sky. It was a dark boisterous evening, not inviting for strollers, and
they scarcely passed a soul till they were in the quiet road where the
villa stood. There, from the shadows of a gateway, two figures moved out
to meet them, and Cromarty recognised Superintendent Sutherland and one
of his constables. The two saluted in silence and fell in behind. They
each carried, he noticed, something long-shaped wrapped up loosely in
sacking.
"What have they got there?" he asked.
"Prosaic instruments," smiled Carrington. "I won't tell you more for
fear the gamble doesn't come off."
"Like the sensation before one proposes, I suppose," said Ned. "Well,
going by that, the omens ought to be all right."
They turned in through Simon's gates and then the four stopped.
"We part here," whispered Carrington. "Good luck!"
"Same to you," said Ned briefly, and strode up the drive.
As he came out into the gravel sweep before the house, he looked hard
into the darkness of the garden, but beyond the tossing shapes of trees,
there was not a sign of movement.
"Mr. Rattar in?" he enquired. "Sitting in the library I suppose? Take me
right to him. Cromarty's my name."
"Mr. Cromarty to see you, sir," announced Mary, and she was startled to
see the master's sudden turn in his chair and the look upon his face.
"Whether he was feared or whether he was angered, I canna rightly say,"
she told cook, "but anyway he looked fair mad like!"
"Good evening," said Ned.
His voice was restrained and dry, and as he spoke he strode across the
room and seated himself deliberately in the arm chair on the side of the
fire opposite to the lawyer.
Simon had banished that first look which Mary saw, but there remained in
his eyes something more than their usual cold stare. Each day since
Carrington came seemed to have aged his face and changed it for the
worse: a haggard, ugly, malicious face it seemed to his visitor looking
hard at it to-night. His only greeting was a briefer grunt than
ordinary.
"I daresay you can guess what's brought me here," said Ned.
The lawyer rapped out his first words jerkily.
"No. I can't."
"Try three guesses," suggested his visitor. "Come now, number one----?"
For a moment Simon was silent, but to-night he could not hide the
working of that face which usually hid his thoughts so effectually. It
was plain he hesitated what line to take.
"You have seen Miss Farmond, I hear," he said.
"You're on the scent," said his visitor encouragingly. "Have another
go."
"You believe her story."
"I do."
"It's false."
Ned stared at him very hard and then he spoke deliberately.
"I'm wondering," said he.
"Wondering what?" asked Simon.
"Whether a horse whip or the toe of a shooting boot is the best cure for
your complaint."
The lawyer shrank back into his chair.
"Do you threaten me?" he jerked out. "Be careful!"
"If I threatened you I'd certainly do what I threatened," said Ned. "So
far I'm only wondering. Where did you learn to lie, Mr. Rattar?"
The lawyer made no answer at all. His mind seemed concentrated on
guessing the other's probable actions.
"Out with it, man! I've met some derned good liars in my time, but you
beat the lot. I'm anxious to know where you learned the trick, that's
all."
"Why do you believe her more than me?" asked Simon.
"Because you've been found out lying before. That was a pretty stiff one
about your engaging Carrington, wasn't it?"
Simon was quite unable to control his violent start, and his face turned
whiter.
"I--I didn't say I did," he stammered.
"Well," said Ned, "I admit I wasn't there to hear you, but I know
Carrington made you put your foot fairly in it just by way of helping
him to size you up, and he got your size right enough too."
"Then----" began Simon, and stopped and changed it into: "What does
Carrington suspect--er--accuse me of?"
Ned stared at him for several seconds without speaking, and this
procedure seemed to disconcert the lawyer more than anything had done
yet.
"What--what does Carrington mean?" he repeated.
"He means you've lied, and he believes Miss Farmond, and he believes Sir
Malcolm, and he believes me, and he puts you down as a pretty bad egg.
What did you expect to be accused of?"
Simon could no more hide his relief to-night than he could hide his
fears.
"Only of what you have told me--only of course of what you say! But I
can explain. In good time I can explain."
It was at that moment that the door opened sharply and the start the
lawyer gave showed the state of his nerves after Mr. Cromarty's
handling. Mary MacLean stood in the doorway, her face twitching.
"What's the matter?" snapped her master.
"Please, sir, there are men in the garden!" she cried.
The lawyer leapt to his feet.
"Men in the garden!" he cried, and there was a note in his voice which
startled even tough Ned Cromarty. "What are they doing?"
"I don't know, sir. It sounded almost as if they was digging."
Simon swayed for an instant and grasped the back of his chair. Then in a
muffled voice he muttered:
"I'm going to see!"
He had scarcely made a step towards the door when Cromarty was on his
feet too.
"Steady!" he cried. "Get out there, and shut the door!"
The towering form and formidable voice sent Mary out with a shut door
between them almost as the command was off his tongue. A couple of
strides and he had got the lawyer by the shoulder and pulled him back.
"Sit down!" he commanded.
Simon turned on him with a new expression. The terror had passed away
and he stood there now as the sheer beast at bay.
"Damn you!" he muttered, and turned his back for a moment.
The next, his hand rose and simultaneously Ned's arm shot out and got
him by the wrist, while the shock of his onslaught drove the man back
and down into his chair. Though Simon was tough and stoutly built, he
was as a child in the hands of his adversary. A sharp twist of the wrist
was followed by an exclamation of pain and the thud of something heavy
on the floor. Ned stooped and picked up the globular glass match box
that had stood on the table. For a few moments he stared at it in dead
silence, balancing it in his hands. It was like a small cannon ball for
concentrated weight. Then in a curious voice he asked:
"Is this the first time you have used this?"
Simon made no reply. His face was dead white now, but dogged and grim,
and his mouth stayed tight as a trap. Ned replaced the match box on the
table, and planted himself before the fire.
"Nothing to say?" he asked, and Simon said nothing.
They remained like this for minute after minute; not a movement in the
room and the booming of the wind the only sound. And then came
footsteps on the gravel and the ringing of a bell.
"We'll probably learn something now," said Ned, but the other still said
nothing, and only a quick glance towards the door gave a hint of his
thoughts.
There was no announcement this time. Superintendent Sutherland entered
first, then the constable, and Carrington last. The superintendent went
straight up to the lawyer, his large face preternaturally solemn.
Touching him on the shoulder he said:
"I arrest you in the King's name!"
The man in the chair half started up and then fell back again.
"What for?" he asked huskily.
"The murder of Simon Rattar."
The lawyer took it as one who had seen the sword descending, but not so
Ned Cromarty.
"Of Simon Rattar!" he shouted. "What the--then who the devil is this?"
Carrington answered. He spoke with his usual easy smile, but his
triumphant eye betrayed his heart.
"The superintendent has omitted part of the usual formalities," he said.
"This person should have been introduced as Mr. George Rattar."
"George!" gasped Ned. "But I thought he was dead!"
"So did I," said Carrington, "but he wasn't."
"What proof have you of this story?" demanded the man in the chair
suddenly.
"We have just dug up your brother's body from that flower bed," said
Carrington quietly. "Do you recognise his ring?"
He held up a gold signet ring, and the lawyer fell back in his chair.
"But look here!" exclaimed Ned, "what about Sir Reginald's murder? He
did that too, I suppose!"
Carrington nodded.
"We hope to add that to his account in a day or two. This is enough to
be going on with, but as a matter of fact we have nearly enough evidence
now to add the other charge."
"I can add one bit," said Ned, picking up the match box. "He has just
tried to do me in with this little thing, and I take it, it was the
third time of using."
Carrington weighed it in his hand, and then said to the prisoner:
"You put it in the end of a stocking, I suppose?"
The man looked up at him with a new expression in his eye. If it were
not a trace of grim humour, it was hard to say what else it could be.
"Get me a drink," he said huskily, nodding towards the tantalus on the
side table, "and I'll tell you the whole damned yarn. My God, I'm dry as
a damned bone!"
"Give me the key of the tantalus," said Carrington promptly.
But the superintendent seemed somewhat taken aback.
"Anything you say may be used against you," he reminded the prisoner.
"You know enough to swing me, anyhow," said Rattar, "but I'd like you to
know that I didn't really mean to do it. I want that drink first
though!"
He took the glass of whisky and water and as he raised it to his lips,
that same curious look came back into his eye.
"Here's to the firm of S. and G. Rattar, and may their clients be as
damned as themselves!" he said with a glance at Cromarty, and finished
the drink at a draught.
XXXIX
THE YARN
"I needn't trouble you with my adventures before I came down here to
visit brother Simon," began the prisoner, "for you know them well
enough. It was about a month ago when I turned up at this house one
night."
"How did you get here?" demanded the superintendent.
"I did the last bit under the seat of the carriage," grinned Rattar,
"and when we got into the station I hopped out on the wrong side of the
train. The way I paid my fare wasn't bad either, considering I hadn't
half of the fare from London in my pocket when I started--or anything
like it. However, the point is I got here and just as I'd come through
the gates I had the luck to see both the maids going out. So the coast
was clear.
"Well, I rang the bell and out came Simon--the man who'd got me
convicted, and my own brother too, mind you!--looking as smug as the
hard-hearted old humbug he was. He got the shock of his life when he saw
who it was, but I began gently and I put a proposition to him. I'll bet
none of you will guess what it was!"
He looked round the company, and Carrington answered:
"Blackmail of some sort."
"You may call it blackmail if you like, but what was the sort? Well,
you'd never guess. I was wearing a beard and moustaches then, but I knew
if I took them off I'd look so like Simon that no one meeting one of us
would know which it was, supposing we were dressed exactly alike and I
did Simon's grunting tricks and all that. And Simon knew it too.
"'Well, Simon, my dear brother,' I said to him, 'I'll make you a
sporting proposition. My idea is to settle down in this old place, and
I'm so fond of you I mean to shave, get an outfit just like yours, and
give free rein to my affection for you. I'm so fond of you,' I said,
'that I know I shan't be able to keep more than five yards away from you
whenever you are walking the streets, and I'll have to sit in church
beside you, Simon. That's my present programme.'
"I let that sink in, and then I went on:
"'Supposing this programme embarrasses you, Simon, well there's one way
out of it, and I leave it to your judgment to say what it is.'
"Now, mind you, I'd banked on this coming off, for I knew what a
stickler Simon was for the respectable and the conventional and all
that. Can't you see the two of us going through the streets together,
five yards apart and dressed exactly alike! Wouldn't the small boys have
liked it! That was my only idea in coming down here. I meant no more
mischief, I'll swear to that! Unfortunately, though, I'd got so keen on
the scheme that I hadn't thought of its weak spot.
"Simon said not a word, but just looked at me--exactly as I've been
looking at people since I took his place in society. And then he asked
me if I was really very hard up. Like a fool I told him the plain truth,
that I had inside of five bob in my pockets and that was every penny I
owned in the world.
"He grinned then--I can see him grinning now--and he said:
"'In that case you'll have a little difficulty in paying your board and
lodging here, and still more in buying clothes. I tell you what I'll
do,' he said, 'I'll buy a ticket back to London for you and leave it
with the stationmaster, and that's every penny you'll ever get out of
me!'
"I saw he had me, but I wasn't going off on those terms. I damned him to
his face and he tried to shut the door on me. We were talking at the
front door all this while, I may mention. I got my foot in the way, and
as I was always a bit stronger than Simon, I had that door open after a
tussle and then I followed him into the library.
"I knew the man was hard as flint and never showed mercy to any one in
his life when he had them on toast, and I knew he had me on toast. How
was I to get any change out of him? That was what I was wondering as I
followed him, and then all at once something--the devil if you
like--put the idea into my head. I'd _be_ Simon!"
He looked round on his audience as though he still relished the memory
of that inspiration.
"The beauty of the idea was that no one would ever dream of suspecting a
man of not being himself! They might suspect him of a lot of things, but
not of that. I hadn't thought of the scheme ten seconds before I
realised how dead safe it was so long as I kept my head. And I have kept
it. No one can deny that!"
His glance this time challenged a contradiction, but no one spoke. The
circle of steadfast eyes and silent lips he seemed to take as a tribute
to his address, for he smiled and then went on:
"Yes, I kept my head from the beginning. I stood talking to him in this
very room, he refusing to answer anything except to repeat that he'd buy
a ticket to London and leave it with the stationmaster, and I working
out the scheme--what to do it with and how to manage afterwards. I knew
it was a swinging risk, but against that was a starving certainty, and
then I spied that match box and the thing was settled. I got him to look
the other way for a moment--and then he was settled. Give me another
drink!"
Carrington got him a drink and he gulped it down, and then turned
suddenly on Ned Cromarty.
"Your damned glass eye has been getting on my nerves long enough!" he
exclaimed. "My God, that eye and your habit of hanging people--I've had
enough of them! Can't you turn it away from me?"
"Won't turn," said Ned coolly, "spring broken. Get on with your story!"
Even in his privileged position as prisoner, Rattar seemed disinclined
to have trouble with his formidable ex-client. He answered nothing, but
turned his shoulder to him and continued:
"After that was over I set about covering my tracks. The first part was
the worst. Before the maids came back I had to get Simon stowed away for
the night--no time to bury him then of course, and I had to get into his
clothes, shave, and learn the lie of the house and all that. I did it
all right and came down to breakfast next morning and passed muster with
the servants, and never a suspicion raised!"
"There was a little," remarked Carrington, "but never enough."
"Not enough was good enough!"
"I am not quite certain of that," said Carrington. "However, go on. Your
next bunker was the office."
The prisoner nodded.
"It took some nerve," he said complacently, "and I'm free to confess
that to begin with I always had a beastly feeling that some one was
watching me and spotting something that didn't look quite right, but,
good Lord, keeping my head the way I kept it, there was nothing to worry
about! Who would ever think that the Simon Rattar who walked into his
office and grunted at his clerks on Wednesday morning, wasn't the same
Simon Rattar who walked in and grunted on Tuesday morning? And then I
had one tremendous pull in knowing all the ropes from old days. Simon
was a conservative man, nothing was ever changed--not even the clerks,
so I had the whole routine at my fingers. And he was an easy man to
imitate too. That was where I scored again. I daresay I have inherited
some of the same tricks myself. I know I found them come quite easy--the
stare and the silence and the grunts and the rest of them. And then I
always had more brains than Simon and could pick up business quicker.
You should have heard me making that ass Malcolm Cromarty, and the
Farmond girl, and this hangman with the glass eye tell me all about
themselves and what their business was, without their ever suspecting
they were being pumped! For, mind you, I'd never set eyes on Malcolm
Cromarty or the Farmond girl before in my life! No, it wasn't at the
office I had the nastiest time. It was burying the body that night."
The boastful smile died off his lips and for a moment he shivered a
little.
"What happened about that?" enquired Carrington keenly.
Rattar's voice instinctively fell a little.
"When I got home that afternoon I found he wasn't quite dead after all!"
"That accounts for it!" murmured Carrington.
"For what?"
"Your maid heard him moving."
The prisoner seemed to have recovered from his passing emotion.
"And I told her it was a rat, and she swallowed it!" he laughed. "Well,
he didn't move for long, and I had fixed up quite a good scheme for
getting him out of the house. A man was to call for old papers. I even
did two voices talking in the hall to make the bluff complete! Not being
able to get his ring off his finger rather worried me, but I put that
right by an advertisement in the paper saying I'd lost it!"
He was arrested by the look on Carrington's face.
"What happened?" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that gave me away?"
"Those superfluous precautions generally give people away."
"But how?"
"It doesn't matter now. You'll learn later. What next?"
"Next?" said Rattar. "Well, I just went on keeping my head and bluffing
people----" he broke off, looked at Superintendent Sutherland, and gave
a short laugh. "I only lost my nerve a bit once, and that was when the
glass-eyed hangman butted in and said he was going to get down a
detective. It struck me then it was time I was off--and what's more, I
started!"
The superintendent's mouth fell open.
"You--you weren't the man----" he began.
"Yes," scoffed the prisoner, "I was the man with toothache in that
empty carriage. I'd got in at the wrong side after the ticket collector
passed and just about twenty seconds before you opened the door. But the
sight of your red face made me change my plans, and I was out again
before that train started! A bright policeman you are! After that I
decided to stick it out and face the music; and I faced it."
His mouth shut tight and he sat back in his chair, his eyes travelling
round the others as though to mark their unwilling admiration. He
certainly saw it in the faces of the two open-eyed policemen, but
Cromarty's was hard and set, and he seemed still to be waiting.
"You haven't told us about Sir Reginald yet," he said.
Rattar looked at him defiantly.
"No evidence there," he said with a cunning shake of his head, "you can
go on guessing!"
"Would you like to smoke a pipe?" asked Carrington suddenly.
The man's eyes gleamed.
"By God, yes!"
"You can have one if you tell us about Sir Reginald. We've got you
anyhow, and there will be evidence enough there too when we've put it
together."
The superintendent looked a trifle shocked, but Carrington's sway over
him was by this time evidently unbounded. He coughed an official protest
but said nothing.
The prisoner only hesitated for a moment. He saw Carrington taking out a
cigarette, and then he took out his keys and said:
"This is the key for that drawer. You'll find my pipe and baccy there.
I'll tell you the rest." And then he started and exclaimed: "But how the
h-- did you know I smoked?"
"At five minutes past nine o'clock last night," said Carrington, as he
handed him his pipe, "I was within three paces of you."
The prisoner stared at him with a wry face.
"You devil!" he murmured, and then added with some philosophy: "After
all, I'd sooner be hanged than stop smoking." And with that he lit his
pipe.
"You want to know about old Cromarty," he resumed. "Well, I made my
first bad break when I carried on a correspondence with him which Simon
had begun, not knowing they had had a talk between whiles cancelling the
whole thing. You know about it and about the letter Sir Reginald sent me
after I'd written. Well, when I got that letter I admit it rattled me a
bit. I've often wondered since whether he had really suspected anything
or whether he would have sooner or later. Anyhow I got it into my head
that the game was up if something didn't happen. And so it happened."
"You went and killed him?" said Ned.
"That's for you and your glass eye to find out!" snapped the prisoner.
"Take his pipe away," said Carrington quietly.
"Damn it!" cried Rattar, "I'll tell you, only I'm fed up with that man's
bullying! I put it in a stocking" (he nodded towards the match box)
"just as you guessed and I went out to Keldale that night. My God, what
a walk that was in the dark! I'd half forgotten the way down to the
house and I thought every other tree was a man watching me. I don't know
yet how I got to that library window. I remembered his ways and I
thought he'd be sitting up there alone; but it was just a chance, and
I'd no idea I'd have the luck to pick a night when he was sleeping in
his dressing room. Give me another drink!"
Carrington promptly brought one and again it vanished almost in a gulp.
"Well, I saw him through a gap in the curtains and I risked a tap on the
glass. My God, how surprised he was to see me standing there! I grinned
at him and he let me in, and then----" He broke off and fell forward in
his chair with his face in his hands. "This whisky has gone to my head!"
he muttered. "You've mixed it too damned strong!"
Ned Cromarty sprang up, his face working. Carrington caught him by the
arm.
"Let's come away," he said quietly. "We've heard everything necessary.
You can't touch him now."
Cromarty let him keep his arm through his as they went to the door.
"I'll send a cab up for you in a few minutes," Carrington added to the
superintendent.
They left the prisoner still sitting muttering into his hands.
XL
THE LAST CHAPTER
On their way down to the hotel Ned Cromarty only spoke once, and that
was to exclaim:
"If I'd only known when I had him alone! Why didn't you tell me more
before I went in?"
"For your own sake," said Carrington gently. "The law is so devilish
undiscriminating. Also, I wasn't absolutely certain then myself."
They said nothing more till they were seated in Carrington's sitting
room and his employer had got a cigar between his teeth and pushed away
an empty tumbler.
"I'm beginning to feel a bit better," said he. "Fire away now and tell
me how you managed this trick. I'd like to see just how derned stupid
I've been!"
"My dear fellow, I assure you you haven't! I'm a professional at this
game, and I tell you honestly it was at least as much good luck as good
guidance that put me on to the truth at last."
"I wonder what you call luck," said Ned. "Seems to me you were up
against it all the time! You've told me how you caught Rattar lying at
the start. Well, that was pretty smart of you to begin with. Then, what
next? How did things come?"
"Well," said Carrington, "I picked up a little something on my first
visit to Keldale. From Bisset's description I gathered that the body
must have been dragged along the floor and left near the door. Why?
Obviously as a blind. Adding that fact to the unfastened window, the
broken table, the mud on the floor, and the hearth brush, the odds
seemed heavy on entry by the window. I also found that the middle blind
had been out of order that night and that it _might_ have been quite
possible for any one outside to have seen Sir Reginald sitting in the
room and known he was alone there. Again, it seemed long odds on his
having recognised the man outside and opened the window himself, which,
again, pointed to the man being some one he knew quite well and never
suspected mischief from."
"Those were always my own ideas, except that I felt bamboozled where you
felt clear--which shows the difference between our brains!"
Carrington laughed and shook his head.