobwebby black stockings, laced with delicate clocks, which she had
worn the night before. What could have possessed her to venture out at
night and into the rain as well, clad in the filmy, perishable gown and
in her stocking-feet? It was a mystery wholly baffling; not one of the
excited staff could offer a reasonable theory.
When the body was raised from the ground one fact at least was
established, and that was that death had not been occasioned by the
gash on the temple. At the first movement the head swung back like the
head of a sawdust doll. The neck had been broken.
They bore the body upstairs and laid it on the gilt bed. Then at a
word from Roger the butler picked up the receiver of the telephone upon
the painted _table de nuit_ and rang up Dr. Bousquet. The physician
could do no good, but he would attend to certain necessary formalities.
The servants crowded around, quiet now but avid with curiosity, until
Roger with a wave of the hand cleared the room, at the same time
issuing instructions to the chief of them. When he believed himself
alone with Chalmers a touch on the arm reminded him that the messenger,
who had followed the cortege upstairs, was still lingering on the
threshold of the bedroom. With his grubby hand he held out the
telegram he had brought, pointing to the name on the back.
"Leddy Cleefford? _C'est madame la?_" he whispered hoarsely.
Roger nodded and took the telegram, slipping it into his pocket. Then
mechanically he handed the messenger fifty francs and watched him
depart. At the door of Esther's room he encountered his aunt, her face
full of alarm.
"What is it all about, Roger? Something dreadful has happened, I know
it! I didn't dare leave the room after what you said."
"Close the door and come outside. Sartorius has gone, so Esther is
quite safe from him, but she's in a very nervous state and I don't want
her to know this yet.... Brace up, Dido; you must try to take what I'm
going to say quite calmly. Thérèse is dead. She died last night."
He thought she was going to faint, but she clutched the door-knob and
steadied herself.
"Dead!" Her dry lips formed the word. "Impossible! Why, last night
she ... what was it? Was she ill?"
"No. It seems to have been an accident. There'll have to be an
inquest. It's going to be extremely painful, and a terrible shock for
you. But remember this--if she'd lived it would have been infinitely
worse for us all."
She moistened her lips, regarding him with an ashen face.
"Roger--I don't think I know what you mean."
"Simply this, dear. What Miss Rowe said last night was true, all of
it. She wasn't raving."
"You mean that Thérèse and Dr. Sartorius ... you can't mean that..."
"I do. They are murderers. They killed my father."
"Your father! But he died of typhoid fever--you know that as well as I
do; there was nothing wrong about it."
"They gave him typhoid fever, by means of culture in the milk he was
taking. When he was getting well, Sartorius brought on a relapse by
means of injecting the pure toxin, deadly stuff. The old man hadn't
the ghost of a chance. Yet it was all so hidden we should never have
known anything was wrong if it had not been for Esther. She saved my
life, you know. They were out to get me as well."
She put up her hand to her trembling mouth.
"Do you mean to say they would have murdered you too?" she faltered, on
the verge of a collapse.
"There, dear, don't think about it too much. It's all over, thanks to
that poor girl in there. Go back to her now; I'll come with you. Or
no, hold on a minute--I'm going to get you a drink."
Quickly he fetched her a stiff whisky, which he made her force down.
Then when she seemed somewhat recovered, he said:
"Don't say anything to Esther just yet; I'm going to break this to her
myself. I want first to get you both out of the house. Chalmers is
going to get a suite for us all at an hotel; then I'll leave you in his
care for a bit. I depend on your help, Dido, so I may as well tell you
right now that I intend to marry Esther almost at once--if she will
have me."
This statement had the desired effect. He saw the old eyes light up
with a faint spark, while the face was less stricken.
"Do you mean it, Roger?"
"I never meant anything more in my life. I've always wanted her, from
the first day I saw her."
"I--I'm glad, I think. She's the only girl I've known whom I'd be
willing to give you to."
A glance of affection passed between them; then, as she was about to
enter the bedroom, she turned back for a moment, whispering:
"You haven't told me yet what--happened to Thérèse."
He hesitated, then replied:
"She fell,--from the narrow stone ledge beside the end of the balcony,
on the second story. The wistaria is all torn away where she clutched
at it to save herself. She broke her neck."
There was no shadow of a doubt that this theory was correct. Dr.
Bousquet, who arrived in half an hour, declared that death must have
occurred about four or five hours earlier. Therefore Thérèse must have
waited till there seemed the least likelihood of her being seen or
heard, then at perhaps two o'clock in the morning had crept out of her
window and along the balcony, which ended a dozen feet from Roger's
room. From thence on there was merely a decorative stone ledge, barely
four inches wide. The closed window of the bedroom came first, its
projecting sill offering something to cling to, but on each side of
this was a space where the only support was the creeper on the wall.
It was a perilous undertaking. In some fashion she had evidently made
her way along the ledge. Roger did not yet know whether the accident
had occurred on the journey to the bathroom or from it; he would not
know for certain until the water in the Evian bottle was submitted to
an analysis. All that one could tell was the spot where she had
slipped and fallen, which was the first of the two dangerous places,
almost immediately over the front steps. The wistaria to which she had
clung was broken away in several spots, a whole spray of it fluttered
loose from the wall. Here it was that she must have lost her balance.
Her head had struck one of the ornamental stone baskets of fruit, after
which it seemed that her body had ricochetted, her head doubling under
her.
The broken bottle-neck caused the little doctor complete mystification.
He scented some painful secret, though without venturing anywhere near
the facts of the case. Roger refrained from enlightening him, not yet
able to discuss the affair with a stranger, although knowing that in
all probability the coroner would drag out a certain amount of the
truth at the inquest. Ultimately, of course, it would be impossible to
hush the matter up, since he had every intention of prosecuting
Sartorius to the full extent of the law, and the man's guilt could not
be established without implicating the dead woman.
By noon there was nothing more that could be done for the immediate
moment. The police had been notified, the inquest set for the day
after to-morrow. A warrant had been sworn out for the arrest of
Sartorius, who was not to be found. There was reason to believe he had
visited his residence in the Route de Grasse after leaving the Villa
Firenze, but so far no one appeared to have any knowledge of his
subsequent movements. His car was missing, which provided a likely
clue. It seemed wholly improbable that he would long succeed in
evading arrest; a foreigner of his unusual appearance presented an easy
target. Yet Roger felt some degree of astonishment that he should
think of disappearing. It argued a hopeless flaw in his defences.
Early in the afternoon Esther and Miss Clifford left La Californie in
charge of Bousquet and descended by car to Cannes itself, where they
took up their quarters in a comfortable and quiet hotel. Esther was
promptly put to bed again. She was still too weak to sit up, and
looked extremely ill. As yet she knew nothing of the catastrophe that
had overtaken Lady Clifford, for the doctor thought her unequal to the
strain of a fresh excitement. New surroundings and complete rest were
now what she required to restore her, but even so it might be weeks
before she was entirely herself. Although Bousquet had no idea of the
reasons responsible for her present state beyond the fairly obvious
effects of the morphia, he rightly surmised that her nervous system had
sustained a severe shock. He saw, too, that while in the villa she had
been the prey of some obscure but almost paralysing fear. Directly she
was removed from the atmosphere of the Cliffords' house she began to be
calmer.
At three o'clock Roger accompanied a small deputation of the police to
Sartorius's house. In the main bedroom they found considerable
disorder--drawers pulled out and their contents strewn about, various
signs of hasty leave-taking, though how much of this was due to the
doctor's own departure and how much to Holliday's was difficult to
determine, as the two men had occupied the same room. However, under
the bed was a small steamer trunk and a brown leather dressing-bag,
both locked, and both initialled E. R. The trunk bore the label of a
White Star liner, a Paris hotel, and the Carlton Hotel, Cannes. These
pieces of luggage were the first bits of evidence to confirm the truth
of Esther's story. In the laboratory above further confirmation
awaited the investigators. Roger caught his breath as he stood in the
open doorway and took in the corroborative details.
The hanging lamp was shattered as well as several panes of the
skylight. On the table lay an overturned chair, the floor was littered
with fragments of a glass jar mixed with a crystalline substance.
Knotted to an iron bracket was the end of a ragged rope of crimson
material, which disappeared through the open section of the skylight.
The whole party gazed for some minutes in silence, making their own
deductions. Then the chief retreated a pace or two and peered into the
alcove.
"_Regardez!_" he said, pointing a significant finger at the narrow
camp-bed with its tumbled army blanket.
Roger looked. The bed still bore the imprint of Esther's body; he felt
that he could almost see her lying there, drugged, helpless. On the
little table was a glass of dusty water and a murderous-looking
hypodermic needle. How in heaven's name had the girl escaped? It was
not yet clear to him, and seemed nothing short of miraculous.
The doors of both cupboards stood open, and sundry rings in the light
coating of grime showed where bottles had recently been displaced.
Suddenly it became clear to Roger that what had occurred was this:
Sartorius, at the first opportunity, as Esther had predicted, had
rushed here to find out what had happened. Seeing the hopeless extent
of the evidence against him, he had relinquished any idea he might have
had of putting up a fight, and had simply decided on the spot to
attempt an escape. He had with great care and forethought erected a
whole structure, complete to the smallest detail; but one single brick
at the base had become loosened, and the entire thing had toppled into
ruins, beyond hope of reconstruction.
Two men remained on guard at the house, while the others returned to
headquarters to make a report, Roger going with them to add his own
statement to theirs. This done, he went to his new quarters in the
hotel, worn out, but realising that he could do nothing more, so might
as well take a rest. He found Dido anxiously awaiting him in the
sitting-room of the suite.
"Esther is asleep at last," she said. "She still doesn't know
anything, though I believe it would be better to tell her when she
wakes up. She heard Aline scream this morning; it woke her up, and
ever since then she has known something happened. She is terribly
nervous, jumps at the slightest noise, and no matter what I say she is
afraid you are running into some sort of danger."
"Is she?"
His eyes brightened for a moment.
"Yes. Do you know, she is really in mortal terror of Dr. Sartorius. I
don't understand exactly why. I haven't allowed her to talk about
things--the doctor said she mustn't--and I've tried too to keep her
from seeing what a shock I've had. Has anything been heard of the
doctor, by the way?"
"Not yet. He has completely vanished, but I don't think we need
trouble about that. The morning papers everywhere are publishing a
description of him, and all outgoing trains and motors are being
watched, as well as the boats in the harbour. There is not much chance
of his getting away."
She nodded with a degree of relief. Then with a sort of hesitation she
said:
"Tell me, Roger. Do you suppose he knew about
Thérèse's--accident--before he left the villa this morning?"
Roger frowned.
"Knew? Dido, one of the most ghastly things about this whole affair is
that he must have known. He couldn't have avoided knowing. It was
daylight, and when he came out he had to go around that side of the
house to get to the garage. I myself noticed the print of his boot--a
larger boot than anyone else wears--in the mould of the flowerbed,
three feet away from the body."
"Roger! Then he saw her?"
"Of course. He took one look at her, realised what had happened, and
saw in a flash that the manner of her death had, so to speak, given the
whole show away. After that he didn't waste a second, but set about
saving his own damned skin."
"How horrible!" she exclaimed, shuddering.
"You are right, it was horrible--but logical. He was only being true
to his type. There is no sentiment about him; he has always despised
the rest of us, even Thérèse, who was his accomplice."
In his own room Roger realised for the first time a sense of terrible
fatigue. Up till now he had taken no account of the fact that he had
had scarcely any sleep for several nights, and in addition to this had
in actual fact been suffering from mild typhoid. His mind was still
keyed up by excitement, but every muscle in his body ached with
weariness. Chalmers had laid out his dressing-gown only, as a plain
indication that he should dine in his own room and go to bed. Slowly
he turned on the hot water in the bath, and began to divest himself of
his coat. As he did so he suddenly recalled the telegram handed him
that morning, the message addressed to the dead woman. It had passed
completely out of his thoughts. He drew the blue envelope out of his
pocket and looked at it thoughtfully. The mark showed that it had been
handed in at a small town on the road to Marseilles on the previous
evening.
After some hesitation he tore open the flap and spread the paper out,
then stared at it thoughtfully. The enclosure read:
SO SORRY UNABLE SAY GOOD-BVE SAILING MARSEILLES TO-MORROW AU REVOIR ALL
MY LOVE. ARTHUR.