II

Mr. Jacob Mason's house stood in its own grounds in a quiet suburban

road. It was not a very large house, but it straggled about comfortably

in the manner of detached houses built in the suburbs at a time when

space was less valuable than now, and it consisted of two floors only.

The front door was not far from the road, and was clearly visible to

passengers who might chance to look through either of the two iron gates

that opened one on each end of the semi-circular drive.

All these things Martin Hewitt noticed as the Rev. Mr. Potswood pushed

open one of these gates, and the two walked up the drive. The front door

stood in a portico, and a French window gave access to the roof of this

portico from a bedroom or dressing-room. As Hewitt and his companion

approached the house the French window was pushed open, and a man

appeared--a middle-aged, slightly stoutish man with a short, grey beard;

commonplace enough in himself, but now convulsed with noisy anger,

shaking his fists and stamping on the portico-roof.

"Get out!" he shouted. "Don't come near my house again, or I'll have you

flung out! Go away and take your friends with you! D'you hear? Go away,

sir, and don't come here annoying me! Go! Go at once!"

Mr. Potswood absolutely staggered with amazement. "Why," he gasped,

"it's Mason! He's mad--clean mad! Why, Mason, my poor friend, don't you

know me?"

"Get out, I say!" cried Mason. "Give me no more of your talk! I won't

have you here!" And now Hewitt caught a glimpse of a girl's face at the

window behind the man--a pale and handsome face, drawn with anxiety and

fear.

Hewitt seized the clergyman quickly by the arm. "Come," he whispered

hurriedly, "come away at once. There is a reason for this. Get away at

once. If you can answer back angrily, do so, but at any rate, come

away."

He hurried back to the gate, half dragging the astounded rector, who was

all too honest a soul to be able to counterfeit an anger he did not

feel, even if his amazement had not made him speechless. Hewitt closed

the gate behind him and said as he walked, "Where is the rectory? We

will go there. He may have sent a message while you were out."

Mechanically the rector took the first turning. "But he's mad!" he

protested. "Mad, poor fellow! Merciful heavens, Mr. Hewitt, his whole

tale must have been a delusion! A mere madman's fancy! Poor fellow! We

must go back, Mr. Hewitt--we really must! We can't leave that poor girl

there alone with a raving maniac!"

"No," Hewitt insisted, "come to the rectory. That is no madness, Mr.

Potswood. Couldn't you see the colour of the man under the eyes, and the

shaking of his beard? That was not anger and it was not madness. It was

terror, Mr. Potswood--sheer, sick terror! Terror, or some emotion very

much like it."

"But, if terror, why that outburst? What does it mean? If it were

terror, why not rather welcome our company and help?"

"Don't you see, Mr. Potswood?" answered Hewitt. "Don't you guess? _Mason

is watched, and he knows it!_ He was acting his anger before unseen

eyes--and he knew they were on him!"

"God be merciful to us all," ejaculated the clergyman. "Poor man--poor

sinner! What is this unspeakable thing which has him in its clutches?

What had he done to give himself over to such a power?"

"We can tell nothing, and guess nothing, as yet," Hewitt answered. "Let

us see if he has sent you a message. It seems likely. If he has it may

help us. If not--then I think we must do something decisive at once. But

don't hurry so! It is hard to restrain one's self, I know, but there may

be eyes on us, Mr. Potswood, and we must not seem to be persisting in

our errand."

So they went through the quiet streets for the two or three furlongs

that seemed so many miles to the good parson. Arrived at the rectory,

Mr. Potswood pushed impatiently through the gate, and was hurrying

toward the house, when he perceived a bent little old man standing among

some shrubs with his own gardener, who was digging.

"There's Mason's gardener!" the rector exclaimed, and went to meet him.

The old man touched his hat, looked sharply towards Hewitt, who was

waiting near the rectory door, and then disappeared round a corner of

the house, the rector following. In a few seconds Mr. Potswood

reappeared, with a slip of paper in his hand. "Here," he said, "see

this! The old man was told to give it to nobody but me, and in nobody

else's presence. He's been waiting since one o'clock."

Scrawled on the paper, in trembling and straggling letters, were these

words:--

/#

"You must not bring Mr. Martin Hewitt to my house this afternoon. I

am watched. It is hopeless. Do not desert me. Bring him to-night

after dark at eight. I shall want his best skill, and you shall

know all. After dark. Come to the back gate in the lane, which will

be ajar, and through the conservatory at the side, where my niece

will be waiting at eight, after dark. Burn this and do not let it

out of your sight first. Send a line by this man to say you will do

as I ask, but do not say what it is, for fear of accidents. Send at

once. Do come at eight, with Mr. Hewitt."

#/

"We must do as he says," remarked Hewitt. "We know nothing of this

matter, and we must be guided till we do. Just write an unsigned

note--'All shall be as you request,' or words to that effect, and be

sure the man gives it to him. Let him out behind through the churchyard,

if possible, and tell him not to go straight from one house to the

other. Is he an intelligent man?"

"Yes--uncommonly shrewd, I believe. He says he can't have been followed.

He knows several gardeners hereabout, and he seems to have called on

each of them on his way--in at the front of the garden and out at the

back each time, after a few minutes' conversation. Gipps is rather a

cunning old fellow."

"Ah," said Hewitt admiringly, "that's the sort of messenger I often

want. I'll give him half a crown for himself and the money to pay for a

telegram on his way. He knows nothing essential, of course?"

"No--only that his master is in some sort of trouble, and warned him

that he might be followed."

"That is good. I shall telegraph to Detective-Inspector Plummer, of

Scotland Yard. All right--I quite understand that all I have heard is

confidential. I shall tell Plummer nothing till I may--indeed, as yet

I have very little to tell that would help him. But I think it will be

well to have the police within call--we may want them at a moment's

notice; I have no police powers, you see, and Plummer has the Denson

case in hand. I will ask him to be here, at this house, before a quarter

to eight, if you will allow me."

And so the telegram went to Plummer, and Hewitt, accepting the rector's

invitation to an early dinner before starting on their visit, resigned

himself to wait. He did not like the waste of time, as he frankly told

Mr. Potswood. He would have preferred to see Mason at once, at any

risk, and to take what means he thought necessary without delay. But as

it seemed that the risk was to be chiefly Mason's, and as Mason knew all

of which both he and the rector were ignorant, Mason must be allowed to

choose his own time.

The excellent Mr. Potswood endured agonies of suspense, though he also

insisted that Mason's wishes must be observed exactly. "What is it

all--what can it be?" he ejaculated again and again. "What dreadful

influence can thus compass a man about, here in London, in these times?"

* * * * *

It was autumn, and night fell early. Dinner was over at last, and they

had scarcely left the table when Plummer arrived, anxious and eager.

"You'll have to trust me a little, Plummer," Hewitt said, when he had

made him known to the rector. "I can tell you nothing now--know nothing,

in fact, or very little more than nothing. The fact is, I'm going to see

a man who promises information to me alone, in confidence, as his

client, and I don't know how long I may have to keep you in the dark.

But this is where the trail lies hot, and I know that's where you want

to be. More, if you're wanted suddenly you'll be at hand. You have a man

or two with you, I suppose, as I suggested?"

"Three of the best of them. They will follow us up. Is it far?"

"No, close enough. It is a house in a walled garden--not a high wall. We

go in at a gate from the lane behind, and I think you should wait at

that gate, and put your men at hand. We mustn't go in as a crowd. The

rector had better go first, and you and I will follow on the opposite

side of the road."

So the procession was formed, and it was still some three minutes short

of eight o'clock when Hewitt and Plummer joined the clergyman at the

door in the garden wall behind Mason's house. The door was ajar as had

been promised in Mason's note. Leaving Plummer on guard without, Martin

Hewitt and the rector stepped as silently as possible through the little

kitchen garden and across a strip of lawn toward where a dull light

illuminated the conservatory, at the right-hand end of the house. The

door of the conservatory was ajar also, and this the rector pushed open.

"Miss Creswick!" the rector called, in a loud whisper. "Miss Creswick!"

And with that a girl appeared within.

"Oh, Mr. Potswood," she said, "I'm so glad you've come! I can't think

what's wrong with poor uncle! I'm afraid he must be going mad! He is

terrified at something, and he has been getting worse, till he could

hardly speak or walk. Dr. Lawson has been--about an hour ago, and since

then uncle has been much quieter, in his study."

They were entering the dimly-lighted drawing-room now. "Dr. Lawson?"

queried the rector. "Rather an unusual visitor, isn't he? How long has

he been gone?"

Miss Creswick flushed slightly through all her paleness and grief. "I

don't know," she said. "He let himself out, I fancy. He said he could

not stay long when he came, but I didn't hear him go; I have been

upstairs, and the servants are in the kitchen--they say uncle's mad, and

I'm really afraid he is!"

They left the drawing-room, and walked along the corridor and the hall

to the opposite side of the house, where the study lay. Miss Creswick

tapped gently at the door, but there was no answer. She tapped again,

louder, and then came the faint sound of a quick step on the carpet, and

then a slight scraping noise, as when a door is closed over a carpet it

will scarcely pass. "That's the window into the garden," said Miss

Creswick. "Why is he going out? Uncle! Uncle Jacob!"

But now the silence was wholly unbroken. Hewitt snatched quickly at the

door-handle. "Locked!" he said. "Come--the quickest way into the

garden!"

They ran out at the front door, and round toward the study window. It

was a French window, exactly at the opposite end of the house to the

conservatory, and now the gas-light streamed out through one half of it,

which stood curtainless and ajar, while the curtain was drawn across the

other half. Hewitt was the least familiar with the place, but he was

quickest on his legs, and more seriously alarmed than the others. He

reached the window first--and instantly turned and thrust the rector

back against Miss Creswick. "Quick! take her away," he said; "we are too

late!" and in the same moment, even as Hewitt dashed over the threshold,

he snatched a whistle from his pocket, and blew his hardest.

There on the floor lay Mason, his face dreadful and staring and black;

tight in his neck was the band of a tourniquet, and fresh and wet on his

forehead was the Red Triangle.

Hewitt snatched at the screw of the tourniquet behind the neck, and

loosened it as quickly as hands could turn. But it was too late. Too

late, the examining surgeon afterwards said, by a quarter of an hour.

Plummer was at the window with his men at his heels even before the

tourniquet was half unscrewed.

"Round the wall of the garden," shouted Hewitt, "and whistle up the

police! He's only this moment out!"

The house was alive with shouts and screams. The rector came running

back, and Hewitt, busy with his useless attempt at restoration, called

now for a doctor. People were scampering in the street, and Hewitt left

the victim to the care of the rector, and himself joined Plummer, all in

fewer seconds than it may be told in.

But Plummer and his men were beaten, for nothing--not so much as a

moving shadow--was seen in the garden or about the walls. Worse, the

general trampling would obliterate possible tracks. Plummer set a guard

of police about the wall, and came in for consultation with Hewitt.

The body was carried into another room, and Hewitt and Plummer began an

examination of the study.

"No signs of a struggle," commented Plummer, "and there was no noise,

they say. That's very odd."

"From what I have seen and heard to-day," said Hewitt, "it is as I

should have expected. I believe the man was almost killed by terror

before he was strangled--dazed, stricken dumb, paralysed, deafened by

it--everything but blinded, poor wretch. And to have been blinded would

have been a mercy."

And then, as they made their examination systematically, calmly and

without flurry, Hewitt told the whole tale of his day's adventures,

together with all he had heard from the rector. "The man's dead," he

said, "and his confidence is at an end. Indeed, I never had it--the

case, so far as I am concerned, is over before I have even touched it. I

haven't had a chance, Plummer; and the thing is deep and dark, deep and

dark. Oh, if only the man had let me come to him in the daylight, spite

of all! This might all have been averted.... There has been a close

search here, too. See how everything is turned over. But, stay!"

A low fire smouldered in the grate, and on it lay ashes of many burnt

papers. Hewitt passed the shovel carefully under these ashes, lifted

them out and placed them gently on the table under the light of the

gas-pendant.

"I must leave you," said Plummer. "There'll be an inspector here from

the station in a moment--he won't interfere with you, and if anybody can

get information out of this room it's you. The next thing for me is

plain. I must make sure of Dr. Lawson, if he can be found."

"That is quite right, without a doubt," Hewitt responded. "I may find

anything or nothing in this room, and, meanwhile, he was the last

person known to have been here, and the only visitor, and he was not

heard to go out, unless we heard him go when we were outside the study

door. More, it was plainly some one familiar with the place who was able

to get away so quickly by the window and the garden."

"And his interest in getting rid of Mason, too--the girl of age in

a few months, and all obstacles to getting hold of her, and her money,

removed. And--and the surgical tourniquet, the Chinese colour and

everything!"

"Quite right, you must make sure of him, as you say. You will get his

address from the rector. Meanwhile I'll try to begin my little

contribution to the case--to begin it as best I can, after all the

chances have made it useless."