"Now," said Dorcas. "come to supper. Paul is in the dining-room
waiting for us. We don't start till twelve."
"But where are we going?"
"To look over that empty house in Burton Crescent," replied Dorcas,
quite calmly. "I have seen Lady Anna Barraclough to-day. Her husband
wears his keys on a chain. The chances are that the key he uses to
let himself into Burton Crescent will be on the bunch. He wouldn't
carry it loose for fear of leaving it in his pocket when he changed
his clothes, and perhaps forgetting it just when he wanted it. I
shall have his keys directly he is asleep to-night, so Heaven grant
him sweet repose directly he lays his head on the pillow. I reckon
on having his keys before two o'clock in the morning."
"But how will you manage it?"
"I have arranged it with her ladyship. They occupy, you remember,
two rooms separated by Mr. Barraclough's dressing-room. There he
leaves all his clothes for his valet to brush and attend to in the
morning. After he is asleep, Lady Barraclough will go quietly into
the dressing-room from her room, and detach the keys from the chain,
which is attached to his braces. I shall be on the opposite side of
the square in a four-wheel cab, which will be driven by a cabman
whom I frequently engage and whom I can trust. Sitting in the cab I
shall avoid the attention of the policeman, who might otherwise
wonder why you and I were loitering about so long in one place. But
from the cab I shall be watching the windows of No. --, Berkeley
Square. When I see a corner of the blind pulled up in Lady
Barraclough's room, and a lighted candle shown for a moment, I
shall know she has the keys."
"Yes," I said, "that's all very well. But how is she going to give
you the keys?"
"She isn't--she is going to give them to you."
"To me!" I exclaimed; "where?--when?--how?"
"You will be strolling about smoking a cigar. Being in evening dress
you will not attract the notice of any inquisitive policeman, should
one happen to be about. You will watch for that signal, too, and when
you see it, you will go up the steps of No. -- as if you were going
to ring to be let in.
"Lady Anna will come quietly downstairs, open the door, and give you
the keys. Then you will walk away quietly into Piccadilly. My cab
will follow and stop opposite Walsingham House. Then you will get in
and we shall drive to the top of Burton Crescent. Our cabman will
wait for us round the corner."
"In case of our having to make a run for it?"
"No--because at five o'clock in the morning Lady Anna Barraclough
will creep downstairs again and feel in the letter box."
"What for--a note from you?"
"No--the keys. You will put them there when we have done with them.
Then she will go back into her husband's dressing-room, fasten them
on to the chain on his braces again, and he will get up in the
morning and see them and never dream that they have been having a
'night out.'"
"And suppose the key of the house isn't on the bunch?"
"Then we shall have had our journey for nothing. But the reasonable
supposition is that it will be. Now come to supper, and make a good
one, for we have a rough night's work before us."
* * * * * * *
Two hours later a light flashed in a second floor window of
No. --, Berkeley Square, and with a beating heart I went up the
steps. The door opened quietly, and a woman's hand came cautiously
through the opening and touched mine. I clutched the keys, slipped
them into my pocket, and strode away in the direction of Piccadilly.
When the four-wheel cab stopped I got in and gave the keys to Dorcas.
"So far, so good," she said. "Now with average luck we shall get
into that empty house without attracting attention, and discover the
millionaire's secret."
Dorcas was holding the keys up to the light that came through the
cab window and examining them carefully.
"There are two latchkeys at any rate," she said. "Let us hope that
one of them will unlock the cupboard in which Mr. Judkins Barraclough
keeps his skeleton."
_VIII. THE EMPTY HOUSE_
As the cab made its way towards Burton Crescent I am not ashamed to
confess that I had misgivings as to the success of our enterprise.
Not having been brought up to burglary, I contemplated with something
akin to nervousness my début as a "cracksman," and I pictured to
myself the awkward predicament in which we should find ourselves if
we were discovered by a watchful policeman, creeping about a house
with goloshes over our boots and a dark lantern and silent matches
in our possession.
I put the point to Dorcas. As we had probably the key of the house
in Burton Crescent with us, why should we compromise our position
by taking the implements of burglary with us?
"Because," said Dorcas, "it is better to be over-cautious than
over-bold in my profession. If there _should_ be anyone in the
house I want to _see_ them before they hear me, and that is why
I have taken precautions with our boots and with our light."
"Do you think Mr. Barraclough has visited the house since we
were there?"
"Yes; I watched the house for a short time last evening. A
dark-complexioned, white-haired old gentleman, with a closely
cropped white moustache and gold spectacles, let himself in about
nine o'clock. No such person came out again. But towards midnight
the door was opened, and a gentleman in a long grey overcoat came
out. That person I did not see enter; but of course that is not
conclusive, as I only commenced to watch about eight in the
evening."
"And the person who came out was----?"
"Judkins Barraclough."
"Do you think the dark old man will be in the house to-night?"
"No," said Dorcas, in an emphatic tone, "I don't! But I have some
more interesting information gathered during the last two days round
the neighbourhood. The local tradespeople, who are always on the
watch when the 'To Let' is taken out of the windows of a house, saw
a van at the door delivering goods one day last week. The person who
was superintending the disposal of the goods was an old gentleman
with very white hair and gold spectacles, and a closely-cropped,
white moustache. His face and hands were very dark, and he looked
like a native of India in European clothes. The baker's man, seeing
the door open and cases being delivered, presented his master's card.
The Indian gentleman replied in excellent English that the family
would not be coming in for a month or six weeks."
"Then this Indian gentleman must be the dark man you saw go in. Have
you any clue to his identity?"
"I have ascertained certain particulars concerning him. To find out
who delivered the goods at Burton Crescent was my next object. It
is the general custom for policemen to take the name on a van that
is delivering or removing goods from a house. Many robberies have
been traced in this way. The constable on duty in the neighbourhood
at that time was able to tell me to whom the van belonged. I went at
once to a retired police sergeant whom I frequently employ to make
ordinary private inquiries, and gave him instructions to find out
where the van took the goods from, and if possible what they were.
"In a few hours he sent me his report. The van had brought two cases
of brandy from a firm of wine merchants; hammers, saws, nails, etc.,
from an ironmonger's; half a dozen large indiarubber mats, and
several rolls of wire netting. All these things, it was found, had
been purchased and paid for by a white-haired gentleman in gold
spectacles, having the appearance of a native of India. He gave his
name and address as Mr. Aleem Mohammed, No. ---, Burton Crescent."
"Well, you can soon find out who Mr. Aleem Mohammed is by the
numbers of the notes he paid to the house agents. Banknotes are
always useful clues."
"Mr. Aleem Mohammed has evidently thought of that," replied Dorcas.
"I _have_ traced the notes. They were obtained at a money-changer's
at Charing Cross, by a gentleman answering to our Indian friend's
description. He gave sovereigns for them. I have also been to the
house agents. The house was let to Mr. Aleem Mohammed, who had paid
a year's rent in advance in bank-notes, having no one in this country
to whom he could refer."
"Don't you think," I said, after a pause, "the whole business may be
capable of a very simple explanation? After all, Barraclough hailed
a cab from the doorstep, and the cab drove him direct to his own
residence. Would he, if he were mixed up in any crime in connection
with this house, establish a direct trail?"
"I have been thinking that out myself," replied Dorcas; "but I am
inclined to believe it was one of those slips that very cunning
people do make occasionally. Coming out late at night, there was
nobody about, and he hailed a cab barely thinking what he was doing,
and said, 'Berkeley Square.' He stopped it as his own door with his
umbrella mechanically, as one is in the habit of doing."
"And the Indian gentleman?"
"I believe is Barraclough. He is a dark man, browned with the sun
of South America. He could easily carry a white wig and a false
moustache and a pair of gold spectacles in a Gladstone bag coming
out of the house at night. When he goes into it in the daylight as
the Indian he can have that light overcoat and his flower in the
same bag."
"But the night we saw him he had no bag."
"No; but he might easily have had the wig and moustache in his
overcoat pocket. At any rate, I am pretty sure that Aleem Mohammed
and Judkins Barraclough are the same person."
"That is your theory, but you may be wrong."
"Of course--I am not infallible."
The cab stopped suddenly. We had reached Mabledon Place, where the
man had orders to pull up. We got out and Dorcas gave him instructions
to wait for us where he was, saying we might be a couple of hours
or more.
Taking the black bag with us, we made our way towards the Crescent,
which was quite deserted. Dorcas took her goloshes out of the bag
and put them on, and handed me mine, just as we got close to the
house. Glancing round to see no one was about, she went noiselessly
up the steps and tried the latchkeys. The first did not fit. It was
probably the key of Berkeley Square. The second, to our intense
relief, fitted perfectly. In a moment we were inside the hall and
had closed the door noiselessly behind us.
Dorcas, taking the dark lantern from her belt, struck a silent match
and lighted the wick.
The hall was bare, the stairs were uncarpeted, the whole atmosphere
of the house suggested that it was uninhabited.
The keys were on the outside of the doors of the two rooms on the
ground floor.
We opened the door of the front parlour. It was quite bare. Dorcas
looked about it in every direction.
Then she turned the tap of the gas on. There was no sound.
"Gas cut off and meter taken away when last tenant left," said
Dorcas. "The occupant must have used candles or a lamp."
"There's nothing in that," I said. "A good many people prefer them."
"Quite so. _I_ hope he used candles. But let us have a peep
at the next room."
Dorcas went first and opened the door of the back parlour.
The room was empty.
Dorcas looked carefully round it, then turned the light of the
bull's-eye to the floor. Suddenly she stooped down.
"He's used this room," she said; "see, here is the tallow trail."
She pointed to some small blobs of tallow grease near the doors of
a cupboard, which was in one corner of the room.
"He has used candles here," she said. "The candle has stood some
time on the floor and guttered. That was while the person who had
been carrying it was busy with both hands inside this cupboard."
The cupboard was locked, but the lock was a paltry one, and drawing
a little instrument from the bag Dorcas soon had it open.
"How odd to take the trouble to lock up such rubbish as this!"
exclaimed Dorcas, drawing out a bundle of ragged female clothing.