The spring had blossomed itself out and the summer had bloomed itself
in. The holiday up the river was a thing of the past; the dreams of the
Dreamer had given place to those sterner phases of life which must be
coped with by the Realist; and Cleek was "back in harness" again.
A half-dozen more or less important cases had occupied his time since
his return; but, although he had carried these to a successful issue and
had again been lauded to the skies by the daily papers, the one word of
praise from the one quarter whence he so earnestly desired to hear was
never forthcoming.
Of Ailsa Lorne he had heard not a solitary thing, either directly or
indirectly, since that day when he had put her into the taxicab at
Charing Cross Station and saw her safely on her way to Hampstead before
he went his own.
True, her silence was, as he had agreed, an admission that all was well
with her and that she had secured the position in question; true it was
also that it was not for her to take the initiative and break that
silence; that he fully realised how impossible, for a girl born and bred
as she had been, to voluntarily open up a correspondence with a man who
was as yet little more than a mere acquaintance; but, all the same, he
chafed under that silence and spent many a wakeful hour at night
brooding on it.
In his heart he knew that if any advance was to be made, that advance
was the man's duty, not the woman's; but the fear that she would think
he was thrusting himself upon her, the dread that even yet the white
soul of her could not but shrink from a closer association with him,
kept him from taking one step towards breaking the silence he deplored.
The French have a proverb which says: "It is always the unexpected that
happens." And it was the unexpected that happened in this case.
In the midst of his dejection, in the very depths of returning despair,
there came to him this note from Mr. Narkom:
"My Dear Cleek,
"Kindly refrain from going out this evening. I shall call about nine
o'clock, bringing with me Miss Ailsa Lorne, whom you doubtless remember,
and her present patron, Angela, Countess Chepstow, the young widow of
that ripping old warhorse, who, as you may recall, quelled that
dangerous and fanatical rising of the Cingalese at Trincomalee. These
ladies wish to see you with reference to a most extraordinary case, an
inexplicable mystery, which both they and I believe no man but yourself
can satisfactorily probe.
"Yours in haste,
"Maverick Narkom."
So, then, he was to see her again, to touch her hand, hear her voice,
look into the eyes that had lighted him back from the path to
destruction! Cleek's heart began to hammer and his pulses to drum.
Needless to say, he took extraordinary care with his toilet that
evening, with the result that when the ladies arrived there was nothing
even vaguely suggestive of the detective about him.
"Oh, Mr. Cleek, do help us--please do," implored Ailsa, after the first
greetings were over. "Lady Chepstow is almost beside herself with dread
and anxiety over the inexplicable thing, and I have persuaded her that
if anybody on earth can solve the mystery of it, avert the new and
appalling danger of it, it is you! Oh, say that you will take the case,
say that you will save little Lord Chepstow and put an end to this
maddening mystery!"
"Little Lord Chepstow?" repeated Cleek, glancing over at the countess,
who stood, a very Niobe in her grief and despair, holding out two
imploring hands in silent supplication. "That is your ladyship's son, is
it not?"
"Yes," she answered, with a sort of wail; "my only son--my only child.
All that I have to love--all that I have to live for in this world."
"And you think the little fellow is in peril?"
"Yes--in deadly peril."
"From what source? From whose hand?"
"I don't know--I don't know!" she answered, distractedly. "Sometimes I
am wild enough to suspect even Captain Hawksley, unjust and unkind as it
seems."
"Captain Hawksley? Who is he?"
"My late husband's cousin; heir, after my little son, to the title and
estates. He is very poor, deeply in debt, and the inheritance would put
an end to all his difficulties. But he is fond of my son; they seem
almost to worship each other. I, too, am fond of him. But, for all that,
I have to remember that he and he alone would benefit by Cedric's death,
and--and--wicked as it seems--Oh, Mr. Cleek, help me! Direct me!
Sometimes I doubt him. Sometimes I doubt everybody. Sometimes I think of
those other days, that other mystery, that land which reeks of them; and
then--and then--Oh, that horrible Ceylon! I wish I had never set foot in
it in all my life!"
Her agitation and distress were so great as to make her utterances only
half coherent; and Ailsa, realising that this sort of thing must only
perplex Cleek, and leave him in the dark regarding the matter upon which
they had come to consult him, gently interposed.
"Do try to calm yourself and to tell the story as briefly as possible,
dear Lady Chepstow," she advised. Then, taking the initiative, added
quietly, "It begins, Mr. Cleek, at a period when his little lordship,
whose governess I have the honour to be, was but two years old, and at
Trincomalee, where his late father was stationed with his regiment four
years ago. Somebody, for some absurd reason, had set afoot a ridiculous
rumour that the English had received orders from the Throne to stamp out
every religion but their own--in short, if the British were not
exterminated, dreadful desecrations would occur, as they were
determined--"
"To loot all the temples erected to Buddha, destroy the images, and make
a bonfire of all the sacred relics," finished Cleek himself. "I rarely
forget history, Miss Lorne, especially when it is such recent history as
that memorable Buddhist rising at Trincomalee. It began upon an utterly
unfounded, ridiculous rumour; it terminated, if my memory serves me
correctly, in something akin to the very thing it was supposed to avert.
That is to say, during the outburst of fanaticism, that most sacred of
all relics--the holy tooth of Buddha--disappeared mysteriously from the
temple of Dambool, and in spite of the fact that many lacs of rupees
were offered for its recovery, it has never, I believe, been found, or
even traced, to this day, although a huge fortune awaits the restorer,
and, with it, overpowering honours from the native princes. Those must
have been trying times, Lady Chepstow, for the commandant's wife, the
mother of the commandant's only child?"
"Horrible! horrible!" she answered, with a shudder, forgetting for an
instant the dangers of the present in the recollection of the tragical
past. "For a period, our lives were not safe; murder hid behind every
bush, skulked in the shadow of every rock and tree, and we knew not at
what minute the little garrison might be rushed under cover of the
darkness and every soul slaughtered before the relief force could come
to our assistance. I died a hundred deaths in a day in my anxiety for
husband and child. And once the very zealousness of our comrades almost
brought about the horror I feared. Oh!"--with a shudder of horrified
recollection and a covering of the eyes, as if to shut out the memory of
it--"Oh! that night--that horrible night! Unknown to any of us, my baby,
rising from the bed where I had left him sleeping, whilst I went outside
to stand by Lord Chepstow, wandered beyond the line of defence, and,
before anybody realised it, was out in the open, alone and unprotected.
"Ferralt, the cook, saw him first; saw, too, the crouching figure of a
native, armed with a gun, in the shadow of the undergrowth. Without
hesitation the brave fellow rushed out, fell upon the native before he
could dart away, wrenched the gun from him, and brained him with the
butt. A cry of the utmost horror rang out upon the air, and, uttering
it, another native bounded out from a hiding-place close to where the
first had been killed, and flew zigzagging across the open, where Cedric
was. Evidently he had no intention of molesting the little fellow, for
he fled straight on past him, still shrieking after the accident
occurred; but to Ferralt it seemed as if his intention were to murder
the boy, and, clapping the gun to his shoulder, in a panic of
excitement, he fired. If it had been one of the soldiers,
someone--anyone--who understood marksmanship and was not likely to be in
a nervous quake over the circumstances, the thing could not have
happened, although the fugitive was careering along in a direct line
with my precious little one. But, with Ferralt--Oh, Mr. Cleek, can you
imagine my horror when I saw the flash of that shot, heard a shrill cry
of pain, and saw my child drop to the ground?"
"Good heaven!" exclaimed Cleek, agitated in spite of himself. "Then the
blunderer shot the child instead of the native?"
"Yes; and was so horrified by the mishap that, without waiting to learn
the result, he rushed blindly to the brink of a deep ravine, and threw
himself headlong to death. But the injury to Cedric was only a trifling
one after all. The bullet seemed merely to have grazed him in passing,
and, beyond a ragged gash in the fleshy part of the thigh, he was not
harmed at all. That I myself dressed and bandaged, and in a couple of
weeks it was quite healed. But it taught me a lesson, that night of
horror, and I never let my baby out of my sight for one instant from
that time until the rising was entirely quelled.
"As suddenly as it had started, the trouble subsided. Native priests
came under a flag of truce to Lord Chepstow, and confessed their error,
acknowledged that they had never any right to suspect the British of any
design upon their gods, for the loot of the temple had actually taken
place in the midst of the rising, and they knew that it could not have
come from the hands of the soldiers, for they had had them under
surveillance all the time, and not one person of the race had ventured
within a mile of the temple.
"Yet the tooth of Buddha had been taken, the sacred tooth which is more
holy to Buddhists than the statue of Gautama Buddha itself. Their
remorse was very real, and after that, to the day of his death from
fever, eighteen months afterward, they could never show enough honour to
Lord Chepstow. And even then their favour continued. They transferred to
the little son the homage they had done the father, but in a far, far
greater degree. If he had been a king's son they could have shown him no
greater honour. Native princes showered him with rich gifts; if he
walked out, his path was strewn with flowers by bowing maidens; if he
went into the market-place, the people prostrated themselves before him.
"When I questioned Buddhist women of this amazing homage to Cedric, they
gave me a full explanation. My son was sacred, they said. Buddha had
withdrawn his favour from his people because of the evil they had done
in suspecting the father and of the innocent life--Ferralt's--which had
been sacrificed, and they had been commanded of the priests to do homage
to the child and thereby appease the offended god, who, doubtless, had
himself spirited away the holy tooth, and would not restore it until
full recompense was made to the sacred son of the sacred dead.
"When it became known that I had decided to return to England with my
boy, native princes offered me fabulous sums to remain, and when they
found that I could not be tempted to stay, the populace turned out in
every town and village through which we passed on our way to the ship,
and bowing multitudes followed us to the very last. Nor did it cease
with that, for in all the years that have followed, even here in London,
the homage and worship have continued. My son can go nowhere but that he
is followed by Cingalese; can see no man or woman of the race, but he or
she prostrates herself before him and murmurs, 'Holy, most holy!' And
daily, almost hourly, rich gifts are showered upon him from unknown
hands, and he is watched over and guarded constantly. I tell you all
this, Mr. Cleek, that you may the better understand how appalling is the
horror which now assails us, how frightful is the knowledge that someone
now seeks his life, and is using every means to take it."
"In other words, my dear Cleek," put in Narkom, as her ladyship,
overcome with emotion, broke down suddenly, "there appears to be a
sudden and inexplicable change of front on the part of these fanatics,
and they now seem as anxious to bring evil to his little lordship as
they formerly were to protect and cherish him. At any rate, someone of
their order has, upon three separate occasions within the last month,
endeavoured to kidnap him, and, in one instance, even attempted to
murder him."
"Is that a fact?" queried Cleek sharply, glancing over at Miss Lorne.
"You are certain it is not a fancy, but an absolute fact?"
"Yes; oh, yes!" she made answer, agitatedly. "Twice when I have gone
into the Park with him, attempts have been made to separate us, to get
him away from me; and once they did get him away--so swiftly, so
adroitly, that he had vanished before I could turn round. But, although
a bag had been thrown over his head to stifle his cries, he managed to
make a very little one. I plunged screaming into the undergrowth from
which that cry had come, and was just in time to save him. He was lying
on the ground all bundled up in a bag, and his assailant, who must have
heard me coming, had gone as if by magic. His little lordship, however,
was able to tell me that the man was a Cingalese, and that he had 'tried
to cut him with a knife.'"
"Cut him with a knife?" repeated Cleek in a reflective tone, and blew
out a long, low whistle.
"Oh! but that is not the worst, Mr. Cleek," went on Ailsa. "Three days
ago a woman--a very beautiful and distinguished-looking woman--called to
see Lady Chepstow regarding the reference of a former servant, one Jane
Catherboys, who used to be her ladyship's maid. After the caller left, a
box of sugared violets was found lying temptingly open on a table in the
main hall. Little Cedric is passionately fond of sugared violets, and,
had he happened to pass that way before the box was discovered, he
surely would have yielded to the temptation and eaten some. In removing
the box the parlour-maid accidentally upset it, and before she could
gather all the violets up her ladyship's little Pomeranian dog snapped
up one and ate it. It was dead in six minutes' time! The sweets were
simply loaded with prussic acid. When we came to inquire into the matter
in the hope of tracing the mysterious caller, we found that Jane
Catherboys was no longer in need of a position; that she had been
married for eight months; that she knew nothing whatever of the woman,
and had sent no one to inquire into her references."
"All of which shows, my dear Cleek," put in Narkom significantly, "that,
whatever hand is directing these attempts, it belongs to one who knows
more than a mere outsider possibly could: in short, to one who is aware
of his little lordship's excessive fondness for sugared violets, and is
aware that Lady Chepstow once did have a maid named Jane Catherboys."
"If," said Cleek, "you mean to suggest by that that this points
suspiciously in Captain Hawksley's direction, Mr. Narkom, permit me to
say that it does not necessarily follow. The clever people of the
under-world do nothing by halves nor without careful inquiry beforehand;
that is what makes the difference between the common pickpocket and the
brilliant swindler." He turned to Ailsa. "Is that all, Miss Lorne, or am
I right in supposing that there is even worse to come?"
"Oh, much worse--much, Mr. Cleek! The knowledge that these would-be
murderers, whoever they are, whatever may be their mysterious motive,
have grown desperate enough to invade the house itself has driven Lady
Chepstow well-nigh frantic. Of course, orders were immediately given to
the servants that no stranger, no matter how well dressed, how well
seeming, nor what the plea, was, from that moment, to be allowed past
the threshold. We felt secure in that, knowing that no servant of the
household would betray his or her trust, and that all would be on the
constant watch for any further attempt. The unknown enemy must have
found out about these precautions, for no stranger came again to the
door. But last night a thing we had never counted upon happened. In the
dead of the night the unknown broke into the house--into the very
nursery itself--and but that Lady Chepstow, impelled she does not know
by what, only that she was nervous and wakeful, and felt the need of
some companionship, rose and carried the sleeping child into her own
bed, he would assuredly have been murdered. The nurse, awakened by a
horrible suffocating sensation, opened her eyes to find a man bending
over her with a chloroform-soaked cloth, which he was about to lay over
her face. She shrieked and fainted, but not before she saw the man
spring to the little bed on the other side of her own, hack furiously at
it with a long, murderous knife, then dart to the window and vanish. In
the darkness he had not, of course, been able to see that that little
bed was empty, for its position kept it in deep shadow, and hearing the
household stir at the sound of the nurse's shriek, he struck out blindly
and flew to save himself from detection. The nurse states that he was
undoubtedly a foreigner--a dark-skinned Asiatic--and her description of
him tallies with that his little lordship gave of the man who attempted
to kill him that day in the Park. There, Mr. Cleek," she concluded,
"that's the whole story. Can't you do something to help us--something to
lift this constant state of dread and to remove this terrible danger
from little Lord Chepstow's life?"
"I'll try, Miss Lorne; but it is a most extraordinary case. Where is the
boy, now?"
"At home, closely guarded. We appealed to Mr. Narkom, and he generously
appointed two detective officers to sit with his little lordship and
keep constant watch over him whilst we are away."
"And in the meantime," added Mr. Narkom, "I've issued orders for a
general rounding-up of all the Cingalese who can be traced or are known
to be in town. Petrie and Hammond have that part of the job in hand, and
if they hit upon any Asiatic who answers to the description of this
murderous rascal--"
"I don't believe they will," interposed Cleek; "or, if they do, I don't
for a moment believe he will turn out to be the guilty party. In other
words, I have an idea that the fellow will prove to be a European."
"But, my dear fellow, both his little lordship and the nurse saw the
man, and, as you have heard, they both agree that he was dark-skinned
and quite Oriental in appearance."
"One of the easiest possible disguises, Mr. Narkom. A wig, a stick of
grease-paint, a threepenny twist of crepe hair, and there you are! No, I
do not believe that the man is a Cingalese at all; and, far from his
having any connection with what you were pleased to term just now a
change of front on the part of the Buddhists who have so long held the
little chap as something sacred, I don't believe that they know anything
about him. I base that upon the fact that the child is still treated
with homage whenever he goes out, according to what Miss Lorne says, and
that, with the single exception of that one woman who tried to poison
him, nobody but just one man--this particular one man--has ever made any
attempt to harm the boy. Fanatics, like those Cingalese, cleave to an
idea to the end, Mr. Narkom; they don't cast it aside and go off at
another tangent. You have heard what Lady Chepstow says the native women
told her; the boy was sacred; their priests had commanded them to
appease Buddha by doing homage to him until the tooth was found, and the
tooth has not been found up to the present day! That means that nothing
on earth could change their attitude toward him, that not one of the
Buddhist sect would harm a solitary hair of his head for a king's
ransom; so you may eliminate the Cingalese from the case entirely so far
as the attempts upon the child's life are concerned. Whoever is making
the attempts is doing so without their knowledge and for a purely
personal reason."
"Then, in that case, this Captain Hawksley--"
"I'll have a look at that gentleman before I tumble into bed to-night,
and you shall have my views upon that point to-morrow morning, Mr.
Narkom. Frankly, things point rather suspiciously in the captain's
direction, since he is apparently the only person likely to be benefited
by the boy's death, and if a motive cannot be traced to some other
person--" He stopped abruptly and held up his hand. Outside in the dim
halls of the house a sudden noise had sprung into being, the noise of
someone running upstairs in great haste, and, stepping quickly to the
door, Cleek drew it sharply open. As he did so, Dollops came puffing up
out of the lower gloom, a sheep's trotter in one hand, and a letter in
the other.
"Law, Gov'nor!" groaned he, from midway on the staircase, "I don't
believe as I'm ever goin' to be let get a square tuck-in this side of
the buryin' ground! Jist finished wot was left of that there steak and
kidney puddin', sir, and started on my seckint trotter, when I sees a
pair o' legs nip parst the area railin's to the front door, and then nip
off again like greased lightnin', and when I ups and does a flyin' leap
up the kitchen stairs, there was this here envellup in the letter-box,
and them there blessed legs nowheres in sight. I say, sir," agitatedly,
"look wot's wrote on the envellup, will yer? And us always keepin' of it
so dark."
Cleek plucked the letter from his extended hand, glanced at it, and
puckered up his lips; then, with a gesture, he sent Dollops back below
stairs, and, returning to the room, closed the door behind him.
"The enemy evidently knows all Lady Chepstow's movements, Mr. Narkom,"
he said. "I expect she and Miss Lorne have been under surveillance all
day and have been followed here. Look at that!" He flung the letter down
on a table as he spoke, and Narkom, glancing at it, saw printed in rude,
illiterate letters upon the envelope the one word "Cleek." The identity
of "Captain Burbage" was known to someone, and the secret of the house
in Clarges Street was a secret no longer!
"Purposely disguised, you see. No one, not even a little child, would
make such a botch of copying the alphabet as that," Cleek said, as he
took the letter up and opened it. The sheet it contained was lettered in
the same uncouth manner, and bore these words:
"Cleek, take a fool's advice and don't accept the Chepstow case. Be
warned. If you interfere, somebody you care about will pay the price.
You'll find it more satisfactory to buy a wedding bouquet than a funeral
wreath!"
"Oh!" shuddered the two ladies in one breath. "How horrible! How
cowardly!" And then, feeling that her last hope had gone, Lady Chepstow
broke into a fit of violent weeping and laid her head on Ailsa's
shoulder.
"Oh, my baby! My darling baby boy!" she sobbed. "And now they are
threatening somebody that you, too, love. Of course, Mr. Cleek, I can't
expect you to risk the sacrifice of your own dear ones for the sake of
me and mine, and so--and so--Oh, take me away, Miss Lorne! Let me go
back to my baby and have him while I may."
"Good-night, Mr. Cleek!" said Ailsa, stretching out a shaking hand to
him. "Thank you so much for--for what you would have done but for this.
And you were our last hope, too!"
"Why give it up then, Miss Lorne?" he said, holding her hand and looking
into her eyes. "Why not go on letting me be your last hope--your only
hope?"
"Yes, but they--they spoke of a funeral wreath."
"And they also spoke of a wedding bouquet! I am going to take the case,
Miss Lorne--take it, and solve it, as I'm a living man. Thank you!" as
her brimming eyes uplifted in deep thankfulness and her shaking hand
returned the pressure of his. "Now, just give me five minutes' time in
the next room--it's my laboratory, Lady Chepstow--and I'll tell you
whether I shall begin with Captain Hawksley or eliminate him from the
case entirely. You might go in ahead, Mr. Narkom, and get the acid bath
and the powder ready for me. We'll see what the finger-prints of our
gentle correspondent have to tell, and, if they are not in the records
of Scotland Yard or down in my own private little book, we'll get a
sample of Captain Hawksley's in the morning."
Then, excusing himself to the ladies, he passed into the inner room in
company with Narkom, and carried the letter with him. When he returned
it was still in his hand, but there were greyish smudges all over it.
"There's not a finger-print in the lot that is worth anything as a means
of identification, Miss Lorne," he said. "But you and Lady Chepstow may
accept my assurance that Captain Hawksley is not the man. The writer of
this letter belongs to the criminal classes; he is on his guard against
the danger of finger-prints, and he wore rubber gloves when he penned
this message. When I find him, rest assured I shall find a man who has
had dealings with the police before and whose finger-prints are on their
records. I don't know what his game is nor what he's after yet, but I
will inside of a week. I've an idea; but it's so wild a thing I'm almost
afraid to trust myself to believe it possible until I stumble over
something that points the same way. Now, go home with Lady Chepstow, and
begin the work of helping me."
"Helping you? Oh, Mr. Cleek, can we? Is there anything we can do to
help?"
"Yes. When you leave the house, act as though you are in the utmost
state of dejection--and keep that up indefinitely. Make it appear, for I
am certain you will be followed and spied upon, as if I had declined the
case. But don't have any fear about the boy. The two constables will
sleep in the room with him to-night and every night until the thing is
cleared up and the danger past. To-morrow about dusk, however, you,
personally, take him for a walk near the Park, and if, among the other
Cingalese you may meet, you should see one dressed as an Englishman, and
wearing a scarlet flower in his buttonhole, take no notice of how often
you see him nor of what he may do."
"It will be you, Mr. Cleek?"
"Yes. Now go, please; and don't forget to act as if you and her ladyship
were utterly broken-hearted. Also"--his voice dropped lower, his hand
met her hand, and in the darkness of the hall a little silver-plated
revolver was slipped into her palm--"also, take this. Keep it always
with you, never be without it night or day, and if any living creature
offers you violence, shoot him down as you would a mad dog. Good-night,
and--remember!"
And long after she and Lady Chepstow had gone down and passed out into
the night he stood there, looking the situation straight in the face and
thinking his own troubled thoughts.
"A wedding bouquet! A threat against her, and the mention of a wedding
bouquet!" he said, as he went back into the room and sat down to figure
the puzzle out. "Only one creature in the world knows of my feelings in
that direction, and only one creature in the world would be capable of
that threat--Margot! But what interest could she or any of her tribe
have in the death of Lady Chepstow's little son? Her game is always
money. If she were after a ransom she would try to abduct the child, not
to kill him, and if"--A sudden thought came and wrenched away his voice.
He sat a moment twisting his fingers one through the other and frowning
at the floor; then, of a sudden, he gave a cry and jumped to his feet.
"Five lacs of rupees--a fortune! By George, I've got it!" he fairly
shouted. "The wild guess was a correct one, I'll stake my life. Let's
put it to the test."