CLEARING THE AIR
Winter was far too strong a man to remain long buried in the pit of
humiliation into which Furneaux, aided unwittingly by Clarke, had cast
him. The sounds of Furneaux's jaunty footsteps had barely died away
before he shoved aside the papers on which he had been engaged
previously, and reached across the table for a box of cigars.
He took one, and shoved the box towards Clarke, whose face was still
glistening in evidence of his rush from Marlborough Street
police-station.
"Here, you crack-pate!" he said, "smoke; it may clear your silly head."
"But I can't repeat too often that Janoc has confessed--_confessed_!"
and Clarke's voice rose almost to a squeal on that final word.
"So has his sister confessed. In an hour or two, when the silence and
horror of a cell have done their work, we shall have Osborne confessing,
too. Oh, man, man, can't you see that Furneaux has twisted each of us
round his little finger?"
"But--sir----"
"Yes, I know," cried Winter, in a fume of wrath and smoke. "Believe
these foreign idiots and we shall be hearing of a masked tribunal,
glistening with daggers, a brace of revolvers in every belt--a dozen or
more infuriated conspirators, cloaked in gaberdines, gathered in a West
End flat, while a red-headed woman harangues them. Furneaux has fooled
us, I tell you--deliberately brought the Yard into discredit--made us
the laughing-stock of the public. Oh, I shall never----"
He pulled himself up, for Clarke was listening with the ears of a
rabbit. Luckily, the detective's ideas were too self-concentrated to
extract much food for thought from these disjointed outpourings.
"I don't wish to seem wanting in respect, sir," he said doggedly, "but
have you forgotten the diary? Why, Rose de Bercy herself wrote that she
would be killed either by C. E. F. or Janoc. Now----"
"Did she mention Janoc?" interrupted Winter sharply. "In what passage? I
certainly _have_ forgotten that."
Clarke, stubborn as a mule, stuck to his point, though he felt that he
had committed himself.
"Perhaps I did wrong," he growled savagely, "but I couldn't help myself.
You were against me all along, sir--now, weren't you?"
No answer. Winter waited, and did not even look at him.
"What was I to do?" he went on in desperation. "You took me off the job
just as I was getting keen in it. Then I happened upon Janoc, and found
his sister, and when I came across that blacked-out name in the diary I
scraped it and sponged it until I could read what was written beneath.
The name was Janoc!"
"Was it?" said Winter, gazing at him at last with a species of contempt.
"And to throw dust in my eyes--in the eyes of your superior officer--you
inked it out again?"
"You wouldn't believe," muttered Clarke. "Why, you don't know half this
story. I haven't told you yet how I found the daggers----"
"You don't say," mocked Winter.
"But I do, I did," cried Clarke, beside himself with excitement. "I took
them out of Janoc's lodgings, and put them in a cab. I would have them
in my hands this minute if some d--d thing hadn't occurred, some trick
of fate----"
Winter stooped and unlocked a drawer in his writing-desk.
"Are these your daggers?" he demanded, though Clarke was shrewd enough,
if in possession of his usual senses, to have caught the note of
suppressed astonishment in the Chief Inspector's voice, since this was
the first he had heard of Furneaux's deliberate pilfering of the weapons
from his colleague.
But something was singing in Clarke's ears, and his eyes were glued on
the blades resting there in the drawer. Denial was impossible. He
recognized them instantly, and all his assurance fled from that moment.
"Well, there!" he murmured, in a curiously broken voice. "I give in! I'm
done! I'm a baby at this game. Next thing, I suppose, I'll be asked to
resign--me, who found 'em, and the diary, and the letter telling Janoc
not to kill her--yet."
He was looking so fixedly at the two daggers that he failed to see the
smile of relief that flitted over Winter's face. Now, more than ever,
the Chief Inspector realized that he was dealing with one of the most
complex and subtle crimes which had come within his twenty years of
experience. He was well versed in Furneaux's sardonic humor, and the
close friendship that had existed between them ever since the little
Jersey man joined the Criminal Investigation Department had alone
stopped him from resenting it. It was clear now to his quick
intelligence that Furneaux had actually planned nearly every discovery
which either he himself or Clarke had made. Why? He could not answer. He
was moving through a fog, blind-folded, with hands tied behind his back.
Search where he would, he could not find a motive, unless, indeed,
Furneaux was impelled by that strangest of all motives, a desire to
convict himself. At any rate, he did not want Clarke to tread on the
delicate ground that must now be covered before Furneaux was arrested,
and the happy accident which had unlocked Clarke's tongue with regard to
the diary would serve admirably to keep him well under control.
"Now, look here, Inspector Clarke," said Winter severely, after a pause
that left the other in wretched suspense, "you have erred badly in this
matter. For once, I am willing to overlook it--because--because you
fancied you had a grievance. But, remember this--never again! Lack of
candor is fatal to the best interests of the service. It is for me to
decide which cases you shall take up and which you shall leave alone.
You know perfectly well that if, by chance, information reaches you with
regard to any inquiry which may prove useful to the man in charge of it,
it is your duty to tell him everything. I say no more now. You
understand me fully, I have no doubt. You must take it from me, without
question or protest, that neither Janoc nor his sister was responsible
for that crime. They may have been mixed up in it--in some manner now
hidden from me--but they had no share in it personally. Still, seeing
that you have worked so hard, I don't object to your presence while I
prove that I am right. Come with me now to Marlborough Street. Mr.
Osborne must be set at liberty, of course, but I shall confront your
Anarchist friends with one another, and then you will see for yourself
my grounds for being so positive as to their innocence."
"But you yourself arrested Pauline, sir," Clarke ventured to say.
"Don't be an ass!" was the cool rejoinder. "Could I refuse to arrest
her? Suppose you told me now that you had killed the Frenchwoman,
wouldn't I be compelled to arrest _you_?"
"Ha!" laughed Clarke, in solemn mirth, "what about C. E. F.? Wouldn't it
be funny if he owned up to it?"
Winter answered not a word. He was busy locking the drawer and rolling
down the front of the desk. But Clarke did not really mean what he had
said. His mind was dwelling on the inscrutable mystery of the daggers
which he had last held in his hands in Soho and now knew to be reposing
in a locked desk in Scotland Yard.
"Would you mind telling me, sir, how you managed to get hold of 'em?" he
asked.
Winter did not pretend ignorance.
"You will be surprised to hear that I myself took them, disinterred
them, from the poor creature's grave in Kensal Green Cemetery," he said.
Clarke's jaw dropped in the most abject amazement. The thing had a
supernatural sound. He felt himself bewitched.
"From her grave?" he repeated.
"Yes."
"But who put 'em there?"
"Ah," said the other with a new note of sternness in his voice, "who but
the murderer? But come, we are wasting time--that unfortunate Osborne
must be half-demented. I suppose the Marlborough Street people will let
him out on my authority. If not, I must get an order from the
Commissioner. By gad, there will be a fiendish rumpus about this
business before it is all settled!"
Clarke shivered. He saw a certain well-belovèd detective inspector
figuring prominently in that "rumpus," and he was in no mind to seek a
new career after passing the best part of his life in the C. I. D.
But at Marlborough Street another shock awaited the Chief. He and Clarke
were entering the street in a taxi when Furneaux crooked a finger at him
from the pavement. Winter could not, nay, he dared not, ignore that
demand for an interview.
"Stop here!" he said to Clarke. Then he sprang out, and approached
Furneaux.
"Well?" he snapped, "have you made up your mind to end this tragic
farce?"
"I am not its chief buffoon," sneered Furneaux. "In fact, I am mainly a
looker-on, but I do appreciate its good points to the full."
Winter waved aside these absurdities.
"I have come to free Mr. Osborne," he said. "I was rather hoping that
your own sense of fair dealing, if you have any left----"
"Exactly what I thought," broke in the other. "That is why _I_ am here.
I hate correcting your mistakes, because I fancy it does you good to
discover them for yourself. Still, it is a pity to spoil a good cause.
Mere professional pride forces me to warn you against liberating
Osborne."
"Man alive, you try me beyond endurance. Do you believe I don't know the
truth--that Rose de Bercy was your wife--that _you_ were in that museum
before the murder--that _you_.... Oh, Furneaux, you wring it from me.
Get a pistol, man, before it is too late."
"You mean that?" cried Furneaux, his eyes gleaming with a new fire.
"Heaven knows I do!"
"You want to be my friend, then, after all?"
"Friend! If you realized half the torture----"
"Pity!" mused Furneaux aloud. "Why didn't you speak sooner? So you would
rather I committed suicide than be in your hands a prisoner?"
Winter then awoke to the consciousness that this extraordinary
conversation was taking place in a crowded thoroughfare, within a
stone's throw of a police-station in which lay three people charged with
having committed the very crime he was tacitly accusing Furneaux of,
while Clarke's ferret eyes must be resting on them with a suspicion
already half-formed.
"I can say no more," he muttered gruffly. "One must forego friendship
when duty bars the way. But if you have a grain of humanity left in your
soul, come with me and release that unhappy young man----"
Some gush of emotion wrung Furneaux's face as if with a spasm of
physical pain. He held out his right hand.
"Winter, forgive me, I have misjudged you," he said.
"Is it good-by?" came the passionate question.
"No, not good-by. It is an alliance, Winter, a wiping of the slate. You
don't understand, perhaps, that we are both to blame. But you can take
my hand, old man. There is no stain of blood on it. I did not murder my
wife. I am her avenger, her pitiless, implacable avenger--so pitiless,
so implacable, that I may have erred in my harshness. For Heaven's sake,
Winter, believe me, and take my hand!"
The man's magnetism was irresistible. Despite the crushing weight of
proof accumulated against him, the claims of old friendship were not to
be ignored. Winter took the proffered hand and squeezed it with a
vehemence that not only showed the tension of his feelings but also
brought tears of real anguish to Furneaux's eyes.
"I only asked you for a friendly grip, Winter," he complained. "You have
been more than kind. No matter what happens, don't offer to shake hands
with me again for twelve months at least."
There was no comprehending him, and Winter abandoned the effort.
Moreover, Clarke's puzzled brows were bent on them.
"An alliance implies confidence," he said, and the official mask fell on
his bluff features. "If you can honestly----"
Furneaux laughed, with just a faint touch of that impish humor that the
other knew so well.
"Not Winter, but Didymus!" he cried. "Well, then, let us proceed to the
confounding of poor Clarke. _Peste!_ he deserves a better fate, for he
has worked like a Trojan. But leave Osborne to me. Have no fear--I shall
explain, a little to him, all to you."
Clarke writhed with jealousy when Winter beckoned to him. While his
chief was paying the cabman, he jeered at Furneaux.
"I had a notion----" he began, but the other caught his arm
confidentially.
"I was just telling the guv'nor how much we owe to you in this Feldisham
Mansions affair," he said. "You were on the right track all the time.
You've the keenest nose in the Yard, Clarke. You can smell an Anarchist
through the stoutest wall ever built. Now, not a word! You'll soon see
how important your investigations have been."
Clarke was overwhelmed by a new flood. Never before had Furneaux praised
him, unless in some ironic phrase that galled the more because he did
not always extract its hidden meaning. He blinked with astonishment.
With a newborn trust, which he would have failed ignominiously to
explain in words, Winter led his colleagues to Marlborough Street
police-station. There, after a brief but earnest colloquy with the
station inspector, he asked that Janoc and his sister should be brought
to the inspector's office.
Janoc came first, pale, languid, high-strung, but evidently prepared to
be led to his death that instant.
He looked at the four men, three in plain clothes and one in uniform,
with a superb air of dignity, almost of superiority; in silence he
awaited the inquisition which he supposed he would be compelled to
undergo, but when no word was spoken--when even that phantom of evil,
Clarke, paid no heed to him, he grew manifestly uneasy.
At last steps were heard, the door opened, and Pauline Dessaulx entered.
Of course, this brother and sister were Gauls to the finger-tips. Each
screamed, each flew to the other's arms; they raved; they wept, and
laughed, and uttered incoherent words of utmost affection.
Winter indulged them a few seconds. Then he broke in on their
transports.
"Now, Janoc," he said brusquely, "have done with this acting! Why have
you given the police so much trouble?"
"Monsieur, I swear----"
"Oh, have done with your swearing! Your sister didn't kill Mademoiselle
de Bercy. She wouldn't kill a fly. Come, Pauline, own up!"
"Monsieur," faltered the girl, "I--I----"
"You took the guilt on your shoulders in order to shield your brother?"
Wild-eyed, distraught, she looked from the face of the man who seemed to
peer into her very soul to that other face so dear to her. She knew not
what to say. Was this stern-visaged representative of the law merely
torturing her with a false hope? Dared she say "Yes," or must she
persist in self-accusation?
"Janoc," thundered Winter, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Don't
you see how she is suffering for your sake? Tell her, then, that you are
as innocent as she of this murder?"
The dreamer, the man who would reform an evil world by force, had the
one great quality demanded of a leader--he knew a man when he met him.
He turned now to Pauline.
"My sister," he said in French, "this gentleman can be trusted. He is no
trickster. I had no hand in the slaying of the traitress, just though
her death might be."
"Ah, _Dieu merci_!" she breathed, and fainted.
The police matron was summoned, and the Frenchwoman soon regained
consciousness. Meanwhile, Janoc admitted readily enough that he did
really believe in his sister's acceptance of the dread mission imposed
on her by the revolutionary party in Russia.
"Rose de Bercy was condemned, and my sweet Pauline, alas! was deputed to
be her executioner," he said. "We had waited long for the hour, and the
dagger was ready, though I, too, distrusted my sister's courage. Then
came an urgent letter from St. Petersburg that the traitress was
respited until a certain list found among her papers was checked----"
"Found?" questioned Winter.
"By Pauline," said Janoc.
"Ah, stolen?"
Janoc brushed aside the substituted word as a quibble.
"Conceive my horror when I heard of the murder!" he cried with hands
flung wide and eyes that rolled. "I was sure that Pauline had mistaken
the instructions----"
"Where is the St. Petersburg letter?" broke in Furneaux.
"Sapristi! You will scarce credit. It was taken from me by a man--a
Russian agent he must have been--one night in the Fraternal Club,
Soho----"
"Clarke, produce it," said Furneaux, grinning.
Clarke flushed, grew white, nervously thumbed some papers in a
pocketbook, and handed to Winter the letter which commenced: "St.
Petersburg says ..." and ended: "You will see to it that she to whose
hands vengeance has been intrusted shall fail on the 3d."
Winter read, and frowned. Furneaux, too, read.
"The 3d!" he muttered. "Just Heaven, what a fatal date to her!"
"What was I to think?" continued Janoc. "Antonio shared my view. He met
Pauline at the Exhibition, and was ready, if necessary, to vouch for her
presence there at the time Rose de Bercy went to her reckoning; but he
is not in the inner--he had not heard of the Petersburg order."
"Yet he, and the rest of your gang, were prepared to let Mr. Osborne
hang for this crime," said Winter, surveying the conspirator with a
condemning eye. But his menace or scorn was alike to Janoc, who threw
out his arms again.
"Cré nom!" he cried, "why not? Is he not a rich bourgeois like the rest?
He and his class have crushed us without mercy for many a century. What
matter if he were hanged by mistake? He could be spared--my Pauline
could not. He is merely a rich one, my Pauline is a martyr to the
cause!"
"Listen to me, Janoc," said Winter fiercely. "Spout what rubbish you
please in your rotten club, but if ever you dare again to plot--even to
plot, mind you--any sort of crime against life or property in this free
country, I shall crush you like a beetle--like a beetle, do you hear,
you wretched--insect! Now, get out!"
"Monsieur, my sister?"
"Wait outside there till she comes. Then leave England, the pair of you,
or you will try what hard labor in a British prison can do for your
theories."
Janoc bowed.
"Monsieur," he said, "a prison has made me what I am."
Pauline was candid as her brother. She had, in truth, misunderstood the
respite given to her mistress, and meant to kill her on the night of the
3d. The visit to the Exhibition was of her own contriving. She had got
rid of her English acquaintance, the cook, very easily after meeting
Antonio by appointment. Then she left him, without giving a reason, and
hurried back to the mansions, where, owing to her intimate knowledge of
the internal arrangements, she counted on entering and leaving the flat
unseen. She did actually succeed in her mission, but found Rose de Bercy
lying dead.
On the floor, close to the body, was a dagger, and she had no doubt
whatever that her brother had acted in her stead, so she picked up the
weapon, secreted it with the dagger given her in readiness for the
crime, and took the first opportunity of hiding herself, lest the mere
fact that Janoc was seen in her company should draw suspicion towards
him.
"Ah, but the lace? What of the piece of blood-stained lace?" demanded
Furneaux.
"I wished to make sure, monsieur," was the astounding reply. "Had she
not been dead, but merely wounded, I--_Eh, bien!_ I tore her dress open,
in order to feel if her heart was beating, and the bit of lace remained
in my hand. I was so excited that I hardly knew what I was doing. I took
it away. Afterwards, when Antonio said that the police were cooling in
their chase of Osborne, I gave it to him; he told me he could use it to
good effect."
"Phew!" breathed Winter, "you're a pretty lot of cutthroats, I must say.
Why did you keep the daggers and the diary, sweet maid?"
"The knife that rid us of a traitress was sacred. I thought the diary
might be useful to the--to our friends."
"Yet you gave it to Mr. Clarke without any demur?"
The girl shot a look at Clarke in which fright was mingled with hatred.
"He--he--I was afraid of him," she stammered.
Winter opened the door.
"There is your brother," he said. "Be off, both of you. Take my advice
and leave England to-night."
They went forth, hand in hand, in no wise cast down by the loathing they
had inspired. Clarke looked far more miserable than they, for by their
going he had lost the prize of his life.
"Now for Osborne," whispered Furneaux. "Leave him to me, Winter. Trust
me implicitly for five minutes--that is all."
Osborne was brought in by the station inspector, that human ledger who
would record without an unnecessary word the name of the Prime Minister
or the Archbishop of Canterbury on any charge preferred against either
by a responsible member of the force. The young American was calm now,
completely self-possessed, disdainful of any ignominy that might be
inflicted on him. He did not even glance at Furneaux, but nodded to
Winter.
"Your assurances are seemingly of little value," he said coldly.
"Mr. Winter is quite blameless," snapped Furneaux, obviously nettled by
the implied reproof. "Please attend to me, Mr. Osborne--this affair
rests wholly between you and me. Learn now, for the first time, I
imagine, that Rose de Bercy was my wife."
Osborne did truly start at hearing that remarkable statement. Clarke's
mouth literally fell open; even the uniformed inspector was stirred, and
began to pare a quill pen with a phenomenally sharp knife, this being
the only sign of excitement he had ever been known to exhibit.
"Yes, unhappily for her and me, we were married in Paris soon after she
ran away from home," said Furneaux. "I--I thought--we should be happy.
She had rare qualities, Mr. Osborne; perhaps you discovered some of
them, and they fascinated you as they fascinated me. But--she had
others, which _I_ learnt to my sorrow, while _you_ were spared. I cannot
explain further at this moment. I have only to say that you are as free
from the guilt of her death--as _I_ am!"
Winter alone was conscious of a queer note in the little man's voice as
he dwelt on the comparison. He seemed to be searching for some simile of
wildest improbability, and to have hit upon himself as supplying it. But
Osborne was in no mood for bewilderment. He cared absolutely nothing
about present or future while the horrible past still held the pall it
had thrown on his prospects of bliss with Rosalind.
"In that event, one might ask why I am here," he said quietly. "Not that
I am concerned in the solving of the riddle. You have done your worst,
Mr. Furneaux. You can inflict no deeper injury on me. If you have any
other vile purpose to serve by telling me these things, by all means go
right ahead."
Furneaux's eyes glinted, and his wizened cheeks showed some token of
color, but he kept his voice marvelously under control.
"In time you will come to thank me, Mr. Osborne," he said. "To-day you
are bitter, and I am not surprised at it, but you could never have been
happy in your marriage with Miss Rosalind Marsh while the shadow of
suspicion clung to you. Please do not forget that the world believes you
killed Rose de Bercy. If you walked forth now into Regent Street, and
the word went around that you were there, a thousand people would mob
you in a minute, while ten thousand would be prepared to lynch you
within ten minutes. I have played with you, I admit--with others, too,
and now I am sorry--to a certain extent. But in this case, I was at once
detective, and judge, and executioner. If you wantonly transferred your
love from the dead woman to the living one, I cared not a straw what you
suffered or how heavily you were punished. That phase has passed. To-day
you have justified yourself. Within twenty-four hours you will be free
to marry Rosalind Marsh, because your name will have lost the smirch now
placed on it, while your promise to Hylda Prout will be dissolved. But
for twenty-four hours you must remain here, apparently a prisoner, in
reality as much at liberty as any man in London. Yes, I vouch for my
words----" for at last wonder and hope were dawning in Osborne's
eyes--"my chief, Mr. Winter, will tell you that I have never spoken in
this manner without making good what I have said--never, I repeat. If I
could spare you the necessity of passing a night in a cell I would do
so; but I cannot. You are the decoy duck for the wild creature that I
mean to lay hands on before another day has closed. Make yourself as
comfortable as possible--the inspector will see to that--but I _must_
keep you here, a prisoner in all outward semblance. Are you willing?"
"For Heaven's sake----" began Osborne.
"For Rosalind's sake, too," said Furneaux gravely. "No, I can answer no
questions. She has more to bear than you. She does not know what to
believe, whom to trust, whereas you have my solemn assurance that all
will soon be well with both you and her. You see, I am not craving your
forgiveness--yet. It suffices that I have forgiven _you_, since your
tribulation will end quickly, whereas mine remains for the rest of my
days. I _did_ love Rose de Bercy: you did not.... Ah, bah! I am growing
sentimental. Winter, have you ever seen me weep? No; then gag me if you
hear me talking in this strain again. Come, I have much to tell you.
Good-day, Mr. Osborne. The hours will soon fly; by this time to-morrow
you will be gay, light-hearted, ready to shout your joy from the
housetops--ready even to admit that a detective may be bothered with
that useless incubus--a heart."
Osborne took a step towards him, but Furneaux sprang out and banged the
door. Winter caught the millionaire by the shoulder.
"I am as thoroughly in the dark as you," he said. "Perhaps not, though.
I have a glimmer of light; you, too, will begin to see dimly when you
have collected your thoughts. But you must let Furneaux have his way. It
may not be your way--it certainly is not mine--but he never fails when
he promises, and, at any rate, you must now be sure that no manner of
doubt rests in the minds of the police where you are concerned. It is
possible, after Furneaux and I have gone into this thing fully, that you
may be released to-night----"
"Mr. Winter," cried Osborne, in whose veins the blood was coursing
tumultuously, "let that strange man justify his words concerning Miss
Marsh, and I shall remain here a month if that will help."