THE CHAMBER OF DEATH.
He reeled back in horror, but even in that one moment of discovery the
necessity of preserving self-control forced itself upon him, and he
became calm. The first real step in the mystery was taken, and all his
powers of sober reason were needed to consider what would follow, and
in what way the dread discovery would affect the beings he held most
dear. Fortifying himself with a sip of brandy, and putting into a
candlestick the candle he had held in his hand, he turned down the
sheets to ascertain how the hard master he had served--the man in
whose breast had dwelt no spark of compassion for any living
creature--had met his death. There was no blood on the bedclothes, no
stab or bullet in the dead man's body. On his face was an expression
of suffering, as of one who had died in pain, and his neck was
discoloured, as though a hand had tightly pressed it. But this might
have been his own act in the agony of the death struggle, and his
presence in his bed went far to prove that his end had been a natural
one. A closer examination, however, dispelled this theory. The marks
on his throat could scarcely have been made by himself, for his arms
lay by his side in a natural position. Undoubtedly there had been
violence done. By whom?
The first person whose image came to Dick's mind was Abel Death. The
image immediately suggested a train of circumstance which, in the heat
of the moment, proclaimed the absent man guilty. Abel Death had made
his appeal to Samuel Boyd, and had made it in vain. In a paroxysm of
fury he had fallen upon his master, and had strangled him. Then,
searching for money and finding it, he had fled from the house and
taken passage in some outgoing vessel for a foreign land. Presuming
that the murder had been committed on the night of the 1st of March
there had been ample time to make his escape, but not sufficient time
to communicate with his wife. Or, perhaps the man, overwhelmed by
terror, was afraid to write.
But upon further reflection this train of circumstance fell apart, and
Dick perceived how false it was. It was hardly probable that Samuel
Boyd had received Abel Death while he was abed, and still less
probable that in his sleeping attire he would open his street door to
such a visitor. By no other means than through the door could Abel
Death have obtained access to the house. No, it was not he who had
committed the crime. But the man was gone, and the mystery of his
disappearance was still unexplained.
But if Abel Death could have obtained access to the house only by
permission of Samuel Boyd, there was another man who had no need to
ask for it. That man was Mr. Reginald Boyd. He possessed a key to the
street door, and could obtain admittance at any hour. At any hour? No.
Not after Samuel Boyd had chained and bolted the door from within
before he went to bed. What was the presumption? That Reginald had
quietly entered before the door was fastened, and had secreted himself
until his father had retired to rest. Easy to imagine what followed:
his appearance in the bedroom when his father was half asleep, his
demands for money, the stern refusal and the taunting exchange of
angry words, the hot blood roused, the clutching his father by the
throat, the murder committed, the disposal of the limbs to make it
appear that he had died a natural death, the unbolting and unchaining
of the street door, and, finally, the frantic flight. But how to
account for the key being upon the mat? As Dick mentally asked this
question his eyes fell upon a key hanging by a cord at the head of the
bed. Was it Samuel Boyd's own private key to the street door? So much
depended upon this that Dick hastened downstairs to settle the point.
Yes, it was Samuel Boyd's key. And the second key which Dick had
picked up? Dropped by Reginald in his frenzy as he flew out of the
house.
Dick's heart sank within him. This plausible chain of circumstance
fitted the theory that Reginald was the murderer. Horrible! Most
horrible! And Florence loved this guilty man. He it was who was
responsible for her flight from her peaceful, happy home; he it was
who, for some sinister reason, had imposed secrecy upon her! It seemed
to Dick as if he held the fate of Florence's lover in his hands. He
returned the second key to its place at the head of the bed, and
mechanically--but yet in pursuance of some immature thought--put the
key he had found on the mat into his pocket. Then he quitted the room
of death, and closing the door, sank into a chair, and rested his head
on his hand.
How should he act? What clear line of action did his duty point out to
him? His duty! What if in pursuance of this moral obligation he
wrecked Florence's life, and brought upon her despair so poignant as
to drive her to her grave? No, a thousand times, no! Anything but
that.
Why should it be incumbent upon him to proclaim the murder? Let others
do it. But even then, would that save Reginald? The finger of
suspicion would be pointed at him, and a clever lawyer would wind
around him a chain of circumstantial evidence so firm and strong that
it would be impossible for him to break through it. What were the
links in this chain?
The quarrel between father and son some time since, which ended in
Reginald being turned out of the house, with the stern injunction
never to enter it again. Proof would surely be discovered to establish
this, and it would be vain for Reginald to deny it.
Reginald's first visit to the house in Catchpole Square on the evening
of the 1st of March. Abel Death had disappeared, but Mrs. Death was
alive to testify to the fact. In this connection the pitiful image of
little Gracie presented itself to Dick's mind, and he heard her
plaintive appeal, "You _will_ find father, won't you?" He had been
anxious to do this, but he recognised now that Abel Death's appearance
in court might be fatal to Reginald.
The next link was Reginald's second visit to Catchpole Square an hour
or so before midnight, admitting himself to the house on that
occasion, as on the first, with his own private latchkey. Who was to
prove this? Remote as the Square was from public observation there was
little doubt that Reginald had entered unseen. No witness existed,
except Reginald himself, who could state what took place on this
second visit, but it was a strong link in the chain that he had "come
down in the world," and was in need for money.
The murder being made public, Constables Pond and Applebee would be
questioned as to whether they had observed any suspicious circumstance
in the neighbourhood on the night of the 1st. Applebee would recall
the visit to Samuel Boyd of a lady in her carriage. Who was the lady,
and what was her business with him? This would be traced. Doubtless
the lady herself would come forward. The constables would further
recall the appearance of a woman lurking in Catchpole Square on the
night of the 5th, her evident alarm on being challenged, and her
escape from the clutches of Constable Applebee.
Then came the question of the identity of the woman, in the answering
of which Florence's handkerchief would furnish a clue. But if
Constable Pond confessed how he had found and concealed the
handkerchief it would, in all probability, lead to his dismissal from
the force. It was therefore to his interest to say nothing about it.
Dick had imposed silence upon him and his wife, and the chances were
that secrecy would be preserved.
He carried this point farther. It appeared certain that the murder was
committed on the night of the 1st of March. Now, Florence's visit to
Catchpole Square--assuming that it was she--was paid on the night of
the 5th, five days after. What connection, then, could there be
between this visit and the murder? He argued it out. She was in
communication with Reginald; since his last visit to Aunt Rob's house,
nearly a fortnight ago, letters had passed between them, and there was
little doubt that, without the knowledge of her parents, she had seen
and conversed with him. Fearful of venturing himself into the Square,
had he sent her to ascertain whether there was any appearance of the
house having been entered? That would imply her knowledge of the
crime. Every pulse and nerve in Dick's body throbbed in revolt against
the cruel suggestion.
"No!" he cried aloud, starting to his feet. "No--no--no!"
But earnest as he might be on behalf of Florence he could not deny
that the evidence, circumstantial as it was, formed a serious
indictment against Reginald. In the midst of his agitation he noticed
that in his starting from his chair he had swept off the table the
Japanese paperweight and the documents which had lain beneath it.
Stooping to pick them up and put them in their original order he saw
the name of Reginald on one of the sheets, in Samuel Boyd's writing,
with which he was familiar. Re-seating himself he immediately
proceeded to read what was written thereon:
"_Memoranda for my guidance. March 1st, 9.30 p.m_."
"I jot down certain memoranda respecting my unworthy son, Reginald
Boyd, to assist my memory in my application to the police to-morrow
morning. Things slip my mind sometimes. This shall not. To the police
I go early in the morning. I do not consider myself safe. My son and
my clerk, Abel Death, whom I discharged from my service this evening,
are in a conspiracy to rob me, and I must take measures against them.
"It is two years since I turned my son out of my house in consequence
of his misconduct and disobedience. I forbade him ever to darken my
door again, or ever to address me.
"In defiance of this command he stole into the house this afternoon
during my absence, and though Abel Death endeavoured to keep it from
me, I forced the information from him that this scamp of a son of mine
intends to come again late to-night.
"Impress strongly upon the police that these men are conspiring to rob
me. Reginald has in his possession a key to the street door. It is my
property. He stole it from me. If he does not get in through the front
door he will find some other way. He is better acquainted with the ins
and outs of this house than I am myself. He is an ungrateful,
worthless scoundrel. They are a pair of scoundrels.
"To-morrow I will draw out my will. Reginald knows that it is not made
yet. If I were to die to-night all that I possess would fall to him as
heir at law, and I am determined he shall have not have a shilling of
my money. Not a shilling. He is reckoning, I dare say, upon coming
into a fortune. He will find out his mistake.
"_Shall_ I see him? I should like to tell him to his face that he will
be a beggar all his life, and to tell him, too, that I intend to put
the police upon him.
"Notation, 2647. S.B."
The reading of this document filled Dick with consternation. It
supplied, not one, but several new links in the chain of
circumstantial evidence. Were it to fall into the hands of the police
Reginald's doom would be sealed. There would be only one chance for
him--his being able to prove that he had not visited his father's
house on the night of March 1st. His bare word would not be
sufficient; he must produce witnesses, to show how and where he passed
his time on that night. Failing this, the evidence, in the murdered
man's own handwriting, would be fatal.
It could not be that the murder would remain much longer undiscovered.
Mrs. Death's application to the magistrate and the publicity given to
the disappearance of her husband, clerk to Samuel Boyd of Catchpole
Square, in conjunction with the silence and non-appearance of Samuel
Boyd himself, would be sure to direct attention to the house, not only
on the part of the mystery-mongers who have a passion for such
matters, but on the part of the general public. The probability was
that in a very short time, perhaps in a few hours, all London would be
ringing with this new mystery. He saw, in fancy, the show-bills of the
newspapers, and heard the cries of the newsboys as they ran through
the streets with successive editions.
Again he had to consider his course of action, and he was not long
undecided. He would be silent. It was not Reginald he was championing,
it was Florence. Until he saw and spoke with her he would do all that
lay in his power to divert suspicion from the man she loved. Animated
by this resolve, and with a dogged disregard of consequences, he
folded the incriminating document and put it in his pocket. He made no
attempt to justify himself; at all hazards he was determined to
protect Florence, and, right or wrong, he would do what he had
determined to do. The knowledge he had gained he would keep locked in
his breast. Let others make the discovery of the murder. He would not
move a step towards it.
All this time he had not given a thought to his own safety, to the
peril in which he would be placed if his presence in the house of
death became known. It was easy enough to devise a train of argument
which would cast such suspicion upon himself as to cause most people
to believe that he was the guilty man. Having no wish to court this
danger he determined to leave the house as quickly as possible, and to
postpone further reflection till the morning.
A last look into the death-chamber, a swift glance at the awful form
lying there, a hurried examination of the papers to see if there were
any other incriminating documents among them--which to his relief
there were not--a pause before the wax figure of the Chinaman and a
weird fancy that it also had met its death at the hand of a murderer,
the careful gathering together of all the articles he had brought with
him into the house, and he was ready to go.
He had a thought of leaving the house by the front door, but there was
greater risk in that than in going back the way he had come; so he
scrambled out of the window at the back, finding it much more
difficult to scramble out than to scramble in, and was once more in
the yard. He listened for sounds of voices or footsteps in the
thoroughfare on the other side of the dead wall, and, hearing none,
flung his grapnel up. It caught at the first throw, and climbing the
rope he cautiously peeped over the wall to see if any wayfarers were
about. No person was in sight. Detaching the grapnel he hung by his
hands and dropped to the ground, thinking how foolish he had been in
the first instance not to have adopted this means of reaching the
inner ground. Tying the rope round his waist, and buttoning his coat
over that and the large bottle, half the water in which he had drank
during his investigations, he proceeded in the direction of his
lodgings, nibbling a biscuit as he walked along.
The faint light of early morn was in the sky. A new day was dawning,
to bring joy to some, despair to some, to raise this toiler up, to
dash this toiler down. No warning of these issues in the peaceful grey
light of morn. Majestic nature rolls its allotted course heedless of
the fret of life. The yellow gas in the street lamps had a ghastly
glare; at the end of a street a cat with green eyes gleaming like evil
jewels stood in the middle of the road, and scampered off at his
approach. A wretched man who seemed to start out of the ground cried,
"Hi!" and flung a stone after it, and then, with folded arms and head
sunk low on his breast, slinked off with a scowl, as though he had
struck at the world for its treatment of him; two or three blear-eyed
human night-birds, shivering in the grey light which, in its promise
of a fair day, brought no solace to them, slouched close to the walls
and houses, and cast lowering glances upon Dick as he passed; a
forlorn woman, who had better have been in her grave, said, "Good
morning, my dear," in a voice so false and hollow in its horrible
gaiety that he shuddered as he heard it, and hurried on. But he turned
and threw the degraded creature a sixpence. In his state of mind all
forms of misery appealed strongly to him.
He reached Paradise Row in safety, and got into the house without
disturbing his landlady. Locking the door of his room, he threw off
his clothes and went to bed, deeming it wiser to seek three or four
hours' rest in a natural way than to sleep with his clothes on. He was
wearied and exhausted, but so excited that sleep did not come readily
to him. Drowsily courting it he found himself dwelling upon the last
words in the document he had stolen--there was no mincing the matter;
he _had_ stolen it: "Notation 2647." What could be the meaning of
those words? Notation 2647--notation 2647. He repeated it dozens of
times, and dreamt that the wax figure of the Chinaman was pursuing him
over mountain and field, through fire and water, shouting after him,
"Notation 2647!" Youth and a healthy physique, however, triumphed over
these disordered fancies, and after awhile he sank into a dreamless
sleep, and arose, refreshed and full of vigour, at half past eight. He
heard the snoring of Constable Pond, and the soft footsteps of Mrs.
Pond outside his door. He stepped into the passage, and it was like
the breath of spring to his senses to meet her smiling face.
"Good morning, sir," she said. "I hope you slept well."
"Capitally," he replied. "The bed is very comfortable. Did I disturb
you at all last night?" He waited in anxiety for her answer.
"Oh, no, sir. I'm asleep the minute I put my head on the pillow. Pond
says I should be a blessing to burglars. Can I get you anything for
breakfast?"
"Nothing, thank you," he said. "I take my meals out."
The next moment he was on his way to Aunt Rob. She was expecting his
arrival, and ran to open the door for him.
"I've been waiting for you, Dick. Have you had breakfast?"
"Wouldn't stop for it, Aunt Rob," he answered, "I thought you would
give me a bite."
"It's ready laid for you, my dear. I had a letter from Florence this
morning, and one has come for you."
"From Florence?" he cried.
"No, it's not her writing." She gave him both letters, and said that
Uncle Rob had gone out early in the morning to seek for her. "We
haven't had a wink of sleep all night," she said.
He read Florence's letter first. It was to the same effect as her
letters of yesterday. She was quite well and safe, and begged them not
to be anxious about her. Her dear love to darling mother and father,
and to Dick. She would write twice every day, and hoped with all her
heart that everything would soon be all right.
"It is a happiness to know that she is safe and well," said Dick. "We
must have patience, Aunt Rob."
"But what does she mean by her 'duty,' Dick?"
"We shall hear that from her own lips by-and-by," he replied.
"And isn't it strange," said the anxious mother, "that she doesn't
say a word of Mr. Reginald?"
"Yes, it _is_ strange." But in his heart he did not think so. He
believed he knew why the name was not mentioned.
"What is your letter about, Dick?"
He opened it, read it hurriedly, and did not betray the agitation it
caused him. "A private letter, aunt, from an old friend. Has Uncle Rob
got another day's leave of absence from the office?"
"No; he must go back to his duty to-night. He wanted to see you
badly, but he couldn't stop at home, he's that restless. I wish you'd
have a talk with him."
"I'll manage it. If I don't catch him here, I'll drop in at the
station."
He was itching to read his letter more carefully, but he would not
arouse her suspicions by running away too suddenly, so he remained
with her a few minutes longer, and then, saying he would see her again
in the course of the day, took his leave.
"Are you going anywhere particular, Dick?" she asked, accompanying him
to the door.
"I am going to look for Florence," he replied, kissing her. "It will
be hard if we don't soon get some good news. Keep up your heart, dear
aunt."
He did not take the letter from his pocket till he was in a quiet
street.
"My Dear Dick" (it ran), "The reason that I have had the address on
the envelope written in a strange hand is that I do not want mother to
know I am writing to you. You must not tell her. I feel sure you will
get my letter this morning, because you will have heard of my going
away, and will go to mother's to get some news of me. I need your
help, dear Dick. I am at 16, Park Street, Islington, first floor. Come
at 2 o'clock; I shall be looking out for you; and let it be a secret
between us. I know how true and faithful you are, and I have no fear
that you will betray me. With constant love, my dear Dick,
"Your affectionate Cousin,
"Florence."