began; but got no further, for Cleek's upthrown hand checked him.
"We won't go into that, Mr. Narkom," he said. "We'll stick to the case,
please. I've got something to tell you that you haven't heard as yet.
Something that that poor dead chap did manage to tell me. A woman--a
lady--was out there on the Common to-night and paid him not to disclose
the fact."
"Great Scott! My dear fellow, you don't surely mean to hint that by any
possibility that poor child, Lady Katharine Fordham----"
"No, I do not. The lady in question was neither Lady Katharine Fordham,
who, you tell me, wore a white satin dress to-night, nor yet Miss Ailsa
Lorne, whose frock you say was of gauzy pink. The lady in question wore,
I understand, a gown of very pale green satin with what I take to have
been several diamond ornaments upon the corsage; furthermore, a delicate
but very distinct odour of violets clung about her."
"Good Lord!"
"No wonder you are surprised, Mr. Narkom. Ladies dressed in that fashion
are not, as a general thing, given to wandering about Wimbledon Common
either by night or by day, and the presence of this particular one is
curious, to say the least of it. I am of the opinion, however, that she
was no stranger to the Common keeper, otherwise he would have hurried
her into the shelter the instant she offered to bribe him, whistled up
the constable in Mulberry Lane, and given her in charge as a suspicious
character. Then there is another side to the affair which we must not
overlook. An entertainment was in progress at Clavering Close to-night,
and there must have been quite a number of ladies present dressed in
gala attire. But if your exclamation means that you have no
recollection of seeing one who wore a gown of pale green satin----"
"It doesn't!" rapped in Narkom excitedly. "It was the absurdity, the
madness, the--the utter impossibility of the thing. That she--she of all
women----! What rot!"
"Oho!" said Cleek, with a strong, rising inflection. "Then there _was_
such a gown in the rooms at Clavering Close to-night, eh? And you do
remember the lady that wore it?"
"Remember her? There's nobody I should be likely to remember better. It
was Lady Clavering herself!"
"Whew-w! The hostess?"
"Yes. Sir Philip's wife--young Geoff's stepmother; one of the sweetest,
gentlest, most womanly women that ever lived. And to suggest that she
... either the fellow must have deliberately lied or his statement was
the delusion of a dying man. It couldn't have happened--it simply
couldn't, Cleek. Why, man, her ladyship was there--at the Close--when I
left. It was she who put that jewel into my hand and asked me to leave
it at Wuthering Grange when----"
He stopped, biting his words off short and laying a nervous grip on
Cleek's arm; and Cleek, facing about abruptly, leaned forward into the
mist and darkness, listening.
For of a sudden, a babble of angry voices, mingled with the sounds of a
scuffle, had risen from the road beyond the gates, and hard on the
heels of it there now rang forth sharply the shrill tones of Dollops
crying out at the top of his voice:
"None o' yer larks, now! Got yer! Gov'ner! Mr. Narkom! This way! Come
quick, will yer? I've copped the bounder. Out here in the bushes under
this blessed wall!"
CHAPTER SIX
A LITTLE DISCREPANCY
The distance between the gates of Gleer Cottage and the porch wherein
lay the body of the dead keeper was by no means a short one, but at the
first sound of Dollops's voice the two men sped down the centre of the
dark, mist-wrapped drive and out into the lane, their electric pocket
torches sending two brilliant streams of light in front of them. The
sounds of scuffling feet and of wrangling voices guided them along the
broken, irregular line of the crumbling brick wall which encircled the
grounds of the cottage, and following the lead of them, they came
presently upon an amazing picture.
Close to that identical spot where, earlier in the night, Hammond had
found the gap in the wall, two figures struggled together: the one, in a
vain endeavour to free himself from the clutches of his captor; the
other intent on bringing him to the ground, on which lay scattered all
the drawings and paraphernalia with which Dollops had evidently been
carrying out his master's instructions. The light of the torches
revealed his prisoner to be a sturdy, fair-haired young man, and a first
glance showed Cleek that he was arrayed in a fashionable light-weight
overcoat which, torn open in the struggle, showed him also to be in
immaculate evening dress. It hardly needed Mr. Narkom's startled
exclamation, "Geoff!" to tell the detective that this was indeed the son
and heir of Sir Philip Clavering, the young man whose bitter threats
against the dead man in the cottage had been so swiftly carried out.
But the exclamation had a far-reaching effect upon Dollops's prisoner,
for he ceased struggling at once and faced round upon the superintendent
so that the full glare of the torches could fall upon his features and
leave not a shadow of doubt regarding his identity.
"Hullo! Mr. Narkom!" he exclaimed. "This _is_ a stroke of good luck and
no mistake! Who and what is this enterprising individual upon my back? I
can't see his interesting face, for he pounced upon me in the dark; but
if I had known that his yells and cries were likely to bring _you_ upon
the scene, I certainly shouldn't have gone to the length of struggling
and getting my clothes in this awful mess."
Cleek made a mental tally of that remark, and set alongside of it the
circumstance that Dollops, when he first called out, had most distinctly
mentioned Mr. Narkom by name. He said nothing, however; merely removed
the pressure of his thumb from the controlling button of his torch,
slipped that useful article into his pocket, and busied himself with
picking up Dollops's effects from the ground.
"Here you, whoever you are! You keep your blessed thievin' irons off
them things!" snapped Dollops, with a wink at the superintendent. "I
say, Mr. Narkom, sir, don't let that josser go carryin' off my
drorin's--them's for my gov'ner, _you_ know that. And, sir," he went on
earnestly, "don't you be took in by none of the gammon of this 'ere
person. Actin' suspicious and creepin' along in the dark he was when I
'opped up and copped him, sir, and no matter if he _is_ a party as
you're acquainted with, sir----"
"He is," interrupted the superintendent curtly, not, however, without
some slight show of agitation at finding this particular young man in
the neighbourhood at this particular time. "The gentleman is Mr.
Geoffrey Clavering, my friend Sir Philip Clavering's son and heir."
"Well, sir, I can't 'elp that," began Dollops, but his words were
interrupted by the captive himself.
"I shouldn't have blamed you if you had failed to recognize me from the
state I'm in through the mistaken ardour of this enterprising youth, Mr.
Narkom," he said. "He appears not to have left one inch of my person
unmarked with his hands; and if you would oblige me by requesting him to
detach himself from me as expeditiously as possible, I shall be
unspeakably obliged."
"Certainly, Geoff. Dollops, let the gentleman go."
"But, sir-- Mr. Narkom----"
"Stand back, I tell you!"
"But upon my sacred word of honour, sir----"
"You have heard what I said, haven't you? That's enough," interrupted
Narkom, sharply.
Dollops gave a swift glance at Monsieur Georges de Lesparre's face, then
sullenly relinquished his hold on his prisoner, and with a knowing wink
over his shoulder, busied himself with picking up his scattered and
muddied papers.
"A jolly cheeky young beggar that, Mr. Narkom; I wonder you take his
impertinences so lightly," said young Clavering, who seemed, somehow, to
have lost a little of his self-possession now that it became evident the
matter of his presence must inevitably be the topic of conversation. "I
say, send him away, won't you? And if you would--er--send your friend
away, too, I'd be obliged. I'd like to have a little conversation with
you in private, if you don't mind."
"Certainly, Geoff. Dollops, take yourself off--hot shot!"
"Me, sir? My hat! Where'll I go? Wot'll I do, sir?"
"Go and continue what you were told to do in the first place. Gather up
your traps, and be off about it."
"Oh, yuss--of course--nuthink easier than _that_ after the way as the
gent 'ere has went gallopin' all over 'em with his muddy boots!" said
Dollops with apparent disgust. "Look at that for a sample of drorin',
will yer?"
He slyly twitched the corner of his eye round in Cleek's direction,
turned the mud-stained paper so that he should see the footprint, and
mumbling and muttering shambled away in the direction of the cottage and
disappeared in the mist and darkness.
"I'm afraid, Geoff," went on Narkom as soon as Dollops had gone, "that I
can't humour you to the extent of requesting this gentleman, too, to
leave us; but let me have the pleasure of introducing him--Monsieur
Georges de Lesparre, the famous French criminologist. We are engaged
together upon a very serious matter to-night. In short, an exceptionally
ghastly murder has been committed since I left Clavering Close, Geoff,
and you will be horrified to hear----"
"Gently, gently, monsieur," softly interposed Cleek, who, while
appearing to be absorbed in acknowledging the introduction, had been
quietly taking in every detail relative to the young man's appearance
and had decided offhand that he liked him; that he was simply a
handsome, straight-looking, frank-faced, clear-eyed young fellow who, in
the general order of things, ought not to have one evil impulse in him.
"Shall one go into details that may, possibly, be unnecessary?" he went
on. "Perhaps Mr. Clavering has already heard of the crime, and it is
that which is accountable for his presence in this neighbourhood."
In his heart he knew that there was no such possibility, that there was
not even the ghost of a chance that news of the murder could so soon
have gotten abroad when even the local police had not yet learned of
it, and he threw out this "feeler" hoping that young Clavering would rid
himself of any shadow of complicity by at once rejecting it. To his
disappointment, however, Geoff rose to it as a trout to a fly; and his
face, which had betrayed a strong effort to repress an overwhelming
agitation from the instant Narkom made mention of the crime, now lit
with something like relief and thankfulness.
"Yes, that's the case. You have guessed it, monsieur," he said
gratefully, a sound that seemed a curious blend of a sigh and a sob
getting into his voice despite an effort to keep it level and
emotionless. "I had gone to bed--that is, I mean to say I was getting
ready to go to bed--but I knew I shouldn't be able to sleep, so I came
down into the grounds for a walk and a smoke. The open air always does
me good. All at once a motor came along with Mellish, the police
constable, in it. I stopped him, and he told me of this awful thing. I
nearly went mad. To think what it means to my dear girl! She hasn't
heard yet, of course----"
"No," said Mr. Narkom. "She will have to be told in the morning. Poor
girl, it will be a shock to her, but it means a great obstacle removed
from your path."
"Yes," agreed the young man uneasily. "That's what made me so anxious to
come here and find out for myself if the murderer had been traced. You
see I lost my head a bit to-night," he added half apologetically, "and
you never know what people will say, so I was just coming cautiously
along when that cheeky young chap threw himself on me, mistaking me, I
suppose, for the assassin."
He made an attempt to laugh, but even to Mr. Narkom it was palpable that
the young fellow was making a desperate effort to cover up his
agitation.
"You can't, in the circumstances, blame him for that, Geoff," replied
Narkom. "Besides, it was a most indiscreet thing for you--you of all
men--to come here to-night, especially after what happened at the
Close."
"You mean about my threatening De Louvisan?"
"Yes. At least twenty or thirty persons heard that; and although after
you were calmer and the Austrian had left the house, you excused
yourself to your guests and were said to have gone to your room for the
night----"
"I did go to it!" rapped in Geoff excitedly. "Purviss, my valet, will
prove that if there's any question regarding it. Simply because I didn't
have the heart to indulge in any more dancing or tomfoolery of that sort
when my dear girl had been dragged away from me as though I were a
leper. Good God, Mr. Narkom! _you_ don't believe I had anything to do
with this awful thing, do you?"
Cleek took the reins before Narkom could utter so much as a single word.
"Of a certainty he does not, monsieur. Who could on so slight a thing as
the mere hot-headed outburst of an excited young man?" he said suavely,
making, as was his way, a cunning hazard that should at once prove or
disprove a suspicion that lay at the back of his head. "And to base it
upon no stronger circumstance than that you afterward left the
drawing-room and did not return! Ridiculous! One might as well suspect
Lady Clavering herself when she, too, was obliged to retire and leave
her guests for the time, if merely absenting one's self is to be
regarded as suspicious. It is what you Anglais shall call 'tommyrot,'
that, eh?"
"Of course it is, monsieur--er--what's-your-name--of course!" assented
Geoff gratefully, rather liking this suave and gentle Frenchman who
seemed bent upon coming to his rescue and showing him the way out
whenever matters took an awkward turn. "You're a jolly, sharp-sighted
chap, you are, and you spot the weak points in these affairs like a
shot. My stepmother doesn't often suffer from headaches, but just as it
happens, she was so queer that she had to lie down for about an hour;
but her maid can prove that she stopped in her room, just as Purviss can
vouch for it that I remained in mine."
The curious one-sided smile moved up Cleek's left cheek, then vanished
again.
"Quite so, quite so," he said blandly. "Besides, it is not with Lady
Clavering that we are concerned, but with the owner of a jewel that we
found on the spot--a little gold scent bangle that smelt of violets----"
"My God! Kathie's! She said she lost it!" cried Geoffrey through his
clenched teeth; then realizing what his words meant, he turned on the
two men fiercely.
"What do you mean? What are you trying to infer? That she--my dear
girl---- Good heavens! but if you dare to bring her name into this
horrible business, I'll throttle the pair of you! You shan't connect her
with the abominable affair! By God, you shan't!"
"M'sieur is too quick with his threats," put in Cleek suavely. "Would it
not be as well to wait? Unfortunately, we have only too much proof that
a woman was concerned in the murder, and----"
"But it was not Lady Katharine. That I swear!" The young man's voice
shook with emotion, and his strained eyes gazed from one face to the
other in heartbreaking intensity.
"You are absolutely sure that you have no suspicion of the murderer's
identity?" Cleek asked with a sharpness unusual to him. "No reason to
doubt any living soul?"
For just the merest fraction of a second young Clavering appeared to
hesitate.
"No," he said curtly. "No, I have not. I know no more about it than a
child. Mellish told me about the murder, and it was only natural that I
should come up here to make inquiries."
"But, yes, monsieur, of course," agreed Cleek softly. "There is, then,
no more to be said save good-bye. I fear me I shall not have the
pleasure of meeting you again, as I return to Paris to-morrow. The case
is one of the most mysterious, and I leave it to your English detective,
Mr. George Headland. So it is adieu, monsieur, and not au revoir."
He held out his hand to the young man, who grasped it in his own
trembling one, and then, with a sharp "good-night," Geoff Clavering
turned and strode back in the direction whence he had come.
"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, taking his chin between his thumb and forefinger
and rubbing it up and down. "A total denial! And with enough decency to
blush! Quite so! Quite so!"
Mr. Narkom, knowing the signs and being torn with eagerness for the
father of that rash boy, moved forward and laid a shaking hand upon his
sleeve.
"Cleek," he said in a whisper full of anxiety and excitement, "don't
keep it back, dear chap. You've come to some conclusion. Speak up, do,
and tell me what you make of it?"
"Make of it, Mr. Narkom? Well, for one thing, I make of it that that
young man lied like a pickpocket and deliberately attempted to throw
dust in our eyes. He not only _does_ suspect some one--and with good
grounds, too--but he has been here before and in that house to-night. In
other words, his was the foot that crushed that golden capsule. The
scent of the _Huile Violette_ was upon the drawing paper, the measure,
the muffler, the cap--every blessed thing he trod on in his scuffle with
Dollops!"
"Good God! Oh, his poor father! Surely, surely, Cleek, you do not
believe----"
"My dear Mr. Narkom, I never suffer myself to 'believe' anything until I
have absolute proof of it. What I may _think_ is a different matter."
"And you think of that boy--what?"
"That he is either a hot-headed, quixotic, loyal, lovable young ass, Mr.
Narkom, or he's a remarkably dangerous and crafty criminal! I'm put to
it for the moment to decide which. One thing is pretty certain, and that
is that young Geoffrey Clavering knows more of this crime than he will
admit, and that the woman he is shielding is Lady Katharine Fordham, who
was not only on the Common but in Gleer Cottage itself with Master
Geoffrey."
"Good heavens! Cleek, how do you know that?" cried Mr. Narkom, his voice
hoarse and shaken.
"Firstly, because his clothes are all scented with that peculiar scent
of violets, and although I know from the dead keeper that another woman,
probably Lady Clavering, was on the Common, he is certainly not
shielding her; otherwise he would not have admitted that she had
absented herself from her guests. No, I think you will find that both
the young people were out here to-night. Let's hear now what Dollops has
to say."
A minute later there sounded the familiar cry of a night owl, which
brought the boy himself running up at full speed.
"Lor' lumme, sir!" he cried disgustedly, as a quick glance revealed the
absence of his former prisoner. "You never went and let 'im go after me
a-showin' of you the footprint wot he'd left on my drorin' paper! It's
just the same as one of 'em in the lane wot you told me to measure, sir;
measure 'em off yourself and see. And him a-playin' off innercent and
actin' like he was a respectable gent as was comin' here unsuspectin'
and got copped by mistake! He wasn't, the bounder! He was tryin' to
sneak away, that's wot _he_ was a-doin' of--trying to do a bunk before
anybody dropped to where he was a-hidin'."
"What's that? Hiding? Did you say hiding?"
"Yes, I did, Mr. Narkom, and I'd a-told you of it at the time, only you
wouldn't let me open me blessed mouth, but jist shuts me up and orders
me off prompt. Hidin' in that blessed 'oller tree there--look!" He
flashed the light of his torch upon a tree which stood about three or
four yards distant. "In that he was," he went on, "and jist as soon as
the motor had went and the way was clear, I sees him sneak out and make
toward the Common; so I ups and does a tiptoe run along this strip o'
grass, sir, so's me feet wouldn't make no noise, and jist as he starts
to do a bunk I does a spring, and comes down on his blessed back like a
'awk on a guinea 'en."
Narkom twitched up his chin and looked at Cleek; and for a moment there
was silence, a deep significant silence, then Cleek spoke.
"How shall we sum him up by the measure of these things, Mr. Narkom, as
a hero or as a scoundrel?" he said. "If he is innocent, why was he
hiding? And if not for a criminal purpose, why did he come to this place
at all?"
"Heavens above, man, don't ask _me_!" returned Narkom irritably. "It's
the most infernal riddle I ever encountered. My head's in a positive
whirl. But look here, old chap. Supposing he did have a hand in the
murder, how on earth could he have coaxed De Louvisan to this house--a
man who had cause to dread him, a man whose life he had threatened?"
"Perhaps he didn't, Mr. Narkom; perhaps somebody did the coaxing for
him. A woman is a clever lure, my friend, and we know that one or two,
perhaps three---- Oh, well, let it go at that."
A faint sound of an automobile horn sounded its blare through the
distance and darkness.
"Lennard is coming back with the local authorities. I'd know the hooting
of that horn among a thousand, Mr. Narkom. And with their coming,
'Monsieur de Lesparre' returns to his native kit bag. This way,
Dollops--look sharp! Pick us up at the old railway arch as soon as you
can, Mr. Narkom. We'll be on the lookout for you. Now then, Dollops, my
lad, step lively!"
"Right you are, gov'ner. So long, Mr. Narkom. We're off--as the eggs
said to the cook when she got a whiff of 'em."
"Good-bye for a little time," said Cleek, reaching out and gripping the
superintendent's hand. "At the arch, remember. It has been child's play
up to this, Mr. Narkom. Now the real work begins. And unless all signs
fail, it promises to be the case of my career."
And so, like this, he stepped off into the mist and darkness, and went
his way--to the beginning of the chase; to the reading of the riddle; to
those things of Love and Mystery, of Faith and Unfaith, of Sorrow and of
Joy, whose trail lay under the roof of Wuthering Grange and which walked
as shadows with Lady Katharine Fordham and Ailsa Lorne.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE"
Once the affair had been reported to the local police, news of the
tragedy spread over the neighbourhood with amazing velocity, and by nine
o'clock next morning there wasn't a soul within a radius of five miles
who had not heard of it; by ten the Common and the immediate vicinity of
Gleer Cottage were literally black with morbid-minded sightseers and
reporters.
As yet, however, none but the police and the representatives of the
press had been permitted to cross the threshold of the house or to
obtain even the merest glimpse of the murdered man. For all that,
certain facts relative to the position in which the body had been found,
together with the mysterious marks upon his shirt bosom, had leaked out,
and as Scotland Yard, as represented by Cleek and Superintendent Narkom,
had chosen to remain silent for the present relative to such clues as
had been discovered, this gave room for some fine flights of fancy on
the part of the representatives of the press.
The special correspondent of the _Evening Planet_ "discovered" that the
Count was "a well-known Austrian nobleman" who had offended the famous
Ravaschol group, and was the author of the equally famous "Ninth Clause"
which had acted so disastrously against it--a circumstance which, the
_Planet_ claimed, left no shadow of a doubt regarding "the true meaning
of the mysterious markings upon the shirt bosom of the unfortunate
gentleman." Whereupon the representative of its bitterest rival, the
_Morning Star_, as promptly discovered that he was nothing of the sort;
that he had been "positively identified" as the former keeper of a sort
of club in Soho much frequented by Russian, German, French, and Italian
anarchists; and that, on its being discovered by those gentry that he
had sold to the police of their several countries secrets thus learned,
he had been obliged to disappear from his regular haunts in order to
save his skin. And, furthermore, as the address of the house in which
that club had been maintained, and from which he had carried on his
system of betrayal, was 63 Essex Row, the explanation of the markings
was quite clear--to wit: "Four and two make six; one and two make three;
furthermore, the peculiar formation of the repeated figure 2 is, of
course, a rude attempt to make it serve for the letter S. as well;
which, taken in conjunction with the three X's, leaves no room for doubt
that these markings stand for Number Sixty-three Essex Row and for
nothing else."