Again I sat in the fine old library of The Warrens. At the further
end of the long, book-laden table, facing me, sat East; Mr. Damopolon
occupied a chair on the right, and midway between us, in the centre of
the table, presiding over that strange meeting, was the fateful blue
monkey.
"You see, Mr. Damopolon," said East, "I knew that Sir Jeffrey was
carrying this thing"--he indicated the image--"at the time of his death,
and, since it had disappeared, I assumed at first that it had been the
motive of the crime. Sir Jeffrey had money and other valuables upon him;
therefore we were obviously dealing with no ordinary thief.
"Accordingly, I made inquiries respecting the history of the thing,
and found that it possessed but little market value and next to
no historical importance. It was of comparatively modern Chinese
workmanship, and Sir Jeffrey had bought it, apparently, because it
amused him, though why he should have taken the trouble to carry it
home, heaven only knows. My first idea--that the curio was a very rare
and costly piece--was thus knocked on the head.
"I sought another motive for a crime so horrible and, by a stroke of
intuition, I found one. You may not have had an opportunity of studying
the mysterious tracks which so puzzled us, Mr. Damopolon, before they
were obliterated, but my friend, the doctor, will bear me out. They
commenced, then, close beside the body of the murdered man, and they
were, as I now perceive, made by the feet of this blue monstrosity upon
the table here!"
"Impossible," murmured the secretary incredulously.
"So it appeared to me at the time, when, although I had not then
seen the image of the monkey, I perceived, by the absolutely regular
character of the impressions, that they were made, not by a living
creature, but by the model of one which had been firmly pressed into
the soft ground at slightly varying intervals. Since no footprints
other than those of Sir Jeffrey were to be found in the vicinity, I was
unable to account for the presence of the person who had made these
impressions. I devoted myself to a close scrutiny of those footprints
of Sir Jeffrey's which led up to the scene of the attack. It became
apparent, immediately, that some one had _followed_ him ... some one who
crept silently along behind the unsuspecting victim ... some one so
clever that he placed his feet _almost exactly_ in the marks made by the
baronet!
"Good! I had accounted for the presence of the murderer. He struck Sir
Jeffrey with some heavy implement, but failed to stun him. Then began
the struggle, which so churned up the ground that all tracks were lost.
The murderer prevailed. He was a man of wonderful nerve. Never once did
he place his foot upon virgin ground; not one imprint by which he might
be identified did he leave behind him!"
"Then how," inquired Damopolon, who was hanging upon every word, "did he
leave the scene if----"
"Listen," snapped East. "I found by the body the torn paper in which the
china image had been wrapped--but no string! I went all the way to
London to learn if the parcel had been tied with string and if Sir
Jeffrey had been carrying a stick!"
"But surely," said Damopolon, "I could have saved you the journey, since
I was with the late baronet immediately before he set out for home."
"Quite so--but I had another reason for my visit."
East shot a sudden glance from Damopolon to myself, and there ensued a
moment of electric silence.
"Beside the track made by the feet of the image," he resumed slowly, "I
found a series of wedge-shaped holes, one on either side of each
monkey-impression. Do you follow me, Mr. Damopolon?"
"Perfectly," replied the Greek, taking up and lighting a cigarette.
"Wedge-shaped holes, you say?"
"They were the clue for which I sought! I saw it all! The china ape had
been used as a _stepping-stone_! The cunning criminal had thus gained
the firm ground in the coppice without leaving a footprint behind!..."
"But, my dear East," I interrupted, "I cannot follow you. He stepped
from beside the body on to the image, which he had placed at a
convenient distance?"
"Yes. Then, by means of loops of string--see, they are still
attached!--he lifted it forward with his feet----"
"But----"
"Supporting his weight upon two sticks--Sir Jeffrey's and his own! Hence
the wedge-shaped holes beside the track! He had actually reached firm
ground when his own stick snapped off short, and he made the fatal error
of leaving the fragment and the ferrule, imbedded in the hole! Here is
the fragment!"
On the table East laid a fragment of an ebony cane, broken off short
some three inches above the nickel ferrule.
"Ebony is so brittle, is it not, Mr. Damopolon?" he said.
"It is indeed," agreed Damopolon, standing up as though he believed East
to have finished.
"Yet this stick was made of a particularly fine piece," added East.
"Carter!" he cried loudly.
The library door opened ... and Detective Sergeant Carter, of New
Scotland Yard, entered, carrying a broken ebony stick. Damopolon dropped
his cigarette, and, whilst he stooped to recover it:
"Carter and I went fishing this afternoon," said East, "in the Black
Gap. The criminal had sought to hide the broken cane--which bears his
monogram--and also the image. He had tied them together, filled the
image with clay, and dropped them into the water. Fortunately, they
stuck upon an outstanding mass of weeds, and we did not fish in vain.
Is there any point, Mr. Damopolon, which I have not made clear? I don't
know what implement you used to strike Sir Jeffrey, nor do I know what
you did with his ash-stick!..."
Clutching wildly at the table, I rose to my feet, my gaze set amazedly
upon the man thus accused, upon the man I had called my friend, upon
the man who owed so much to the dead baronet. And he?... He tossed his
cigarette into the hearth and shrugged his shoulders. But, now, I saw
that he was deathly pale. He began speaking, in a hoarse, mechanical
voice:
"I struck him with a broken elm branch," he said. "His hat saved him. I
completed the matter with my bare hands. I was desperate. You need not
tell me that Olive--Miss Baird--has confessed to our secret marriage,
nor shall I weary you with the many reasons I had to hate her father and
the pressing need I had for the fortune which she inherits at his death.
It is finished; I have lost, and----"
"Carter!" cried East. "Quick! quick!"
But though the detective, who had been edging nearer and nearer to the
speaker, now sprang upon him with the leap of a panther, he was too
late. The sound of a muffled shot echoed through The Warrens, and the
Greek fell with an appalling crash fully over the library table, so that
the blue monkey slid across its polished surface and was shattered to
bits upon the oaken floor!