THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS
Constable Roberts did "come on" and at a speed highly commendable,
considering his portly build. Cleek, passing the long French windows
through which he had obtained entry but an hour before, stopped to
ascertain that they, too, were now bolted and barred.
Snapping on their electric torches they tore up the short flight of
steps leading to the front door.
"Someone has made good use of their time," Cleek whispered, as he
thought how easily he had entered with Lady Margaret such a short while
before. "There's no use trying to force this door and the windows are
now shuttered and barred. The only thing to do is to try knocking them
up."
A second later Mr. Roberts sent a valiant peal resounding through the
house and both men listened tensely for any response. One, two, perhaps
five minutes passed; the echoes of their blows had died away into
silence, and the flash of their torches showed to each of them only the
other's strained expectant face. Neither eye nor ear could detect any
signs of movement within.
"How we're to get in beats me," said Constable Roberts with a frown
puckering his bushy brows. "We'll have to break in, in the name of the
law."
And as though that very name had in itself something of the
supernatural, there came a sound, a rustle, a step within the house, and
the nerves of both men were near to snapping point. They stood a moment
listening, while the harsh grating of bolts being withdrawn into their
sockets came to their ears, and in another second the great door swung
slowly back upon its hinges. The mellow radiance of lamps streamed out
and flung a circle of light round them. As it did so a little gasp of
astonishment came from both men, for in the doorway, gazing out on them
in dignified reproof, stood an immaculate butler. Their hearts seemed
for a moment to cease beating and they stared in dumb amazement.
It was Cleek who recovered his wits first. He turned to the butler with
a perfectly impassive face.
"We want to see Lady Margaret Cheyne at once," he rapped out sharply.
"At once please!"
The butler moved a little aside, as if the visit were the most ordinary
one in the world.
"Her ladyship has retired for the night, sir," was the surprising
answer. "I will see if the mistress--Miss Cheyne--will see you."
"Miss Cheyne!" said Cleek, sharply.
"Heavens! man, but she is dead," shouted the outraged constable before
Cleek could stop him. "This gentleman came to fetch me to view the body.
In the name of the law, I am going to search the place."
Staggered by the announcement, with staring eyes and dough-white
countenance the man fell back a pace, and seizing the opportunity thus
offered, Cleek stepped into the hall, closely followed by Roberts.
"This is preposterous!" ejaculated the butler, at last, as if only just
realizing the gravity of the situation; then, raising his voice, he
echoed the last words, "Miss Cheyne dead!"
And then--a good many strange things had happened in the course of this
night, but to Cleek it seemed as if the very earth had stopped in its
course, the door of the room which he knew to be the dining room opened
with a little angry jerk, and in the doorway stood a figure that caused
Cleek's heart to leap in his mouth. It was no less than that of the
woman who had lain dead at his feet but a short time ago. It was Miss
Cheyne herself!
"Miss Cheyne dead! What does this impertinence mean?" she demanded in a
hard, shrill voice at the sound of which the constable's ruddy face
became purple with anger. He whipped off his helmet and he pulled
savagely at his forelock.
"Beg yer pardon, Miss Cheyne, yer ladyship," he stuttered "for
disturbing you--but this--this-individual--," he almost choked over his
words--"came and fetched me away from the nicest bit of supper I ever
wants to see, to tell me you was a-lying murdered, begging yer pardon,
and that Lady Margaret, whom he'd driven over in his car, was asleep
alone in the empty house. More fool me to believe him, yer ladyship, but
you'd 'ave done the same yourself in my place----"
"But I tell you----" began Cleek.
The Honourable Miss Cheyne wheeled round on him, her eyes sparkling with
anger.
"So," she ejaculated, one hand pressed to her side, and Cleek found
himself unconsciously recognizing the rings which had flashed in the
lamplight on the fingers of the murdered woman. "So you are the
impertinent stranger who inflicted himself on an ignorant, helpless
girl, and caused me to miss my niece at the station. I drive back with
the servants I had ordered from London to find my niece sleeping in a
chair. I have packed her off to bed. And as for you, sir, you are an
impostor and a thief for aught I know----"
This last assertion Cleek took no notice of, but advancing toward her he
said firmly:
"I want to see Lady Margaret----"
"Indeed," was the sarcastic reply. "I am not aware that it is customary
for strangers to intrude themselves upon people, even if they have been
of some service. As far as you are concerned, sir, my niece's reputation
has had every prospect of being blighted by your misconceived and
misdirected attentions."
"I have no wish to intrude or to make much of the trifling aid I was
able to give your niece, Madam," responded Cleek seriously. "My name is
Deland, and you can make what enquiries you like from my friend Mr.
Maverick Narkom, Superintendent of Scotland Yard as to--er--my general
character if you are at all doubtful about it."
A still angrier gleam shone in Miss Cheyne's eyes, and even as the words
left his mouth, Cleek, with that queer sixth sense of intuition, felt
that he had said the wrong thing. If there were anything wrong, then the
very name of the law would set them on their guard.
Miss Cheyne, however, seemed disposed to push her momentary advantage to
its utmost.
"I don't care for fifty Superintendents," she declared, angrily, looking
back into Cleek's face with flaming eyes. "You have no right to force
your way into my house on any pretext whatsoever. Indeed, I am not sure
that I can't have the law on you for breaking in my windows this
evening. It will cost me a pretty penny. But I should like you to
understand that I won't have my niece disturbed by anybody, so if you
can't explain your visit to me, I'll say good-night and good riddance.
As for you, Policeman, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to come here
and rouse me on such a nonsensical errand."
She cut short Mr. Roberts's excuses and practically drove the two men
back until they found themselves once more on the steps. Then the door
slammed in their faces.
Constable Roberts turned swiftly upon his companion, and commenced a
pent-up tirade against him for having fetched him out on this wild-goose
chase.
Cleek stood still, pinching his chin with a thumb and forefinger, his
eyes narrowed down to slits. Review the facts however calmly, he could
still find no fitting solution. Sure he was that a dead woman had stared
at him from the floor of that house, but he was also just as sure that
the same woman had driven him out from it. And what of Lady Margaret
herself? He had not a shadow of right to insist on seeing her. She was
in the hands of her natural guardian, and yet, and yet----! The shadow
of doubt hung over him.
He stopped short suddenly and sniffed in the air, much to the
open-mouthed astonishment of Constable Roberts, whose grumbling
remonstrances died away.
"Good Lord man, sir, I mean," he exclaimed, agitatedly, "but what's in
the wind now?"
"Scent and sense, my good fellow," said Cleek. "There is a distinct
odour of jasmine in the air and an artificial scent, _Huile de jasmin_
at that. It is a woman's scent, too, and some woman has been here
to-night. She's been on these very stone steps."
"Well, what if she has? That don't excuse you a-saying that Miss Cheyne
is dead, when she's no more dead than you or me----" retorted the
constable, heatedly. "I shall be the laughing-stock of the country,
fetched out like a fool----"
Hardly listening to the stream of grumbling expostulation issuing from
the mouth of Constable Roberts, Cleek bent down and sniffed again
vigorously. He tested each step till he reached the gravelled path. All
at once he gave vent to a sharp cry of triumph for there, indented in
the path before him and revealed by the light of his torch, was the mark
of a slender shoe--a woman's shoe unmistakably.
In a second they had passed the lodge gates and were out in the narrow
lane, which was black as a beggar's pocket, and as empty. A placid moon
shone over silent fields, and only the soft whirr of the motor broke the
silence as they sped along.
Nevertheless Cleek, as ever, was on the look-out. The sixth sense of
impending danger which was in him strangely developed hung over him.
Suddenly, with a little cry of surprise and a grinding of brakes, he
pulled the car up with such a jerk that Roberts, who had subsided into a
somnolent silence, was nearly thrown off the seat at his side.
"A dollar for a ducat but I'm right!" he exclaimed sharply. "There's
someone on that side of the hedge."
Without stopping a second he leaped down, cleared the low hedge as
lightly as any schoolboy, and pounced on a crouching, running, panting
figure.
"One minute, sir," he began. Then his fingers almost lost their hold, as
the face of a man in deadly terror gazed up at him, and from him to the
majesty of the law as embodied in the person of Constable Roberts. That
worthy, having descended from the car, was now looking over the hedge.
"Lawks, sir, if it bain't Sir Edgar himself!" he ejaculated, and the
sound of the evidently familiar voice seemed to pull the distraught
young man together.
"Hello, Roberts," he said with a brave attempt at the debonair
nonchalance which was his usual manner, an attempt that did not blind
Cleek to the fact that his lips were trembling and beads of perspiration
standing on his pale forehead.
"What are you doing gadding around at this time of night?"
"Me, sir?" replied Roberts, bitterly. "I've bin fetched out to see
murdered women and----"
"Not--not Miss Cheyne!" gasped the young man.
A queer little smile looped up one corner of Cleek's mouth.
"Hello, hello!" he said, mentally, "someone else knows of it, eh?" Here
was somebody who, to his way of thinking, jumped to right conclusions
too quickly. Why should Sir Edgar Brenton, as he knew this man to be,
know that it should be Miss Cheyne, unless--and here Cleek's mind raced
on wings of doubt again--unless he himself had killed Miss Cheyne? And
if so, who was this woman----?
As if from some distance he could hear Roberts's grumbling bellow:
"Miss Cheyne? Lor', don't you go for to say you've got that bee in your
bonnet, too, Sir Edgar. It is quite enough with this gent, Lieutenant
Deland, a-coming and fetching me away from my bit of supper. What my
missis will say remains to be 'eard, as they says. 'Deed, no, Miss
Cheyne's as live as you, and in a thunderin' bad temper----"
"Thank the Lord!" ejaculated the young squire in a low, fervent
undertone.
"An' what made _you_ think, if I might be so bold, Sir Edgar, that it
was Miss Cheyne?" asked the constable curiously, voicing Cleek's
unspoken thought.
That gentleman cleared his throat before answering.
"It was just a chance hit, Roberts," said he, but his voice held an odd
little crabbed note in it. "You see, you were coming straight from
Cheyne Court, so it couldn't have been any one else."
"No, sir, come to think, it couldn't be," assented Roberts, and Cleek,
who had stepped back into the shadow of the hedge, twitched up his
eyebrows as he sensed the relief that stole over Sir Edgar's face.
"A nice fright you gave me, too," continued the young man, speaking more
easily. "I'm supposed to be at a political dinner-fight in London, you
know, Roberts. Only just got back, in fact, and I didn't feel up to it,
so when I heard that precious motor of yours I was afraid it might be
some dashed good-natured friend, don't you know, and so I cut across
the hedge."
"Quite right, too," assented Constable Roberts approvingly, in whose
eyes Sir Edgar could do no wrong. Then to Cleek, "Well, sir, I think
we'll be moving, if you don't mind."
"Indeed I don't," Cleek replied, and then he addressed Sir Edgar. "Sorry
I startled you, sir--took you for a poacher, don't you know. Perhaps
you'll let me drive you through the village if you are going this way."
He smiled with a well-feigned air of stupidity, put up his eyeglass into
his eye, and lurched up against the young man as he spoke.
"Pleased," mumbled Sir Edgar, and got into the limousine.
Another two or three minutes' run brought them into the village, and
here Sir Edgar insisted on alighting, and continuing his journey on
foot.
Cleek watched him go with brows on which deep furrows were marked.
"Wonder what made the young gentleman lie so futilely?" he said at
length as his shadow gradually merged in with the darkness ahead.
"Lie?" echoed the astonished constable, as he fumbled with the latch of
his garden gate.
"Yes, lie, my friend," flung back Cleek, his foot on the step of the
car. "He was running _to_ the station not _from_ it; his clothes smelt
strongly of the scent which pervaded the house this afternoon, namely
jasmine; and thirdly, there was a revolver in his pocket. A revolver is
a thing no gentleman takes to a dinner with him, even a political one."
And, leaving Mr. Roberts to digest this piece of mental food with his
long-delayed supper, the car whizzed away in the moonlight. Cleek's
first duty was to Ailsa, and he found her waiting for him pale and
expectant at the little gate.
"Oh," she cried, as the motor panted its way into silence. "I thought
you were never coming back. Where is she, dear? Where is that helpless
child?"
She hurried out, but Cleek flung up an arresting hand.
"I am either going mad, Ailsa, or else there is a greater mystery here
than I can fathom," he said quickly. "Miss Cheyne herself was there to
receive us and----"
"_Miss Cheyne!_" echoed Ailsa, her eyes dilating, and apparently she was
almost as shocked at this news of her evident existence as she had been
a short while back by her demise. "But you said----" her voice trailed
away into silence, and Cleek took the words out of her mouth.
"She was dead! Yes, I certainly thought so, and I cannot understand it.
Nevertheless, Miss Cheyne is there all right, Constable Roberts will
vouch for that; and Lady Margaret is presumably tucked up safe and sound
in her bed, but it is incomprehensible to me. Here's the story if you
care to hear it."
He gave a rough outline of his various discoveries and at the end of it
Ailsa nodded her head gravely.
"I cannot understand it, either," she said. "I suppose nothing can be
done, but I will go up to Cheyne Court early in the morning and see the
child for myself."
Cleek smiled his approval.
"I wish you would," he said. "I must run up and see Mr. Narkom, and
to-morrow perhaps--well, who knows----"