The statement that the woman found by Patterson on his first entry
there, and seen by me afterwards, had disappeared, was at first
discredited by our companions. It seemed too astounding to be the
truth, nevertheless there was now reclining in the same armchair a woman
who certainly bore no resemblance whatever to the beautiful, fair-haired
girl with eyes of such deep, pure blue--those eyes that had stared at me
so horribly in the ghastly rigidity of death. I recollected that smile
upon her lips, half of sarcasm, half of pleasure; that strange
expression which had held me entranced yet horrified.
She had disappeared, and here in her place was a dark-complexioned
woman, older, nevertheless handsome--a woman in whose refined face was
an air of romance and tragedy, and upon whose hand was the marriage
bond. She, too, was dead. The doctor had examined her and pronounced
life extinct.
"How could this have occurred?" I exclaimed, turning to Patterson as
soon as I had recovered from the shock of the astounding discovery.
"It's simply amazing!" he declared. "I'm utterly at a loss to account
for it. The woman we found here was most distinctly another person."
"Then there has been a triple tragedy," observed Boyd. "The body of the
first woman must have been conveyed away during the time you were absent
at the police-station."
"But why?" I asked. "What on earth could be the motive?"
"Impossible to tell," Patterson answered. "Perhaps the body is hidden
somewhere in the house."
"No," Boyd replied. "We've made a complete search everywhere. It has
undoubtedly been taken away. This fact, in itself, shows first, that
there is more than one person implicated in the crime, and secondly,
that they were absolutely fearless; while further, the incident of the
telephone is in itself sufficient proof that they had taken the utmost
precautions against detection."
"Are you quite certain that every cupboard and wardrobe has been looked
into?" I asked doubtfully.
"Quite. From garret to cellar we've thoroughly overhauled the place.
There are a couple of large trunks in one of the bedrooms, but we
examined the contents of both. They contain books."
"But loose boards, or places of that sort?" I suggested.
"When we search a place," responded the Scotland Yard inspector with a
smile, "we're always on the look-out for places of concealment. I've
superintended the investigation myself, and I vouch that nothing is
concealed within this house."
"Do you think that the assassin was actually in the house when we first
entered?"
"That's more than likely," he answered with a pensive air. "Evidently
the instant you'd gone the body of the fair-haired girl was somehow
spirited away."
"Where?"
"Ah, that's what we must find out. Perhaps a taxi-driver will be able
to throw a light upon the matter."
"This is certainly a first-class mystery," observed Dick, with
journalistic instinct and a keen eye to those "special interviews" and
"latest revelations" in which readers of his journal always revelled.
"It will make no end of a stir. What a godsend, now that the gooseberry
season is coming on."
A good murder mystery is always welcome to a certain class of London
daily journals, but more especially in the season when Parliament is
"up," the Courts are closed for the Vacation, and the well of sensations
runs low. This season is termed, in journalistic parlance, "the
gooseberry season," on account of the annual appearance of the big
gooseberry, that mythical monster of our youth, the sea-serpent, and the
starting of the usual silly correspondence upon "Why should we live?" or
some equally interesting controversial subject.
We were all held in blank astonishment at this latest development of the
extraordinary affair. It had so many remarkable phases that, even to
Boyd, one of the shrewdest officers of the Criminal Investigation
Department, it was bewildering.
To me, however, the disappearance of that dead woman with the fair, pure
face was the strangest of all that tangle of astounding facts. That
face had impressed me. Its every feature had been riveted indelibly
upon my memory, for it was a face which, in life, I should have fallen
down and worshipped as an idol, for there was about it a purity and
charm which must have been highly attractive, a vivacity in those eyes
which, even in death, had held me spell-bound.
"I don't see that we can do any more just now," Boyd remarked in a
business-like tone to his subordinate.
"You've seen the three cards which were beneath the plates on the
dining-table?" I asked.
"Yes," he responded. "There's some hidden meaning connected with them,
but what it's impossible at present to guess. In order to prosecute our
inquiries we must preserve secrecy. Nothing must be published yet.
Indeed, Patterson, you'll apply to the Coroner at once to take steps to
withhold the real state of affairs from the public. If the assassins
find that no hue and cry is aroused we may have a far better chance of
tracing them, for they may betray themselves."
"It's a pity," observed Dick, deeply disappointed. "A first-class
sensation of this sort don't occur every day. Why, it's worth four
columns if a line."
"Be patient," Patterson urged. "You shall have an opportunity of
publishing it before long, and I'll see that you are a long way ahead of
your contemporaries."
"Don't let the news agencies have a word. They always try and get in
front of us," said Cleugh, whose particular antagonists were the Central
News and the Press Association, which possess facilities for the
collection of news and its transmission by wire to the various
newspapers that form one of the most marvellous organisations in unknown
London.
"Leave it to me," said the inspector. "As soon as it's wise to let the
public know anything I'll give you permission to publish. The _Comet_
shall be first in the field with it."
"Very well," answered Dick, satisfied with Patterson's answer. That
officer had been prominent a few years before in the investigations
relative to those mysterious assassinations of women in Whitechapel, and
was very friendly with "the _Comet_ man," as Cleugh was termed in the
journal which he represented.
Many were the suggestions we put forth as to how the bodies of the
victims could have thus been changed, but no theory we could advance
seemed likely to have any foundation in fact.
The mystery was certainly one of the strangest that had ever puzzled the
crime investigators of London. The cause of its discovery was a most
remarkable incident, and at every turn as the investigation proceeded
mystery seemed to follow upon mystery, until the whole affair presented
so many curious features that a solution of the problem seemed utterly
impossible.
I bent beside the body of the woman who, reclining in the armchair with
one arm fallen by her side, presented the appearance of one asleep. Her
presence there was a profound enigma. A thought, however, occurred to
me at that moment. The dining-table below had been laid for three.
Perhaps she was the third person.
For the greater part of an hour we remained in that house of grim
shadows discussing the various phases of the astounding affair, until at
last, about eleven, we all left, two constables in uniform being
stationed within. So secretly had this search been carried out that the
neighbours, though, perhaps, puzzled by Patterson's inquiries,
entertained no suspicion of any tragic occurrence. In Kensington Road
all the shops facing Upper Phillimore Place were closed save the
tobacconist's and the frequent public-houses, the foot passengers were
few, and at that hour the stream of taxis with homeward-bound
theatre-goers had not yet commenced. Market garden carts from Hounslow
or Feltham, piled high with vegetables, rumbled slowly past on their
journey to Covent Garden, and a few empty motor-buses rattled along
towards Hyde Park, but beyond all was quiet, for that great artery of
Western London goes early to rest.
At the police-station we took leave of Patterson and Boyd, and entering
a motor-bus at Kensington Church, arrived at our chambers shortly before
midnight.
"There's something infernally uncanny in the whole business," said the
Mystery-monger as we sat smoking, prior to turning in. It was our habit
to smoke and gossip for half an hour before going to bed, no matter what
the time. Our talk was generally of "shop" events in our world of
journalism, the chatter of Fleet Street intermingled with reminiscences
of the day's doings. Dick was sitting in the armchair reflectively
sucking his eternal briar, while I sat at my table pondering over a
letter I had found there on my return. It was from Mary Blain, for whom
I had once long ago entertained a very strong affection, but who had
since gone out of my life, leaving only a shadowy recollection of a
midsummer madness, of clandestine meetings, of idle, careless days spent
in company with a smart, eminently pretty, girl in blue serge skirt,
cotton blouse and sailor hat. All was of the past. She had played me
false. I was poor, and she had thrown me over for a man richer than
myself. For nearly three years I had heard little of her; indeed, I
confess that she had almost passed from my memory until that evening
when I had sat awaiting Dick, and now on my return I opened that letter
to discover it in her well-known, bold hand--the hand of an educated
woman.
The letter, which had had some wanderings, as its envelope showed, and
was dated from her father's house up the river, merely expressed a hope
that I was in good health, and satisfaction at hearing news of me
through a mutual friend. Such a letter struck me as rather strange. I
could only account for it by the fact that she desired to resume our
acquaintanceship, and that this was a woman's diplomatic way of opening
negotiations. All women are born diplomatists, and woman's wit and
powers of perception are far more acute than man's.
The letter brought back to me vividly the memory of that sweet, merry
face beneath the sailor hat, the wealth of dark hair, the laughing eyes
so dark and brilliant, the small white hands, and their wrists confined
by their golden bangles. Yes, Mary Blain was uncommonly good-looking.
Her face was one in ten thousand. But she was utterly heartless. I
recollected how, when with her mother she had spent a summer at
Eastbourne, what a sensation her remarkable beauty caused at Sunday
parade on the Esplanade. She was lovely without consciousness of it,
utterly ingenuous, and as ignorant of the world's wickedness as a child.
The daughter of a wealthy City man who combined company-promoting with
wine-importing, she had from childhood been nursed in the lap of luxury,
and being the only child, was the idol of her parents. Their country
house at Harwell, near Didcot, was in my father's parish, and from the
time when her nurse used to bring her to the Rectory until that
well-remembered evening when in the leafy by-lane I had for the last
time turned my back upon her with a hasty word of denunciation, we had
been closest friends. She had played me false. My hopes had been
wrecked on Life's strange and trackless sea, and now whenever I thought
of her it was only in bitterness. I have more than a suspicion that old
Mr. Blain did not approve of our close acquaintanceship, knowing that I
was a mere journalist with an almost untaxable income; nevertheless, she
had continued to meet me, and many were the happy hours we spent
together wandering through that charming country that skirts the upper
reaches of the Thames.
In order to see her I used frequently to run down from London to my home
on Saturdays and remain till Mondays. With her mother she sat in her
seat in front of the Rectory pew, and as she walked down the aisle her
face would be illumined by a glad light of welcome. How restful were
those Sundays after the wear and tear of London life! How peaceful the
days in that sleepy little village hidden away in a leafy hollow three
miles from the Great Western line! After we had parted, however, I did
not go home for six months. Then, on inquiry, I found that the Blains
had sold their place, presumably because they were in want of money, for
it was said that they had taken a smaller house facing the Thames, near
Laleham, that village a little beyond Shepperton, where in the
churchyard lies Matthew Arnold. From all accounts old Blain had lost
heavily in speculation and had been compelled to sell his carriages and
horses, dispose of many of his pictures, and even part with some of the
Louis Seize furniture at Shenley Court, where they had lived. This was,
of course, indicative of a very severe reverse of fortune.
Since those hours of Mary's love and her subsequent falseness, my life
had been a queer series of ups and downs, as it must ever be in
journalistic London. Many dreary days of changeful care had come and
gone since then.