YET ANOTHER PROBLEM
Marks of several finger-prints were found upon the front door, while
a quantity of tinder found in the fireplace was carefully collected
for subsequent examination.
Expert detectives that they were, they went to work quietly and
methodically, Medland taking charge of the inquiry and directing
operations.
The body of the unfortunate Goodrick was conveyed upstairs to the
narrow back bedroom and laid upon the bed covered with a sheet, a grim
object in the cold grey dawn.
The room, though clean, was of meagre dimensions, the walls adorned
with prints cut from the illustrated papers, while on the mantelshelf
was a collection of valuable bronzes, some of them exquisite works of
art and undeniably “museum pieces.” Over the bed hung a beautiful
Madonna of the Tuscan school in a carved frame of tarnished gilt.
Below, the police officers rummaged the littered sitting-room to see
if there were any papers which might reveal anything concerning the
dead man’s friends.
“I don’t think ’e ’ad many friends,” declared the worthy landlady, as
she watched the detectives methodically turning over the old man’s
priceless collection of “old rubbish,” as she termed it. “’E never
wrote a letter above once or twice all the time we’ve knowed ’im.
Sometimes, as I’ve said to my ’usband, I fancy ’e was a-concealing
’imself from ’is relations. ’E never spoke of kith nor kin, and ’e ’ad
no great love for strangers either--except the old priest. I once took
in a young man lodger, and oh! it annoyed ’im awful. ’E was a funny
old sort, I can tell you. When Mr. Mellini came they always talked in
Italian.”
“Curious that you didn’t hear any sound, Mrs. Ayres,” Medland
remarked.
“We ’eard the door shut, no doubt, but we didn’t know what it wor.”
Wagner and his colleague were busy turning over the miscellaneous pile
of antiques of all sorts, from bits of moth-eaten tapestry to fine but
tarnished objects in old silver, chalices, cups, reliquaries, and the
rest. Coloured prints of value, parchment rolls with big seals
attached, old maps, and other documents lay about, while upon antique
furniture, moth-eaten and shabby, were piled pictures, china, and
bric-à-brac of all descriptions, sufficient to stock a fair-sized
shop.
“’E never went out but what ’e brought ’ome somethink for me to clean
up and polish,” Mrs. Ayres declared. “’E used to give ridiculous
prices for them bits of old cracked china and rusty swords an’ daggers
an’ things. Why, ’e’d think nothink of givin’ ten or fifteen pounds
for one o’ them old books over there. Sheer madness, I call it!”
The dust raised by the officers was suffocating as they turned out
every corner in their hasty search for any of the old man’s secreted
correspondence. Medland felt that there must be something there which
would throw light upon the dead man’s friends.
Wagner remarked that the old fellow seemed to buy anything, whether
complete or not, as he held up the centre of the old Sheffield-plate
candelabrum. Then, ignorant that within its fluted column reposed one
of Richard Goodrick’s greatest treasures, he cast it aside as rubbish.
Detectives are not usually connoisseurs, yet Medland, who had a few
“old things” at his home at Brixton, saw that, whoever the dead man
was, he must have been an educated person and in possession of
considerable means.
Just after half-past eight there came a sharp ring at the hall door,
and a telegraph-boy handed in a reply-paid message addressed to the
dead man.
Medland opened it eagerly and found that it had been dispatched from
the Charing Cross office at seven-twenty-five, and read:
“Appeal to you most earnestly to reconsider your decision. When and
where can you meet me this evening. I do not wish to re-visit
Charlwood Street.--Ravenscourt.”
“Why!” cried the inspector, “here is Sir George, who is dead,
telegraphing to his dead friend! I must go at once to the telegraph
office and see the original of this message. A dead man has asked for
a reply from the dead!”
Entering the car again with the chief, he drove rapidly along Victoria
Street and Whitehall, and was quickly in conversation with the clerk
who had received the mysterious message.
It was, he saw, written in a rapid, educated hand.
“A youth about nineteen handed it in,” said the clerk. “He was a tall,
slim, clean-shaven young man in a dark blue suit.”
That was all the information the inspector could gather. Therefore,
re-entering the car, he called at the house of mourning in Carlton
House Terrace, and showed the original of the telegram to Lady
Ravenscourt, who, terribly broken down, was undecided whether it was
in her husband’s handwriting.
The only explanation was that Sir George had written the message
over-night and had given it to someone to take to the Charing Cross
office. The person in question had failed to do so until this morning.
After consultation with the two police officers on duty at the house,
the inspector returned to Scotland Yard, where he dropped his chief,
and then went to Don Mario’s address in Denbigh Street, only to find
that he had left his lodgings about ten days before. Mr. Goodrick had
called one morning, and soon afterwards the lodger had paid his bill
and left.
Wagner, his face and hands dirty and his clothes covered with the dust
of years, was still busy turning over the miscellaneous collection of
odds and ends.
“He was a bit of a miser, sir,” exclaimed the detective-sergeant as
the inspector entered the room in Charlwood Street. “See this!” And he
exhibited an old leather bag filled with sovereigns, which he had
found locked in the bottom cupboard of a Sheraton sideboard.
Medland was much puzzled. He could see no connection between the
tragedy in society and the one out of it. And yet there was, he felt,
some strange and remarkable connection. It seemed as though the
assassin, having killed Sir George, had walked boldly and deliberately
out of the house, slamming the door after him, and had then gone to
Charlwood Street and there committed the second crime.
The police surgeon had, during Medland’s absence, made a further
examination of the body upstairs, and now, on his return, descended
and, in an eager voice, called the detective aside.
“There’s some great mystery surrounding the deceased,” he said
excitedly. “While I was making an examination I discovered a very
significant fact--his beard is a false one!”
Medland’s lips became compressed.
“Then he was disguised--eh?”
“No doubt,” declared the doctor. “That beautiful beard, which has been
so much admired here in Charlwood Street, was not his own.”
Medland went upstairs and gazed upon the dead white face, now devoid
of beard. Then, with the mystery increased by the discovery, he sought
Mrs. Ayres, who was in the regions below.
“Lor’ bless yer, sir, we knowed that,” she laughed. “Mr. Goodrick wore
a false beard these past six years. ’E was very proud of ’is beard,
but one day, when ’e wor reading with a lamp, ’e upset it, an’ all ’is
whiskers got singed off. So ’e went to a wig maker’s an’ got a new
’un. ’E didn’t like to be seen without ’is beard, for ’e was very
peculiar like. Sometimes ’e’d alter ’is features with paint and
things.”
“Then he always wore his false beard?”
“Always, sir. I never saw ’im without it.”
The woman’s husband was a retiring, inoffensive man, and left all the
talking to his wife. Dazed and puzzled, he hardly spoke.
Mrs. Ayres declared that she now recollected how her eccentric lodger
on the previous evening, when she brought in his tea, seemed very
fidgety and nervous.
“’E turned ’is face from me as if ’e wished to avoid me. I wonder what
’e ’ad on ’is mind?”
In response to further inquiry the gossiping woman said that he looked
white and anxious, with a strange, haunted expression upon his face.
But the detectives disregarded her statement as mere imagination.
Medland was a very experienced officer who had successfully conducted
many very intricate cases; but none, he admitted within himself, had
been so full of curious features as the present.
He noted many small points which his assistant had overlooked.
But what was the motive? Why should Sir George, feeling himself dying,
seek to remove all traces of his secret visit to Charlwood Street? The
affair was a complete enigma, and the only chance of a solution lay in
keeping the actual facts out of the papers.
Already most of the London journals contained a brief paragraph
recording the sudden death of Sir George Ravenscourt and hinting at
suicide; but of the death of the obscure recluse in Pimlico there was
no mention.
Throughout the day many inquiries were set afoot by Scotland Yard. At
noon a council of the heads of the various branches of the Criminal
Investigation Department had been held, as is usual in important
cases, when all the known facts were thoroughly discussed and
dissected. Then the whole machinery of the higher branch of the
Metropolitan Police was set in motion, and the most searching
investigation was being made into the recent movements and
correspondence of the Baronet.
At Carlton House Terrace the big house with the wide portico and drawn
blinds was plunged into mourning. Poor Lady Ravenscourt remained
inconsolable, while Maidee sat with her hour after hour, weeping in
sympathy.
Telegrams of condolence were showered upon the widow in hundreds, and
there was a constant stream of callers.
Towards eight o’clock, tired out with crying, her ladyship lay down
and slept upon the sofa in her pretty boudoir upstairs, whereupon
Maidee rose and, leaving her on tiptoe, went to her own room, where
she hastily put on a black walking-frock and a hat with a black fall.
As she stood before her big mirror, removing the traces of tears from
her eyes, she presented a handsome picture. Hair black as raven’s
wing, dressed low, formed a frame to a pensive face full of energy and
expression. Her large eyes were dark and penetrating; her eyebrows,
strongly marked and almost straight, would perhaps have imparted too
decided a character to her young head if a charming expression of
candour and _naïveté_ had not given her the countenance of a child
rather than that of a woman.
Maidee was just twenty, sweet-faced, graceful, charming, and
accomplished. A splendid linguist, speaking Italian, German, and
French with fluency, she sang sweetly, played tennis well, was a good
partner at bridge, and was highly popular in the smart political set
in which Lady Ravenscourt moved.
She glanced at the little silver clock upon her dressing-table and saw
that it was already half-past eight.
“I must not be late,” she murmured aloud, “or he will think I’m
detained, and will not wait.”
Hurriedly she tied her veil, and, drawing on a pair of black gloves,
put on her long fur coat, and descended the stairs.
“I shan’t be very long, Burgess,” she said as she passed him. “Lady
Ravenscourt is sleeping just now.”
“Very well, miss,” replied the stout butler, as he let her out and
watched her turn the corner in the darkness by the statue towards the
Athenæum Club.
Believing that she had gone upon some errand for her ladyship, it did
not strike him at all curious that she should walk out at that hour.
Yet, had he followed her, his curiosity would certainly have been
aroused.
She was aware, of course, that some man named Goodrick, whom her uncle
had visited a few hours before his death, had also been found dead,
but no details of the curious affair had been told the ladies by the
police, while the evening papers were still silent upon the subject.
She crossed Waterloo Place and ascended Regent Street as far as
Piccadilly Circus, where she hailed a passing taxi, and, giving the
man an address, entered the conveyance.
The cab, turning back, crossed Trafalgar Square, and quickly sped
along Whitehall, crossed Westminster Bridge, continuing to the
Elephant and Castle, and afterwards proceeded along the populous
Walworth Road until, suddenly, it turned into a short, quiet, obscure
thoroughfare known as Wansey Street. Here all the grimy eight-roomed
houses were uniform, with basements, and each with eight front-door
steps.
Before one of these, a decidedly dark and dismal abode, the girl
alighted, and, ascending the steps, hurriedly rang the bell. Her
arrival was evidently expected. A pale-faced lad, whom she greeted as
“Harry,” admitted her, and, passing in, she pushed open the door of
the shabby sitting-room on the right, where a man rose slowly, his
thin white hand outstretched in greeting as he cried:
“Ah, Maidee! Why, you are late--oh! so late. I really feared that you
were prevented from coming. And I wanted to see you--very particularly
to-night--very particularly indeed.”
“You know the terrible affair that has happened, Uncle John?”
exclaimed the girl breathlessly. “How----”
“I know! I know! Poor Sir George!” interrupted the man in a low, husky
voice.
And as he held her hand the light of the gas-jet falling full upon his
face revealed him to be a thin, fragile-looking old gentleman, with a
white beard and dark, penetrating eyes--an old man, wearing a faded,
old, dark blue dressing-gown--the exact counterpart of the mysterious
Richard Goodrick, the eccentric collector now lying dead in that
narrow room in a back street in Pimlico.
“Sit down, Maidee,” he said in a low, intense voice, closing the door
and locking it carefully behind her. “Sit down,” and he drew a chair
to the fire. “I must have a very serious talk with you, my dear child.
I--I want to tell you something--_something very strange_.”