THE TWIN SCARVES
To say that the village went mad with excitement when the bodies of the
two victims, man and woman, were laid side by side in the great ballroom
of Cheyne Court was to underestimate the case altogether. The villagers
were literally crazed for the time being, and when news reached them, as
such news will, that an inquest was to be held in that identical spot in
a day or two, daft was no name for their condition at all.
Cleek himself would have smiled at the rumours which were rife.
So a revolver had been found beside the body of the murdered man who had
so successfully impersonated the Honourable Miss Cheyne herself, had it?
And--what? No, it couldn't be possible! Mrs. So-and-So had whispered
that that identical revolver was the property of Sir Edgar himself! It
was too much to believe; too horrible to think about! That little Master
Edgar whom they had watched grow up from a toddling babe of two,
prattling to his nurse on their walks through the village, and winning
their hearts with the sweetness of his manner, that that child should
have grown up and become a _murderer_. The thought was impossible.
When the day of the inquest finally arrived, all Hampton turned out and
put in an appearance at Cheyne Court.
To tell the exact truth, Cleek's own mind was suffused for the time
being with something that closely resembled doubt as regards Sir Edgar's
innocence in the whole awful affair. Circumstantial evidence he had
always regarded as a spider's web of coincidence to be brushed aside
with the broom of a man's reason. But, somehow, this was different.
He took his stand at the back of the great ballroom, and watched with
keen eyes and saddened heart, while the coroner put forth the case in
all its bald appallingness.
In a sort of dream he heard that gentleman impart to the jury gathered
there for the purposes of justice the colossal fact that they were met
together to inquire primarily into the death of an unknown man, whose
identification, up to the present, they had wholly failed to establish.
Cleek shifted upon his feet and cast a quick glance over to the other
side of the room, where Bobby Wynne and his sister Jennifer stood
together, listening with unveiled interest. If they were in no way
connected with it, their morbid curiosity in the affair sickened him.
But if they _were_----
Watching the scene, as a mere spectator (he had particularly requested
Mr. Narkom to make arrangements that he should not be called in any
official capacity) Cleek felt that he could more clearly review the
situation.
Constable Roberts was the first witness to be called. He told, briefly,
of his encounter with the young "military gent," who had fetched him in
a car at 10 o'clock on March 11th, and dragged him forth upon what
proved eventually to be nothing more than a wild-goose chase. The lady
whom the young gent had said was lying dead was alive, "and very much
alive, sir!" added the constable with some conviction, "and 'e was as
took in as wot I was meself."
Cleek nodded at this, and the little one-sided smile slid slowly up his
face at this unconscious admission.
The coroner also nodded.
"Indeed," he said, in proper judicial manner, "and did you meet no one
then upon the return journey, Mr. Roberts?"
"Er--er----" Roberts began, staring confusedly round the room, and
turning red, "that is, no one as is any bearings upon the case, so to
speak--not suspicious at all wasn't, sir, and--and----"
But the Coroner's voice broke in upon his flounderings with sharp
incisiveness.
"That isn't altogether your affair, Mr. Roberts," he said, concisely,
"the meting out of justice lies in other hands, and whether he was a
suspicious character or not remains, of course, to be seen. The point
is, who was it?"
A sort of grayness dropped down like a veil over the policeman's ruddy
countenance, he drew in his breath with a little gasp, and passed a hand
over his perspiring forehead.
"The gentleman wot I saw was Sir Edgar Brenton," he said, suddenly, in a
strangled voice, "but what 'e 'as to do with it, beats me. For 'e was
coming back from the station----"
"How do you know that?"
"Because 'e said so," responded the constable, decisively.
The simplicity of the statement, and the utter belief in the man's
voice, brought a sudden look of sympathy flashing across Cleek's
countenance. It was the finest tribute to the character of the young man
that he could receive. The Coroner's voice broke in upon Cleek's
thoughts.
"You may stand down," he said. And the Constable stood down with a look
of relief upon his countenance.
The second witness was Dr. Verrall, pale-faced and calm, but with an odd
look in his eyes that caused Cleek to watch him closely. Right through
his evidence he gave the impression of saying only just as much as was
absolutely necessary, and of keeping something back. But upon one point
he was clear.
"Your first belief, then," the Coroner said, quietly, "was that the
deceased was shot by the revolver at his side?"
"Yes."
"And afterward?"
"Afterward, unmistakable traces were pointed out by Inspector Headland
who was on the scene when I arrived, and I came to the conclusion that
he had undoubtedly been poisoned by prussic acid compressed into a
tabloid by the use of magnesia."
A quiver of interest swept over the assembled audience. Poisoned! Then
perhaps Sir Edgar----
"Was it possible for the man to have taken it himself; committed
suicide, in fact?" put in the Coroner, breaking in upon the thought that
was in every heart.
"No. There were finger-marks upon his neck showing that he had been
seized, and the poisoned pellet pushed forcibly down his throat. Death
must have taken place almost immediately."
The Coroner cleared his throat.
"Would it be possible to identify the finger-prints, Dr. Verrall?" he
asked. For the fraction of a second there was no reply. The doctor
hesitated, coughed affectedly, and passed his hand across his mouth.
Then:
"Hardly," he responded in a cool, clear voice. "Death had taken place
fully an hour or so before. They were evidently long, slender fingers,
but that was all that could be gathered."
"H'mn! Slender, eh? A woman's possibly?"
Something like fear came into the doctor's face, and was gone again in a
twinkling.
"Certainly not!" he snapped back with a sudden show of vehemence. "They
were decidedly those of a man. Besides, there were the marks of a heavy
seal ring upon the throat."
A seal ring? Like a flash the thought telegraphed itself over the long,
crowded room. Cleek gave a hasty glance backward over his shoulder, and
encountered the eye of Sir Edgar Brenton standing near the doorway, with
his pale-faced mother beside him.
But other eyes than Cleek's were looking in his direction now. A seal
ring? And Sir Edgar's seal had been upon his finger ever since he
attained his majority! Every member of the village community recollected
his delighted pleasure when that day came round.... And there were marks
of a seal ring upon the murdered man's throat.
"And where was the revolver found?" the Coroner inquired.
"Close by the dead man's side. He had been dead quite a long time before
he was shot, and rigour mortis was already setting in. Whoever fired the
shot sent it into a dead man's breast."
"Quite so.... And I understand that this is the revolver in question."
He held up a little dark metal object that caught the light in one vivid
bar along its slim barrel.
Dr. Verrall bowed his head.
"That is so," he said, calmly.
"And do you know to whom it belongs?"
"I cannot say."
There was a hushed silence fraught with a sort of stalking terror that
sent every heart beating and every pulse drumming with the awful thought
of what _might_ be.
Then:
"That will do for the present, Dr. Verrall. Thank you very much," came
in the same clear tones and the crowd heaved a sigh of relief. Who
would be the next to be called?
The next to be called proved to be no less a person than Mr. Maverick
Narkom himself, who in his concise fashion related for the edification
of all present how he and his colleague, Mr. George Headland, of
Scotland Yard, had together discovered the body.
"Were there any signs of a struggle?" asked the Coroner, quietly, with a
little added show of respect for the dignity of his witness's position.
"Yes," responded Mr. Narkom, excitedly. "Decidedly there were. That was
evidenced by the scrap of torn lace found in the dead man's hand,
and----"
"Torn lace?" echoed someone involuntarily aloud. Then there _was_ a
woman in it, after all!
Mr. Narkom mopped his forehead with a handkerchief and glanced about
him.
"Yes, torn lace, gold lace," he reiterated.
"Can you identify it?"
There was a momentary hesitation; meanwhile, Cleek's eyes sought his and
Cleek's lips seemed to say: "Be careful. Keep Lady Margaret out of it if
you can," and Mr. Narkom responded to that appeal with surprising
alacrity.
"I can't say that I can," he said with a slight smile and a shake of the
head.
But the Coroner had not done with the subject yet. He held the little
fragment of gold high above his head, and then handed it round the
table.
"Can any one identify it?" he asked, and all eyes went instantly in its
direction. There was no response, only, as Cleek looked, a queer,
shocked sort of expression came over Sir Edgar's countenance.
Just as Cleek's face dropped into lines of concentrated thought there
came the sound of a voice somewhat high-pitched and clear, with the
carefully accurate accent of a foreigner. Cleek whipped round to see the
slim, turbaned figure of Gunga Dall standing far back in the room.
"If I may be so permitted," he said in the bland, smooth fashion of his,
as the crowd instinctively parted and made way for him to come to the
front, "I should like to identify that scrap of gold lace."
_Identify it?_ The hush that came over the room could almost be _felt_,
it was so intense, so absolute.
"We shall be pleased to receive your evidence," broke in the Coroner,
shortly; he, like Sir Edgar, had no partiality for "niggers."
There was a sort of polite regret upon Gunga Dall's dark features. He
shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands, with a little pucker of
the lips that bespoke dislike of the task he had in hand.
"I am sorry to say that it is the property of Lady Margaret Cheyne," he
said, serenely.
There was a moment of tense silence. You could have heard a pin drop in
the ballroom.
Cleek sucked in his breath and stood a moment eyeing the Hindoo. If that
were so--but the thought was too utterly horrible to be longer
entertained.
There followed the sound of a little cry echoing across the crowded
room. Cleek's eyes went in the direction of it, and saw that Lady
Brenton had gone dead white, and that her lips were pinched and blue.
Sir Edgar, in a sort of mad abandonment, was pushing his way up through
the audience, his eyes flashing, his fists clenched, the red blood
flaring in his face, and all his virile young manhood up in defence of
the woman he loved.
"Say that again, you damned liar, and I'll thrash you within an inch of
your precious life!" he shouted. "You can't prove it--you absolutely
_can't_, I say! It isn't her scarf at all----"
"And I say it _is_!" responded Gunga Dall with an unpleasant little
laugh. "Because I happened to have given it to her myself and----"
"You take care what you're saying," returned Sir Edgar in a passion of
white heat. "You dare to suggest that you've given her presents."
The Coroner's upraised hand silenced him.
"If you please," he began, "permit Mr. Dall to continue with his
evidence without interruption. This is hardly the time or the place, Sir
Edgar, for the airing of one's particular--er--differences. You say the
scarf belongs to Lady Margaret Cheyne, Mr. Dall?"
"I do. For I myself gave it to her. I met her on the journey over from
Boulogne to Folkestone, and I happened to show the scarf to her. She
admired it, and on the impulse of the moment I pressed her to accept it.
It was one of a pair."
Of a pair, eh? So there was the loophole of escape for Lady Margaret
after all. Cleek's head went up.
The coroner leant a little forward in his seat and stared up into the
Hindoo's impassive countenance.
"And where, may I ask, is the other?" he inquired.
The blow fell unexpectedly, but with more force in consequence.
For even as Gunga Dall commenced to speak there followed a little
commotion at the back of the room. Someone had fainted, there was a
hushed call for smelling salts and brandy.
"The other scarf is, or was," said the Hindoo, quietly, "in the
possession of Lady Brenton, to whom I gave it last week!"
It was like a thunderbolt in the quiet room. Cleek snatched up his hat
and ran over to where Mr. Narkom stood.
"You've got to close this inquiry before it goes any further," he
whispered, hurriedly. "We've got to make more investigations before that
nigger's assertion is allowed to carry any weight with the evidence.
We've got to close this inquiry at once, my friend!"
Mr. Narkom nodded, then crossed over to the Coroner and spoke to him in
a low, hurried voice.
That gentleman seemed to acquiesce in whatever statement the
Superintendent made, and shortly afterward declared the case postponed.
Slowly the people began to file out of the room in twos and threes, but
even as they did so came the sound of a terrible moaning, the sound that
Cleek had heard so many times before, but from whence it issued, was
impossible to tell. Long drawn out and wailing as a dog's death-howl, it
floated over the room, striking fear into every heart by its very
ghastliness. What was it? What _could it be_?
Horrified, the listeners looked at one another in blank dismay. Even Mr.
Narkom's usually ruddy countenance had undergone a change as the sound
came to his ears. Supernatural or not it acted like a charm, for in
another minute the room was cleared and Cleek, Mr. Narkom and the
Coroner stood alone.
"Strange thing, isn't it?" said that gentleman, as he fetched his hat
and moved over toward the door in the act of following upon the heels
of his jury-men.
Mr. Narkom nodded.
"Very. Coming along, Headland?"
"No, not just for a moment or two. I want to look round for myself if
you don't mind. Just an odd fancy, don't you know! But don't wait for
me, Mr. Narkom. I'll see you later on."
Even as they left, once again there sounded that uncanny wail, seeming
to come from the very depths of the earth. Cleek felt that he was alone
in a haunted house.