The little house of Dalehampton was something more than a mere house of
grief, they found, when the long drive came to an end and Cleek and his
two companions entered it, for the very spirit of desolation and despair
seemed to have taken up its abode there; and, like an Incarnate Woe,
Miss Comstock paced through the hush and darkness, hour in and hour out,
as she had been doing since daybreak.
"My darling, you mustn't--you really mustn't, dear. You'll lose your
mind if you brood over the thing like this," said the Captain, flying to
her the very instant they arrived; and, disregarding the presence of his
two companions, caught her in his arms and kissed her. "Miriam, dearest,
don't! It breaks my heart. I know it's awful; but do try to have
strength and hope. I am sure we shall get at the bottom of the thing
now--sure that there will be no more--that this is truly the end. These
gentlemen are from Scotland Yard, dearest, and they say it surely will
be."
"Heaven knows I hope so," replied Miss Comstock, acknowledging the
introduction to Cleek and Narkom by a gentle inclination of the head.
"But indeed, I can't hope, Jim--indeed, I cannot, gentlemen. The tenth
of next month will take its toll as the tenth of this one has done. I
feel persuaded that it will. For who can fight a thing unseen and
unknown?"
Her grief was so great, her despair so hopeless, that Cleek forbore
attempting to assuage either by any words of sympathy or promise. He
seemed to feel that hers was an anguish upon which even the kindliest
words must fall only as an intrusion, and the heart of the man--that
curiously created heart, which at times could be savage even to the
point of brutality, and again tender and sympathetic as any
woman's--went out to her in one great surge of human feeling. And two
minutes later--when all the Law's grim business of inquiry and inquest
had been carried out by Narkom, and she, in obedience to his expressed
desire, led them to the room where the dead boy lay--that wave of
sympathetic feeling broke over his soul again. For the gentle opening of
the door had shown him a small, dimly lit room, a kneeling figure, bent
of back and bowed of head, that leant over a little white bed in a very
agony of tearless woe.
"He can hardly tear himself away for an instant--he loved him so!" she
said in a quavering whisper to Cleek. "Must we disturb him? It seems
almost cruel."
"I know it," he whispered back; "but the place must be searched in quest
of possible clues, Miss Comstock. The--the little boy, too, must be
examined, and it would be crueller still if he were to stay and see
things like that. Lead him out if you can. It will be for a few minutes
only. Tell him so--tell him he can come back then." And turned his face
away from that woeful picture as she went over and spoke to the
sorrowing old man.
"Uncle!" she said softly. "Uncle Phil! You must come away for a little
time, dear. It is necessary."
"Oh, I can't, Mirry--I can't, lovie, dear!" he answered without lifting
his head or loosening his folded hands. "My bonnie, my bonnie, that I
loved so well! Ah, let me have him while I may, Mirry--they'll take him
from me soon enough--soon enough, my bonnie boy!"
"But, dearest, you must. The--the Law has stepped in. Gentlemen from
Scotland Yard are here. Jim has brought them. They must have the room
for a little time. There--there's the window to be examined, you know;
and if they can find out anything--"
"I'll give them the half of all I have in the world!" broke in the old
man with a little burst of tears. "Tell them that. The half of
everything--everything--if they can get at the creature. If they can
find out. But"--collapsing suddenly, with his elbows on his knees and
his face between his hands--"they can't, they can't; nobody can! It
kills and kills and kills; and God help us! we all shall go the same
way! It will be my turn, too, some time soon. I wish it were mine now. I
wish it had been mine long ago--before I lost my bonnie own!"
"Takes it hard, poor old chap, doesn't he?" whispered Narkom, glancing
round and getting something of a shock when he saw that Cleek, who a
moment before had appeared to be almost on the verge of tears, was now
fumbling in his coat pockets, and, with indrawn lips and knotted brows,
was scowling--absolutely scowling--in the direction where Captain
Morford stood, biting his lips and drumming with his finger nails upon
the edge of the washstand. But Cleek made no reply. Instead, he walked
quickly across to the Captain's side, stretched forth his hand, took up
a tablet of soap, turned it over, laid it down again, stepped to the
window, stepped back, and laid a firm hand on the young man's shoulder.
"Captain," he said suddenly, in sharp, crisp tones, that sounded
painfully harsh after the old man's broken cries, "Captain, there's a
little game of cards called 'Bluff,' and it's an excellent amusement if
you don't get caught at it. We shan't have to go any further with the
search for clues in this case; but I think I shall have to ask you, my
friend, a few little questions in private, and in the interests of a
gentleman called Jack Ketch!"
This unexpected outburst produced something like a panic. Miss Comstock,
hearing the words, cried out, put both hands to her temples, as though
her head were reeling; old Mr. Harmstead straightened suddenly and flung
a look of blank amazement across the room; and the Captain, twitching
away from the man who gripped him, went first deathly white and then red
as any beet.
"Good God!" he gulped. "You--I--Look here, I say now, what does this
mean? What the dickens are you talking about?"
"Bluff, Captain! Simply 'bluff'!" responded Cleek serenely. "And as I
said before, it's a clever little game. Stand where you are--keep an eye
on him, Mr. Narkom. What I've got to say to you, my friend, we'll talk
about in private, and after I have assisted Miss Comstock to lead her
uncle out of the room."
With that he swung away from the Captain's side and went over to that of
the old man.
"Come, Mr. Harmstead, let me help you to rise," he began; then stopped
as the old man put up a knotted and twisted hand in supplication and
protested agitatedly: "But--but, sir, I do not want to go. Good Heaven!
What can you be hinting against that poor, dear boy? Surely you do not
mean--you cannot mean--"
"That the little game of 'Bluff' has worked, Dr. Finch, and you'll never
draw a revolver on me," rapped in Cleek, giving him a backward push that
carried him to the floor, and in the twinkling of an eye he had pounced
upon him like a cat and was saying, as he snapped the handcuffs upon his
wrists: "Got you, you brute-beast; got you tight and fast! Do you
remember Hamilton, the medical student, in New Zealand, eight years ago?
Do you? Well, that's the man you're dealing with now!"
The man, struggling and kicking, biting and clawing like any other
cornered wild cat, flung out a cry of utter despair at this, and
collapsed suddenly; and in the winking of an eye Cleek's hands had
flashed into the two pockets of the dressing-gown the fellow was
wearing, and flashed out again with a revolver in one and a shining
nickel thing in the other.
"Got your 'bark,' doctor, and got your 'bite' as well!" he said, as he
rose to his feet. "You'd have put a bullet through me at the first word,
wouldn't you, but for that little 'bluff' of suspecting and arresting
another man? Captain, look to Miss Comstock--I think she has fainted.
You wanted the murderer of Mrs. Comstock and her children, didn't you?
Well, here he is, the rascal!"
"Good God! Then it--it's not a mistake? You mean it--mean it? And Uncle
Phil! You accuse Uncle Phil?"
"Uncle Nothing!" flung back Cleek with a sort of laugh--and, hazarding a
guess which afterwards was proved to be the truth--"I'll lay my life,
Captain, that when you apply to the Australian authorities you will find
that old Mr. Philip Harmstead is in his grave; that he was attended in
his last illness by one Dr. Frederick Finch, to whom his fortune would
revert in the event of Mrs. Comstock and her children dying. Finch is
the fellow's name--isn't it, doctor, eh?"
"Finch?" repeated the Captain. "Good Heaven! Why that was the name of
the woman who was old Mr. Harmstead's housekeeper--you know, the widow I
told you about to-night."
"Oho!" said Cleek. "That's possibly where the threads join and this
little game begins. Or perhaps it may really be said to begin again
where Shorty, the chemist, died, and the celebrated Spofford mystery
ended--eh, doctor? Look here, Captain, look here, Mr. Narkom, you
remember what I told you this morning about that case in New Zealand
which so strongly resembled this one? That was the Spofford mystery. Do
you remember what I said about hitting upon a theory and offering it to
the medical fraternity, only to get laughed at for my pains? Well, it
was to this man, Dr. Frederick Finch, I advanced that theory, and it was
Dr. Frederick Finch who jeered at it, but has now made deadly use of it,
the hound. Do you want to know how he killed his victims, and what he
used? Look at this thing that you saw me take from the pocket of his
dressing-gown. It is a hypodermic syringe, but there is nothing in
it--there never has been anything in it. Air was his poison--air his
shaft of death; and he killed by injecting it into the veins of his
victims. The result of air coming into contact with the circulating
blood of a human being is the formation of a blood-clot, and death is
instantaneous the instant the clot reaches either the brain or the
heart! That was his method. But thank God it's done with for ever now,
and the next tenth day of the month will pass over this stricken family
and leave it unscathed!"
* * * * *
"How did I know the man?" said Cleek, answering Narkom's query, as they
came down the Tor-side afoot and forged on in the direction of
Lyntonhurst Old Church--whither Captain Morford and the limousine had
long ago preceded them--with the low-dropped sun behind them and
lengthening shadows streaming on before. "Well, as a matter of fact, I
never did know him until I actually touched him. I was certain of the
method, of course; but the man--no. I got my first suspicion of 'Uncle
Phil' when I heard him speak. I knew I had heard that voice somewhere,
and I realised that it was much too young a voice for a man who
appeared--and must be, if he were the real 'Uncle Phil'--extremely old;
but it was only when I saw his hand, and the peculiar knotted and
twisted little finger that I really knew who he was. What's that? The
soap? Well, of course I knew that if, as I suspected, someone in the
house was the real culprit, an attempt would be made to make it look as
though the criminal entered from without, so naturally the window would
be opened, and something of some sort would be smeared on the
sill--something that wouldn't blow away and wouldn't wash off in the
event of a sudden rainstorm coming up. Soap would do--and soap is always
handy in a bedroom. I knew whose hand had made the smear as soon as I
looked at the cake of soap in 'Uncle Phil's' room--it was badly rubbed
on one side where it had been scraped over the stone coping and along
the outer edge of the sill where--Pardon me: this is the turning--I
leave you here. Pick me up at the inn of the Three Desires in an hour's
time, please, and we'll motor back to town together. So long!"
And swung round into the branching lane and down the green slope, and
round under the shadow of Lyntonhurst Old Church to the quiet country
road and the lich-gate where Ailsa Lorne was waiting.