THE CREAKING STAIR
Throughout the bewildering excitement in the boat consequent on Miss
Dymmock's benevolence, Leslie had been conscious of a weak spot in his
armour, which, if it had been detected by his antagonist, might prove
his undoing. Nugent's ominous rejoinder suggested that the weak spot had
been found, and that he was being led into the comfortable seclusion of
the Ottermouth Club for the purpose of having it pierced.
"We had better go into the card-room," said Nugent. "There will be less
chance of interruption there, though at present there is no one in the
club. Every one has gone home to lunch."
The card-room was on the first floor, with a window overlooking the sea.
Leslie remained standing just inside the door, but Nugent sat down at
one of the card tables, his fingers drawing fantastic patterns on the
green cloth as he seemed to consider how best to open the subject.
Suddenly he raised his eyes, and Leslie saw with surprise that there was
no hostility in them--only a look of deep concern.
"You are in a tight place, my friend," he said. "Are you aware that you
are under the gravest suspicion of having murdered Levi Levison?"
"I am not surprised to hear it, since you knew of my engagement to meet
Levison on the marsh that night," replied Leslie. "I had more than half
expected that you would give evidence to that effect at the inquest."
Nugent brushed the insinuation aside with a contemptuous gesture. "My
dear Chermside, if you are going to approach the matter in that spirit,
we shall come to grief," he said. "Can't you see that our interests are
absolutely identical--that if you fall I fall too. Not quite so far
perhaps, but a good deal further than I care to contemplate. I don't
pretend to any affection for you, after the way you have played the
mischief with everything, but your arrest on this charge would mean my
social ruin--if nothing worse. The motive for your crime, and all that
led up to it, would be sure to come to light--even if you did not plead
guilty and put forward the motive as an extenuating circumstance."
This was selfish villainy, naked and unashamed, but it sounded like
honest villainy. Leslie had realized from the first that if his
appointment with Levison transpired, the case against him would be black
indeed, but he had expected that Nugent would rejoice in that fact. It
had not occurred to him that his former accomplice would be dragged down
in his fall.
"It will be time enough to talk of motive when I admit that I killed
Levison," he said, in a burst of indignation.
"You didn't kill him? There are no witnesses. Straight now, as from man
to man, standing on the brink of the same precipice?"
"I'll swear I didn't."
The shrug and the raised eyebrows with which Nugent received the denial
made Leslie itch to hit him, but his anger passed with the prompt
semi-withdrawal of the implied accusation.
"If you didn't someone else did. Let me think a moment," said Nugent,
and again he fell to tracing invisible patterns on the card table.
Leslie leaned against the wall by the door, and stared vacantly through
the window at faint specks on the horizon of the sunlit sea--Brixham
trawlers on the fishing-grounds twenty miles away. The dapper man in the
immaculate grey suit, solving unseen problems on the green cloth, had
disarmed him. Nugent's belief in his guilt, he told himself, had been
genuine, but Nugent had been shaken in that belief. He was striving for
some other explanation of the Jew's death. At last he raised his eyes.
"I have been trying to overhaul my knowledge of Levison's past in order
to account for his murder by some other means than the obvious," he
said. "And, with every desire to fit him with an appropriate murderer, I
have entirely failed. There is no need to disguise the fact that he was
my tool--a dirty little shyster who has done odd jobs for me--but he was
not the sort of person to inspire a thirst for bloodshed. A
mean-spirited little rascal, with no ideas beyond the price of a
bill-stamp and overcharging what he called his 'exes.' There was no
one to kill him but you, my friend."
"Don't call me that," said Leslie hotly. "I repeat that I did not kill
him."
Nugent shook his head with an incredulity the more exasperating because
it seemed so thoroughly genuine. "At any rate, a judge and jury would
find a difficulty in believing to the contrary. Let me state the case
just to show you your danger. You have yourself admitted acquaintance
and business relations with Levison--a stranger in the place, who is not
known to have had dealings with any one else. Point one for the
prosecution. It can further be proved that you had arranged to meet him
at that lonely spot----"
"Pardon me," interrupted Leslie hoarsely. "That cannot be proved unless
you volunteer as a witness, and give away the whole vile story of the
plot to abduct Miss Maynard."
The gentle tolerance of Nugent's smile was harder to bear than abuse
would have been. "Really, Chermside, you are an impossible fellow to
have as a partner in a losing game," he said. "At the risk of being
wearisome, let me repeat that your trial would spell ruin for me. It is
Louise Aubin, Miss Maynard's French maid, who is at the bottom of the
trouble. Levison, like the vulgar wretch he was, amused himself with a
flirtation with her. It seems that, most indiscreetly, he confided to
her that he had some hold on you, and that it was either to be tightened
or relaxed after an interview arranged for that night. Point two for the
prosecution."
Leslie's heart sank as the remorseless indictment against him was
unfolded. He had been naturally disposed to mistrust Nugent's profession
of mutual interests, but with the introduction of this new and
independent witness into the case this was explained. Louise Aubin, if
she had been confided in by Levison, was certainly in a position to
wreck the two of them. Yet once more his doubt surged up, and he put the
quick question--
"Why has this woman imparted her suspicion to you? Why did she not take
it to the police, and appear at the inquest?"
"Because, by the greatest good luck, I met her on her way to do so,"
answered Nugent promptly. "It was on the day of the picnic--immediately
after the discovery of the body. I was aware of her relations with the
dead man, from what was said when we lunched at the Manor, and I guessed
what she was up to. I managed to throw dust in her eyes for the time,
and have contrived to hold her in check since, but she is growing
restive, and threatens to appear at the adjourned inquest."
Leslie stared dully at the speaker. He could almost feel the hangman's
noose at his neck. The bright vision of an hour ago had faded into
Cimmerian gloom. Nugent's clever face suggested the only possible source
of the advice of which he stood in such urgent need, and, almost against
his will, the question escaped him--
"What had I better do?"
"Cut and run for it. Avoid arrest at any price," was the ready reply.
"But I am not guilty. I did not murder the little Jew."
"You cannot prove that," Nugent rejoined, with a flicker of his hateful
smile. "Besides," he added, "consider the execration you would incur in
attempting to do so. What would your life be worth to you if you
managed to save it by confessing your share in the Violet Maynard
project?"
Leslie could frame no reply, and while he sought for one, a tiny sound,
that under other circumstances would have been disregarded, reached his
ears. Nugent, who was further from the door, evidently had not heard it.
Somewhere about half-way up the staircase a loose board creaked, but the
sound had been preceded by no footfall, nor, though he listened
intently, could Leslie detect that it was followed by one. Some
instinct, which he did not attempt to analyse then, but which he
afterwards knew was a desire to dissociate himself from Nugent in any
danger which that creaking stair might portend, prompted him not to call
attention to it. But, to prevent any chance of the remainder of their
conversation being overheard, he turned and closed the door smartly.
"If I make a bolt of it, where am I to bolt to?" he asked, lowering his
voice and stepping to the table.
A gleam of triumph, instantly suppressed, flashed in Nugent's eyes. "I
have considered that most carefully," he replied. "At the first hint of
your departure, in the ordinary way, Louise Aubin would go to the
police, and you would be traced and arrested. I propose, if you assent,
to utilize the _Cobra_ for your flight. She is the property of the
Maharajah, and Bhagwan Singh is as much interested in covering up his
attempt to gain an English bride by force as we are ourselves. Now that
the vessel won't be wanted for her original purpose, she may as well
earn her upkeep by helping to preserve the secret of our abortive
scheme. Once smuggled aboard safely, she could put you ashore at some
South American port, where you might carve out a new career, though you
must forgive my saying that I doubt your success in any undertaking."
Leslie allowed the gibe to pass. He was prepared to make allowances for
Nugent's disappointment, now that he was persuaded that he had
definitely abandoned the plot against Violet, and was only concerned in
hiding all traces of it. On the whole, the plan for evading arrest
rather appealed to him. With a dull despair at his heart, he had already
realized that the vengeful Frenchwoman had shattered his day-dream. Of
what use to him would be good old Aunt Sarah's benefaction, when there
was hanging over his head a murder charge which, even if he could refute
it, would remove Violet beyond his pale for ever?
"I suppose you're right," he gave his tardy consent. "And if I have got
to go, the sooner the better. When do you propose that I should start?"
Travers Nugent rose with a sigh of unaffected relief. "I expect it will
be the day after to-morrow," he made answer. "But we will meet again to
arrange final details. In the meanwhile, my dear fellow, let me
congratulate you on the one gleam of common-sense you have shown
throughout our disastrous association. All my energies must now be
directed to chaining up that wild-cat of a French maid till you are
safely on board."
Nodding curtly, he walked to the door, opened it, and, passing down the
stairs, left the club. Leslie, following more leisurely, was moved by a
great curiosity to see if he could account for that ominous creak. He
glanced into the reading-room, but there was no one there. It was too
early in the afternoon for the assembly of members who came to chat and
see the papers.
The click of balls, unusual at that hour, attracted him to the
billiard-room, and, entering, he was confronted with an enigma. The
lean, ascetic form of Mr. Mallory was bending over the table, poising
his cue for a difficult cannon, which he delayed for an instant because
of the interruption, and then made with an unerring precision. His
antagonist was the burly and rubicund General Kruse, who had his nose
buried in a whisky and soda. On the lounge, watching the game with
sardonic contempt, sat the cadaverous Mr. Lazarus Lowch, the foreman
of the jury at the inquest on Levison, and but a rare visitor to the
billiard-room.
Leslie walked to the scoring-board and noted the state of the game. It
stood at 5-2, and could therefore have been only just begun. It followed
that any one of these three gentlemen, so oddly occupied at an
unaccustomed hour, when they ought to have been enjoying an
after-luncheon siesta at home, might have caused the sound on the stairs
a few minutes before.
Which of them could it have been? How much of that momentous interview,
on which his liberty and his life might depend, had been overheard?