Twenty minutes later his desires in that respect were granted; and,
having been introduced by Mr. Nippers to the little gathering in
the sitting-room of the house of disaster as "a friend of mine from
Scotland Yard, miss," he found himself in the presence of one of
those meek-faced, dove-eyed, "mousy" little bodies who seem born to
be "patient Griseldas"; and in looking at her he was minded of the
description of "Lady Jane" in the poem:
"Her pulse was slow, milk white her skin--
She had not blood enough to sin."
Years of repression had told upon her, and she looked older than she
really was--so old and so dragged out, in fact, that Mrs. Armroyd,
the cook, appeared youthful and attractive in contrast. Indeed,
it was no wonder that Mr. Ephraim Nippers had been attracted by
that good soul; for, although her hair was streaked with gray, and
her figure was of the "sack of flour" order, and her eyes were
assisted in their offices by a pair of steel-bowed spectacles, her
face was still youthful in contour, and Mr. Narkom, looking at
her, concluded that at twenty-four or twenty-five she must have
been a remarkably pretty and remarkably fascinating woman. What
Cleek's thoughts were upon that subject it is impossible to record;
for he merely gave her one look on coming into the room, and then
took no further notice of her whatsoever.
"Indeed, Mr. Headland, I am glad--I am very, very glad--that fortune
has sent you into this neighbourhood at this terrible time," said
Miss Renfrew when Cleek was introduced. "I do not wish to say
anything disparaging of Mr. Nippers, but you can see for yourself
how unfitted such men as he and his assistant are to handle an
affair of this importance. Indeed, I cannot rid my mind of the
thought that if more competent police were on duty here the murder
would not have happened. In short, that the assassin, whoever he
maybe, counted upon the blundering methods of these men as his
passport to safety."
"My own thought precisely," said Cleek. "Mr. Nippers has given me
a brief outline of the affair--would you mind giving me the full
details, Miss Renfrew? At what hour did Mr. Nosworth go into his
laboratory? Or don't you know, exactly?"
"Yes, I know to the fraction of a moment, Mr. Headland. I was looking
at my watch at the time. It was exactly eight minutes past seven. We
had been going over the monthly accounts together, when he suddenly
got up, and without a word walked through that door over there. It
leads to a covered passage connecting the house proper with the
laboratory. That, as you may have heard, is a circular building with
a castellated top. It was built wholly and solely for the carrying on
of his experiments. There is but one floor and one window--a very
small one about six feet from the ground, and on the side of the
Round House which looks away from this building. Nothing but the door
to that is on this side, light being supplied to the interior by a
roof made entirely of heavy corrugated glass."
"I see. Then the place is like a huge tube."
"Exactly--and lined entirely with chilled steel. Such few wooden
appliances as are necessary for the equipment of the place are
thickly coated with asbestos. I made no comment when my uncle rose
and walked in there without a word. I never did. For the past six
or seven months he had been absorbed in working out the details of a
new invention; and I had become used to his jumping up like that and
leaving me. We never have supper in this house--my uncle always
called it a useless extravagance. Instead, we defer tea until six
o'clock and make that the final meal of the day. It was exactly
five minutes to seven when I finished my accounts, and as I had had
a hard day of it, I decided to go to bed early, after having first
taken a walk as far as the old bridge where I hoped that somebody
would be waiting for me."
"I know," said Cleek, gently. "I have heard the story. It would be
Mr. Charles Drummond, would it not?"
"Yes. He was not there, however. Something must have prevented his
coming."
"Hum-m-m! Go on, please."
"Before leaving the house, it occurred to me that I ought to look
into the laboratory and see if there was anything my uncle would
be likely to need for the night, as I intended to go straightway to
bed on my return. I did so. He was sitting at his desk, immediately
under the one window of which I have spoken, and with his back
to me, when I looked in. He answered my inquiry with a curt
'No--nothing. Get out and don't worry me!' I immediately shut the
door and left him, returning here by way of the covered passage and
going upstairs to make some necessary changes in my dress for the
walk to the old bridge. When I came down, ready for my journey, I
looked at the clock on the mantel over there. It was exactly
seventeen minutes to eight o'clock. I had been a little longer in
dressing than I had anticipated being; so, in order to save time
in getting to the trysting place, I concluded to make a short cut
by going out of the rear door and crossing diagonally through our
grounds instead of going by the public highway as usual. I had
scarcely more than crossed the threshold when I ran plump into
Constable Gorham. As he is rather a favourite with good Mrs.
Armroyd here, I fancied that he had been paying her a visit, and
was just coming away from the kitchen. Instead, he rather startled me
by stating that he had seen something which he thought best to come
round and investigate. In short, that, as he was patrolling the
highway, he had seen a man vault over the wall of our grounds
and, bending down, dart out of sight like a hare. He was almost
positive that that man was Sir Ralph Droger. Of course that
frightened me almost out of my wits."
"Why?"
"There was bad blood between my uncle and Sir Ralph Droger--bitter,
bad blood. As you perhaps know, my uncle held this ground on a life
lease from the Droger estate. That is to say, so long as he lived
or refused to vacate that lease, no Droger could oust him nor yet
lift one spadeful of earth from the property."
"Does Sir Ralph desire to do either?"
"He desires to do both. Borings secretly made have manifested the
fact that both Barnsley thick-coal and iron ore underlie the place.
Sir Ralph wishes to tear down the Round House and this building and
to begin mining operations. My uncle, who has been offered the full
value of every stick and stone, has always obstinately refused to
budge one inch or to lessen the lease by one half hour. 'It is for
the term of my life,' he has always said, 'and for the term of my
life I'll hold it!'"
"Oho!" said Cleek; and then puckered up his lips as if about to
whistle.
"Under such circumstances," went on Miss Renfrew, "it was only
natural that I should be horribly frightened, and only too willing
to act upon the constable's suggestion that we at once look into
the Round House and see if everything was right with my uncle."
"Why should the constable suggest that?"
"Everybody in the neighbourhood knows of the bitter ill feeling
existing between the two men; so, of course, it was only natural."
"Hum-m-m! Yes! Just so. Did you act on Constable Gorham's suggestion,
then?"
"Yes. I led the way in here and then up the covered passage to the
laboratory and opened the door. My uncle was sitting exactly as he
had been when I looked in before--his back to me and his face to
the window--but although he did not turn, it was evident that he
was annoyed by my disturbing him, for he growled angrily, 'What the
devil are you coming in here and disturbing me like this for, Jane?
Get out and leave me alone.'"
"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, drawing down his brows and pinching his chin.
"Any mirrors in the Round House?"
"Mirrors? No, certainly not, Mr. Headland. Why?"
"Nothing--only that I was wondering, if as you say, he never turned
and you never spoke, how in the world he knew that it really _was_
you, that's all."
"Oh, I see what you mean," said Miss Renfrew, knotting up her brows.
"It does seem a little peculiar when one looks at it in that way. I
never thought of it before. Neither can I explain it, Mr. Headland,
any more than to say that I suppose he took it for granted. And,
as it happened, he was right. Besides, as you will remember, I
had intruded upon him only a short time before."
"Quite so," said Cleek. "That's what makes it appear stranger than
ever. Under the circumstances one might have expected him to say
_not_ 'What are you coming in here for,' but, 'What are you coming
in for _again_.' Still, of course, there's no accounting for little
lapses like that. Go on, please--what next?"
"Why, of course I immediately explained what Constable Gorham had
said, and why I had looked in. To which he replied, 'The man's an
ass. Get out!' Upon which I closed the door, and the constable and I
went away at once."
"Constable there with you during it all, then?"
"Yes, certainly--in the covered passage, just behind me. He saw and
heard everything; though, of course, neither of us actually entered
the laboratory itself. There was really no necessity when we knew
that my uncle was safe and sound, you see."
"Quite so," agreed Cleek. "So you shut the door and went away--and
then what?"
"Constable Gorham went back to his beat, and I flew as fast as I
could to meet Mr. Drummond. It is only a short way to the old bridge
at best, and by taking that short cut through the grounds, I was
there in less than ten minutes. And by half-past eight I was back
here in a greater state of terror than before."
"And why? Were you so much alarmed that Mr. Drummond did not keep
the appointment?"
"No. That did not worry me at all. He is often unable to keep his
appointments with me. He is filling the post of private secretary
to a large company promoter, and his time is not his own. What
terrified me was that, after waiting a few minutes for him, I
heard somebody running along the road, and a few moments later
Sir Ralph Droger flew by me as if he were being pursued. Under
ordinary circumstances I should have thought that he was getting
into training for the autumn sports (he is, you may know, very keen
on athletics, and holds the County Club's cup for running and
jumping), but when I remembered what Constable Gorham had said, and
saw that Sir Ralph was coming from the direction of this house, all
my wits flew; I got into a sort of panic and almost collapsed with
fright."
"And all because the man was coming from the direction of this house?"
"Not that alone," she answered with a shudder. "I have said that
I should under ordinary circumstances have thought he was merely
training for the autumn sports--for, you see, he was in a running
costume of white cotton stuff and his legs were bare from the knee
down--but as he shot past me in the moonlight I caught sight of
something like a huge splash of blood on his clothes, and coupling
that with the rest I nearly went out of my senses. It wasn't
until long afterward I recollected that the badge of the County
Club is the winged foot of Mercury wrought in brilliant scarlet
embroidery. To me, just then, that thing of red was blood--my
uncle's blood--and I ran and ran and ran until I got back here to
the house and flew up the covered passage and burst into the Round
House. He was sitting there still--just as he had been sitting
before. But he didn't call out to me this time; he didn't reprove me
for disturbing him; didn't make one single movement, utter one single
sound. And when I went to him I knew why. He was dead--stone dead!
The face and throat of him were torn and rent as if some furious
animal had mauled him, and there were curious yellow stains upon his
clothes. That's all, Mr. Headland. I don't know what I did nor
where I went from the moment I rushed shrieking from that room
until I came to my senses and found myself in this one with dear,
kind Mrs. Armroyd here bending over me and doing all in her power
to soothe and to comfort me."
"There, there, cherie, you shall not more distress yourself. It is
of a hardness too great for the poor mind to bear," put in Mrs.
Armroyd herself at this, bending over the sofa as she spoke and
softly smoothing the girl's hair. "It is better she should be at
peace for a little, is it not, monsieur?"
"Very much better, madame," replied Cleek, noting how softly her hand
fell, and how gracefully it moved over the soft hair and across the
white forehead. "No doubt the major part of what still remains to be
told, you in the goodness of your heart, will supply----"
"Of a certainty, monsieur, of a certainty."
"--But for the present," continued Cleek, finishing the interrupted
sentence, "there still remains a question or two which must be
asked, and which only Miss Renfrew herself can answer. As those are
of a private and purely personal nature, madame, would it be asking
too much----" He gave his shoulders an eloquent Frenchified shrug,
looked up at her after the manner of her own countrymen, and let
the rest of the sentence go by default.
"Madame" looked at him and gave her little hands an airy and a
graceful flirt.
"Of a certainty, monsieur," she said, with charming grace. "_Cela
m'est egal_," and walked away with a step remarkably light and
remarkably graceful for one of such weight and generous dimensions.
"Miss Renfrew," said Cleek, sinking his voice and looking her
straight in the eyes, as soon as Mrs. Armroyd had left them, "Miss
Renfrew, tell me something please: Have you any suspicion regarding
the identity or the purpose of the person who murdered your uncle?"
"Not in the slightest, Mr. Headland. Of course, in the beginning, my
thoughts flew at once to Sir Ralph Droger, but I now see how absurd
it is to think that such as he----"
"I am not even hinting at Sir Ralph Droger," interposed Cleek. "Two
other people in the world have a 'motive' quite as strong as any
that might be assigned to him. You, of course, feel every confidence
in the honour and integrity of Mr. Charles Drummond?"
"Mr. Headland!"
"Gently, gently, please! I merely wished to know if in your heart you
had any secret doubt; and your flaring up like that has answered me.
You see, one has to remember that the late Mr. Nosworth is said to
have made a will in your favour. The statement is correct, is it not?"
"To the best of my belief--yes."
"Filed it with his solicitors, did he?"
"That I can't say. I think not, however. He was always sufficient
unto himself, and had a rooted objection to trusting anything of
value to the care of any man living. Even his most important
documents--plans and formulas of his various inventions, even
the very lease of this property--have always been kept in the
desk in the laboratory."
"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, and pinched his chin hard. Then, after a
moment. "One last question," he went on suddenly. "What do you know,
Miss Renfrew, of the recent movements of Mr. Harry Nosworth--the
son who was kicked out?"
"Nothing, absolutely nothing!" she answered, with a look of something
akin to horror. "I know what you are thinking of, but although he
is as bad as man can be, it is abominable to suppose that he would
lift his hand against his own father."
"Hum-m-m! Yes, of course! But still, it has been known to happen;
and, as you say, he was a bad lot. I ran foul of the young gentleman
once when----No matter; it doesn't signify. So you don't know
anything about him, eh?"
"Nothing, thank God. The last I did hear, he had gone on the stage
and taken up with some horrible creature, and the pair of them were
subsequently sent to prison for enticing people to dreadful places
and then drugging and robbing them. But even that I heard from an
outside source; for my uncle never so much as mentioned him. No, I
know nothing of him--nothing at all. In fact, I've never seen him
since he was a boy. He never lived here, you know; and until I came
here, I knew next to nothing of my uncle himself. We were poor and
lived in a quite different town, my mother and I. Uncle Septimus
never came to see us while my mother lived. He came for the first
time when she was dead and his son had gone away: and I was so poor
and so friendless I was glad to accept the home he offered. No,
Mr. Headland, I know nothing of Harry Nosworth. I hope, for his
own sake, he is dead."
Cleek made no reply. He sat for a minute pinching his chin and
staring at the carpet, then he got up suddenly and faced round in
the direction of the little group at the far end of the room.
"That's all for the present," he said. "Mr. Narkom, Mr. Nippers--get
a light of some sort, please, and let's go out and have a look at
those footprints."