Hall was astonished to find that his bicycle had vanished. Taken by
surprise he could only stand at the gate and stare helplessly about
him. At last, thinking that something must be done, he shouted wildly
for Jervis. In his agitation it never occurred to him that the
policeman might be at the other end of the esplanade. As it happened,
however, Jervis was close at hand, and shortly his voice boomed
strangely out of the mists.
"What's the trouble? Is that you Hall?"
"He's dead! He's got a knife in his heart!" gasped the postman, who
was clinging to the fence and feeling sick.
Jervis suddenly loomed hugely out of the fog, and entered into the
circle of blurred light cast by the street-lamp. "Who is dead?" he
asked, in surprise.
"Sir Hector Wyke," babbled Hall, whose nerves were very much shaken.
"I saw him lying dead. Mrs. Vence showed me his corpse. My bicycle is
gone----"
"Gone!" Jervis shook the terrified man. "Why I saw your bicycle slip
along under the lamp nigh which we were talking on the esplanade. I
come here straight when I hear your voice, wondering why you should be
in the Ladysmith Road and your bicycle----"
"It was the murderer, Jervis. He dashed past me when I stopped at the
door yonder to deliver the letter you saw. He has taken my bicycle.
Stop him. He ought to be hanged. Oh, oh, oh!" He broke down, shivering
and crying.
"Don't be a fool. Pull yourself together," commanded Jervis, gruffly.
"How can I follow in this fog, and with no machine to catch him up
with? Go to the telegraph-office, and wire Sergeant Purse at Redleigh
that a murder has been committed at Maranatha, and that the criminal
has escaped on a Government machine. He can't go far on a red-painted
bicycle without being captured, though the fog may help him to win
clear. Off with you, Hall, and I'll go into the house."
Hall nodded feebly, "I always thought that there was something strange
about the baronet."
"We ain't got time to talk about the bar'nit. You go and do what I
tell you."
Thus commanded, the postman, whose nerves were all unstrung by the
sight he had seen and the tragedy which had occurred, crawled slowly
down the road into the misty darkness, clinging to the fence to aid
his progress. Jervis listened for a minute or so until the footfalls
of his messenger had died away, then assumed an official expression of
stern determination, and strode up the weedy path.
The door was still open, and Mrs. Vence stood upon the threshold. From
her first words it was very evident that she had overheard the order.
"Do you think Sergeant Purse will stop the bicycle at Redleigh?" she
asked, feverishly, and laid a trembling old hand on the policeman's
arm.
"I can't say. Don't seem to me as a likely thing to happen in this
fog, to say nothing of the fact that this criminal mayn't go through
Redleigh. I suppose the man who escaped is the criminal?"
"If sticking knives in folks' hearts is murder, he is," retorted Mrs.
Vence, in a tart way, "any you oughter go after him at once."
"I ought to see the body at once," was the gruff reply. "'Taint much
good my going on a wild goose chase in this fog. Don't you tell me my
dooty, ma'am, for I know it; none better. And be careful what you say.
as anything you do say will be used as evidence against you."
"Against me?" cried the housekeeper, shrilly. "Me is as innercent as
an unborn babe. Well I never," and she looked furious enough to claw
the ruddy face of the gigantic constable.
Mrs. Vence was a small and stout woman, with a brown, withered face
seamed with innumerable wrinkles. She had abundant white hair,
unbrushed and tangled, which added to her witchlike aspect as she
peered indignantly at Jervis through horn rimmed spectacles. A stuff
dress of faded blue, a dingy knitted shawl of red wool tightened over
rounded shoulders, and a pair of ragged slippers formed her attire, so
that she looked a perfect fright, maliciously observant, and
aggressively disagreeable. The constable paused for a single moment to
wonder why a gentleman should engage such a dirty and disreputable
female as a housekeeper.
"You haven't touched it?" queried the policeman, examining the body of
the dead man.
"Me?" Mrs. Vence began to thrill again. "Why, I haven't had time to
touch it, and I wouldn't have touched it if I had had time. I just
came in with a tray and let it fall when I saw him bending over my
poor master as he'd killed. I dropped myself and dropped the tray when
I fainted, more or less, but not quite. I heard as in a dream,"
exclaimed the housekeeper, dramatically, "the postman's knock. He
waited for a minute until a second knock came, and then ran out of the
house for dear life."
"By him you mean the criminal. I s'pose?" said Jervis, stolidly. "Why
didn't you stop him?"
"How could I, drat you?" demanded Mrs. Vence, in querulous tones. "I
wasn't myself altogether, being in a faint, and yet not in one, as you
might say. Why, I gathered myself together us soon as I could and
tottered to the door. Then, seeing the post in the hall, I knowed as
I'd got a friend, and shoved him out to catch the rascal, drat him,
and drat you asking me why I didn't."
Jervis hastily noted this statement down in his book, still kneeling,
and would have asked questions, but there came an interruption.
It was Mrs. Vence who mentioned that a third person was present.
"Lawks!" said the old woman, wiping her face with her apron. "Thought
you was gone sir."
At the door stood a tall man, arrayed in a fashionable overcoat, with
a knitted white silk scarf round his neck and a silk hat in his hand.
He had large, powerful limbs, a large nose, a large face, and was
large altogether. His hair and beard and moustache were iron-grey, and
his eyes were as black as the night outside.
Wondering who he was, Jervis noted that he looked a truculent kind of
buccaneer, and rose to confront him, thereby revealing the body on the
hearthrug.
The newcomer at the door uttered a startled ejaculation, scarcely
scriptural, and strode forward in quite a masterful way. He looked at
the dead man aghast, then turned towards the policeman with an
indignant expression, as if he suspected him of being the culprit.
"What does this mean?" demanded the buccaneer, fiercely, and pointed
to the corpse with a silver-headed cane which he held in his hand.
"Sir Hector Wyke has been stabbed, as you see, sir," said Jervis,
curtly.
"Good heavens!" cried the stranger. "My poor friend."
"Was Sir Hector your friend, sir?" The gentleman nodded. "I came here
to see him, and hoped that he would give me a bed for the night. Dead.
Stabbed! Who killed him?"
"The other gent as come," chimed in Mrs. Vence, promptly; "and a
murdering villain he is, sir. Clever too; seeing as he's got away on
the postman's bike."
"Do you know anything about him?" asked Jervis, sharply.
"Lawks! and how should I? I never set eyes on him afore this blessed
night."
"The other gent as come," said the stranger, repeating Mrs. Vence's
earlier remark, word for word. "Nonsense. I was the only visitor Sir
Hector had to-night."
"Makin' me out a liar, indeed," cried Mrs. Vence, much offended by the
imputation. "Well, I do say as you've got a face, sir. Impudence and
crime. Oh, little did I think as I'd come to sich a situation, and me
so respectable."
"Hold your tongue," said Jervis, so ferociously that the old creature
started and trembled. "Let us get to the bottom of this. Who are you,
sir?"
The other man produced a card. "I am Oliver Lemby," he declared, in
his deep, rich voice. "And dash you, policeman, don't look at me as
I'd got anything to do with this infernal business. I came down here
to see my friend----"
"In a trap from Redleigh."
"Not all the way," said Lemby, drily. "I travelled by train from
London to Redleigh. Oh! I remember. The driver of the trap stopped to
ask a policeman the way to this house. And you----"
"I am the constable of Hedgerton--the only constable," said Jervis,
stiffly and a trifle imperiously. "Well, sir, and what do you know of
this?"
"Nothing, dash and confound you!" snarled the truculent Mr. Lemby, who
was as aggressive as Mrs. Vence. "I sent the trap away, hoping that
Sir Hector would put me up for the night. This old hag showed me into
the drawing room."
"Did you hear," said Jervis, "anything likely to make you think that a
crime was being committed?"
"Hang you officer! Would I have stayed quietly in the drawing-room had
I guessed for one moment that a murder was being committed?" demanded
Lemby fiercely, and clenching his fist as if about to strike. "Wyke
saw me in the drawing-room when he arrived, and while we were talking
there came a ring at the door. Excusing himself, and asking me to stay
where I was until he came back, he went down the stairs. I waited and
waited until I was tired. Then I heard the woman shrieking, although I
did not hear what she said."
"I said 'murder,'" observed Mrs. Vence, "and said it loudly, too."
"Not loud enough for me to hear, however," retorted Lemby, "or I
should have been down before. However, as Wyke did not return, I
suspected, from the voices and the shrieks of this old thing, that
something was wrong, so came down to investigate. Well?"
"Ho!" said Jervis, as he saw no reason to disbelieve the plain
statement. "You will have to wait, sir, until my superior officer
comes along. I have sent the postman to the telegraph office to wire
for him."
"Of course I'll wait, dash you! Do you think I am going to leave this
house without finding who has murdered my poor friend? Why are you
waiting here, officer? Why don't you catch the villain?"
"'Taint easy to catch a man as has gone off on a foggy night on a
bicycle, sir," said Jervis, drily. "I can't tell in which direction
he's gone."
"You could trace a Government bicycle because of the colour."
"I have wired to my sergeant to watch Redleigh Station for a
red-painted bike, sir. The assassin may go to Redleigh to catch the
express to London."
"Not he, unless he's a born fool," retorted Lemby contemptuously, "and
his action in using the bike to escape shows that he isn't a fool by
any means. I don't think that you'll nab him easily." He stopped, then
looked at the corpse at his feet with marked emotion. "I suppose poor
Wyke is dead?"
"Stone dead. He's been stabbed to the heart, as you see. Look for
yourself."
"No." Lemby shrank back. "I don't meddle with corpses in charge of the
law. I think you should get a doctor."
"Go for a doctor, Mrs. Vence," said Jervis, quickly, and thinking that
this was good advice. "Bring him here immediately."
"Me!" cried Mrs. Vence, in her usually shrill tones. "Why, I'm a
stranger in this place but a month. I don't know where the doctor's to
be found, 'specially I on this misty night. Go yourself, or send this
gent."
"I can't go myself, and the gent doesn't leave this house until my
sergeant arrives," said Jervis, grimly.
Lemby drew himself up. "Officer, do you suspect me, dash you?"
"I suspect no one, at present. I don't know enough."
"Know enough," echoed the housekeeper contemptuously. "Why, ain't you
heard all what I've told you? It was the beast as went off on the bike
as stabbed my poor master. I saw him bending over the body when I
dropped the tray and the glasses and the wine," and Mrs. Vence pointed
to the tray and the various fragments of glass on the carpet.
"But who is he?"
"I dunno. I never saw him afore."
"Describe him?"
"He was a short man with red hair and rather stout, like me. I
couldn't see much of him, as he was muffled up in a long black
overcoat with a blue scarf round his mouth and a soft hat pulled over
his eyes. I took him to my master into this very room, and was told to
bring wine and cake in 1/2 of an hour. I was coming in with the wine,
having been waiting on the clock in the kitchen, when I see my poor
master dead and him bending over him afore I faints."
"It's my opinion that we ought to have a doctor," said Lemby.
Jervis agreed with Mr. Lemby; but as Mrs. Vence did not know where any
doctor lived, and as he was unable to go himself, and did not intend
to let the buccaneer leave the house, it was difficult to know what to
do. But here Providence stepped in to extricate the trio from this
dilemma. A light, quick step was heard in the hall, and a high,
silvery voice called on the housekeeper.
"It's that imp, Neddy Mellin, with the washing," said Mrs. Vence,
hurrying towards the door. "Don't let the child see the corpse."
She was too late. Neddy suddenly shot into the room, smiling and
angelic in his looks. But the smile died away when he saw the body.
"Crikey!" breathed the lad, turning white, "is the cove a deader?"
"You leave the washing in the hall and cut!" commanded the old woman.
"How dare you come in by the front door?"
"Neddy," said Jervis, who knew the lad well, as did everyone else in
Hedgerton, "go to Dr. Quin, and ask him to come here at once."
"And I'll give you a shilling," said Lemby, sitting down.
"I'm fly," said Neddy, promptly, and reluctantly backed out of the
room. He was anxious to earn the shilling, but still more anxious to
gaze on the body. "Let me see the deader when I come back," he called
out.
"Get along with you; get along!" vociferated Mrs. Vence, and chased
him out of the front door into the mists. When she turned back after
closing the door she glanced at the rosewood table on which Hall had
placed the letter. It was gone. There was not a sign of it to be seen.
And the front door had been open from the time the man had escaped
until now. It was very strange.