"Assassin!"
This was the cry which rang out in the stillness of the night, and
aroused the interest of one inhabitant of Brakely Square who was awake.
Mr. Gregory Farrington, a victim of insomnia, heard the sound, and put
down the book he was reading, with a frown. He rose from his easy chair,
pulled his velvet dressing gown lightly round his rotund form and
shuffled to the window. His blinds were lowered, but these were of the
ordinary type, and he stuck two fingers between two of the laths.
There was a moist film on the window through which the street lamps
showed blurred and indistinct, and he rubbed the pane clear with the
tips of his fingers (he described every action to T. B. Smith
afterwards).
Two men stood outside the house. They occupied the centre of the
deserted pavement, and they were talking excitedly. Through the closed
window Mr. Farrington could hear the staccato rattle of their voices,
and by the gesticulations, familiar to one who had lived for many years
in a Latin country, he gathered that they were of that breed.
He saw one raise his hand to strike the other and caught the flash of a
pistol-barrel excitedly flourished.
"Humph!" said Mr. Farrington.
He was alone in his beautiful house in Brakely Square. His butler, the
cook, and one sewing maid and the chauffeur were attending the servants'
ball which the Manley-Potters were giving. Louder grew the voices on the
pavement.
"Thief!" shrilled a voice in French, "Am I to be robbed of----" and the
rest was indistinguishable.
There was a policeman on point duty at the other side of the square. Mr.
Farrington's fingers rubbed the glass with greater energy, and his
anxious eyes looked left and right for the custodian of the law.
He crept down the stairs, opened the metal flap of the letter-box and
listened. It was not difficult to hear all they said, though they had
dropped their voices, for they stood at the foot of the steps.
"What is the use?" said one in French. "There is a reward large enough
for two--but for him--my faith! there is money to be made, sufficient
for twenty. It is unfortunate that we should meet on similar errands,
but I swear to you I did not desire to betray you----" The voice sank.
Mr. Farrington chewed the butt of his cigar in the darkness of the hall
and pieced together the jigsaw puzzle of this disjointed conversation.
These men must be associates of Montague--Montague Fallock, who else?
Montague Fallock, the blackmailer for whom the police of Europe were
searching, and individually and separately they had arranged to
blackmail him--or betray him.
The fact that T. B. Smith also had a house in Brakely Square, and that
T. B. Smith was an Assistant Commissioner of the police, and most
anxious to meet Montague Fallock in the flesh, might supply reason
enough to the logical Mr. Farrington for this conversation outside his
respectable door.
"Yes, I tell you," said the second man, angrily, "that I have arranged
to see M'sieur--you must trust me----"
"We go together," said the other, definitely, "I trust no man, least of
all a confounded Neapolitan----"
Constable Habit had not heard the sound of quarrelling voices, as far
as could be gathered from subsequent inquiry. His statement, now in the
possession of T. B. Smith, distinctly says, "I heard nothing unusual."
But suddenly two shots rang out.
"Clack--clack!" they went, the unmistakable sound of an automatic pistol
or pistols, then a police whistle shrieked, and P. C. Habit broke into a
run in the direction of the sound, blowing his own whistle as he ran.
He arrived to find three men, two undoubtedly dead on the ground, and
the third, Mr. Farrington's unpicturesque figure, standing shivering in
the doorway of his house, a police whistle at his lips, and his grey
velvet dressing-gown flapping in a chill eastern wind.
Ten minutes later T. B. Smith arrived on the scene from his house, to
find a crowd of respectable size, half the bedroom windows of Brakely
Square occupied by the morbid and the curious, and the police ambulance
already on the spot.
"Dead, sir," reported the constable.
T. B. looked at the men on the ground. They were obviously foreigners.
One was well, almost richly dressed; the other wore the shabby evening
dress of a waiter, under the long ulster which covered him from neck to
foot.
The men lay almost head to head. One flat on his face (he had been in
this position when the constable found him, and had been restored to
that position when the methodical P. C. Habit found that he was beyond
human assistance) and the other huddled on his side.
The police kept the crowd at a distance whilst the head of the secret
police (T. B. Smith's special department merited that description) made
a careful examination. He found a pistol on the ground, and another
under the figure of the huddled man, then as the police ambulance was
backed to the pavement, he interviewed the shivering Mr. Farrington.
"If you will come upstairs," said that chilled millionaire, "I will tell
you all I know."
T. B. sniffed the hall as he entered, but said nothing. He had his
olfactory sense developed to an abnormal degree, but he was a tactful
and a silent man.
He knew Mr. Farrington--who did not?--both as a new neighbour and as the
possessor of great wealth.
"Your daughter----" he began.
"My ward," corrected Mr. Farrington, as he switched on all the lights of
his sitting-room, "she is out--in fact she is staying the night with my
friend Lady Constance Dex--do you know her?"
T. B. nodded.
"I can only give you the most meagre information," said Mr. Farrington.
He was white and shaky, a natural state for a law-abiding man who had
witnessed wilful murder. "I heard voices and went down to the door,
thinking I would find a policeman--then I heard two shots almost
simultaneously, and opened the door and found the two men as they were
found by the policeman."
"What were they talking about?"
Mr. Farrington hesitated.
"I hope I am not going to be dragged into this case as a witness?" he
asked, rather than asserted, but received no encouragement in the spoken
hope from T. B. Smith.
"They were discussing that notorious man, Montague Fallock," said the
millionaire; "one was threatening to betray him to the police."
"Yes," said T. B. It was one of those "yesses" which signified
understanding and conviction.
Then suddenly he asked:
"Who was the third man?"
Mr. Farrington's face went from white to red, and to white again.
"The third man?" he stammered.
"I mean the man who shot those two," said T. B., "because if there is
one thing more obvious than another it is that they were both killed by
a third person. You see," he went on, "though they had pistols neither
had been discharged--that was evident, because on each the safety catch
was raised. Also the lamp-post near which they stood was chipped by a
bullet which neither could have fired. I suggest, Mr. Farrington, that
there was a third man present. Do you object to my searching your
house?"
A little smile played across the face of the other.
"I haven't the slightest objection," he said. "Where will you start?"
"In the basement," said T. B.; "that is to say, in your kitchen."
The millionaire led the way down the stairs, and descended the back
stairway which led to the domain of the absent cook. He turned on the
electric light as they entered.
There was no sign of an intruder.
"That is the cellar door," indicated Mr. Farrington, "this the larder,
and this leads to the area passage. It is locked."
T. B. tried the handle, and the door opened readily.
"This at any rate is open," he said, and entered the dark passageway.
"A mistake on the part of the butler," said the puzzled Mr. Farrington.
"I have given the strictest orders that all these doors should be
fastened. You will find the area door bolted and chained."
T. B. threw the rays of his electric torch over the door.
"It doesn't seem to be," he remarked; "in fact, the door is ajar."
Farrington gasped.
"Ajar?" he repeated. T. B. stepped out into the well of the tiny
courtyard. It was approached from the street by a flight of stone
stairs.
T. B. threw the circle of his lamp over the flagged yard. He saw
something glittering and stooped to pick it up. The object was a tiny
gold-capped bottle such as forms part of the paraphernalia in a woman's
handbag.
He lifted it to his nose and sniffed it.
"That is it," he said.
"What?" asked Mr. Farrington, suspiciously.
"The scent I detected in your hall," replied T. B. "A peculiar scent, is
it not?" He raised the bottle to his nose again. "Not your ward's by any
chance?"
Farrington shook his head vigorously.
"Doris has never been in this area in her life," he said; "besides, she
dislikes perfumes."
T. B. slipped the bottle in his pocket.
Further examination discovered no further clue as to the third person,
and T. B. followed his host back to the study.
"What do you make of it?" asked Mr. Farrington.
T. B. did not answer immediately. He walked to the window and looked
out. The little crowd which had been attracted by the shots and arrival
of the police ambulance had melted away. The mist which had threatened
all the evening had rolled into the square and the street lamps showed
yellow through the dingy haze.
"I think," he said, "that I have at last got on the track of Montague
Fallock."
Mr. Farrington looked at him with open mouth.
"You don't mean that?" he asked incredulously.
T. B. inclined his head.
"The open door below--the visitor?" jerked the stout man, "you don't
think Montague Fallock was in the house to-night?"
T. B. nodded again, and there was a moment's silence.
"He has been blackmailing me," said Mr. Farrington, thoughtfully, "but I
don't think----"
The detective turned up his coat collar preparatory to leaving.
"I have a rather unpleasant job," he said. "I shall have to search
those unfortunate men."
Mr. Farrington shivered. "Beastly," he said, huskily.
T. B. glanced round the beautiful apartment with its silver fittings,
its soft lights and costly panellings. A rich, warm fire burnt in an
oxidized steel grate. The floor was a patchwork of Persian rugs, and a
few pictures which adorned the walls must have been worth a fortune.
On the desk there was a big photograph in a plain silver frame--the
photograph of a handsome woman in the prime of life.
"Pardon me," said T. B., and crossed to the picture, "this is----"
"Lady Constance Dex," said the other, shortly--"a great friend of mine
and my ward's."
"Is she in town?"
Mr. Farrington shook his head.
"She is at Great Bradley," he said; "her brother is the rector there."
"Great Bradley?"
T. B.'s frown showed an effort to recollect something.
"Isn't that the locality which contains the Secret House?"
"I've heard something about the place," said Mr. Farrington with a
little smile.
"C. D.," said the detective, making for the door.
"What?"
"Lady Constance Dex's initials, I mean," said T. B.
"Yes--why?"
"Those are the initials on the gold scent bottle, that is all," said the
detective. "Good night."
He left Mr. Farrington biting his finger nails--a habit he fell into
when he was seriously perturbed.