"What's your opinion of that? Is the person mentioned myself? and is
the friend actually Dick?"
"It really seems so," he responded, with knit brows. "In that case they
must have long ago suspected you of being aware of their secret. This
would, of course, account for the cowardly attempt to take your life."
"By means of this unknown drug here--eh?" I suggested bitterly,
pointing to the small box which I had a moment before closed.
"Certainly," said the detective. "There can now be no further doubt of
Miss Glaslyn's complicity in the affair."
"I wonder who is the author of these type-written letters?" I said.
"If we knew that, it would let a flood of light into the whole matter."
"We shall, I hope, discover that in due course," he answered. "Let's
finish these investigations before discussing our next move," and he
continued, carefully placing back the letters in the secret drawers, now
and then pausing to re-read one which chanced to attract his attention.
"Look at this," he said, passing one over to me after he had glanced at
it.
It was written on pale green paper in a fine fashionable woman's hand, a
few brief lines, which ran:--
"My dear Eva,--I could not come to-day, but shall be there this evening.
Everything is complete. When the truth becomes known the discovery
will, I anticipate, startle the world. It must, for reasons you know,
remain a strict secret. Do not breathe a word to a soul.--Yours ever.
"Anna."
"That may refer to the invention we found in the laboratory; a
scientific discovery which no one has come forward to claim. But who, I
wonder, is Anna?"
"She might be the dead woman," Boyd suggested.
"True," I agreed. "So she might."
During fully half an hour we still remained in that small cosy boudoir,
which seemed to be Eva's own room, examining everything carefully and
taking the utmost precaution to replace everything exactly as we found
it. In this Boyd displayed real genius. Whatever was moved he
rearranged it with an exactness little short of astounding. His
astuteness was remarkable. Nothing escaped him, now that he was on the
trail.
Yet, as I wandered about, examining things here and there, I could not
repress a feeling of reproach, for had I not, after all, assisted in
this secret search which had resulted so disastrously for the strange,
mysterious woman I so dearly loved? She was now under the suspicion of
the police. They would keep her under surveillance, for the evidence we
had already obtained was sufficient to induce any magistrate to grant a
warrant for her arrest. A sudden sense of a vast, immeasurable loss
fell upon me.
The small box containing the greyish-blue powder had been replaced in
the concealed drawer, and everything had been rearranged in the room,
when the local officer said--
"At the end of the corridor there's another sitting-room."
"Very well," Boyd answered. "Let's see what it's like," and we all
three, lights in hand, followed our guide until we entered a smaller
sitting-room.
An easel stood in it and it was apparently used by Eva as a studio, for
she, I knew, took lessons in painting. Upon the easel stood a canvas
half finished, while near the window was a small writing-table, the one
long drawer of which was locked. The lock was a common one and quickly
yielded to Boyd's skeleton keys, but within we only found another
collection of old letters, a quantity of pencil sketches, colours and
other odds and ends connected with her art studies. Boyd was turning
them over methodically, when suddenly an involuntary exclamation escaped
him.
"Ah! What's this?" he ejaculated, at the same time drawing forth a card
about the size of a lady's visiting card, and held it out to me.
Upon it was drawn in ink a circle. It was executed in exactly the same
manner as that we had found concealed beneath the plates in the
dining-room at Phillimore Place.
Again he turned the things over and drew out three or four other cards
of similar size and style, each bearing a device, one having upon its
face the straight line exactly like that we had found in Kensington.
"You recognise these devices?" he inquired.
"Of course," I responded in an awed voice, utterly bewildered. "What, I
wonder, can they denote?"
He shrugged his shoulders, examined each card carefully beneath the rays
of his lamp, felt it, and after carefully examining all the
heterogeneous collection of things in the drawer, placed them back
again, closed it, and relocked it.
"Those cards bear some very important part in the tragedy, I feel
assured," he said when he had finished, and turned to me with a puzzled
expression. "They look innocent enough, and the devices are in no way
forbidding; nevertheless, it is strange that we find here, in her
possession, exact duplicates not only of the cards, but also of that
coin carried by the dead man."
"It's all utterly astounding," I declared. Then, with a touch of
poignant regret and despair, I added: "All these discoveries would cause
me the highest gratification if I did not love her as fondly as I do."
"You surely could not make a murderess your wife, Urwin?" my friend
said. "In this matter remember that we are striving to fathom a mystery
which is one of the most profound and remarkable that has ever been
reported at the Yard."
"I know," I answered, glancing around that small room wherein my
well-beloved had spent her days in the study of art. "But what I cannot
understand is how, being an actual victim of the tragedy, she is
nevertheless at the same time implicated in the affair."
"That will be made plain later," he said with an air of confidence.
"One thing is quite clear, that she purchased certain poisons which are
only known to those well versed in toxicology. We have that on old
Lowry's own authority. If, then, she bought this drug it could only be
for one purpose, namely, to commit murder. Well, she made an attempt
upon you; therefore, why should you endeavour to shield her?"
"Because I love her," I answered, still unconvinced by his argument.
"Bah! Love is entirely out of the question in this matter, my dear
fellow," he said, with a gesture of impatience. "She may have
fascinated you because of her unusual beauty, but beyond that--well, in
six months' time you'll thank Providence that you've not married her--
mark my words."
That was exactly what she herself had said, I reflected. She had
prophesied that one day, ere long, I would hate the very mention of her
name.
From room to room we passed, examining everything, allowing nothing to
escape us. There was assuredly no sign of poverty in that house, but
really the reverse, a lavish display of costly objects, which showed
that its owner was capricious, with money at her command. No expense
seemed to have been spared to render that abode the acme of comfort and
modern convenience.
In one of the bedrooms in that same corridor, a room which we decided
was Eva's from various dresses and other things it contained, we found
standing upon the table a large panel photograph of a kind-faced,
middle-aged woman, which the local officer at once recognised as that of
Lady Glaslyn.
Boyd, taking it up, examined it long and earnestly beneath the light of
the bull's-eye.
"Devilish good-looking for a woman of her age," he remarked
thoughtfully, as he slowly replaced it upon the table. "Do you know?"
he added, turning to me, "I fancy I've met her somewhere--but where I
can't for the life of me recollect. What do you know about the family?"
"Very little beyond what's in Burke, which only devotes three lines to
them. The baronetcy was conferred in 1839, and Lady Glaslyn's husband,
Sir Thomas, died six years ago. No mention is made of their country
seat, so I presume they haven't one."
Boyd stroked his beard and gave vent to a low grunt of doubt.
"Well," he said, "I'm almost positive that I've met her before
somewhere. I wonder where it was."
Quickly we rearranged the articles in the room which we had disturbed
and passed on to the next, the door of which faced us, forming the end
of the long corridor.
"Hulloa!" Boyd cried. "What does this mean?"
We both looked, and by the light of the lantern saw that the door was a
double one and that right across it was a long bar of steel or iron
painted and grained the colour of the wood so as not to be noticeable,
and securing it strongly.
"This is decidedly funny," the detective continued, bending down to
examine something. "Look! it's sealed!"
I bent eagerly beside him, and there saw that the great sliding bolt ran
in three large hasps, and that one of the knobs of the bolt was secured
by wire to the hasp, the two ends of the wire being secured together by
a round seal of molten lead about the size of a shilling. By this the
bolt was rendered immovable.
"Extraordinary!" I gasped, as we all stood wondering what might be
therein concealed. "If we cut the wire then our presence here will be
betrayed," I said.
But Boyd, who was still examining the seal with great care, exclaimed at
last, pointing to it--
"Do you see two letters on the seal, `R.' and `M.'?"
"Yes," I answered. "What do you think they denote?"
"They tell us how this seal was impressed," the detective responded.
"These initials stand for Rete Mediterranea, and the machine with which
the seal has been impressed is one of those used at every Italian
railway station to seal merchandise and passengers' baggage. It has
certainly been placed upon the wire by one who knew how to handle the
instrument with dexterity."
"There must be something in that room which her ladyship desires to keep
secret," I remarked, both amazed and excited at this latest discovery.
"Yes," remarked Boyd. "At all hazards we must explore it."
"But how," I queried, "without tampering with the seal?"
His brow clouded for a few moments, then again he examined the seal and
wire with the utmost care. He stood motionless, looking at it for fully
a minute, then turning to the local officer, said--
"I'm going downstairs a moment. Don't touch it till I return."
We both sat upon an ottoman in the corridor for nearly a quarter of an
hour, during which time we heard noises downstairs; until Boyd at last
rejoined us with a look of satisfaction in his face, and bearing in his
hands something which looked like a huge pair of rusty shears with
wooden handles.
"I thought I'd find it," he observed, wiping the perspiration from his
brow. His hands and face were blackened as though he had been groping
in a cellar. "This is the seal," and opening his other hand he
displayed an old discoloured pewter teaspoon, adding, "And here's a bit
of lead--or what's as good."
I took the sealing machine from him and examined it carefully. It was
red with dust, and had apparently been thrown aside and neglected for a
long time.
"Now," said Boyd to his assistant, "I've lit a fire downstairs in the
kitchen, and by the time we've done it'll be sufficiently fierce to melt
the lead."
"Then you intend to break open the door?" I exclaimed.
He smiled, and for answer took from his pocket a champagne-knife,
cutting the wire with a sharp click, untwisting it from the knob, and
placing it with its seal in his pocket.
In breathless eagerness we watched him push back the bolt, and stood
expectant; but when he tried the door he found it to be still locked.
Again he went swiftly to work with his bunch of queer-looking keys, and
at last he saw one of them gently turn, and he pushed wide open the door
of the chamber of secrets.
Next second the bright light of Boyd's bull's-eye flashed into the
interior, and all three of us fell back with exclamations of surprise
and horror. Our discovery was truly astounding.
The horrible sight was most weird and terrifying. Upon the threshold I
stood speechless, utterly unable to move, for the ghastly spectacle made
my hair rise as my eyes became riveted upon the noisome interior of that
long-closed chamber.
Our nostrils were filled with a foetid, nauseating smell of decay which
burst upon us as the door was opened, and at the shock of witnessing the
repulsive sight within, the candle I had held dropped from my trembling
fingers and was extinguished. Slowly, however, I recovered it, taking a
light from the one held by my friend's assistant, and then entered the
place.
It was not a large room, but the shutters of the window had, we
afterwards discovered, been secured by screws and strongly barred. In
the centre was a square table, covered with dust, and several common
wooden chairs stood around. In the empty rusted grate stood a kettle
and a couple of cooking-pots, while upon a side table were a few plates
and a couple of cups and saucers. Along one side stood an old camp
bedstead, and lying upon it, half-covered with a dirty blanket, was a
figure that had once been human but which was now a sight so gruesome
and so horrible that even Boyd, used as he was to such things, drew away
and held his handkerchief to his nose.
The features were beyond recognition, but by the shortness of the hair
the body was evidently that of a man. One arm hung helpless, shrivelled
and discoloured, while on the floor close by were the broken portions of
a cup which had evidently fallen from the dead man's claw-like fingers.
"This is another facer!" Boyd exclaimed in a tone of absolute
bewilderment. "I wonder who he was? It seems by the pots and plates
that he was held a prisoner here--an invalid or imbecile, perhaps,
unable to help himself. Evidently the servants knew nothing of him, for
he cooked his food himself. Phew!" he added. "Let's get outside in the
passage to breathe. This air is enough to poison one."
Half-choked, we went outside, all three of us, and discussed the
startling situation while breathing the purer air. I offered both my
companions cigarettes, which they lit eagerly with myself.
Then, after a few minutes, we returned and resumed our investigations.
About the room were several books in French and German treating of
political economy and other subjects, a couple of old newspapers, two or
three novels, and a number of scientific books which showed their reader
to be an educated man. The room had originally been a bathroom, we
concluded, for there was a water-tap and a large pipe for waste, and
this unfortunate man, whoever he was, had evidently not existed wholly
in darkness, for on examining the shutters we found that one of the
panels was movable, and at that spot the pane of glass was broken, thus
admitting both light and air. Again, there was a small gas-stove ring,
used so universally in London to boil kettles, and this was still
connected by a flexible pipe to a gas bracket on the wall. Hence it was
quite apparent that the room had been specially fitted for the
occupation of the unknown man now dead.
Upon the dusty table were several pieces of writing-paper covered with
some writing in German, a language which I unfortunately could not read,
while beside them I picked up an object which held me amazed and
astounded--a plain card similar to those we had found at Phillimore
Place and among Eva's secret possessions.
Beyond those writings in German we found nothing else to give us a clue
to whom the dead man might be, and even these writings were no proof as
to his identity. We found no writing materials there, hence our doubt
that the writing had been traced by his hand.
Into every hole and crevice we peered, disturbing the rats who had
scampered here and there on our unexpected intrusion, but discovering
nothing else of especial interest, we, after about half an hour, went
forth, glad to escape from the poisonous atmosphere. I closed and
locked the door, when Boyd, cutting out a piece of bell-wire from one of
the bedrooms, re-secured the bolt, and after melting the pewter spoon
below in the kitchen fire, replaced the seal in such a manner that none
could tell it had ever been disturbed.
Truly our midnight search had been a fruitful one. What might next
transpire I dreaded to think. All was so mysterious, so utterly
astounding, that I had become entirely bewildered.