MR. WHITE'S METHOD
The policeman spoke first. "Has Jane Harding been here, then?" he said.
His words conveyed no meaning to his hearer.
They were so incongruous, so ridiculously unreasoning, that Bruce
laughed hysterically.
"You must have seen her," cried the detective excitedly. "I know you
have learned the truth, and in no other way that I can imagine could it
have reached you."
"Learnt what truth?"
"That Sir Charles Dyke himself is at the bottom of all this business."
"Indeed. How have you blundered upon that solution?"
"Mr. Bruce, this time I am right, and you know it. It was Sir Charles
Dyke who killed his wife. Nobody else had anything else to do with it,
so far as I can guess. But if you haven't seen Jane Harding, I wonder
how you found out."
"You are speaking in riddles. Pray explain yourself."
"If Sir Charles Dyke had not been out of town, the riddle would have
been answered by this time in the easiest way, as I should have locked
him up."
"Excellent. You remain faithful to tradition."
"Mr. Bruce, please don't try to humbug me, for the sake of your friend.
I am quite in earnest. I have come to you for advice. Sir Charles Dyke
is guilty enough."
"And what do you want me to do?"
"To help me to adopt the proper course. The whole thing seems so
astounding that I can hardly trust my own senses. I spoke hastily just
now. I would not have touched Sir Charles before consulting you. I was
never in such a mixed-up condition in my life."
Whatever the source of his information, the detective had evidently
arrived at the same conclusion as Bruce himself. There was nothing for
it but to endeavor to reason out the situation calmly and follow the
best method of dealing with it suggested by their joint intelligence.
Claude motioned the detective to a chair, imposed silence by a look, and
summoned Smith. He was faint from want of food. With returning
equanimity he resolved first to restore his strength, as he would need
all his powers to wrestle with events before he slept that night.
Mr. White, nothing loth, joined him in a simple meal, and by tacit
consent no reference was made to the one engrossing topic in their
thoughts until the table was cleared.
"And now, Mr. White," demanded the barrister, "what have you found out?"
"During the last two days," he replied, "I have been unsuccessfully
trying to trace Colonel Montgomery. No matter what I did I failed. I got
hold of several of Mrs. Hillmer's tradespeople, but she always paid her
bills with her own cheques, and none of them had ever heard of a Colonel
Montgomery. That furniture business puzzled me a lot--the change of the
drawing-room set from one flat to another on November 7, I mean. So I
discovered the address of the people who supplied the new articles to
Mrs. Hillmer--"
"How?"
"Through the maid, Dobson. Mrs. Hillmer has given her notice to leave,
and the girl is furious about it, as she appears to have had a very easy
place there. I think it came to Mrs. Hillmer's ears that she talked to
me."
"I see. Proceed."
"Here I hit upon a slight clue. It was a gentleman who ordered the new
furniture, and directed the transfer of the articles replaced from No.
61 to No. 12 Raleigh Mansions. He did this early in the morning of
November 7, and the foreman in charge of the job remembered that there
was some bother about it, as neither Mrs. Hillmer nor Mr. Corbett, as
Mensmore used to be called, knew anything about it. But the gentleman
came the same morning and explained matters. It struck the foreman as
funny that there should be such a fearful hurry about refurnishing a
drawing-room, for the gentleman did not care what the cost was so long
as the job was carried out at express speed. Another odd thing was that
Mrs. Hillmer paid for the articles, though she had not ordered them nor
did she appear to want them. The man was quite sure that Mensmore's
first knowledge of the affair came with the arrival of the first batch
of articles from Mrs. Hillmer's flat, but he could only describe the
mysterious agent as being a regular swell. He afterwards identified a
portrait of Sir Charles Dyke as being exactly like the man he had seen,
if not the man himself."
"How did you come to have a portrait of Sir Charles in your possession?"
"That appears later," said the detective, full of professional pride at
the undoubtedly smart manner in which he had manipulated his facts once
they were placed in order before him.
"Of course," he went on, "I jumped at the conclusion that the stranger
was this Colonel Montgomery. Then, while closely questioning the maid
about the events of November 7, she suddenly remembered that she lost an
old skirt and coat about that time. They had vanished from her room, and
she had never laid eyes on them since. This set me thinking. I
confronted her with the clothes worn by Lady Dyke when she was found in
the river, and I'm jiggered if Dobson didn't recognize them at once as
being her missing property. Now, wasn't that a rum go?"
"It certainly was," said Bruce, who was piecing together the story of
the murder in his mind as each additional detail came to light.
"Naturally I thought harder than ever after that. It then occurred to me
that Jane Harding must have had some powerful reasons for so suddenly
shutting up about the identification of her mistress's underclothing.
She was right enough, as we know, in regard to the skirt and coat, but
she admitted to me that the linen on the dead body was just the same as
Lady Dyke's. Curiously enough, it was not marked by initials, crest, or
laundry-mark, and I ascertained months ago that owing to some fad of her
ladyship's, all the family washing was done on the estate in Yorkshire.
This explained the absence of the otherwise inevitable laundry-mark."
"Thus far you are coherence itself."
"Well," said Mr. White complacently, "I was a long time getting to work,
Mr. Bruce, and had it not been for your help I should probably never
have got at the truth, but I flatter myself that, once on the right
track, I seldom leave it. However, as I was saying, I felt that Jane
Harding knew a good deal more than she would tell, except under
pressure, so I decided to put that pressure on."
"In what way?"
"I frightened her. Played off on her a bit of the stage business she is
so fond of. This afternoon I placed a pair of handcuffs in my pocket and
went to her place at Bloomsbury, having previously prepared a bogus
warrant for her arrest on a charge of complicity in the murder of Lady
Dyke."
"It was a dangerous game!"
"Very. If it had gone wrong and reached the ears of the Commissioner or
got into the papers, I should have been reduced or dismissed. But what
is a policeman to do in such cases? I was losing my temper over this
infernal inquiry and never obtaining any real light, though always
coming across startling developments. It had to end somehow, and I took
the chance. The make-believe warrant and the production of handcuffs for
a woman--they are never used, you know, in reality--have often been
trump-cards for us when everything else failed."
"This time, then, the 'properties' made up the 'show,' as Miss Harding
would put it?"
"They did, and no mistake. I gave her no time to think or act. I found
her sitting with her mother, admiring a new carpet she had just laid
down. I said, 'Is your name Jane Harding, now engaged at the Jollity
Theatre, under the alias of Marie le Marchant, but formerly a maid in
the service of Lady Dyke?' She grew very white, and said 'Yes,' while
her mother clutched hold of her, terrified. Then I whipped out the
warrant and the cuffs. My, but you should have heard them squeal when
the bracelets clinked together. 'What has my child done?' screamed the
mother. 'Perhaps nothing, madam,' I answered; 'but she is guilty in the
eyes of the law just the same if she persists in screening the guilty
parties.' Jane Harding was trembling and blubbering, but she said, 'It
is very hard on me. I have done nothing.' I trembled myself then, as I
feared that she might offer to come with me to the police station, in
which case I should have been dished. But the mother fixed the affair
splendidly. 'I am sure my daughter will not conceal anything,' she said,
'and it is a shame to disgrace her in this way without telling what it
is you want to know.' I took the cue in an instant. 'I am empowered,' I
said, 'to suspend this warrant, and perhaps do away with it altogether,
if she answers my questions fully and truthfully.' 'Why, of course she
will,' said the mother, and the girl, though desperately upset,
whimpered her agreement. With that I got the whole story."
"Sir Charles Dyke inspired her actions, I suppose."
"From the very beginning almost. At first Jane Harding herself believed,
when she gave evidence at the inquest, that the body she saw was not
that of Lady Dyke; but afterwards she changed her opinion, especially
when she recalled the exact pattern and materials of the underclothing.
Then my inquiries put her on the scent. Being rather a sharp girl, she
jumped to the conclusion that Sir Charles knew more about the matter
than he professed. In any case, her place was gone, and she would soon
be dismissed, so she resolved on a plan even bolder than mine in
threatening to lock her up. She watched her opportunity, found Sir
Charles alone one day, and told him that from certain things within her
knowledge, she thought it her duty to go to the police-station. He was
startled, she could see, and asked her to explain herself. She said that
her mistress had been killed, and she might be able to put the police on
the right track. He hesitated, not knowing what to say; so she hinted
that it would mean a lot of trouble for her, and she would prefer, if
she had L500, to go to America, and let the matter drop altogether. He
told her that he did not desire to have Lady Dyke's name brought into
public notoriety. Sooner than to allow such a thing to occur he would
give her the money. An hour later he handed her fifty ten-pound notes."
"What a wretched mistake," cried Bruce involuntarily. This unmasking of
his unfortunate friend's duplicity was the most painful feature of all
to him.
"Perhaps it was," replied the detective, "but the thing is not yet quite
clear to me. That is why I am here. But to continue. The girl admitted
that she lost her head a bit. Instead of leaving the house openly,
without attracting comment, she simply bolted, thus giving rise to the
second sensational element attending Lady Dyke's disappearance. But she
resolved to be faithful to her promise. When you found her she held her
tongue, and even wrote to Sir Charles to assure him that she had not
spoken a word to a soul. He sent for her, and pitched into her about not
going to America, but took her address in case he wished to see her
again."
"He recognized her letter-writing powers, no doubt."
"Evidently. She was surprised last Thursday week to receive a telegram
asking her to meet him at York Station. When she arrived there he asked
her to write the letter he handed to you and to post it in London on
Saturday evening. He explained that his action was due to his keen
anxiety to shield his wife's name, and that this letter would settle the
affair altogether. As he handed her another bundle of notes, and
promised to settle L100 a year on her for life, she was willing enough
to help him. During your interview with her you guessed the reason why
she wrote Lady Dyke's hand so perfectly. She had copied it for three
years."
"All this must have astonished you considerably?"
"Mr. Bruce, astonished isn't the word. I was flabbergasted! Once she
started talking I let her alone, only rattling the handcuffs when she
seemed inclined to stop. But all the time I felt as if the top of my
head had been blown off."
"I imagine she had not much more to tell you?"
"She pitched into you as the cause of all the mischief, and went so far
as to say that she was sure it was not Sir Charles who killed Lady Dyke,
but you yourself."
Bruce winced at Jane Harding's logic. Were he able to retrieve the past
three months the mystery of Lady Dyke's death would have remained a
mystery forever.
"Now about the photograph," said the detective. "After I had left Jane
Harding with a solemn warning to speak to no one until I saw her again,
I made a round of the fashionable photographers and soon obtained an
excellent likeness of Sir Charles. I showed it to Dobson, and she said:
'That is Colonel Montgomery.' I showed it to the foreman of the
furniture warehouse, and he said: 'That is the image of the man who
ordered Mrs. Hillmer's suite.' Now, what on earth is the upshot of this
business to be? I called at Wensley House, but was told Sir Charles was
not in town. Had he been in, I would not have seen him until I had
discussed matters with you."
"That is very good of you, Mr. White. May I ask your reason for showing
him this consideration?"
The policeman, who was very earnest and very excited, banged his hand on
the table as he cried:
"Don't you see what all this amounts to? I have no option but to arrest
Sir Charles Dyke for the murder of his wife."
"That is a sad conclusion."
"And do you believe he killed her?"
"Strange as it may seem to you, I do not."
"And I'm jiggered if I do either."
"I--I am greatly obliged to you, White."
Claude bent his head almost to his knees, and for some minutes there was
complete silence. When he again looked at the detective there were tears
in his eyes.
"What can we do to unravel this tangled skein without creating untold
mischief?" he murmured.
"It beats me, sir," was the perplexed answer. "But when I came in I
imagined that Jane Harding or some one had been to see you. Surely, you
had learned something of all this before my arrival?"
"Yes, indeed. I had reached your goal, but by a different route.
Unfortunately, my discovery only goes to confirm yours."
Bruce then told him of his visit to the lawyer's office, and its result.
Mr. White listened to the recital with knitted brows.
"It is very clear," he said, when the barrister had ended, "that Lady
Dyke was killed in Mrs. Hillmer's flat, that Sir Charles knew of her
death, that he himself conveyed the body to the river bank at Putney,
and that ever since he has tried to throw dust in our eyes and prevent
any knowledge of the true state of affairs reaching us."
"Your summary cannot be disputed in the least particular."
"Well, Mr. Bruce, we must do _something_. If you don't like to
interfere, then _I_ must."
"There is but one person in the world who can enlighten us as to the
facts. That person obviously is Sir Charles Dyke himself."
"Unquestionably."
Bruce looked at his watch. It was 10.30 P.M. He rose.
"Let us go to him," he said.
"But he is not in London."
"He is. I expect you will find that he gave orders for no one to be
admitted, and told the servants to say he had left town to make the
denial more emphatic."
"It will be a terrible business, I fear, Mr. Bruce."
"I dread it--on my soul I do. But I cannot shirk this final attempt to
save my friend. My presence may tend to help forward a final and full
explanation. No matter what the pain to myself, I must be present. Come,
it is late already!"