Within half a minute a crowd had gathered around the cab.
The instant the cabman raised the alarm the constable was joined by the
burly door-opener of the Criterion in gaoler-like uniform and the
round-faced fireman, who, lounging together outside, were ever on the
look-out for some diversion. But when the constable agreed with the
cab-driver that the lady was dead, their ready chaff died from their
lips.
"What do you know of her?" asked the officer of the cab-driver.
"Nothing, beyond the fact that I drove 'er from Charin' Cross with a
gentleman. She's a foreigner, but he was English."
"Where is he?" demanded the constable anxiously, at that moment being
joined by two colleagues, to whom the fireman in a few breathless words
explained the affair.
"He went into the bar there 'arf an hour ago, but he ain't come out."
"Quick. Come with me, and let's find him," the officer said.
Leaving the other policemen in charge of the cab, they entered, and
walked down, the long, garish bar, scrutinising each of the hundred or
so men lounging there. The cabman, however, saw nothing of his fare.
"He must have escaped by the back way," observed the officer
disappointedly. "It's a strange business, this."
"Extremely," said the cab-driver. "The fellow must have murdered her,
and then entered the place in order to get away. He's a pretty cute
'un."
"It seems a clear case of murder," exclaimed the other in a sharp,
precise, business-like tone. "We'll take her to the hospital first;
then you must come with me to Vine Street at once."
When they emerged, they found that the crowd had already assumed
enormous proportions. The news that a woman had been murdered spread
instantly throughout the whole neighbourhood, and the surging crowd of
idlers, all curiosity, pressed around the vehicle to obtain a glimpse of
the dead woman's face. Amid the crowd, elbowing his way fiercely and
determinedly, was a man whose presence there was a somewhat curious
coincidence, having regard to what had previously transpired that
evening. He wore a silk hat, his frock-coat was tightly buttoned and he
carried in his gloved hand a silver-mounted cane. After considerable
difficulty, he obtained a footing in front of the crowd immediately
behind the cordon the police had formed around the vehicle, and in a few
moments, by craning his neck forward, obtained nil uninterrupted view of
the lady's face.
His teeth were firmly set, but his calm countenance betrayed no sign of
astonishment. For an instant he regarded the woman with a cold,
impassive look, then quickly he turned away, glancing furtively right
and left, and an instant later was lost in the surging, struggling
multitude which a body of police were striving in vain to "move on."
The man who had thus gazed into the dead woman's face was the man to
whom she had been introduced at the station. Major Gordon Maitland.
Almost at the same moment when the Major turned away, the constable
sprang into the cab beside the woman, and the driver, at once mounting
the box, drove rapidly to Charing Cross Hospital.
To the small, bare, whitewashed room to the left of the entrance hall,
where casualties are received, the dark-haired girl was carried, and
laid tenderly upon the father-covered divan.
The dresser, who attended to minor accidents, gave a quick glance at the
face of the new patient, and at once sent for the house-surgeon. He saw
it was a grave case.
Very soon the doctor, a thin, elderly man, entered briskly, asked a
couple of questions of the constable outside in the corridor, unloosened
her dress, cut the cord of her corsets, laid his hands upon her heart,
felt her pulse, slowly moved her eyelids, and then shook his head.
"Dead!" he exclaimed. "She must have died nearly an hour ago."
Then he forced open her mouth, and turning the hissing gas-jet to obtain
a full light, gazed into it.
His grey, shaggy eyebrows contracted, and the dresser standing by knew
that his chief had detected something which puzzled him. He felt the
glands in her neck carefully, and pushing back the hair that had fallen
over her brow, reopened her fast-glazing eyes, and peered into them long
and earnestly.
He carefully examined the palm of her right hand, which was ungloved,
then tried to remove the glove from the left, but in vain. He was
obliged to rip it up with a pair of scissors. Afterwards he examined
the hand minutely, giving vent to a grunt of dissatisfaction.
"Is it murder, do you think, sir?" the constable inquired as the doctor
emerged again.
"There are no outward signs of violence," answered the house-surgeon.
"You had better take the body to the mortuary, and tell your inspector
that I'll make the post-mortem to-morrow morning."
"Very well, sir."
"But you said that the lady was accompanied from Charing Cross Station
by a gentleman, who rode in the cab with her," the doctor continued.
"Where is he?"
"He alighted, entered the Criterion, and didn't come back," explained
the cabman.
"Suspicious of foul play--very suspicious," the doctor observed.
"To-morrow we shall know the truth. She's evidently a lady, and, by her
dress, a foreigner."
"She arrived by the Paris mail to-night," the cabman observed.
"Well, it must be left to the police to unravel whatever mystery
surrounds her. It is only for us to ascertain the cause of her death--
whether natural, or by foul means;" and he went back to where the dead
woman was lying still and cold, her dress disarranged, her dark hair
fallen dishevelled, her sightless eyes closed in the sleep that knows no
awakening until the Great Day.
The cabman stood with his hat in his hand; the constable had hung his
helmet on his forearm by its strap.
"Then, outwardly, there are no signs of murder?" the latter asked,
disappointed perhaps that the case was not likely to prove so
sensational as it had at first appeared.
"Tell your inspector that at present I can give no opinion," the surgeon
replied. "Certain appearances are mysterious. To-night I can say
nothing more. At the inquest I shall be able to speak more
confidently."
As he spoke, his cold, grey eyes were still fixed upon the lifeless
form, as if held by some strange fascination. Approaching the cupboard,
he took from a case a small lancet, and raising the dead woman's arm,
made a slight incision in the wrist. For a few moments he watched it
intently, bending and holding her wrist full in the glaring gaslight
within two inches of his eyes.
Suddenly he let the limp, inert arm drop, and with a sigh turned again
to the two men who stood motionless, watching, and said: "Go. Take the
body to the mortuary. I'll examine her to-morrow;" and he rang for the
attendants, who came, lifted the body from the couch, and conveyed it
out, to admit a man who lay outside groaning, with his leg crushed.
Half an hour later the cab-driver and the constable stood in the small
upper room at Vine Street Police Station, the office of the Inspector of
the Criminal Investigation Department attached to that station.
Inspector Elmes, a dark-bearded, stalwart man of forty-five, sat at a
table, while behind him, arranged over the mantel-shelf, were many
photographs of criminals, missing persons, and people who had been found
dead in various parts of the metropolis, and whose friends had not been
traced. Pinned against the grey-painted walls were several printed
notices offering rewards, some with portraits of absconding persons,
others with crude woodcuts of stolen jewels. It was a bare, carpetless
loom, but eminently businesslike.
"Well," the inspector was saying to the constable as he leant back in
his chair, "there's some mystery about the affair, you think--eh? Are
there any signs of murder?"
"No, sir," the man answered. "At present the doctor has discovered
nothing."
"Then, until he has, our Department can't deal with it," replied the
detective. "Why has your Inspector sent you up here?"
"Because it's so mysterious, I suppose, sir."
"She may have had a fit--most probable, I should think. Until the
doctor has certified, I don't see any necessity to stir. It's more than
possible that when the man who left her at the Criterion reads of her
death in the papers, he'll come forward, identify her, and clear
himself." Then, turning to the cabman, he asked, "What sort of a man
was he--an Englishman?"
"Well, I really don't know, sir. He spoke to the dead girl in her own
language, yet I thought, when he spoke to his friend at the station,
that his English was that of a foreigner. Besides, he looked like a
Frenchman, for he wore a large bow for a tie, which no Englishman
wears."
"You think him a foreigner because of his tie--eh?" the detective
observed, smiling. "Now, if you had noticed his boots with a critical
eye, you might perhaps have accurately determined his nationality. Look
at a man's boots next time."
Then, taking up his pen, he drew a piece of pale yellow official paper
before him, noted the number of the cabman's badge, inquired his name
and address, and asked several questions, afterwards dismissing both men
with the observation that until a verdict had been given in the
Coroner's Court, he saw no reason to institute further inquiries.
Two days later the inquest was held in a small room at St Martin's Town
Hall, the handsome building overlooking Trafalgar Square, and, as may be
imagined, was largely attended by representatives of the Press. All the
sensationalism of London evening journalism had, during the two days
intervening, been let loose upon the mysterious affair, and the
remarkable "latest details" had been "worked up" into an amazing, but
utterly fictitious story. One paper, in its excess of zeal to
outdistance all its rivals in sensationalism, had hinted that the dead
woman was actually the daughter of an Imperial House, and this had
aroused public curiosity to fever-heat.
When the usual formalities of constituting the Court had been completed,
the jury had viewed the body, and the cabman had related his strange
story, the Coroner, himself a medical man, dark-bearded and middle-aged,
commenced a close cross-examination.
"Was it French or Italian the lady spoke?" he asked.
"I don't know the difference, sir," the cabman admitted. "The man with
her spoke just as quickly as she did."
"Was there anything curious in the demeanour of either of them?"
"I noticed nothing strange. The gentleman told me to drive along Pall
Mall and the Haymarket, or of course I'd 'ave taken the proper route, up
Charin' Cross Road and Leicester Square."
"You would recognise this gentleman again, I suppose?" the Coroner
asked.
"I'd know him among a thousand," the man promptly replied.
Inspector Elmes, who was present on behalf of the Criminal Investigation
Department, asked several questions through the Coroner, when the latter
afterwards resumed his cross-examination.
"You have told us," he said, "that just before entering the cab the
gentleman was accosted by a friend. Did you overhear any of their
conversation?"
"I heard the missing man address the other as `Major,'" the cabman
replied. "He introduced the Major to the lady, but I was unable to
catch either of their names. The two men seemed very glad to meet, but,
on the other hand, my gentleman seemed in a great hurry to get away."
"You are certain that this man you know as the Major did not arrive by
the same train, eh?" asked the Coroner, glancing sharply up from the
paper whereon he was writing the depositions of this important witness.
"I am certain; for I noticed him lounging up and down the platform fully
'arf an hour before the train came in."
"Then you think he must have been awaiting his friend?"
"No doubt he was, sir, for as soon as I drove the lady and gentleman
away, he, too, started to walk out of the station."
Then the Coroner, having written a few more words upon the foolscap
before him, turned to the jury, exclaiming--"This last statement of the
witness, gentlemen, seems, to say the least, curious."
In an instant all present were on tip-toe with excitement, wondering
what startling facts were likely to be revealed.