"There, Mr. Cleek," resumed the Captain, after he could master his
emotion. "That is the case--that is the riddle I am praying to Heaven
that you may be able to solve. What the mysterious power is, when,
where, or how it got into the room and got at the boy, God alone knows.
Mr. Harmstead will swear that he never let the little fellow out of his
arms for one solitary instant between the time of our leaving him just
after midnight, and Miss Comstock's coming in in the morning. He admits,
however, that twice during that period he fell asleep, but it was only
for a few minutes each time; and long years of being constantly alert
for possible marauders--out there in the wilds of Australia--have tended
to make his sleep so light that anything heavier than a cat's footfall
wakes him on the instant. Yet last night something--man or spirit--came
and went, and he neither heard nor saw either sound or shape from
midnight until morning. One thing I must tell you, however, which may
throw some light upon the movements of the appalling thing. Whereas Mr.
Harmstead not only closed, but locked, both of the two windows in the
room, and pinned the thick plushette curtains of them together--as Miss
Comstock and I saw them pinned when we left the room last night--when
those curtains came to be drawn this morning one of the windows was
found to be partly open, and there was a smear of something that looked
like grease across the sill and the stone coping beyond."
"Of course, of course!" commented Cleek enigmatically. "Provided my
theory is correct, I should have expected that. A thing that comes and
goes through windows must, at some period, leave some mark of its
passage. Of course that particular window opened upon a balcony or
something of that sort, didn't it?"
"No, it is a perfectly unbroken descent from the window sill to the
ground. But there's a big tree close by, and the branches of that brush
the pane of glass."
"Ah! I see! I see! All the soap dishes in the house left filled last
night and found filled this morning, captain?"
"Good heavens! I don't know. What on earth can soap dishes have to do
with it, man?"
"Possibly nothing, probably a great deal--particularly if there's found
to be a cake of soap in each. But that we can discover later. Now one
word more. Was that same minute swelling--the mark like a gnat's
bite--on the neck of the boy's body, too? And had it been on that of the
mother's as well?"
"I can't answer either question, Mr. Cleek. I don't remember to have
heard about it being remarked in the case of Mrs. Comstock's death; and
the murder of little Paul was such a horrible thing and so upset
everybody that none of us thought to look."
"An error of judgment that; however, it is one easily rectified, since
the body is not yet interred," said Cleek. "Ever read Harvey's
'Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Sanguinis,' Captain?--the volume in which
William Harvey first gave to the world at large his discovery regarding
the circulation of the blood."
"Good heavens, no! What would I be doing reading matters of that kind?
I'm not a medico, Mr. Cleek--I'm a soldier."
"I know. But, still--well, I thought it just possible that you might
have read the work, or, at least, heard something regarding the contents
of the volume. Men who have a hobby are rather given to riding it and
boring other people with discussions and dissertations upon it; and I
seem to think that I have heard it said that Sir Gilbert Morford's
greatest desire in the time of his youth was to become a medical man. In
fact, that he put in two or three years as a student at St.
Bartholomew's, and would have qualified, but that the sudden death of
his father compelled him to abandon the hope and to assume the
responsibilities of the head of the house of Morford & Morford, tea
importers, of Mincing Lane."
"Yes; that's quite correct. He bitterly resented the compulsion--the
'pitchforking of a man out of a profession into the abomination of
trade,' as he always expresses it--but of course, he was obliged to
yield, and the 'dream of his life' dropped off into nothing but a dream.
But the old love and the old recollection still linger, and, although he
no longer personally follows either trade or profession, he keeps up his
laboratory work, subscribes to every medical journal in Christendom, and
if you want to tickle his vanity or to get on the right side of him all
you have to do is to address him as 'doctor.' With all due respect to
him, he's a bit of a prig, Mr. Cleek, and hates people of no
position--'people of the lower order,' as he always terms them--as the
gentleman down under is said to hate holy water."
"So that he, naturally, would move heaven and earth to prevent his
grandson and heir from marrying a young woman of that class? I see!"
supplemented Cleek. "The dear gentleman would like the name of Morford
to go down to posterity linked to duchesses or earls' daughters, and
surrounded by a blaze of glory. Ah, it's a queer world, Captain. There
is no bitterer hater of the 'common herd' than the snob who has climbed
up from it! The snob and the sneak are closely allied, Captain, and men
of that stamp have been known to do some pretty ugly things to uphold
their pinchbeck dignity, and to keep the tinsel of the present over the
cheap gingerbread of the past."
"Good God, man! You don't surely mean to suggest--"
"Gently, gently, Captain. Your indignation does you credit; but it is
never well to have a shot at a rabbit before he's fairly out of the
hole, and you are sure that it isn't the ferret you sent in after him.
Anything in the way of a conveyance handy, Mr. Narkom?"
"Yes--the limousine. I came down in it yesterday. It's over at the Rose
and Crown."
"Good! Then perhaps Captain Morford will meet us there in a half hour's
time. Meanwhile, I've got a few things to throw into my kit-bag, and as
that's over at the Three Desires, perhaps you won't mind coming along
and giving me a hand. Then we'll run over to that house at Dalehampton
and have a look at the body of that poor little shaver as expeditiously
as possible. Will you come?"
"Yes, certainly," said Narkom; and having given a few necessary
directions to the Captain walked on and followed Cleek. He knew very
well the suggestion that he should do so was merely an excuse to have a
few words with him in private--for no man would be likely to need
another man's assistance in simply putting a few things into a bag--and
he was rather puzzled to account for Cleek's desire to say anything to
him which the Captain was not to hear. However, he kept his curiosity in
check and his tongue behind his teeth until they were on the other side
of the lich-gate and in the road leading to the Three Desires.
"There's something you want to say to me, isn't there?" he inquired.
"Something you want attended to on the quiet?"
"Yes," admitted Cleek, tersely. "There's a public telephone station a
mile or two on the other side of this place--I saw it this morning when
I was out tramping. Slip off down there, ring up the head of the
Dalehampton Constabulary, and tell him to have a man at the house ready
to pop up when wanted. I'll be long enough over my supposed 'packing' to
cover the time of your going and returning without the Captain's
knowledge."
"Without--Good Heaven! My dear Cleek, you were serious, then? You meant
it? You--you really believe that suspicion points to Sir Gilbert
Morford?"
"Not any more than it points to Sir Gilbert Morford's grandson, Mr.
Narkom."
"Good Lord! To him? To that boy? Why, man alive, what possible motive
could he have for bringing grief and anguish to Miss Comstock when he's
willing to give up a fortune to marry her?"
"Ah, but don't forget that another fortune descends to all the heirs,
male and female alike, of the late Mrs. Comstock, Mr. Narkom, and that
if the Captain's fiancée becomes, in course of time, the only surviving
child of that unfortunate lady, the Captain's sacrifice will not be such
an overpowering hardship for him, after all."
"Great Scott! I never thought of that before, Cleek--never."
"Didn't you? Well, don't think too much of it now that you have. For
circumstantial evidence is tricky and treacherous, and he mayn't be the
man, after all!"
"Mayn't be? What a beggar you are for damping a man's ardour after
you've fanned it up to the blazing point. Any light in the darkness, old
chap? Any idea of what--and how?"
"Yes," said Cleek, quietly. "If there's a mark on that poor little
shaver's neck, Mr. Narkom, I shall know the means. And if there's soap
on the window sill I shall know the man!" And then, having reached the
doorway of the inn, he dived into it and went up the staircase two steps
at a time.