Colliver, who had now sunk into a state of babbling incoherence, lay
on his face in the wreck of the tableau, rolling his head from side
to side and clasping and unclasping his manacled hands.
Trent turned his back upon the unpleasant sight and, placing three
chairs at the opposite end of the room, dropped into one and lifted
an eager countenance to Cleek.
"Tell me first of all," he asked, "how under heaven you came to
suspect how the disappearance of the boy was managed? It seems like
magic, to me. When in the world did you get the first clue to it,
Mr. Cleek?"
"Never until I heard of those two women looking into this room
and seeing the vase of pink roses standing on a spindle-legged
table in the centre of it," he replied. "You see, even in the old
days when I had the other case in hand and was searching for a
clue to Colliver's disappearance, never had any one mentioned the
name of Loti to me. I knew, of course, that you made wax figures
here, but I never heard until this afternoon that Loti was the
man who was employed to model them. I also knew about the existence
of the glass-room and its position, for I had been at the pains
of inspecting it from the outside. That came about in this way:
Just before Miss Larue closed up the case of James Colliver I had
obtained the first actual clue to his movements after he left Mr.
Trent, senior, and came out of the office.
"That clue came from the door porter, Felix Murchison. What careful
'pumping' got out of him was that when James Colliver left the
office he had asked him, Murchison, which was the way to the place
where they made the waxworks, as he'd heard that they were making
a head of Miss Larue to be used in the execution scene of Catharine
Howard, and he'd like to have a look at it. Murchison said that
he told him the figures were made in a glass-room on the top of
the house, and directed him how to reach it. He went up the stairs,
and that was the last that was seen of him.
"Naturally when I heard that I thought I'd like to see the exterior
of the building to ascertain if there was any opening, door or
window, by which he could have left the upper floor without coming
down the main staircase. That led me to beg permission of the
people in the house across the passage there to look from one of
the side windows, and so gave me my first view of the glass-room.
What I saw was exactly what Mrs. Sherman and her daughter saw
yesterday--namely, that spick and span room with the table in the
centre and the vase of pink roses standing on it.
"Need I go further than to say that when I heard of those women
seeing a room that was badly littered a few minutes before suddenly
become a tidy one with a table and a vase of roses standing in
the middle of it, without anybody having come into the place for
the purpose of making the change, I instantly remembered my own
experience and suspected a painted blind?
"When I entered this room to-day and saw the peculiar position of
that blind I became almost certain I had hit upon the truth, and
sent Mr. Narkom to the house across the way to test it. That's
why I pulled the blind down. Why I stumbled and nearly fell into
the tableau was because I had a faint suspicion of the horrible truth
when I noticed how abominably thick the neck, hands, and ankles of
that 'dead soldier' were; and I wanted to test the truth or falseness
of the 'straw stuffing' assertion by actual touch, particularly as I
felt sure that the presence of all these strongly scented flowers
was for the purpose of covering less agreeable odours should the
heat of the weather cause decomposition to set in before he could
dispose of the body. I don't think he ever was mad enough to intend
letting the thing remain a part of the tableau. I fancy he would
have found an excuse to get it out somehow and to make away with it
entirely, as, no doubt, he did with the body of Loti.
"What's that, Mr. Narkom? No, I don't think that Murchison had any
actual hand in the crime or really knew the identity of the man. I
fancy he must have gone up to tell the fictitious Loti that he knew
James Colliver had entered that glass-room and never come out of
it, and Colliver, of course, had to shut his mouth by buying him off
and sending him out of the country. That is why he took yet another
disguise and pawned the jewels. He had to get the money some way.
As for the rest, I imagine that when Colliver went up to the room to
see that wax head, and Loti caught sight of him, the old Italian
jumped on him like a mad tiger; and, seeing that it was Loti's life
or his own, Colliver throttled him. When that was done, the necessity
for disposing of the body arose, and the imposture was the actual
outcome of a desire to save his own neck. That's all, I think, Mr.
Narkom; so you may revise your 'notes' and mark down the Colliver
case as 'solved' at last and the mystery of it cleared up after all."
* * * * *
Three hours of patient waiting had passed and gone. The darkness
had fallen, the streets were still, save for the faint hum of life
coming from districts afar, and the time for action had come at last.
Cleek rose and put on his hat.
"I think we may safely venture to remove our prisoner now, Mr.
Narkom," he said, "and if you will slip out the back way and get
Lennard to bring the limousine around to the head of that narrow
alley----"
"They're there already, dear chap. I stationed Lennard there when I
went across to look into that business about the painted blind. It
seemed the least conspicuous place for him to wait."
"Excellent! Then, if you will run on ahead and have the door of it
open for me and everything ready so that we may whisk him in and
be off like a shot, and Mr. Trent will let one of these good chaps
here run down to the man's room and fetch him a hat, I'll attend
to his removal."
"Here's one here, sir, that'll do at a pinch and save time,"
suggested one of the men, picking up a cavalryman's hat from the
wreck of the ruined tableau and dusting it by slapping it against
his thigh. "I don't think he'll resist much, sir; he seems to have
gone clear off his biscuit and not to know enough for that; but if
you'd like me and my mate to lend a hand----"
"No, thanks; I shall be able to manage him myself, I fancy," said
Cleek, serenely. "Get him on his feet, please. That's the business!
Now then, Mr. Narkom nip off; I'm following."
Mr. Narkom "nipped off" without an instant's delay, and two minutes
later saw him slipping out through the rear door of the building with
Cleek and the jabbering, unresisting prisoner at the bottom of the
last flight of stairs not twenty yards behind.
But the passage of the next half minute saw something of more moment
still; for, as Narkom ran on tiptoe up the dim alley to the waiting
limousine standing at its western end, and unlatching the vehicle's
door, swung it open to be ready for Cleek, out of the stillness there
roared suddenly the shrill note of a dog-whistle, and all in a moment
there was--mischief.
A crowd of quick-moving Apache figures sprang up from sheltering
doors and, scudding past him, headed full tilt down the narrow alley,
calling out as they ran that piercing "La, la, loi!" which is the
war cry of their kind.
A blind rage--all the more maddening in that it was impotent, since
he had neither weapon to defend nor the power to slay--swept down
upon the superintendent as he realized the import of that mad rush,
and, ducking down his head, he bolted after them, into the thick of
them--punching, banging, slogging, shouting, swearing--an incarnate
Passion, the Epitome of Man's love for Man--a little fat Fury that
was all a whirl of flying fists as it swept onward and that seemed to
go absolutely insane at what he looked up the alley and saw.
"Get back, Cleek! Get back, for God's sake!" he yelled, in a very
panic of fear and dismay; then cleft his way with beating arms and
kicking feet through the hampering crowd, arrowed out of its midst,
and bore down upon the cavalry-hatted figure that had stepped out
of the dark doorway of Trent & Son's building and was standing
flattened against the rear wall of it.
He reached out his hand and made a blind clutch at it, and, while he
was yet far out of reaching distance of it, faced round and made
a wild effort to cover it with his short, fat body and his arms
outflung, like a crucifix, and looked at the Apaches and swore
without one thought of being profane.
"Me, you damned devils! Me, me, not him! Not him, damn you! damn you!
damn you!" he cried, hoarse-throated and--said no more!
The scuttling crowd came up with him, broke about him, swept past
him. A loud explosion sounded; a flare of light broke full against
the cavalry hat; a stifling odour of picric acid filled the air
and gripped the throat, and with its coming, man and hat slid down
the wall and dropped at its foot a crumpled heap that never in this
world would stand erect again.
"Killed! Killed!" half-cried, half-groaned the superintendent,
staggering a bit as the crowd flew on up the alley and vanished
around the corner of the street into which it merged. "Oh, my God!
After all my care; after all my love for him! Killed like a dog. Oh,
Cleek! Oh, Cleek! The dearest friend--the finest pal--the greatest
detective genius of the age!" And then, swinging his arm up and
across his eyes and holding it there, made a queer choking sound
behind the sheltering crook of it.
But of a sudden a voice spoke up from the darkness of the open door
near by and said quietly:
"That's the finest compliment I ever had paid me in all my life, Mr.
Narkom. Don't worry over me, dear friend; I'm still able to sit up
and take nourishment. The Apaches have saved the public executioner
a morning's work. Colliver has parted with his brains forever;
and may God have mercy on his soul!"
"Cleek!" Mr. Narkom scarcely knew his own voice, such a screaming
thing it was. "Cleek, dear chap, is it you?"
"To be sure. Come inside here if you doubt it. Come quickly; there's
a crowd of quite a different sort coming: the report of that bomb
has aroused the neighbourhood; and I have quite enough of crowds for
one evening, thank you."
Narkom was inside the building before you could have said Jack
Robinson, "pump-handling" Cleek with all his might and generally
deporting himself like a man gone daft.
"I thought they'd finished you! I thought they'd 'done you in.' It
was the Apache, you know--and that infernal scoundrel Waldemar: he
must have found out somehow," he said excitedly. "But we've got it
on him at last, Cleek: he's come within the law's reach after all."
"To be sure; but I doubt if the law will be able to find him, Mr.
Narkom. He will have left the country before the trap was actually
sprung, believe me; or failing that, will be well on his way out of
it."
"But perhaps not absolutely out of it, dear chap. There are the
ports, you know; and so long as he is on English soil----Come and
see! Come and see! We may be able to head him off. Let's get out
by way of the front of the building, Cleek, and if I can once get to
the telegraph and wire to the coast--and he hasn't yet sailed----Come
on! come on! Or no: wait a moment. That's a constable out there,
asking for information. I'll nip out and let him know that the
Yard's on the case and give him a few orders about reporting it.
Wait for me at the front door, old chap. With you in a winking."
He stepped out into the alley as he spoke and mingled with the
gathering crowd.
But Cleek did not stir. The alley was no longer dark for, with the
gathering of the crowd, lights had come and he stood for many minutes
staring into it and breathing hard and the colour draining slowly
out of his face until it was like a thing of wax.
Outside in the narrow alley the gathering of curious ones which
the sound of the explosion and the sight of a running policeman
had drawn to the place was every moment thickening, and with the
latest addition to it there had come hurrying into the narrow space
a morbid-minded newsboy with the customary bulletin sheet pinned over
his chest.
"The _Evening News_! Six o'clock edition!" that bulletin was headed,
and under that heading there was set forth in big black type:
END OF THE MAURAVANIAN REVOLUTION
FALL OF THE CAPITAL
FLIGHT OF THE DEPOSED KING
OVERWHELMING SUCCESS OF IRMA'S TROOPS.
"Mr. Narkom," said Cleek, when at the end of ten minutes the
superintendent came bustling back, hot and eager to begin the
effort to head off Count Waldemar. "Mr. Narkom, dear friend, the
days of trouble and distress are over and the good old times you
have so often sighed for have come back. Look at that newsboy's
bulletin. Waldemar is too late in all things and--we have seen
the last of him forever."
EPILOGUE
The Affair of the Man Who Was Found
Mr. Maverick Narkom glanced up at the calendar hanging on the office
wall, saw that it recorded the date as August 18th, and then glanced
back to the sheet of memoranda lying on his desk, and forthwith
began to scratch his bald spot perplexedly.
"I wonder if I dare do it?" he queried of himself in the unspoken
words of thought. "It seems such a pity when the beggar's wedding
day is so blessed near--and a man wants his last week of single
blessedness all to himself, by James--if he can get it! Still,
it's a case after his own heart; the reward's big and would be a
nice little nest egg to begin married life upon. Besides, he's had a
fairly good rest as it is, when I come to think of it. Nothing
much to do since the time when that Mauravanian business came to an
end. I fancy he rather looked to have something come out of that in
the beginning from the frequent inquiries he made regarding what
that johnnie Count Irma and the new Parliament were doing; but
it never did. And now, after all that rest--and this a case of so
much importance----Gad! I believe I'll risk it. He can't do any
more then decline. Yes, by James! I will."
His indecision once conquered, he took the plunge instantly; caught
up the desk telephone, called for a number, and two minutes later
was talking to Cleek, thus:
"I say, old chap, don't snap my head off for suggesting such a thing
at such a time, but I've a most extraordinary case on hand and I
hope to heaven that you will help me out with it. What's that? Oh,
come, now, that's ripping of you, old chap, and I'm as pleased as
Punch. What? Oh, get along with you! No more than you'd do for me
under the same circumstances, I'll be sworn. Yes, to-day--as early as
possible. Right you are. Then could you manage to meet me in the
bar parlour of a little inn called the French Horn, out Shere way, in
Surrey, about four o'clock? Could, eh? Good man! Oh, by the way,
come prepared to meet a lady of title, old chap--she's the client.
Thanks very much. Good-bye."
Then he hung up the receiver, rang for Lennard, and set about
preparing for the journey forthwith.
And this, if you please, was how it came to pass that when Mr.
Maverick Narkom turned up at the French Horn that afternoon he
found a saddle horse tethered to a post outside, and Cleek, looking
very much like one of the regular habitues of Rotten Row who had
taken it into his mind to canter out into the country for a change,
standing in the bar parlour window and looking out with appreciative
eyes upon the broad stretch of green downs that billowed away to
meet the distant hills.
"My dear chap, how on earth do you manage it?" said the
superintendent, eying him with open approval, not to say
admiration. "I don't mean the mere putting on the clothes and
_looking_ the part--I've seen dozens in my time who could do that
right enough, but the beggars always 'fell down' when it came to
the acting and the talking, while you--I don't know what the
dickens it is nor how you manage to get it, but there's a certain
something or other in your bearing, your manner, your look, when
you tackle this sort of thing that I always believed a man had
to be born to and couldn't possibly acquire in any other way."
"There you are wrong, my dear friend. It _is_ possible, as you
see. That is what makes the difference between the mere actor and
the real _artiste_," replied Cleek, with an air of conceited
self-appreciation which was either a clever illusion or an exhibition
of great weakness. "If one man might not do these things better than
another man, we should have no Irvings to illuminate the stage,
and acting would drop at once from its place among the arts to the
undignified level of a tawdry trade. And now, as our American
cousins say, 'Let's come down to brass tacks.' What's the case and
who's the lady?"
"The widow of the late Sir George Essington, and grandmother of the
young gentleman in whose interest you are to be consulted."
"Grandmother, eh? Then the lady is no longer young?"
"Not as years go, although, to look at her, you would hardly suspect
that she is a day over five-and-thirty. The Gentleman with the Hour
Glass has dealt very, very lightly with her. Where he has failed to
be considerate, however, the ladies, who conduct certain 'parlours'
in Bond Street, have come to the rescue in fine style."
"Oh, she is that kind of woman, is she?" said Cleek with a pitch of
the shoulders. "I have no patience with the breed! As if there was
anything more charming than a dear, wrinkly old grandmother who
bears her years gracefully and fusses over her children's children
like an old hen with a brood of downy chicks. But a grandmother who
goes in for wrinkle eradicators, cream of lilies, skin-tighteners,
milk of roses, and things of that kind--faugh! It has been my
experience, Mr. Narkom, that when a woman has any real cause for
worrying over the condition of her face, she usually has a just one
to be anxious over that of her soul. So this old lady is one of
the 'face painters,' is she?"
"My dear chap, let me correct an error: a grandmother her ladyship
may be, but she is decidedly not an old one. I believe she was only
a mere girl when she married her late husband. At any rate, she
certainly can't be a day over forty-five at the present moment.
A frivolous and a recklessly extravagant woman she undoubtedly
is--indeed, her extravagances helped as much as anything to bring
her husband into the bankruptcy court before he died--but beyond
that I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with her
'soul.'"
"Possibly not. There's always an exception to every rule," said
Cleek. "Her ladyship may be the shining exception to this unpleasant
one of the 'face painters.' Let us hope so. English, is she?"
"Oh, yes--that is, her father was English and she herself was born
in Buckinghamshire. Her mother, however, was an Italian, a lineal
descendant of a once great and powerful Roman family named de
Catanei."
"Which," supplemented Cleek, with one of his curious one-sided
smiles, "through an ante-papal union between Pope Alexander VI
and the beautiful Giovanna de Catanei--otherwise Vanozza--gave to the
world those two arch-poisoners and devils of iniquity, Caesar and
Lucretia Borgia. Lady Essington's family tree supplies a mixture
which is certainly unique: a fine, fruity English pie with a rotten
apple in it. Hum-m-m! if her ladyship has inherited any of the
beauty of her famous ancestress--for in 1490, when she flourished,
Giovanna de Catanei was said to be the most beautiful woman in the
world--she should be something good to look upon."
"She is," replied Narkom. "You'll find her, when she comes, one of
the handsomest and most charming women you ever met."
"Ah, then she has inherited some of the attractions and
accomplishments of her famous forbears. I wonder if there has
also come down to her, as well, the formula of those remarkable
secret poisons for which Lucretia Borgia and her brother Caesar
were so widely famed. They were marvellous things, those Borgia
decoctions--marvellous and abominable."
"Horrible!" agreed Narkom, a curious shadow of unrest coming over
him at this subject rising at this particular time.
"Modern chemistry has, I believe, been quite unable to duplicate
them. There is, for instance, that appalling thing the aqua tofana,
the very fumes of which caused instant death."
"Aqua tofana was not a Bornean poison, my friend," said Cleek, with a
smile. "It was discovered more than two hundred years after _their_
time--in 1668, to be exact--by one Jean Baptiste de Gaudin, Signeur
de St. Croix, the paramour and accomplice of that unnatural French
fiend, Marie Marquise de Brinvilliers. Its discoverer himself died
through dropping the glass mask from his face and inhaling the
fumes while he was preparing the hellish mixture. The secret of its
manufacture did not, however, die with him. Many chemists can,
to-day, reproduce it. Indeed, I, myself, could give you the formula
were it required."
"_You?_ Gad, man! what don't you know? In heaven's name, Cleek, what
caused you to dip into all these unholy things?"
"The same impulse which causes a drowning man to grip at a straw,
Mr. Narkom--the desire for self-preservation. Remember what I was in
those other days, and with whom I associated. Believe me, the
statement that there is honour among thieves is a pleasant fiction
and nothing more; for once a man sets out to be a professional
thief, he and honour are no longer on speaking terms. I never could
be wholly sure, with that lot; and my biggest _coups_ were always a
source of danger to me after they had been successfully completed.
It became necessary for me to study _all_ poisons, all secret arts
of destruction, that I might guard against them and might know the
proper antidote. As for the rest--Sh! Mumm's a fine wine. Here comes
the landlady with the tea. We'll drop the 'case' until afterward."
* * * * *
"Now tell me," said Cleek, after the landlady had gone and they
were again in sole possession of the room, "what is it this Lady
Essington wants of me? And what sort of a chap is this grandson in
whose interest she is acting? Is he with her in this appeal to the
Yard?"
"Certainly not, my dear fellow. Why, he's little more than a
baby--not over three at the most. Ever hear anybody speak of the
'Golden Boy,' old chap?"
"What! The baby Earl of Strathmere? The little chap who inherited a
title and a million through the drowning of his parents in the wreck
of the yacht _Mystery_?"
"That's the little gentleman: the Right Honourable Cedric Eustace
George Carruthers, twenty-seventh Earl Strathmere, variously known
as the 'Millionaire Baby' and the 'Golden Boy.' His mother was Lady
Essington's only daughter. She was only eighteen when she married
Strathmere: only twenty-two when she and her husband were drowned, a
little over a year ago."
"Early enough to go out of the world, that--poor girl!" said Cleek,
sympathetically. "And to leave that little shaver all alone--robbed
at one blow of both father and mother. Hard lines, my friend, hard
lines! It is fair to suppose, is it not, that, with the death of his
parents, the care and guidance of his little lordship fell to the
lot of his grandmother, Lady Essington?"
"No, it did not," replied Narkom. "One might have supposed that it
would, seeing that there was no paternal grandmother, but--well, the
fact of the matter is, Cleek, that the late Lord Strathmere did not
altogether approve of his mother-in-law's method of living (he was
essentially a quiet, home-loving man and had little patience with
frivolity of any sort), and it occasioned no surprise among those
who knew him when it was discovered that he had made a will leaving
everything he possessed to his little son and expressly stipulating
that the care and upbringing of the boy were to be entrusted to
his younger brother, the Honourable Felix Camour Paul Carruthers, who
was to enjoy the revenue from the estate until the child attained
his majority."
"I see! I see!" said Cleek, appreciatively. "Then that did her
extravagant ladyship out of a pretty large and steady income for a
matter of seventeen or eighteen years. Humm-m! Wise man--always, of
course, provided that he didn't save the boy from the frying-pan only
to drop him into the fire. What kind of a man is this brother--this
Honourable Felix Carruthers--into whose hands he entrusted the
future of his little son? I seem to have a hazy recollection of
hearing that name, somewhere or somehow, in connection with some
other affair. Wise choice, was it, Mr. Narkom?"
"Couldn't have been better, to my thinking. I know the Honourable
Felix quite well: a steady-going, upright, honourable young fellow
(he isn't over two or three-and-thirty), who, being a second
son, naturally inherited his mother's fortune, and that being
considerable, he really did not need the income from his little
nephew's in the slightest degree. However, he undertook the
charge willingly, for he is much attached to the boy; and he and
his wife--to whom he was but recently married, by the way--entered
into residence at his late brother's splendid property, Boskydell
Priory, just over on the other side of those hills--you can see from
the window, there--where they are at present entertaining a large
house party, among whom are Lady Essington and her son Claude."
"Oho! Then her ladyship has a son, has she? The daughter who died was
not her only child?"
"No. The son was born about a year after the daughter. A nice
lad--bright, clever, engaging; fond of all sorts of dumb
animals--birds, monkeys, white mice--all manner of such things--and
as tender-hearted as a girl. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Carruthers is
immensely fond of him and has him at the Priory whenever he can.
That, of course, means having the mother, too, which is a bit of a
trial, in a way, for I don't believe that her ladyship and Mrs.
Carruthers care very much for each other. But that's another story.
Now, then, let's see--where was I? Oh, ah! about the house party at
the Priory and Carruthers' fondness for the boy. You can judge of
my surprise, my dear Cleek, when last night's post brought me a
private letter from Lady Essington asking me to meet her here at
this inn--which, by the way, belongs to the Strathmere estate and
is run by a former servant at the Priory--and stating that she
wished me to bring one of the shrewdest and cleverest of my
detectives, as she was quite convinced there was an underhand scheme
afoot to injure his little lordship--in short, she had every
reason to believe that somebody was secretly attacking the life of
the Golden Boy. She then went on to give me details of a most
extraordinary and bewildering nature."
"Indeed? What were those details, Mr. Narkom?"
"Let her tell you for herself--here she is!" replied the
superintendent, as a veiled and cloaked figure moved hurriedly past
the window; and he and Cleek had barely more than pushed back their
chairs and risen when that figure entered the room.
A sweep of her hand carried back her veil; and Cleek, looking round,
saw what he considered one of the handsomest women he had ever
beheld: a good woman, too, for all her frivolous life and her dark
ancestry, if clear, straight-looking eyes could be taken as a proof,
which he knew that they could _not_; for he had seen men and women
in his day, as crafty as the fox and as dangerous as the serpent,
who could look you straight in the eyes and never flinch; while
others--as true as steel and as clean-lifed as saints--would send
shifting glances flicking all round the room and could no more fix
those glances on the face of the person to whom they were talking
than they could take unto themselves wings and fly.
But good or ill, whichever the future might prove this lovely lady
to be, one thing about her was certain: she was violently agitated,
and nervousness was making her shake perceptibly and breathe hard,
like a spent runner.
"It is good of you to come, Mr. Narkom," she said, moving forward
with a grace which no amount of excitement could dispel or
diminish--the innate grace of the woman _born_ to her station and
schooled by Mother Nature's guiding hand. "I had hoped that I might
steal away and come here to meet you unsuspected. But, secretly as I
wrote, carefully as I planned this thing, I have every reason to
believe that my efforts are suspected and that I have, indeed,
been followed. So, then, this interview must be a very hurried one,
and you must not be surprised if it becomes necessary for me to run
off without a moment's notice; for believe me, I am quite, quite
sure that the Honourable Mr. Felix Carruthers is already following
me."
"The Honourable--my dear Lady Essington, you don't mean to suggest
that he--he of all men----God bless my soul!"
"Oh, it may well amaze you, Mr. Narkom. It well-nigh stupefied
me when I first began to suspect. Indeed, I can't do any more
than suspect even yet. Perhaps it is he, perhaps that abominable
woman he has married. You must decide that when you have heard. I
perceive"--glancing over at Cleek--"you have been unable to bring
a detective police officer to listen to what I have to say, but
if you and your friend will listen carefully and convey the story to
one in due course----"
"Pardon, your ladyship, but my companion is a detective officer,"
interposed Narkom. "So if you will state the case at once he will
be able to advise."
"A detective? You?" She flashed round on Cleek and looked at him
in amazement, her lower lip indrawn, a look almost of horror in
her eyes. One may not tell a lion that another lion is a jackass,
though he masquerade in the skin of one. Birth spoke to Birth. She
saw, she knew, she understood. "By what process could such as you--"
she began; then stopped and made a slight inclination of the head.
"Pardon," she continued; "that was rude. Your private affairs are of
course your own, Mr.--er----"
"Headland, your ladyship," supplied Cleek. "My name is George
Headland!" And Narkom knew from that that for all her grace and
charm he neither liked nor trusted her soft-eyed ladyship.
"Thank you," said Lady Essington, accepting this self-introduction
with a graceful inclination of the head. "No doubt Mr. Narkom has
given you some idea of my reason for consulting you, Mr. Headland;
but as time is very short let me give you the further details as
briefly as possible. I am convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt
that some one who has an interest in his death is secretly attacking
the life of my little grandson; and I have every reason to believe
that the 'some one' is either the Honourable Felix Carruthers or
his wife."
"But to what purpose, your ladyship? People do not commit so
desperate an act as murder without some powerful motive, either
of gain or revenge, behind it, and from what I have heard, neither
the uncle nor the aunt can have anything to win by injuring his
little lordship."
"Can they not?" she answered, with a despairing gesture. "How little
you know! Mrs. Carruthers is an ambitious woman, Mr. Headland,
and, like all women of the class from which she was recruited, she
aspires to a title. She was formerly an actress. The Honourable
Felix married and took her from the theatre. It is abominable that
a person of that type should be foisted upon society and brought
into contact with her betters."
"Oho! that's where the shoe pinches, is it?" thought Cleek; but aloud
he merely said: "The day has long passed, your ladyship, when the
followers of Thespis have to apologize for their existence. There are
many ladies of the stage in these times whose lives are exemplary and
whose names call forth nothing but respect and admiration; and so
long as this particular lady bore an unblemished reputation----Did
she?"
"Oh, yes. There was never a word against her in that respect.
Felix would never have married her if there had been. But I believe
in persons of that class remaining in their own circle, and not
intruding themselves into others to which they were not _born_. She
is an ambitious woman, as I have told you. She aspires to a title
as _well_ as to riches, and if little Lord Strathmere should die,
her husband would inherit both. Surely that is 'motive' enough for
a woman of that type. As for her husband----"
"There, I am afraid, your suspicion confounds itself, your ladyship,"
interrupted Cleek. "I am told that the Honourable Mr. Carruthers
is extremely fond of the boy; besides which, being rich in his own
right, he has no reason to covet the riches of his brother's baby
son."
"Pardon me: '_was_ rich' is the proper expression, not 'is,' Mr.
Headland. The failure, a fortnight or so ago, of the West Coast
Diamond Mining Company, in which the greater part of his fortune
was invested and of which he was the chairman, has sadly crippled his
resources, and he has now nothing but the income from his nephew's
estate to live upon."
"Hum-m-m! Ah! Just so!" said Cleek, pinching his chin. "Now I
recollect what made the name seem familiar, Mr. Narkom. I remember
reading of the failure, and of the small hope that was held out of
anything being saved from the wreckage. Still, the income from the
Strathmere estate is enormous; and by dint of care, in the seventeen
or eighteen years which must elapse before his little lordship
comes of age----"
"He will never come of age! He will be killed first--he is being
killed now!" interposed Lady Essington, agitatedly. "Oh, Mr.
Headland, help me! I love the boy--he is my own child's child. I
love him as I never loved anything else in all the world; and if
he were to die----Dear God! what should I do? And he is dying: I
tell you he is. And they won't let me go near him: they won't let
me have him all to myself, these two! If his cries in the night
wring my heart and I run to his nursery, one or the other of them is
always there, and never for one moment will they let me hold him in
my arms nor be with him alone."
"Hum-m-m! Cries out in the night, does he, your ladyship? What kind
of cries? Those of fright or of pain?"
"Of pain--of excruciating pain: it would wring the heart of a stone
to hear him, and, though there is never a spot of blood nor a sign of
violence, he declares that some one comes in the night and sticks
something into his neck--something which, in his baby way, he likens
to 'a long, long needle that goes yite froo my neck and sets uvver
needles prickin' and prickin' all down my arm.'"
"Hello! what's that? Let's have that again, please!" rapped out
Cleek, before he thought; then recollected himself and added
apologetically, "I beg your ladyship's pardon, but I am apt to
get a little excited at times. Something like a needle being run
into his neck, eh? And other needles continuing the sensation down
the arm? Hum-m-m! Had a doctor called in?"
"No. I wished to, but neither the uncle nor aunt would let me do
so. They say it is nothing--a mere 'growing pain' which he will
overcome in time. But it is not--I _know_ it is not! If it were
natural, why did it never manifest itself before the failure of
that wretched diamond company? Why did it wait to begin until after
the Honourable Felix Carruthers had lost his money? And why is it
going on, night after night, ever since? Why has he begun to fail
in health?--to change from a happy, laughing, healthy child into
a peevish, fretful, constantly complaining one? I tell you they
are killing him, those two; I tell you they are using some secret
diabolical thing which is sapping his very life; and if----"
She stopped and sucked her breath in with a little gasp of fright,
and, whisking down her veil, turned and made hurriedly for the door.
"I told you he guessed; I told you I should be followed!" she said
in a shaking voice. "He is coming--that man: along the road there!
look through the window and you will see. Oh, come to my assistance,
Mr. Headland! Find some way to do it, for God's sake! Good-bye!"
Then the door opened and shut and she was gone, darting out from the
rear of the inn into the shelter of the scattered clumps of furze
bushes and the thick growth of bracken which covered the downs, and
running like a hare pursued.
"Well, what do you make of it, old chap?" asked Narkom anxiously,
turning to Cleek after ascertaining past all doubt that the
Honourable Felix Carruthers was riding up the road toward the
French Horn.
"Oh, a crime beyond doubt," he replied. "But whose I am in no
position to determine at present. A hundred things might produce
that stabbing sensation in the neck, from the prick of a pin-point
dipped in curare to a smear of the 'Pope's balm,' that hellish
ointment of the Borgias. Hum-m-m! And so that's the Honourable
Felix Carruthers, is it? Keep back from the window, my friend.
When you are out gunning for birds, it never does to raise an alarm.
And we should be hard put to it to explain our presence here at
this particular time if he were to see you."
"My dear chap, you don't surely mean that you think _he_ is really
at the bottom of it?" began Narkom, in surprise; but before he could
say a word further, _that_ surprise was completely overwhelmed by
another and a greater one. For the Honourable Felix had reined in
and dismounted at the French Horn's door, and, with a clear-voiced,
"No, don't put him up; I shan't be long, Betty. Just want a word
or two with some friends I'm expecting," walked straightway into
the bar parlour and advanced toward the superintendent with hand
outstretched.
"Thank God, you got my letter in time, Mr. Narkom," he said, with a
breath of intense relief. "Although I sent it by express messenger,
it was after three o'clock and I was afraid you wouldn't. What a
friend you are to come to my relief like this! I shall owe you a
debt no money can repay. This then is the great and amazing Cleek,
is it? I thank you, Mr. Cleek, I thank you from the bottom of my
heart for accepting the case. Now we _shall_ get to the bottom of
the mystery, I am sure."
It was upon the tip of Narkom's tongue to inquire what he meant by
all this; but Cleek, rightly suspecting that the letter to which he
alluded had been delivered at the Yard after the superintendent's
departure, jumped into the breach and saved the situation.
"Very good of you indeed to place such great reliance in me, Mr.
Carruthers," he said. "We had to scramble for it, Mr. Narkom and
I--the letter was so late in arriving--but, thank fortune, we managed
to get here, as you see. And now, please, may I have the details of
the case?"
He spoke guardedly, lest it should be upon some matter other than
the interest of the "Golden Boy" and to prevent the Honourable
Felix from guessing that he had already been approached upon that
subject by Lady Essington. It was not some other matter, however.
It was again the mystery of the secret attacks upon his little
lordship he was asked to dispel; and the Honourable Felix, plunging
forthwith into the details connected with it, gave him exactly the
same report as Lady Essington had done.
"Come to the rescue, Mr. Cleek," he finished, rather excitedly. "Both
my wife and I feel that you and you alone are the man to get at the
bottom of this diabolical thing; and the boy is as dear to us as if
he were our own. Help me to get proof--unimpeachable proof--of the
hand which is engineering these diabolical attacks, that we may not
only put an end to them before they go too far, but may avert the
disgrace which publicity must inevitably bring."
"Publicity, Mr. Carruthers? What publicity are you in dread of,
please?"
"That which could only bring shame to a dear, lovable young
fellow if any hint of what I believe to be the truth should get
out, Mr. Cleek," he replied. "To you I may confess it: I appeal to
no medical man because I fear, for young Claude's sake, that
investigation may lead to a discovery of the truth; for both my
wife and I feel--indeed, we almost _know_--that it is his own
grandmother, Lady Essington, who is injuring the boy and that it
will not be long before she attempts to direct suspicion against
_us_."
"Indeed? For what purpose?"
"To have us removed by the courts as not being fit to have the care
of the child, and to get him transferred to her care, that she may
enjoy the revenue from his estate."
"Phew!" whistled Cleek softly. "Well done, my lady!"
"We do our best to keep her from getting at him," went on the
Honourable Felix, "but she succeeds in spite of us. His nursery
was on the same floor as her rooms, but for greater safety I last
night had him carried to my own bedchamber and double-locked all
the windows and doors. I said to myself that nothing could get
to him then; but--it did, just the same! In the middle of the night
he woke up screaming and crying out that some one had come and
stuck a long needle in his neck, and then for the first time--God!
I nearly went off my head when I saw it--for the first time, Mr.
Cleek, there was a mark upon him--three red raw little spots just
over the collarbone on the left side of the neck, as if a bird
had pecked him."
"Hum-m-m! And all the windows closed, you say?"
"All but one--the window of my dressing-room--but as that is barred
so that nobody could possibly get in, I thought it did not matter,
and so left it partly open for the sake of air."
"I see," said Cleek. "I see! Hum-m-m! A fortnight without any outward
sign and then of a sudden three small raw spots! Indented in the
centre are they, and much inflamed about the edges? Thanks! Quite
so, quite so! And the doors locked and all the windows but one
closed and secured on the inside, so that no human body----What's
that? Take the case? Certainly I will, Mr. Carruthers. You are
entertaining a house party at present, I hear. Now if you can make
it convenient to put me up in the Priory for a night or two, and
will inform your guests that an old 'Varsity friend named--er--let's
see! Oh, ah! Deland, that will do as well as any--Lieutenant Arthur
Deland, home on leave from India--if you will inform your guests that
that friend will join the house party to-morrow afternoon, I'll be
with you in time for lunch, and will bring my man servant with me."
"Thank you! thank you!" said the Honourable Felix, wringing his
hand. "I'll do exactly as you suggest, Mr. Cleek, and rooms shall be
ready for you when you arrive."
And the matter being thus arranged, the Honourable Felix took his
departure; and Cleek, calling the landlady to furnish him with pen,
ink, and paper, sat down then and there to write a private note to
Lady Essington, telling her to look out for Mr. George Headland to
put in an appearance at the Priory in three days' time.
* * * * *
It was exactly half-past one o'clock when Lieutenant Arthur Deland, a
big, handsome, fair-haired, fair-moustached fellow, with the stamp
of the Army all over him, turned up at Boskydell Priory with an
undersized Indian servant and an oversized kit and was presented to
his hostess and to the several members of the house party, by all
of whom he was voted a decided acquisition before he had been an
hour under the Priory's roof.
It is odd how one's fancies sometimes go. He found the Honourable
Mrs. Carruthers a sweet, gentle, dovelike little woman for whom he
did not care in the least degree, and he found Lady Essington's son
a rollicking, bubbling, overgrown boy of two-and-twenty, whom, in
spite of frivolous upbringing and a rather pronounced brusqueness
toward his mother, he fancied very much indeed. In fact, he "played
right up" to Mr. Claude Essington, as our American cousins say; and
Mr. Claude Essington, fancying him hugely, took him to his heart
forthwith and blurted out his sentiments with almost small-boy
candour.
"I say, Deland, you're a spiffing sort--I like you!" he said bluntly,
after they'd played one or two sets of tennis with the ladies and
done their "social duties" generally. "If things look up a bit and
I'm able to go back to Oxford for the next term (and the Lord
knows how I shall, if the mater doesn't succeed in 'touching'
Carruthers for some money for we're jolly near broke and up to our
eyes in debt), but if I do go back and you're in England still,
I'll have you up for the May week and give you the time of your
life. Oh, Lord! here's the mater coming now. Let's hook it. Come
round to the stables, will you, and have a look at my collection.
Pippin' lot--they'll interest you."
They did; for on investigation the "collection" proved to be made
up of pigeons, magpies, parrakeets, white mice, monkeys, and even
a tame squirrel, all of which came forth at their master's call and
swarmed or flocked all over him.
"Now then, Dolly Varden, you keep your thieving tongs away from
my scarfpin, old lady!" exclaimed this enthusiast to a magpie
which perched upon his shoulder and immediately made a peck at
the small pearl in his necktie. "Awfullest old thief and vagrant
that ever sprouted a feather, this beauty," he explained to Cleek as
he smoothed the magpie's head. "Steal your eye teeth if she could
get at them, and goes off on the loose like a blessed wandering
gypsy. Lost her for three days and nights a couple of weeks ago,
and the Lord knows where the old vagrant put in her time. What's
that? The white stuff on her beak? Blest if I know. Been pecking at
a wall or something, I reckon, and--hullo! There's Carruthers and
his little lordship strolling about hand in hand. Let's go and have
a word with them. Strathmere's amazingly fond of my mice and birds."
With that he walked away with the mice and the monkeys and the
squirrel clinging to him, and those of the birds that were not
perched upon his shoulders or his hands circling round his head with
a flurry of moving wings. Cleek followed. A word in private with
the Honourable Felix was accountable for his appearance in the
grounds with the boy, and Cleek was anxious to get a good look at
him without exciting any possible suspicion in Lady Essington's mind
regarding the "Lieutenant's" interest in him.
He was a bonny little chap, this last Earl of Strathmere, with a head
and face that might have done duty for one of Raphael's "Cherubim"
and the big "wonder eyes" that make baby faces so alluring.
"Strathmere, this is Lieutenant Deland, come all the way from India
to visit us," said the Honourable Felix, as Cleek went down on his
knees and spoke to the boy (examining him carefully the while).
"Won't you tell him you are pleased to see him?"
"Pleased to see oo," said the boy, then broke into a shout of glee
as he caught sight of young Essington with the animals and birds.
"Pitty birdies! pitty mouses! Give! give!" he exclaimed eagerly,
stretching forth his little hands.
"Certainly. Which will you have, old chap--magpie, parrakeet, pigeon,
monkey, or mice?" said young Essington, gayly. "Here! take the lot
and be happy!" Then he made as if to bundle them all into the child's
arms, and might have succeeded in doing so, but that Cleek rose up
and came between them and the boy.
"Do have some sense, Essington!" he rapped out sharply. "Those
things may not bite nor claw you, but one can't be sure when they
are handled by some one else. Besides, the boy is not well and he
ought not to be frightened."
"Sorry, old chap--always puttin' my foot into it. But Strathmere
likes 'em, don't you, bonny boy? and I didn't think."
"Take them back to the stables and let's have a go at billiards for
an hour or two before tea," said Cleek, turning as Essington walked
away, and looking after him with narrowed eyes and lips indrawn. When
man and birds were out of sight, however, he made a sharp and sudden
sound, and almost in a twinkling his "Indian servant" slipped into
sight from behind a nearby hedge.
"Get round there and examine those birds after he's left them," said
Cleek, in a swift whisper. "There's one--a magpie--with something
smeared on its beak. Find out what it is and bring me a sample. Look
sharp!"
"Right you are, sir," answered in excellent Cockney the undersized
person addressed. "I'll spread one of me famous 'Tickle Tootsies'
and nip in and ketch the bloomin' 'awk as soon as the josser's back
is turned, guv'ner. I'm off, as the squib said to the match when it
started blowin' of him up." Then the face disappeared again, and
the child and the two men were again alone together.
"Good God, man!" exclaimed the Honourable Felix in a lowered voice of
strong excitement. "You can't possibly believe that he--that dear,
lovable boy----Oh, it is beyond belief!"
"Nothing is 'beyond belief' in _my_ line, my friend. Recollect that
even Lucifer was an angel _once_. I know the means employed to
bring about this"--touching softly the three red spots on his
little lordship's neck--"but I have yet to decide how the thing
is administered and by whom. Frankly I do not believe it is done
with a bird's beak--though that, too, is possible, wild as it
seems--but by this time to-morrow I promise you the riddle shall be
solved. Sh-h! Don't speak--he's coming back. Take the boy into your
own room to-night, but leave the door unfastened. I'm coming down to
watch by him with you. Let him first be put into the regular nursery,
however, then take him out without the knowledge of any living
soul--of _any_, you hear?--and I will be with you before midnight."
* * * * *
That night two curious things happened: The first was that at a
quarter to seven, when Martha, the nursemaid, coming up into the
nursery to put his little lordship to bed, found Lieutenant
Deland--who was supposed to be dressing for dinner at the
time--standing in the middle of the room looking all about the place.
"Don't be startled, Nurse," he said, as he looked round and saw her.
"Your master has asked me to design a new decoration for this room,
and I'm having a peep about in quest of inspiration. Ah, Strathmere,
'Dustman's time,' I see. Pleasant dreams to you, old chap. See you
in the morning when you're awake."
"Say good night to the gentleman, your lordship," said the nurse,
laying both hands on his shoulders and leading him forward, whereupon
he began to whine sleepily: "Want Sambo! Want Sambo!" and to rub his
fists into his eyes.
"Yes, dearie, Nanny'll get Sambo for your lordship after your
lordship has said good night to the gentleman," soothed the nurse;
and held him gently until he had done so.
"Good night, old chap," said Cleek. "Hello, Nurse, got a sore finger,
have you, eh? How did that happen? It looks painful."
"It is, sir, though I can't for the life of me think whatever could
have made a thing so bad from just scratching one's finger, unless
it could have happened that there was something poisonous on the
wretched magpie's claws. One never can be sure where those nasty
things go nor what they dip into."
"The magpie?" repeated Cleek. "What do you mean by that, Nurse? Have
you had an unpleasant experience with a magpie, then?"
"Yes, sir, that big one of Mr. Essington's: the nasty creature
that's always flying about. It was a fortnight ago, sir. Mistress'
pet dog had got into the nursery and laid hold of Sambo--which is his
lordship's rag doll, sir, as he never will go to sleep without--tore
it well nigh to pieces did the dog; and knowing how his lordship
would cry and mourn if he saw it like that, I fetched in my
work-basket and started to mend it. I'd just got it pulled into
something like shape and was about to sew it up when I was called
out of the room for a few minutes, and when I came back there was
that wretched Magpie that had been missing for several days right
inside my work-basket trying to steal my reels of cotton, sir. It
had come in through the open window--like it so often does,
nasty thing. I loathe magpies and I believe that that one knows
it. Anyway, when I caught up a towel and began to flick at it to get
it out of the room, it turned on me and scratched or pecked my
finger, and it's been bad ever since. Cook says she thinks I must
have touched it against something poisonous after the skin was
broken. Maybe I did, sir, but I can't think what."
Cleek made no comment; merely turned on his heel and walked out of
the room.
The second curious thing occurred between nine o'clock and half-past,
when the gentlemen of the party were lingering at the table over
post-prandial liqueurs and cigars, and the ladies had adjourned to
the drawing-room. A recollection of having carelessly left his
kit-bag unlocked drew Cleek to invent an excuse for leaving the
room for a minute or two and sent him speeding up the stairs. The
gas in the upper halls had been lowered while the members of the
household were below; the passages were dim and shadowy, and the
thick carpet on halls and stairs gave forth never a murmur of sound
from under his feet nor from under the feet of yet another person
who had gone like he, but by a different staircase, to the floors
above.
It was, therefore, only by the merest chance that he looked down
one of the passages in passing and saw a swift-moving figure--a
woman's--cross it at the lower end and pass hastily into the nursery
of the sleeping boy. And--whether her purpose was a good or an evil
one--it was something of a shock to realize that the woman who was
doing this was the Honourable Mrs. Carruthers.
He locked the kit-bag, and went back to the dining-room just as the
little gathering was breaking up, and Mr. Claude Essington, who
always fed his magpies and his other pets himself, was bewailing
the fact that he had "forgotten the beauties until this minute" and
was smoothing out an old newspaper in which to wrap the scraps of
cheese and meat he had sent the butler to the kitchen to procure.
The Honourable Felix looked up at Cleek with a question in his eye.
"No," he contrived to whisper in reply. "It was not anything
poisonous--merely candle wax. The bird had flown in through the
store-room window, and the housekeeper caught it carrying away
candles one by one."
The Honourable Felix made no response, nor would it have been heard
had he done so; for just at that moment young Essington, whose eye
had been caught by something in the paper, burst out into a loud
guffaw.
"I say, this is rich. Listen here, you fellows! Lay you a tenner that
the chap who wrote this was a Paddy Whack, for a finer bull never
escaped from a Tipperary paddock:
"'Lost: Somewhere between Portsmouth and London or some other
spot on the way, a small black leather bag containing a death
certificate and some other things of no value to anybody but
the owner. Finder will be liberally rewarded if all contents
are returned intact to
"'D. J. O'M., 425 Savile Row, West.'
"There's a beautiful example of English as she is advertised for you;
and if--Hullo, Deland, old chap, what's the matter with you?"
For Cleek had suddenly jumped up and, catching the Honourable Felix
by the shoulder, was hurrying him out of the room.
"Just thought of something--that's all. Got to make a run; be with
you again before bedtime," he answered evasively. But once on the
other side of the door: "'Write me down an ass,'" he quoted, turning
to his host. "No, don't ask any questions. Lend me your auto and your
chauffeur. Call up both as quickly as possible. Wait up for me and
keep your wife and Lady Essington and her son waiting up, too. I
said to-morrow I would answer the riddle, did I not? Well, then, if
I'm not the blindest bat that ever flew, I'll give you that answer
to-night."
Then he turned round and raced upstairs for his hat and coat, and ten
minutes later was pelting off London-ward as fast as a L1,000 Panhard
could carry him.
* * * * *
It was close to one o'clock when he came back and walked into the
drawing-room of the Priory, accompanied by a sedate and bespectacled
gentleman of undoubted Celtic origin whom he introduced as "Doctor
James O'Malley, ladies and gentlemen, M.D., Dublin."
Lady Essington and her son acknowledged the introduction by an
inclination of the head, the Honourable Felix and Mrs. Carruthers,
ditto; then her ladyship's son spoke up in his usual blunt, outspoken
way.
"I say, Deland, what's in the wind?" he asked. "What lark are you up
to now? Felix says you've got a clinking big surprise for us all,
and here we are, dear boy, all primed and ready for it. Let's have
it, there's a good chap."
"Very well, so you shall," he replied. "But first of all let me
lay aside a useless mask and acknowledge that I am not an Indian army
officer--I am a simple police detective sometimes called George
Headland, your ladyship, and sometimes----"
"George Headland!" she broke in sharply, getting up and then sitting
down again, pale and shaken. "And you came--you came after all! Oh,
thank you, thank you! I know you would not confess this unless you
have succeeded. Oh, you may know at last--you may know!" she added,
turning upon the Honourable Felix and his wife. "I sent for him--I
brought him here. I want to know and I _will_ know whose hand it is
that is striking at Strathmere's life--my child's child--the dearest
thing to me in all the world. I don't care what I suffer, I don't
care what I lose, I don't care if the courts award him to the veriest
stranger, so that his dear little life is spared and he is put beyond
all danger for good and all."
Real love shone in her face and eyes as she said this, and it was
the certainty of that which surprised Carruthers and his wife as much
as the words she spoke.
"Good heavens! is this thing true!" The Honourable Felix turned to
Cleek as he spoke. "Were you in her pay, too? Was she also working
for the salvation of the boy?"
"Yes," he made answer. "I entered into her service under the name of
George Headland, Mr. Carruthers--the service of a good woman whom I
misjudged far enough to give her a fictitious name. I entered into
yours by one to which I have a better right--Hamilton Cleek!"
"Cleek!" Both her ladyship and her son were on their feet like a
flash; there was a breath of silence and then: "Well, I'm dashed!"
blurted out young Essington. "Cleek, eh? the great Cleek? Scotland!"
And sat down again, overcome.
"Yes, Cleek, my friend; Cleek, ladies and gentlemen all. And now
that the mask is off, let me tell you a short little story which--no!
Pardon, Mr. Essington, don't leave the room, please. I wish you,
too, to hear."
"Wasn't going to leave it--only going to shut the door."
"Ah, I see. Allow me. It is now, ladies and gentlemen, exactly
fourteen days since our friend Doctor O'Malley here, coming up
from Portsmouth on his motorcycle after attending a patient who that
day had died, was overcome by the extreme heat and the exertion of
trying to fight off a belligerent magpie which flew out of the woods
and persistently attacked him, and, falling to the ground, lost
consciousness. When he regained it, he was in the Charing Cross
Hospital, and all that he knew of his being there was that a
motorist who had picked him and his cycle up on the road had carried
him there and turned him over to the authorities. He himself was
unable, however, to place the exact locality in which he was
travelling at the time of the accident, otherwise we should not have
had that extremely interesting advertisement which Mr. Essington
read out this evening. For the doctor had lost a small black bag
containing something extremely valuable, which he was carrying at
the time and which supplies the solution to this interesting riddle.
How, do you ask? Come with me--all of you--to Mr. Carruthers'
room, where his little lordship is sleeping, and learn that for
yourselves."
They rose at his word and followed him upstairs; and there, in a
dimly lit room, the sleeping child lay with an old rag doll hugged up
close to him, its painted face resting in the curve of his little
neck.
"You want to know from where proceed these mysterious attacks--who
and what it is that harms the child?" said Cleek as he went forward
on tiptoe and, gently withdrawing the doll, held it up. "Here it
is, then--this is the culprit: this thing here! You want to know
how? Then by this means--look! See!" He thrust the blade of a pocket
knife into the doll and with one sweep ripped it open, and dipping in
his fingers drew from cotton wool and rags with which the thing
was stuffed a slim, close-stoppered glass vial in which something
that glowed and gave off constant sparks of light shimmered and
burnt with a restless fire.
"Is this it, Doctor?" he said, holding the thing up.
"Yes! Oh, my God, yes!" he cried out as he clutched at it. "A wonder
of the heavens, sure, that the child wasn't disfigured for life or
perhaps kilt forever. A half grain of it--a half grain of radium,
ladies and gentlemen--enough to burn a hole through the divvle
himself, if he lay long enough agin it."
"Radium!" The word was voiced on every side, and the two women and
two men crowded close to look at the thing. "Radium in the doll?
Radium? I say, Deland--I mean to say, Mr. Cleek--in God's name, who
could have put the cursed thing there?"
"Your magpie, Mr. Essington," replied Cleek, and with that brief
preface told of Martha, the nurse, and of the torn doll and of the
magpie that flew into the room while the girl was away.
"The wretched thing must have picked it up when the doctor fell
and lost consciousness and the open bag lay unguarded," he said.
"And with its propensity for stealing and hiding things it flew
with it into the nursery and hid it in the torn doll. Martha did
not see it, of course, when she sewed the doll up, but the scratch
she received from the magpie presented a raw surface to the action
of the mineral and its effect was instant and most violent. What's
that? No, Mr. Carruthers--no one is guilty; no one has even tried to
injure his lordship. Chance only is to blame--and Chance cannot be
punished. As for the rest, do me a favour, dear friend, in place
of any other kind of reward. Look to it that this young chap here
gets enough out of the income of the estate to continue his course
at Oxford and--that's all."
It was not, however; for while he was still speaking a strange and
even startling interruption occurred.
A liveried servant, pushing the door open gently, stepped into the
room bearing a small silver salver upon which a letter lay.
"Well, upon my word, Johnston, this is rather an original sort of
performance, isn't it?" exclaimed Carruthers, indignant over the
intrusion.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I did knock," he apologized. "I knocked
twice, in fact, but no one seemed to hear; and as I had been told it
was a matter of more than life and death, I presumed. Letter for
Lieutenant Deland, sir. A gentleman of the name of Narkom--in a
motor, sir--at the door--asked me to deliver it at once and under any
and all circumstances."
Cleek looked at the letter, saw that it was enclosed in a plain
unaddressed envelope, asked to be excused, and stepped out into the
passage with it.
That Narkom should have come for him like this--should have risked
the upsetting of a case by appearing before he knew if it was settled
or, indeed, likely to be--could mean but one thing: that his errand
was one of overwhelming importance, of more moment than anything else
in the world.
He tore off the envelope with hands that shook, and spread open the
sheet of paper it contained.
There was but one single line upon it; but that line, penned in that
hand, would have called him from the world's end.
"_Come to me at once. Ailsa_," he read--and was on his way downstairs
like a shot.
In the lower hall the butler stood, holding his hat and coat ready
for him to jump into them at once.
"My--er--young servant--quick as you can!" said Cleek, grabbing the
hat and hurrying into the coat.
"Already outside, sir--in the motor with the gentleman," the butler
gave back; then opened the door and stepped aside, holding it
back for him and bowing deferentially; and the light of the hall,
streaking out into the night, showed a flight of shallow steps,
the blue limousine at the foot of them--with Lennard in the driver's
seat and Dollops beside him--and standing on the lowest step of
all Mr. Narkom holding open the car's door and looking curiously
pale and solemn.
"What is it? Is she hurt? Has anything happened to her?" Cleek
jumbled the three questions into one unbroken breath as he came
running down the steps and caught at the superintendent's arm.
"Speak up! Don't stand looking at me like a dumb thing! Is anything
wrong with Miss Lorne?"
"Nothing--nothing at all."
"Thank God! Then why? Why? For what reason has she sent for me? Where
is she? Speak up!"
"In town. Waiting for you. At the Mauravanian embassy."
"At the--Good God! How comes she to be _there_?"
"I took her. You told me if anything happened to you that I
thought she ought to know--Please get in and let us be off,
sir--Sire--whichever it ought to be. I don't know the proper form of
address. I've never had any personal dealings with royalty before."
The hand that rested on his arm tightened its grip the very instant
that word royalty passed his lips. Now it relaxed suddenly, dropped
away, and he scarcely recognized the voice that spoke next, so unlike
to Cleek's it was, so thick was the tremulous note that pulsated
through it.
"Royalty?" it repeated. "Speak up, please. What have you found out?
What do you know of me that you make use of that term?"
"What everybody in the world will know by to-morrow. Count Irma has
told! Count Irma has come, as the special envoy of the people,
for Queen Karma's son! For the King they want! For you!" flung out
Narkom, getting excited as he proceeded. "It's all out at last
and--I know now. Everybody does. I'm to lose you. Mauravania is
to take you from me after all. A palace is to have you--not the
Yard. Get in, please, sir--Sire--your Majesty. Get in. They're
waiting for you at the embassy. Get in and go! Good luck to you! God
bless you! I mean that. It's just about going to break my heart,
Cleek, but I mean it every word! Mind the step, Sire. Make room
for me on the seat there, you two; and then off to the embassy
as fast as you can streak it, Lennard. His Majesty is all ready to
start."
"Not yet, please," a voice said quietly; then a hand reached out from
the interior of the limousine, dropped upon Mr. Narkom's shoulder
and, tightening there, drew him over the step and into the car.
"Your old seat, my friend. Here beside me. My memory is not a short
one and my affections not fickle. All right _now_, Lennard. Let
her go!"
Then the door closed with a smack, the limousine came round with a
swing, and, just as in those other days when it was the Law that
called, not the trumpet-peal from a throne, the car went bounding off
at the good old mile-a-minute clip on its fly-away race for London.
* * * * *
It ended, that race, in front of the Mauravanian embassy; and Cleek's
love for the spectacular must have come near to being surfeited
that night, for the building was one blaze of light, one glamour
of flags and flowers and festooned bunting; and looking up the
steps, down which a crimson carpet ran across the pavement to the
very kerbstone, he could see a double line of soldiers in the
glittering white-and-silver of the Mauravanian Royal Guard,--plumed
and helmeted--standing with swords at salute waiting to receive
him; and over the arched doorway the royal arms emblazoned, and
above them--picked out in winking gas-jets--a wreath of laurel
surrounding the monogram M. R., which stood for Maximilian Rex,
aflame against a marble background.
"Here we are at last, sir," said Narkom as the car stopped (he had
learned, by this time, that "Sire" belonged to the stage and the
Middle Ages), and, alighting, held back the door that Cleek might
get out.
Afterward he declared that that was the proudest moment of his life;
for if it was not the proudest of Cleek's, his looks belied him. For,
as his foot touched the crimson carpet, a band within swung into
the stately measure of the Mauravanian National Anthem, an escort
came down the hall and down the steps and lined up on either side
of him, and if ever man looked proud of his inheritance, that man
was he.
He went on up the steps and down the long hall with a chorus of
"Vivat Maximilian! Vivat le roi!" following him and the sound of
the National Anthem ringing in his ears; then, all of a moment, the
escort fell back, doors opened, he found himself in a room that
blazed with lights, that echoed with the sound of many vivats, the
stir of many bodies, and looking about saw that he was surrounded
by a kneeling gathering and that one man in particular was at his
feet, sobbing.
He looked down and saw that that man was Irma, and smiled and put
out his hand.
The count bent over and touched it with his lips.
"Majesty, I never forgot! Majesty, I worked for it, fought for it
ever since that night!" he said. "I would have fought for it ever
if it need have been. But it was not. See, it was not. It was God's
will and it was our people's."
"My people's!" Cleek repeated, his head going back, his eyes lighting
with a pride and a happiness beyond all telling. "Oh, Mauravania!
Dear land. Dear country. Mine again!"
But hardly had the ecstasy of that thought laid its spell upon him
when there came another not less divine, and his eyes went round the
gathering in quest of one who should be here--at his side--to share
this glorious moment with him.
She had come for that purpose--Narkom had said so. Where was she,
then? Why did she hold herself in the background at such a time as
this?
He saw her at that very moment. The gathering had risen and she with
them--holding aloof at the far end of the room. There was a smile
on her lips, but even at that distance he could see that she was
very, very pale and that there was a shadow of pain in her dear eyes.
"We both have battled for an ideal, Count," he said, with a happy
little laugh. "Here is mine. Here is what I have fought for!"
and crossing the room he went straight to Ailsa, with both hands
outstretched to her and his face fairly beaming.
But it needed not the little shocked breath he heard upon all sides
to dash that bright look from his face and to bring him to a sudden
halt. For at his coming, Ailsa had dropped the deep curtsey which
is the due of royalty, and was moving away from him backward, which
is royalty's due also.
"Ailsa!" he said, moving toward her with a sharp and sudden step.
"Ailsa, don't be absurd. It is too silly to think that forms should
stand with you, too. Take my hand--take it!"
"Your Majesty----"
"Take it, I tell you!" he repeated almost roughly. "Good God! do you
think that this can make any difference? Take my hand! Do you hear?"
She obeyed him this time, but as her fingers rested upon his he saw
that they were quite ringless--that the sign of their engagement
had been removed--and caught her to him with a passionate sort of
fierceness that was a reproach in itself.
"Could you think so meanly of me? Could you?" he cried. "Where is
the ring?"
"In my pocket. I took it off when--I heard."
"Put it on again. Or, no! Give it to me and let me do that
myself--here, before them all. Kings must have queens, must they
not? You were always mine: you are always going to be. Even the day
of our wedding is not to be changed."
"Oh, hush!" she made answer. "One's duty to one's country must always
stand first with--kings."
"Must it? Kings after all are only men--and a man's first duty is
to the one woman of his heart."
"Not with kings. There is a different rule, a different law. Oh, let
me go--please! I know, I fully realize, it would be different with
you--if it were possible. But--it is the penalty one must pay for
kingship, dear. Royalty must mate with royalty, not with a woman of
the people. It is the law of all kingdoms, the immutable law."
It was. He had forgotten that; and it came upon him now with a shock
of bitter recollection. For a moment he stood silent, the colour
draining out of his face, the light fading slowly from his eyes;
then, of a sudden, he looked over the glittering room and across
its breadth at Irma.
"It would not be possible then?" he asked.
"Not as a royal consort, sir. The people's choice in that respect
would lie with the hereditary princess of Danubia. I have already
explained that to Mademoiselle. But if it should be your Majesty's
pleasure to take a morganatic wife----"
"Cut that!" rapped in Cleek's voice like the snap of a whiplash. "So,
then, one is to sell one's honour for a crown; break a woman's life
for a kingdom, and become a royal adulterer for the sake of a throne
and sceptre!"
"But, Majesty, one's duty to one's country is a sacred thing."
"Not so sacred as one's redeemer, Count, and, under God, here is
mine!" he threw back, heatedly. "Mauravania forgot once; she will
forget again. She _must_ forget! My lords and gentlemen, I decline
her flattering offer. My only kingdom is here--in this dear woman's
arms. Walk with me, Ailsa--walk with me always. You said you would.
Walk with me, dear, as my queen _and_ my wife."
And putting his arm about her and holding her close, and setting
his back to the lights and the flags and the glittering Guard, he
passed, with head erect, through the murmuring gathering and went
down and out with her--to the blue limousine--to the Yard's service
again--and to those better things which are the true crown of a man's
life.
At the foot of the steps Narkom and Dollops caught up with him, and
the boy's eager hand plucked at his sleeve.
"Guv'ner, Gawd love yer--Gawd love yer, sir; you're a man, you are!"
he said with a sort of sob in his voice. "I'm glad you chucked it.
It was breakin' my heart to think that I'd have to call you 'Sire'
all the rest of my days, sir--like as if you was a bloomin' horse!"
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Spelling and punctuation inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling is preserved.
The author's punctuation style is preserved.
Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).