Cleek's equanimity did not desert him, however. It was one of his
strong points that he always kept his mental balance even when
his most promising theories were deracinated. He therefore showed not
the slightest trace of the disappointment with which this utterly
unexpected discovery had filled him, but, with the most placid
exterior imaginable, suffered himself to be introduced to the old
waxworker, who was at the time working assiduously upon the huge
tableau-piece designed for the forthcoming Indian Exhibition, a
well-executed assembly of figures which occupied a considerable
portion of the rear end of the glass-room, and represented that
moment when the relief force burst through the stockade at Lucknow
and came to the rescue of the beleaguered garrison.
"A couple of gentlemen from Scotland Yard, Loti, who have come to
look into the matter of young Colliver's disappearance," was the way
in which Trent made that introduction. "You can go on with your work;
they won't interfere with you."
"Welcome, gentlemen--most welcome," said Loti, with that courtesy
which Continental people never quite forget; then nodded, and went
on with his work as he had been told, adding, with a mournful shake
of the head: "Ah! a strange business that, signori; an exceedingly
strange business."
"Very," agreed Cleek off-handedly and from the other end of the room.
"Rippin' quarters, these, signor; and now that I've seen 'em I don't
mind confessing that my pet theory has gone all to smash and I'm up
a gum-tree, so to speak. I'd an idea, you know, that there might
be a sliding-panel or a trapdoor which you chaps here might have
overlooked, and down which the boy might have dropped, or maybe gone
on a little explorin' expedition of his own, don't you know, and
hadn't been able to get back."
"Well, of all the idiotic ideas--," began Trent, but was suffered to
get no further.
"Yes, isn't it?" agreed Cleek, with his best blithering-idiot air.
"I realize that, now that I see your floor's of concrete. Necessary,
I suppose, on account of the chemicals and the inflammable nature of
the wax? You could have a rippin' old flare-up here if that stuff
was to catch fire from a dropped match or anything of that sort--eh,
what? Blest if I can see"--turning slowly on his heel and looking all
round the room--"a ghost of a place where the young nipper could have
got. It's a facer for me. But, I say"--as if suddenly struck with an
idea--"you don't think that he nipped something valuable and cut
off with it, do you? Didn't miss any money or anything of that sort
which you'd left lying about, did you, Mr.--er--Lotus, eh?"
"Loti, if you please, signor. I had indeed hoped that my name was
well known enough to--_Pouffe!_ No, I miss nothing--I miss not so
much as a pin. I am told he shall not have been that kind of a boy."
And then, with a shake of the head and a pitying glance toward
the author of these two asinine theories regarding the strange
disappearance, returned to his work of putting the finishing touches
to a recumbent figure representing a dead soldier lying in the
foreground of the tableau.
"Oh, well, you never can tell what boys will do; and it's an old
saying that 'a good booty makes many a thief,'" replied Cleek airily.
"Reckon I'll have to hunt up something a bit more promising, then.
Don't mind my poking about a bit, do you?"
"Not in the slightest, signor," replied the Italian, and glanced
sympathizingly up at Trent and gave his shoulders a significant
shrug, as if to say: "Is this the best that Scotland Yard can turn
out?" when Cleek began turning over costume plates and looking under
books and scraps of material which lay scattered about the floor,
and even took to examining the jugs and vases and tumblers in which
the signor's bunches of cut flowers were placed. There were many of
them--on tables and chairs and shelves, and even on the platform of
the tableau itself--so many, in fact, that he was minded, by their
profusion, of what Trent had said regarding the old waxworker's
great love of flowers.
He looked round the room, in an apparently perfunctory manner, but
in reality with a photographic eye for its every detail, finding that
it agreed in every particular with the description which Trent had
given him.
There were the cheap lace curtains all along the glazed side which
overlooked the short passage leading down to the narrow alley, but
they were of so thin a quality, and so scantily patterned, that the
mesh did not obstruct the view in any manner, merely rendering it a
trifle hazy; for he could himself see from where he stood the window
in the side of the house opposite, and, seated at that window, Mrs.
Sherman and her daughter, busy at their endless sewing.
And there, too, were the blinds--strong blue linen ones running
on rings and cords--with which, as he had been told, it was
possible to arrange the light as occasion required. They were
fashioned somewhat after the manner of those seen in the studios of
photographers--several sectional ones overhead and one long one for
that side of the room which overlooked the short passage; and,
as showing how minute was Cleek's inspection for all its seeming
indifference, it may be remarked that he observed a peculiarity
regarding that long blind which not one person in a hundred would
have noticed. That is to say, that, whereas, when one looks at a
window from the interior of a room, one invariably finds that the
blinds are against the glass, and that the curtains are so hung
as to be behind them when viewed from the street, here was a case
of the exactly opposite arrangement being put into force; to
wit: It was the lace curtains which hung against the window panes and
the big blind which was next the room, so that, if pulled down, a
person standing within would see no lace curtains at all, while at
the same time they would remain distinctly visible to anybody
standing without.
If this small discrepancy called for any comment, Cleek made none
audibly; merely glanced at the blind and glanced away again, and went
on examining the books and the vases of flowers, and continued his
apparently aimless wandering about the room.
Of a sudden, however, he did a singular thing, one which was fraught
with much significance to Mr. Narkom, who knew the "signs" so well.
His wandering had brought him within touching distance of the busy
waxworker, who, just at that moment, half turned and stretched forth
his hand to pick up a tool which had fallen to the floor, the act of
recovering which sent his wrist protruding a bit beyond the cuff of
his working-blouse. What Narkom saw was the quick twitch of Cleek's
eye in the direction of that hand, then its swift travelling to
the man's face and travelling off again to other things; and he knew
what was coming when his great ally began to pat his pockets and
rummage about his person as if endeavouring to find something.
"My luck!" said Cleek, with an impatient jerk of the head. "Not
a blessed cigarette with me, Mr. Narkom; and you know what a duffer
I am if I can't smoke when I'm trying to think. I say--nip out,
will you, and get me a packet? There!"--scribbling something on a
leaf from his notebook and pushing it into the superintendent's
hand--"that's the brand I like. It's no use bringing me any other.
Look 'em up for me, will you? There's a good friend."
Narkom made no reply, but merely left the room with the paper
crumpled in his shut hand and went downstairs as fast as he could
travel. What he did in the interval is a matter for further
consideration. At present it need only be said that had any one
looked across the short passage some eight or ten minutes after his
departure Narkom might have been seen standing in the background
of the room at whose window Mrs. Sherman and her daughter still
sat sewing.
Meanwhile Cleek appeared to have forgotten all about the matter which
was the prime reason for his presence in the place and to have become
absorbingly interested in the business of tableau making, for he
plied the old Italian with endless questions relative to the one
he was engaged in constructing.
"Jip! You don't mean to tell me that you make the whole blessed
thing yourself, do you--model the figures, group 'em, paint the
blessed background, and all?" said he, with yokel-like amazement.
"You _do_? My hat! but you're a wonder! That background's one of
the best I've ever clapped eyes on. And the figures! I could swear
that that fellow bursting in with a sword in his hand was alive
if I didn't know better; and as for this dead johnnie here in the
foreground that you're working on, he's a marvel. What do you stuff
the blessed things with? Or don't you stuff 'em at all?"
"Oh, yes, signor, they are stuffed, all of them. There is a wicker
framework covered with canvas; and inside cotton waste, old paper,
straw."
"You don't mean it! Well, I'm blest! Nothing but waste stuff and
straw? Why, that fellow over there--the Sepoy chap with the gun in
his hands----Oh, good Lord! just my blessed luck! I hope to heaven
I haven't spoilt anything!" For, in leaning over to indicate the
figure alluded to, he had blundered against the edge of the low
platform, lost his balance, and sprawled over so awkwardly and
abruptly that, but for the fact that the figure of the dead soldier
was there for his hand to fall upon in time to check it, he must
have pitched headlong into the very heart of the tableau, and done no
end of damage. Fortunately, however, not a figure had been thrown
down, and even the "dead soldier" had stood the shock uncommonly
well, not even a dent showing, though Cleek had come down rather
heavily and his palm had struck smack on the figure's chest.
"Tut! tut! tut! tut!" exclaimed the Italian with angry impatience.
"Oh, do have a little care, signor! The bull in a china-shop is alone
like this." And he turned his back upon this stupid blunderer, even
though Cleek was profuse in his apologies, and looked as sorry as he
declared. After a time, however, he went off on another tack, for
his quick-travelling glance had shown him Mr. Narkom in the house
across the passage, and he turned on his heel and walked away rapidly.
"Tell you what it is: it's this blessed glare of light that's
accountable," he said. "A body's likely to stumble over anything with
the light streaming into the place in this fashion. What you want
in here is a bit of shade--like this."
Here he crossed the room hastily and, reaching up, pulled down the
long window blind with a sudden jerk. But before either Trent or the
Italian could offer any objection to this interference with the
conditions under which the waxworker chose to conduct his labours,
he seemed, himself, to realize that the proceeding did not mend
matters, and, releasing his hold upon the blind, let the spring of
the roller carry it up again to its original position. As he did
this he said with a peculiarly asinine air:
"That's a bit worse than the other, by Jip! Makes the blessed place
too dashed dark altogether; so it's not the light that's to blame
after all."
"I should have thought even a fool might have known that!" gave
back the waxworker, almost savagely. "The light is poor enough as
it is. Look for yourself. It is only the afterglow--and even that
is already declining. _Pouffe!_" And here, as if in disgust too
great for words, he blew the breath from his lips with a sharp,
short gust, and facing about again went back to his work on the
tableau.
Cleek made no response; nor yet did Trent. By this time even he had
begun to think that accident more than brains must have been at the
bottom of the man's many successes; that he was, in reality, nothing
more than a blundering muddler; and, after another ten minutes of
putting up with his crazy methods, had just made up his mind to
appeal to Narkom for the aid of another detective, when the end
which was all along being prepared came with such a rush that it
fairly made his head swim.
All that he was ever able clearly to recall of it was that there
came a sudden sound of clattering footsteps rushing pell-mell up
the staircase; that the partition door was flung open abruptly to
admit Mr. Maverick Narkom, with three or four of the firm's employees
pressing close upon his heels; that the superintendent had but just
cried out excitedly, "Yes, man, _yes!_" when there arose a wild
clatter of falling figures, a snarl, a scuffle, a cry, and that,
when he faced round in the direction of it, there was the Lucknow
tableau piled up in a heap of fallen scenery and smashed waxworks,
and in the middle of the ruin there was the "signor" lying on his
back with a band of steel upon each wrist, and over him Cleek, with a
knee on the man's chest and the look of a fury in his eyes, crying
aloud: "Come out of it! Come out of it, you brute-beast! Your little
dodge has failed!"
And hard on the heels of that shock Mr. Trent received another. For
of a sudden he saw Cleek pluck a wig from the man's head and leave
a white line showing above the place where the joining paste once had
met the grease paint with which the fellow's face was coloured, and
heard him say as he tossed that wig toward him and rose, "Out of your
own stage properties, Mr. Trent--borrowed to be returned like this."
"Heaven above, man," said Trent in utter bewilderment, "what's the
meaning of it all? Who is that man, then, since it's clear he's not
Loti?"
"A very excellent actor in his day, Mr. Trent; his name is James
Colliver," replied Cleek. "I came to this place fully convinced that
Loti had murdered him; I now know that he murdered Loti, and that
to that crime he has added a yet more abominable one by killing his
own son!"
"It's a lie! It's a lie! I didn't! I didn't! I never saw the boy!"
screeched out Colliver in a very panic of terror. "I've never killed
any one. Loti sold out to me! Loti went back to France. I pawned the
jewels to get the money to pay him to go."
"Oh, no, you didn't, my friend," said Cleek. "You performed that
operation to shut Felix Murchison's mouth--the one man who could
swear, and did swear, that James Colliver never left this building on
the day of his disappearance, and who probably would have said
more if you hadn't made it worth his while to shut his mouth and to
disappear. You and I know, my friend, that Loti was the last man
on this earth with whom you could come to terms upon anything. He
had publicly declared that he would have your life, and he'd have
kept his word if you hadn't turned the tables and killed him. You
stole his wife, and you were never even man enough to marry her even
though she had borne you a son and clung to you to the end, poor
wretch! You killed Loti, and you killed your own son. No doubt he is
better off, poor little chap, to be dead and gone rather than to live
with the shadow of illegitimacy upon him; and no doubt, either,
that when he came up here yesterday to meet Giuseppe Loti, he saw
what I saw to-day, and knew you as I knew you then--the scar on
the wrist, which was one of the marks of identification given me at
the time I was sent to hunt you up! And you killed him to shut his
mouth."
"I didn't! I didn't!" he protested wildly. "I never saw him. He
wasn't here. The women in the house across the way will swear that
they saw the empty room."
"Not now!" declared Cleek, with emphasis. "I've convinced them to
the contrary. Mr. Trent, let a couple of your men come over here
and take charge of this fellow, please, and I will convince you as
well. That's right, my lads. Lay hold of the beggar and don't let him
get a chance to make a dash for the stairs. Got him fast, have you?
Good! Now then, Mr. James Colliver, _this_ is what those deluded
women saw--this little dodge, which is going to help Jack Ketch to
come into his own."
Speaking, he walked rapidly across to the long blind, pulled it down
to its full length, then with a wrench tore it wholly from the roller
and whirled it over, so that they who were within could now see
the outer side.
It bore, painted upon it, a perfect representation of the interior
of the glass-room, even to the little spindle-legged table with a
vase of pink roses upon it which _now_ stood at that room's far end.
"A clever idea, Colliver, and a good piece of painting," he said.
"It took me in once--last August--just as it took in Mrs. Sherman
and her daughter yesterday. The mistiness of the lace curtains
falling over it lent just the effect of 'distance' that was required
to perfect the illusion and to prevent anybody from detecting the
paint. As for the boy----Gently, lads, gently! Don't let the beggar
in his struggles make you step on that 'dead soldier.' Under the
thick coating of wax a human body lies--the boy's! Hullo! Gone
off his balance, eh, at the knowledge that the game is entirely up?"
This as Colliver, with a terrible cry, collapsed suddenly and fell
to the floor shrieking and grovelling. "They are a cowardly lot
these brute-beast men when it comes to the wall and the final
corner. Mr. Trent, break this to Miss Larue as gently as you can.
She has suffered a great deal, poor girl, and it is bound to be a
shock. She doesn't know that the woman he called his wife never
really was his wife; she doesn't know about Loti or his threat.
If she had she'd have told me, and I might have got on the trail in
the first case instead of waiting to pick it up like this."
He paused and held up his hand. Through all this Colliver had not
once ceased grovelling and screaming; but it was not his cries that
had drawn that gesture from Cleek. It was the sound of some one
racing at top speed up the outer stairs, and with it the jar of
many excited voices mingled in a babble of utter confusion.
The door of the glass-room swung inward abruptly, and the head
bookkeeper looked in, with a crowd of clerks behind him.
"Mr. Trent, sir, whatever is the matter? Is anybody hurt? I never
heard such screams. The whole place is ringing with them and there's
a crowd gathering about the door."
Cleek left the junior partner to explain the situation, stepped to
the side of the glass-room, looked down, saw that the statement was
quite true, and--stepped sharply back again.
"We shall have to defer removing our prisoner until it gets dark,
I fancy, Mr. Narkom," he said, serenely. "And with Mr. Trent's
permission we will make use of the door leading into the alley at
the back when that time comes. Bookkeeper!"
"Yes, sir?"
"You might explain to the constable on duty in the neighbourhood--if
he comes to inquire, that is--the cause of the disturbance, and that
Scotland Yard is in charge and Superintendent Narkom already on
the premises. That's all, thank you. You may close the door and take
your colleagues below. Hullo! our prisoner seems to be subsiding
into something akin to gibbering idiocy, Mr. Trent. Fright has
turned his brain, apparently. Let us make use of the respite from his
shrieks. You will, of course, wish to hear how I got on the track
of the man, and what were the clues which led up to the solving of
the affair. Well, you shall. Sit down, and while we are waiting
for the darkness to come I'll give you the complete explanation."