A murder lends to the locality in which it is perpetrated, a certain
left-handed fame which those of its inhabitants who appear most
disgusted, most enjoy. Human nature being what it is, trouble and
misery have a larger sale value to newspapers, than have comfort
and happiness. Nothing makes a newspaper reader more conscious of
the emptiness of his journal, than to learn that his insignificant
neighbour has unexpectedly inherited a fortune. Therefore, it is only
natural that when the average man or woman finds himself or herself
promoted from mere observer to participant, however indirect, he or she
experiences a queer satisfaction that is no less satisfying because it
is queer.
The woman of the house may shudder and make unusual efforts to “keep
it from the children” but she listens avidly to the cook’s inside
story of the crime that was committed next door, and presses for
further details. The man may express his horror and indignation and
talk of leaving his house and finding another in a less notorious
neighbourhood, but for years he will point out to his visitors and
guests the window of the room where the fell deed was done.
Opposite to Mayfield was the home of John Ferguson Stott, who, in
addition to being a neighbour of the late Jesse Trasmere, was the
employer of his nephew. This gave him an especial title to speak as an
Authority. It supported him also in his determination to Say Nothing.
“It is bad enough, my dear, to be living in the street where this
ghastly crime has been committed. I cannot afford to be dragged into
the matter.”
He was a small, fat man, very bald, and he wore spectacles of great
magnifying power.
“Eline says--” began his buxom wife.
Mr. Stott held up a podgy hand and closed his eyes.
“Servants’ gossip!” said he. “Let us keep out of this business. I
cannot afford to have my name in the papers. Why, we should have the
house full of reporters in no time! And the police, too. I had quite
trouble enough over the dog’s license, ever to want to see the police
again.”
He sat soberly in his place before the window, glaring out at the
darkening street. A light flitted to and fro in one of the upper
windows of Mayfield, came and went, and came again. The police were
searching. He was interested. Tomorrow, when he met the men at Toby’s,
he would be able to say: “They are still searching old Trasmere’s
house. I saw them last night--the house is just opposite to mine.”
Presently the light disappeared for good and he turned to his wife.
“What did Eline say? Ring for her.”
Eline was a parlour-maid, grown of a sudden from the merest cipher in
the great sum of parlour-maids, to an isolated and important factor.
“I’m sure it gives me the shivers to talk about it, sir,” she said.
“Little did I ever think I should be mixed up in a case like this. I’m
sure that I’d die if I was ever called into court to give evidence.”
“You will not be called into court,” said Mr. Stott decisively. “This
must go no farther, do you understand that, Eline?”
Eline said she did, but she seemed in no way pleased that she was to be
spared the painful publicity.
“I’ve had a toothache for the past fortnight--”
“You should have it out,” said Mr. Stott. An opportunity for advising
sufferers to have their teeth extracted is one which no normal man can
miss. “It is always best to deal drastically with a decaying tooth. Out
with it my girl--well?”
“It comes on about half-past eleven and goes off at two. I could set
the clock by it.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Stott testily, his interest in Eline’s misfortune
ended, “but what did you see at Mayfield?”
“I usually sit at the window until the pain has gone,” said Eline, and
Mr. Stott resisted the temptation to tell her that that was the very
last place in the world she _ought_ to sit, “and naturally anything
that happens in the street I see. The first night I was sitting there,
I saw a little motor-car drive up to the front of the house. A lady got
out--”
“A lady?”
“Well, she might have been a woman,” admitted Eline. “But she got out,
opened the gates and drove into the garden. I thought that was funny,
because Mr. Trasmere hasn’t a garage, and I knew there was nobody
staying with him.”
“Where did the car go?”
“Just into the garden. There is plenty of room for it because it is not
exactly a garden--more like a yard than anything. I think she took the
car near the house and put out all the lights. Then she went up the
steps and opened the door. There was a light in the passage the first
night and I saw her taking the key out before she shut the door. She
hadn’t been in the house a few minutes before I saw a man on a bicycle
coming along the road. He jumped down and propped the machine against
the curb. What struck me about him was the funny way he walked. Sort of
queer little steps he took. He was smoking a cigar.”
“Where did _he_ go?” asked Mr. Stott.
“Only as far as the gate and leant on it, smoking. By and by he threw
away his cigar and lit another and I saw his face--it was a Chinaman!”
“Good God!” said Mr. Stott. The mental picture she conjured of a
Chinaman lighting a cigar in the vicinity of Mr. Stott’s stately home,
was a particularly revolting one.
“Just before the policeman came along, he went back to his bicycle and
rode away, but after the policeman had passed, he came back again and
stood leaning on the gate until the front door of Mayfield opened.
Then he sort of slunk back to his bicycle and rode in the opposite
direction. I mean opposite to the way he had come. He had hardly got
out of sight before I saw the lady come down and open the gates. Soon
after, she brought out the car, got down, closed the gates again, and
drove away. And then I saw the Chinaman riding behind and pedalling
like mad as if he was trying to catch up to the car.”
“Extraordinary!” said Mr. Stott. “This happened once?”
“It happened every night--Friday was the last night,” said Eline
impressively, “the lady in the car, the Chinaman and everything. But
on Sunday night two Chinamen came and one went into the garden and was
there for a long time. I knew the other one was a Chinaman because he
walked so curiously. But they didn’t come on bicycles. They had a car
which stopped at the far end of the street.”
“Remarkable!” said Mr. Stott, and stroked his smooth face.
Eline had finished her story but was reluctant to surrender her
position as news gleaner.
“The police have been taking things away from the house all day,”
reported the observer, “boxes and trunks. The girl at Pine Lodge told
me that they are leaving there tonight. They’ve been keeping guard on
the house ever since the murder.”
“Very, very extraordinary; very remarkable,” said Mr. Stott. “But I
don’t think that it is any business of ours. No. Thank you, Eline.
I should certainly have that tooth out. You mustn’t be a baby and
American dentistry has reached such a high level of efficiency that--”
Eline listened respectfully but nervously and went up to her room to
plug the aching molar with Dr. Billbery’s Kure-Ake.
It seemed to Mr. Stott that his head had scarcely touched the pillow
before there came a knock upon the panel of his bedroom door.
“Yes?” he asked fiercely in case it was a burglar, who was in this
polite manner seeking admission to his chamber.
“It is Eline, sir--they’re there!”
Mr. Stott shivered and, conquering an almost irresistible desire
to pull the bedclothes over his head and pretend that he had been
talking in his sleep, he got reluctantly out of bed and pulled on his
dressing-gown. As to Mrs. Stott, she never moved. She went to bed, as
she had often said, to sleep.
“What is it, Eline--waking me up at this time in the morning?” asked
Mr. Stott irritably.
“They are there--the Chinamen. I saw one getting through the window,”
said the girl, her teeth chattering to the serious disturbance of Dr.
Billbery’s Kure-Ake.
“Wait a moment until I get my stick.”
Mr. Stott kept hanging to his bed-rail, a heavily loaded cane. He
had no intention of going nearer to Mayfield than the safe side of
his dining-room window, but the holding of the stick gave him the
self-confidence of which he was in need.
Cautiously the girl let up the blind of the dining-room window and
unfastened the catch. The sash slid up noiselessly and gave them an
interrupted view of Mayfield.
“There’s one!” whispered Eline.
Standing in the shadow was a figure. Mr. Stott saw it plainly. They
watched in silence for the greater part of half-an-hour. Mr. Stott had
an idea that he ought to telephone for the police, but refrained. In
the case of ordinary burglars, he would not have hesitated. But these
were Chinese, notoriously clannish and vengeful. He had read stories,
in which Chinaman had inflicted diabolical injuries upon men who had
betrayed them.
At the end of the half-hour’s vigil, the door of Mayfield opened and a
man came out and joined the other. Together they walked up the road and
that was the last Mr. Stott saw of them.
“Very remarkable!” said Mr. Stott profoundly. “I’m glad you called
me, Eline. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. But you must
say nothing about this, Eline--nothing. The Chinese people are very
bloodthirsty. They would think no more of putting you into a barrel
full of sharp pointed nails and rolling you down a hill, than I should
think of--er--lacing my shoes.”
So Maple Manor kept its grisly secret and none knew of Yeh Ling’s visit
to the house of death or his search for the tiny lacquer box wherein
Jesse Trasmere kept a folded sheet of thin paper elegantly inscribed in
Chinese characters by Yeh Ling, in his own hand.