"How did I come to suspect the girl?" said Cleek, answering
Narkom's query, as they swung off through the darkness in the red
limousine, leaving Edgburn and his confederates in the hands of
the police. "Well, as a matter of fact, I did not suspect her at
all, in the beginning--her saintly reputation saved her from any
such thing as that. It was only when her father came in that I
knew. And later, I knew even better--when I saw that pretended
imbecile sitting there in that room; for the blundering fool had been
ass enough to kick off his slippers and sit there in his stocking
feet, and I spotted the Alvarez foot on the instant. Still, I
didn't know but what the girl herself might be an innocent victim--a
sort of dove in a vulture's nest--and it was not until I found that
scrap of wood from a sharpened lead pencil that I began to doubt
her. It was only when I promised that Barrington-Edwards should be
trapped, that I actually knew. The light that flamed in her eyes in
spite of her at that would have made an idiot understand. What's
that? What should I suspect from the finding of that scrap of
pencil? My dear Mr. Narkom, carry your mind back to that moment
when I found the stain on poor Jim Peabody's thumb, and then examined
the blade of his pocket knife. The marks on the latter showed
clearly that the man had sharpened a pencil with it--and, of
course, with the point of that pencil against the top of his
thumb. By the peculiar bronze-like shine of the streaks, and the
small particles of dust adhering to the knife blade, I felt persuaded
that the pencil was an indelible one--in short, one of those
which write a faint, blackish-lilac hue which, on the application
of moisture, turns to a vivid and indelible purple. The moisture
induced by the act of thrusting his forefingers up his nostrils to
allay the horrible sensation of the brain descending, which that
hellish powder produces, together with the perspiration which comes
with intense agony, had made such a change in the smears his thumb
and forefinger bore, and left no room for doubt that at the time he
was smitten he had either just begun or just concluded writing
something with an indelible pencil which he had but recently
sharpened. Poor wretch! he of all the lot had some one belonging
to him that was still living--his poor old mother. It is very fair to
suppose that, finding the Alvarez place so lavishly furnished, and
having hopes that great riches were yet to be his, he sat down on
that bed and began to write a few lines in his illiterate way to
that mother before wholly undressing and getting between the
sheets. The mark on his palm is a clear proof that when the
powder suddenly descended upon him he involuntarily closed his hand
on that letter and the perspiration transferred to his flesh the
shape of the scrawl upon which it rested. Pardon? How did I know
through that scrawl that I was really on the track, and that it
was the Bareva Reef that was at the bottom of the whole game? My
dear Mr. Narkom, I won't insult your intelligence by explaining
that. All you have to do is to turn that tracing upside down and
look _through_ it--or at it in a mirror--and you'll have the answer
for yourself. What's that? The parcel the girl gave Edgburn to
carry out on the pretext of taking it to an orphanage? Oh, that
was how they were slowly getting rid of the victims' clothes.
Cutting them up into little pieces and throwing them into the
river, I suppose, or if not----"
He stopped suddenly, his ear caught by a warning sound; then turned
in his seat and glanced through the little window at the back of the
limousine.
"I thought as much," he said, half aloud; then leaned forward,
caught up the pipe of the speaking tube, and signalled Lennard. "Look
sharp--taxi following us!" he said. "Put on a sudden spurt--that chap
will increase speed to keep pace with us--then pull up sharp and
let the other fellow's impetus carry him by before he can help
himself. Out with the light, Mr. Narkom--out with it quick!"
Both Lennard and his master followed instructions. Of a sudden the
lights flicked out, the car leapt forward with a bound, then pulled
up with a jerk that shook it from end to end. In that moment the
taxi in the rear whizzed by them, and Narkom, leaning forward to
look as it flashed past, saw seated within it the figure of Count
Waldemar of Mauravania.
"By James! Did you see that, Cleek?" he cried, and switched round
and made a grab for Cleek's arm.
But Cleek was not there. His seat was empty, and the door beside it
was swinging ajar.
"Well, I'll be jiggered!" exclaimed the superintendent, fairly
carried out of himself--for, even in his old Vanishing Cracksman's
days, when he had slipped the leash and eluded the police so often,
the man had not made a more adroit, more silent, more successful
getaway than this. "Of all the astonishing----! Gad, an eel's a
fool to him for slipping out of tight places. When did he go, I
wonder, and where?"
Never very strong on matters of detail, here curiosity tricked him
into absolute indiscretion. Sliding along the seat to the swinging
door he thrust it open and leaned out into the darkness, for a
purpose so evident that he who ran might read. That one who ran
_did_, he had good reason to understand in the next instant, for,
of a sudden, the taxi in advance checked its wild flight, swung
round with a noisy scroo-op, and pelted back until the two vehicles
stood cheek by jowl, so to speak, and the glare of its headlights
was pouring full force upon Mr. Narkom and into the interior of
the red limousine.
"Here! Dash your infernal impudence," began he, blinking up at
the driver through a glare which prevented him seeing that the
taxicab's leather blinds had been discreetly pulled down, and its
interior rendered quite invisible; but before he could add so much
as another word to his protest the chauffeur's voice broke in with
a blandness and an accent which told its own story.
"Dix mille pardons, m'sieur," it commenced, then pulled itself
up as if the owner of it had suddenly recollected himself--and
added abruptly in a farcical attempt to imitate the jargon of the
fast-disappearing London cabby. "Keep of the 'air on, ole coq!
Only wantin' to arsk of the question civile. Lost my bloomin' way.
Put a cove on to the short cut to the 'Igh Street will yer, like a
blessed Christian? I dunno where I are."
Mr. Narkom was not suffered to make reply. Before he had more
than grasped the fact that the speaker was undeniably a Frenchman,
Lennard--out of the range of that dazzling light--had made the
discovery that he was yet more undeniably a Frenchman of that class
from which the Apaches are recruited, and stepped into the breach
with astonishing adroitness.
"Oh, that's the trouble, is it?" he interposed. "My hat! Why, of
course we'll put you on the way. Wot's more, we'll take you along
and show you--won't we, guv'ner, eh?--so as you won't go astray till
you gets there. 'Eads in and door shut, Superintendent," bringing
the limousine around until it pointed in the same direction as the
taxicab. "Now then, straight ahead, and foller yer nose, Jules;
we'll be rubbin' shoulders with you the whole blessed way. And
as the Dook of Wellington said to Napoleon Bonaparte, 'None of
your larks, you blighter--you're a-comin' along with me!'"
That he was, was a condition of affairs so inevitable that the
chauffeur made no attempt to evade it; merely put on speed and
headed straight for the distant High Street for the purpose of
getting rid of his escort as soon as possible; and Lennard, putting
on speed, likewise, and keeping pace with him, ran him neck and neck,
until the heath was left far and away behind, the darkness gave
place to a glitter of street lamps, the lonely roads to populous
thoroughfares, and the way was left clear for Cleek to get off
unfollowed and unmolested.