TIGHTENING THE STRANDS
It is not often that it falls to the lot of any village to revel in such
abysmal depths of excitement as did the village of Hampton when the news
leaked out, and once the affair was known to the local police and their
respective wives, the news of the tragedy spread with the velocity of a
hurricane. By nine o'clock the next morning there wasn't an inhabitant
within a radius of ten miles that had not heard of the murder of Miss
Cheyne, and the mysterious disappearance of Lady Margaret. An hour
later, the lanes and fields were thronged to overflowing with the
chattering mob of sightseers, which the police, strongly reinforced by
the reserves of several neighbouring hamlets, found more than a
difficult task to keep in order. The story grew with every telling.
Miss Cheyne had been killed--oh, yes, months ago--and this man who had
taken her place had murdered Lady Margaret, though it was not to be
allowed to leak out. "Oh, no"--with many a wise shake of the head, and
knowing wink--"the police knew their business." But what had they done
with the girl's body? Ah! that remained to be seen. Meanwhile, if human
ingenuity and absolute disregard of time stood for anything, they meant
to see the body of the impostor for themselves.
Tongues wagged and heads nodded, but nevertheless, none but the police
themselves, and such representatives of the press as were absolutely
necessary, had been permitted to cross the threshold of Cheyne Court, or
even obtain the merest glimpse of the dead man. Notwithstanding Cleek's
reserve, and Mr. Narkom's own restrictions, news had managed to leak out
of the mysterious sign of the Pentacle upon the murderer's arm, and as
Scotland Yard--as represented by Cleek and the Superintendent--refused
to give forth any further knowledge that they might well be supposed to
possess, imagination ran riot.
The correspondent of the _Party Lantern_ therefore "discovered" that the
murdered man was a famous member of a Royal house, condemned by his
seniors to become dead to the world, owing to his having offended the
masonic societies of his country. Further details the _Lantern_ refused
to give, though hinting darkly at deeds of misconduct that would have
made Don Giovanni turn green with envy. As to the whereabouts of Lady
Margaret, they again contented themselves with wild hints as to what
they might have told, had it not been for their "honour."
On the other hand, the _Evening Tatler_ "discovered" and declared the
man to be nothing more exciting than a low-down anarchist, who had tried
to do his boon companions out of their share of the loot of the Cheyne
jewels. That they were any nearer to the truth, however, than their
contemporary, was equally open to query; though when Mr. Narkom pointed
out the arguments of the reporter to his ally Cleek gave a little
approving nod.
"Best thing we can do is to shut that young man up," he said, tersely.
"Get on to the _Evening Tatler_, Mr. Narkom, and tell the news editor
that we only want vague eventualities given to the public just now--no
facts at all. Otherwise, you know, we shall put the Pentacle Club on
guard, and if this is one of its crimes, we want to scotch the whole
gang once and for all. That this man was a member of the Club is
certain, for the markings of that Pentacle were not branded on, as in
former cases where people were murdered from motives of revenge, but
finely tattooed, showing that our friend is decidedly an old hand at the
game. Personally, I want to find out what Blake is doing."
Mr. Narkom mopped his face with a silk handkerchief, a sure sign of
emotion upon his part.
"I don't think this can be James Blake," said he, reflectively, "for I
looked up his record after what you said a little while back about his
being the head of the gang and learned that he left England a year or
more ago, and nothing had been heard of him in his old haunts, or by his
boon companions since."
"Hmn," said Cleek with a grim little laugh, "lying low, evidently,
after, or in view of some big coup, but that doesn't prove anything
about our murdered friend here. It's finger-prints we want."
"And we shall have them, too," threw in the Superintendent triumphantly,
fumbling in his pocketbook with fingers that themselves shook with
excitement. "I had a copy made of Blake's."
"Good man," ejaculated Cleek, as he took the precious scrap of paper,
and went up to the room wherein had been placed the victim of a
vengeance, possibly as just as that of the law itself. By the time Mr.
Narkom had made his way more slowly and ponderously up to the same spot,
he found Cleek looking down with considerable disappointment.
"Barked up a wrong tree this time," he said, but the light of a great
discovery shone in his eyes and his voice had an undercurrent of strong
excitement. "This is not James Blake, but I can tell you who it is.
Justice has simply been forestalled----"
His face was grim and Mr. Narkom looked up into it almost breathless.
"What is it, old chap; tell me?" he gasped. "What have you discovered?"
Cleek smiled.
"This man is the murderer of Elsie McBride, the old wardrobe seller of
Crown Court, so her murder will not have gone long unavenged!"
"But--how--are you sure?" said the startled Superintendent.
"Quite sure, my friend," was the reply. "Whatever other disguises a man
may assume, as we know, there is no escape from the irrefutable proof of
finger-prints. Here----"
He lifted up the dead hand, and with a magnifying glass in his own,
brought the thumb before Mr. Narkom's gaze.
"Now compare these thumb and finger marks with these which are a copy of
those found on that dagger with which the poor woman was killed. You
will see that they are identical. I'll nip off to town now and see
whether I can get the other old woman down here to identify this man. I
think, too, when we have discovered the motive for this murder we shall
have gone far to have found out the reason why Lady Margaret was
abducted. But that remains to be seen."
And afterward, when the turn of events had crowded even more important
matters from his mind, Mr. Maverick Narkom remembered these words.
Meanwhile a search of the house had not revealed the hiding place of the
famous jewels, and Mr. Shallcott, who was the first to come down and
investigate after he had read the surprising facts in his morning paper,
was full of remorse that they should have been lost.
"I shall never forgive myself, Mr. Headland," he said, peering
short-sightedly at that gentleman. "I might have known there was
something wrong in the jewels being taken out like that, and if only I
had persisted in seeing the poor child alone, all would have been well."
Cleek laid a hand upon his arm and gave it a gentle pressure.
"You could not help yourself, Mr. Shallcott," replied he,
sympathetically, "and neither legally nor morally can you be held
responsible. She was the victim of a deep-laid plot to effect their
theft. As to the murder, I cannot say yet. We can only await the turn of
events."
Cleek himself felt a natural if morbid remorse for having so innocently
placed Lady Margaret in the hands of the Pentacle Club. Accordingly, on
the following day, when he was immersed in collecting his facts at the
Hampton Arms, preparatory to going down to meet Mr. Narkom at the police
station, he was greeted by the voice of Sir Edgar Brenton himself; he
jumped up with pleasure and excitement in his voice.
"Ah, Sir Edgar, the very man I want," he said, looking into the lined,
drawn face, no longer that of a boy, but of a man, and one in deepest
trouble at that. "What have you been doing with yourself since last
night? I expected you to have joined us in watching Cheyne Court. As it
is, you know what has happened, I have no doubt."
Sir Edgar's apathetic eyes met his.
"Yes," said he, dully. "Miss Cheyne was murdered by those devils, after
all. I thought they would. I was sure of it! But what I want to know is,
where Lady Margaret is, Mr. Headland? What has become of her? Surely
there is some trace of her by this time!"
His haunted, anguished eyes watched Cleek's inscrutable face and,
notwithstanding the almost complete chain of evidence that was being
slowly but surely welded about him, Cleek felt the same instinctive
liking for the young man as he had when they had first met.
"I should have thought you could have answered that question better
yourself, Sir Edgar," he said, quietly. "Why did you rush up to town so
unexpectedly?"
A wave of scarlet passed over the young man's pallid face.
"I was a fool, I suppose, but as I was passing the station I saw, or I
fancied I saw, the face of that girl whom Margaret called Aggie and I
thought it might be a clue. I wasn't certain, I didn't pay much
attention to the creature when I saw her with my girl in Trafalgar
Square. And so, without stopping to think, I rushed up the steps, took a
ticket, dashed on to the platform, and just had time to tell the porter
to take a message up to my mother, who might have been anxious and
started off."
"Yes," said Cleek, quietly. "But what about this Aggie you speak of? Did
you see anything more of her?"
"Unfortunately, no, I lost sight of her at Waterloo, and knowing the
futility of doing anything further--I--I came back----"
Cleek made a little clicking sound indicative of mild despair.
"I wish to God you had stayed away all night," he said under his breath.
"But that's just what I did do," returned Sir Edgar wearily. "When I
got back to Hampton Station, a little boy came running up, and told me
that this telegram had been waiting for me at the post office. I didn't
stop to question, I can tell you, I simply tore it open, and when I read
it, I was over that platform and off again before you could say 'Jack
Robinson.'"
Cleek's eyes narrowed.
"What was in it; you don't happen to have kept it, I suppose?"
"As it happens, I have," said Sir Edgar, fumbling in his pocket and
producing a crumpled ball of paper which Cleek took from his
outstretched fingers.
"Hotel Central, come quick. Margaret," he read and Sir Edgar's voice
broke in upon his thoughts in a high pitch of excitement:
"You can be sure I just rushed up there as fast as trains would carry
me--only to find it a hoax. I waited about all night, and came back this
morning, none the worse. But I'd like to lay hands on the man who sent
me on that wild-goose chase."
Cleek looked at him for a brief second in silence, his face set, his
chin cupped in the palm of his left hand. If this thing were true, it
put Sir Edgar out of the affair altogether. _But was it true?_ Was it
not rather an attempt to establish an alibi, and thus throw dust in the
eyes of the police? The hotel? Oh, yes, that part was easy, simplicity
itself. He would go there and register, wait about for a girl whom he
knew couldn't possibly be there, and then, after going up to the room,
it would be the easiest thing in the world to step down unnoticed, thus
getting back in time to have committed the deed. He recalled Jennifer's
words: "Edgar--so he _did_ leave----" Leave maybe--but what about the
revolver? As for Constable Roberts' hypothesis that the young man had
just arrived--why, he might well have been just leaving. And now this
telegram! Cleek looked at it again, then gave vent to a low cry of
astonishment.
"Hello," he said, "here's a pretty kettle of fish. This is an old
telegram; look, here's the date, last Friday, by Jove!"
He held it before Sir Edgar's astonished gaze. "All the original words
have been rubbed out," he continued as the young man stared at it. "You
can see the roughened paper."
Then he turned on him suddenly.
"Now, my friend," he said, "considering that your revolver was found
just near the body of the murdered man I think you will agree that this
will take some explanation. Don't you think so?"
Sir Edgar started as though someone had stabbed him. A wave of colour
suffused his face for a moment, then left it waxen white.
"Good God, you don't attempt to suggest that I----" he began, then
appeared to lose the power of speaking altogether as he gazed into
Cleek's stern eyes.
"I am not in the habit of suggesting," interrupted Cleek, "I am simply
stating a fact which, as you know, is one that is in itself suspicious.
It is useless also to blink at the fact that the real Miss Cheyne was
murdered on that night when I found you wandering up and down the lane,
with that same revolver in your pocket. Perhaps you can explain that
also?"
"Heavens, man, but you don't think I committed still another murder,"
said Sir Edgar, incredulously. "I say, that's going a bit _too_ far you
know. I can understand a joke, but as to your thinking for one moment
that I should do such a low-down dirty thing as to murder a woman, and
an old one at that----"
Cleek laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"Not so fast, my friend, not so fast," said he with a little laugh.
"There's an old French proverb which says _qui s'excuse, s'accuse_.
Perhaps you know it. But the evidence is strong against you. What about
that revolver with the 'B' on it? Perhaps you'll deny that?"
"I do, most emphatically I do!" responded Sir Edgar with a little snort
of indignation. "That belonged to the old woman herself, I snatched it
from her, and----"
"Cheyne does not to my knowledge begin with a 'B'," threw in Cleek,
quietly. "The revolver bears your initial and a jury is a difficult
thing to convince when facts are strong."
"Stuff and nonsense!" spluttered forth Sir Edgar, red with anger. "You
can have me arrested straight away, if you like, but whatever happens, I
mean to find Margaret, and to find out why I was lured away last night.
You know where to find me when you want me." Turning angrily on his
heel, he walked out, leaving Cleek smiling quietly to himself and rather
liking this young spit-fire for the way in which he had risen to his
fly.
"So he knows there is no danger of being convicted for a revolver-shot,
does he? Now did he administer that prussic acid, or did he not?" was
the next thought that passed through his mind.
He picked up his little bag and started toward the police station, where
he hoped to meet Mr. Narkom.
It was a gorgeous spring morning, and at the top of the lane he could
see a little group of people advancing toward him, in the first and
foremost of whom he recognized Ailsa.
She had been nearly heart-broken over the catastrophe which had
overtaken the girl in whom she had hoped to have found a life-long
friend, and her first act had been to visit Lady Brenton. She had done
her best to raise Edgar's mother from the fit of deep depression which
seemed to have settled over her like a cloud.
At that lady's request, Ailsa had consented to stay at the Towers, and
accordingly had seen but little of the man to whom she instinctively
turned for help and guidance.
Suddenly she caught sight of him, and her little start and the rose-red
colour which suffused her face caused Lady Brenton, a woman still in the
early forties, to look quickly in the same direction.
"My dear, is this another reporter?" she inquired, anxiously. She had an
inveterate horror of the press at all times, and since she had seen the
recent papers carrying such head-lines as "The Cheyne Court
Affair--Further Developments--Murder in High Life" and similar
personalities, she lived in perpetual dread of being pounced upon and
interviewed.
"No, dear," responded Ailsa with a happy little laugh, "this is not a
reporter, but a dear old friend of mine, Mr. George Headland. He was an
old friend, too, of my uncle, Sir Horace Wyvern, in the days before his
second marriage. I think he will be the only man who can explain this
mysterious catastrophe. I wonder if you would think it a liberty if I
asked to be allowed to introduce him to you?"
"Far from it, Ailsa," answered Lady Brenton, impetuously. "I wish I
could persuade him to visit us, it might cheer us up. Not that I want to
be cheered exactly, but the thought of that child and the sight of poor
Edgar's face almost breaks my heart. And I am so tired this morning----"
"I daresay you are," put in Ailsa, quietly. "You did not sleep well, did
you?"
Lady Brenton looked at her with a little angry flush.
"As it happens I did, Ailsa. That's a strange thing, for you know what
bad nights I have had lately. But what made you ask?"
"Well, I thought I heard your door open and shut in the night, as well
as the night before that. I thought of coming to see whether you were
ill, and fell asleep myself first."
"Indeed?" Lady Brenton's face was a little pale, though her voice was
quite calm and steady.
"It must have been imagination on your part, my dear child, for I slept
splendidly. But don't let us talk over last night." She turned
impulsively, her voice shaking with emotion. "It's no use, I ought to be
sorry for any human death--and to think of that poor old woman being
murdered more than a month ago is too terrible--but I _can't_! I can
only think that the obstacle to my boy's happiness is removed, if we can
only find Margaret. I know it is very wrong of me to say so."
Ailsa pressed her arm in tender sympathy, but before she could reply
Cleek had advanced to within speaking distance, and Ailsa was greeting
him.
Another minute, mutual introductions having been made, Cleek found
himself looking into the eyes of a handsome woman with hair but slightly
gray, and with a purely cut, patrician face faintly lined, now pale as
though from a sleepless night.
It did not take Cleek long to note that she was suffering from some
intense anxiety, though her smile was none the less genuine, especially
when a minute later she was joined by Sir Edgar, who was apparently by
no means pleased to see the man who but a brief half hour ago had
practically accused him of murder.
Suddenly the sound of light footsteps fell on their ears and, turning,
Cleek saw Jennifer Wynne running after them.
"Dear Lady Brenton," she said, rather affectedly, as soon as she had got
within talking distance, "I am so thankful I found it; see, you left
your scarf behind." In her hand she held a long gold lace scarf totally
different in texture to that which Miss Wynne had worn herself on the
preceding night, but alike in colour to the scrap which rested in
Cleek's pocketbook. As he noted this fact, and saw the sudden
unconcealed terror showing on Lady Brenton's delicate face, he sucked in
his breath sharply, switched round on his heel, and grew silent.
It was only for a brief second that her face showed any trace of that
ill-concealed terror, then Lady Brenton was profuse in thanks and begged
the girl to come back with her to The Towers.
"It is so sweet of you, dear Lady Brenton," purred Miss Jennifer,
softly, "but I feel sure both you and Sir Edgar are too worried to need
poor little me. I only thought you ought to have your scarf in safe
keeping, so much depends on it now, you know," and with this parting
shot, Miss Wynne turned and went back.
"Do come back to the house with us, Mr. Headland," Lady Brenton said,
impulsively.
Cleek, only too willing to accept, soon found himself at Ailsa's side,
swinging down the long, leafy lane.
Lady Brenton was a tactful woman, and after having glanced once or twice
in their direction, she smiled significantly at her son and dropped
behind, on the plea of the narrowness of the lane, whispering a minute
later in carefully lowered tones to Sir Edgar:
"A most distinguished man, Edgar, and if I know anything of love
affairs, we shall be parting with our pleasant little neighbour for good
and all before the summer is over. Did you see the man's eyes?
Positively worshipping her. Ah, well, it is good to be young, and once
this is over----"
But her own heart was like lead within her breast.