Buch lesen: «The Herapath Property», Seite 3

CHAPTER V
THE GLASS AND THE SANDWICH

Mr. Tertius, dismissed in such cavalier fashion by Barthorpe Herapath, walked out of the estate office with downcast head—a superficial observer might have said that he was thoroughly crestfallen and brow-beaten. But by the time he had reached the road outside, the two faint spots of colour which had flushed his cheeks when Barthorpe turned him away had vanished, and he was calm and collected enough when, seeing a disengaged taxi-cab passing by, he put up his hand and hailed it. The voice which bade the driver go to Portman Square was calm enough, too—Mr. Tertius had too much serious work immediately in prospect to allow himself to be disturbed by a rudeness.

He thought deeply about that work as the taxi-cab whirled him along; he was still thinking about it when he walked into the big house in Portman Square. In there everything was very quiet. The butler was away at Kensington; the other servants were busily discussing the mystery of their master in their own regions. No one was aware that Mr. Tertius had returned, for he let himself into the house with his own latch-key, and went straight into Herapath’s study. There, if possible, everything was still quieter—the gloom of the dull November morning seemed to be doubly accentuated in the nooks and corners; there was a sense of solitude which was well in keeping with Mr. Tertius’s knowledge of what had happened. He looked at the vacant chair in which he had so often seen Jacob Herapath sitting, hard at work, active, bustling, intent on getting all he could out of every minute of his working day, and he sighed deeply.

But in the moment of sighing Mr. Tertius reflected that there was no time for regret. It was a time—his time—for action; there was a thing to do which he wanted to do while he had the room to himself. Therefore he went to work, carefully and methodically. For a second or two he stood reflectively looking at the supper tray which still stood on the little table near the desk. With a light, delicate touch he picked up the glass which had been used and held it up to the light. He put it down again presently, went quietly out of the study to the dining-room across the hall, and returned at once with another glass precisely similar in make and pattern to the one which he had placed aside. Into that clear glass he poured some whisky, afterwards mixing with it some soda-water from the syphon—this mixture he poured away into the soil of a flower-pot which stood in the window. And that done he placed the second glass on the tray in the place where the first had stood, and picking up the first, in the same light, gingerly fashion, he went upstairs to his own rooms at the top of the house.

Five minutes later Mr. Tertius emerged from his rooms. He then carried in his hand a small, square bag, and he took great care to handle it very carefully as he went downstairs and into the square. At the corner of Orchard Street he got another taxi-cab and bade the driver go to Endsleigh Gardens. And during the drive he took the greatest pains to nurse the little bag on his knee, thereby preserving the equilibrium of the glass inside it.

Ringing the bell of one of the houses in Endsleigh Gardens, Mr. Tertius was presently confronted by a trim parlourmaid, whose smile was ample proof that the caller was well-known to her.

“Is the Professor in, Mary?” asked Mr. Tertius. “And if he is, is he engaged?”

The trim parlourmaid replied that the Professor was in, and that she hadn’t heard that he was particularly engaged, and she immediately preceded the visitor up a flight or two of stairs to a door, which in addition to being thickly covered with green felt, was set in flanges of rubber—these precautions being taken, of course, to ensure silence in the apartment within. An electric bell was set in the door; a moment or two elapsed before any response was made to the parlourmaid’s ring. Then the door automatically opened, the parlourmaid smiled at Mr. Tertius and retired; Mr. Tertius walked in; the door closed softly behind him.

The room in which the visitor found himself was a large and lofty one, lighted from the roof, from which it was also ventilated by a patent arrangement of electric fans. Everything that met the view betokened science, order, and method. The walls, destitute of picture or ornament, were of a smooth neutral tinted plaster; where they met the floor the corners were all carefully rounded off so that no dust could gather in cracks and crevices; the floor, too, was of smooth cement; there was no spot in which a speck of dust could settle in improper peace. A series of benches ran round the room, and gave harbourings to a collection of scientific instruments of strange appearance and shape; two large tables, one at either end of the room, were similarly equipped. And at a desk placed between them, and just then occupied in writing in a note-book, sat a large man, whose big muscular body was enveloped in a brown holland blouse or overall, fashioned something like a smock-frock of the old-fashioned rural labourer. He lifted a colossal, mop-like head and a huge hand as Mr. Tertius stepped across the threshold, and his spectacled eyes twinkled as their glance fell on the bag which the visitor carried so gingerly.

“Hullo, Tertius!” exclaimed the big man, in a deep, rich voice. “What have you got there? Specimens?”

Mr. Tertius looked round for a quite empty space on the adjacent bench, and at last seeing one, set his bag down upon it, and sighed with relief.

“My dear Cox-Raythwaite!” he said, mopping his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief which he drew from the tail of his coat. “I am thankful to have got these things here in—I devoutly trust!—safety. Specimens? Well, not exactly; though, to be sure, they may be specimens of—I don’t quite know what villainy yet. Objects?—certainly! Perhaps, my dear Professor, you will come and look at them.”

The Professor slowly lifted his six feet of muscle and sinew out of his chair, picked up a briar pipe which lay on his desk, puffed a great cloud of smoke out of it, and lounged weightily across the room to his visitor.

“Something alive?” he asked laconically. “Likely to bite?”

“Er—no!” replied Mr. Tertius. “No—they won’t bite. The fact is,” he went on, gingerly opening the bag, “this—er—this, or these are they.”

Professor Cox-Raythwaite bent his massive head and shoulders over the little bag and peered narrowly into its obscurity. Then he started.

“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “A glass tumbler! And—is it a sandwich? Why, what on earth–”

He made as if to pull the glass out of the bag, and Mr. Tertius hastily seized the great hand in an agony of apprehension.

“My dear Cox-Raythwaite!” he said. “Pray don’t! Allow me—presently. When either of these objects is touched it must be in the most, quite the most, delicate fashion. Of course, I know you have a fairy-like gentleness of touch—but don’t touch these things yet. Let me explain. Shall we—suppose we sit down. Give me—yes—give me one of your cigars.”

The Professor, plainly mystified, silently pointed to a cigar box which stood on a corner of his desk, and took another look into the bag.

“A sandwich—and a glass!” he murmured reflectively. “Um! Well?” he continued, going back to his chair and dropping heavily into it. “And what’s it all about, Tertius? Some mystery, eh?”

Mr. Tertius drew a whiff or two of fragrant Havana before he replied. Then he too dropped into a chair and pulled it close to his friend’s desk.

“My dear Professor!” he said, in a low, thrilling voice, suggestive of vast importance, “I don’t know whether the secret of one of the most astounding crimes of our day may not lie in that innocent-looking bag—or, rather, in its present contents. Fact! But I’ll tell you—you must listen with your usual meticulous care for small details. The truth is—Jacob Herapath has, I am sure, been murdered!”

“Murdered!” exclaimed the Professor. “Herapath? Murder—eh? Now then, slow and steady, Tertius—leave out nothing!”

“Nothing!” repeated Mr. Tertius solemnly. “Nothing! You shall hear all. And this it is—point by point, from last night until—until the present moment. That is—so far as I know. There may have been developments—somewhere else. But this is what I know.”

When Mr. Tertius had finished a detailed and thorough-going account of the recent startling discovery and subsequent proceedings, to all of which Professor Cox-Raythwaite listened in profound silence, he rose, and tip-toeing towards the bag, motioned his friend to follow him.

“Now, my dear sir,” he said, whispering in his excitement as if he feared lest the very retorts and crucibles and pneumatic troughs should hear him, “Now, my dear sir, I wish you to see for yourself. First of all, the glass. I will take it out myself—I know exactly how I put it in. I take it out—thus! I place it on this vacant space—thus. Look for yourself, my dear fellow. What do you see?”

The Professor, watching Mr. Tertius’s movements with undisguised interest, took off his spectacles, picked up a reading-glass, bent down and carefully examined the tumbler.

“Yes,” he said, after a while, “yes, Tertius, I certainly see distinct thumb and finger-marks round the upper part of this glass. Oh, yes—no doubt of that!”

“Allow me to take one of your clean specimen slides,” observed Mr. Tertius, picking up a square of highly polished glass. “There! I place this slide here and upon it I deposit this sandwich. Now, my dear Cox-Raythwaite, favour me by examining the sandwich even more closely than you did the glass—if necessary.”

But the Professor shook his head. He clapped Mr. Tertius on the shoulder.

“Excellent!” he exclaimed. “Good! Pooh!—no need for care there. The thing’s as plain as—as I am. Good, Tertius, good!”

“You see it?” said Mr. Tertius, delightedly.

“See it! Good Lord, why, who could help see it?” answered the Professor. “Needs no great amount of care or perception to see that, as I said. Of course, I see it. Glad you did, too!”

“But we must take the greatest care of it,” urged Mr. Tertius. “The most particular care. That’s why I came to you. Now, what can we do? How preserve this sandwich—just as it is?”

“Nothing easier,” replied the Professor. “We’ll soon fix that. We’ll put it in such safety that it will still be a fresh thing if it remains untouched until London Bridge falls down from sheer decay.”

He moved off to another part of the laboratory, and presently returned with two objects, one oblong and shallow, the other deep and square, which on being set down before Mr. Tertius proved to be glass boxes, wonderfully and delicately made, with removable lids that fitted into perfectly adjusted grooves.

“There, my dear fellow,” he said. “Presently I will deposit the glass in that, and the sandwich in this. Then I shall adjust and seal the lids in such a fashion that no air can enter these little chambers. Then through those tiny orifices I shall extract whatever air is in them—to the most infinitesimal remnant of it. Then I shall seal those orifices—and there you are. Whoever wants to see that sandwich or that glass will find both a year hence—ten years hence—a century hence!—in precisely the same condition in which we now see them. And that reminds me,” he continued, as he turned away to his desk and picked up his pipe, “that reminds me, Tertius—what are you going to do about these things being seen? They’ll have to be seen, you know. Have you thought of the police—the detectives?”

“I have certainly thought of both,” replied Mr. Tertius. “But—I think not yet, in either case. I think one had better await the result of the inquest. Something may come out, you know.”

“Coroners and juries,” observed the Professor oracularly, “are good at finding the obvious. Whether they get at the mysteries and the secrets–”

“Just so—just so!” said Mr. Tertius. “I quite apprehend you. All the same, I think we will see what is put before the coroner. Now, what point suggests itself to you, Cox-Raythwaite?”

“One in particular,” answered the Professor. “Whatever medical evidence is called ought to show without reasonable doubt what time Herapath actually met his death.”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Tertius gravely. “If that’s once established–”

“Then, of course, your own investigation, or suggestion, or theory about that sandwich will be vastly simplified,” replied the Professor. “Meanwhile, you will no doubt take some means of observing—eh?”

“I shall use every means to observe,” said Mr. Tertius with a significant smile, which was almost a wink. “Of that you may be—dead certain!”

Then he left Professor Cox-Raythwaite to hermetically seal up the glass and the sandwich, and quitting the house, walked slowly back to Portman Square. As he turned out of Oxford Street into Orchard Street the newsboys suddenly came rushing along with the Argus special.

CHAPTER VI
THE TAXI-CAB DRIVER

Mr. Tertius bought a copy of the newspaper, and standing aside on the pavement, read with much interest and surprise the story which Triffitt’s keen appetite for news and ready craftsmanship in writing had so quickly put together. Happening to glance up from the paper in the course of his reading, he observed that several other people were similarly employed. The truth was that Triffitt had headed his column: “Mysterious Death of Mr. Herapath, M.P. Is It Suicide or Murder?”—and as this also appeared in great staring letters on the contents bills which the newsboys were carrying about with them, and as Herapath had been well known in that district, there was a vast amount of interest aroused thereabouts by the news. Indeed, people were beginning to chatter on the sidewalks, and at the doors of the shops. And as Mr. Tertius turned away in the direction of Portman Square, he heard one excited bystander express a candid opinion.

“Suicide?” exclaimed this man, thrusting his paper into the hands of a companion. “Not much! Catch old Jacob Herapath at that game—he was a deuced deal too fond of life and money! Murder, sir—murder!—that’s the ticket—murder!”

Mr. Tertius went slowly homeward, head bent and eyes moody. He let himself into the house; at the sound of his step in the hall Peggie Wynne looked out of the study. She retreated into it at sight of Mr. Tertius, and he followed her and closed the door. Looking narrowly at her, he saw that the girl had been shedding tears, and he laid his hand shyly yet sympathetically on her arm. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I’ve been feeling like that ever since—since I heard about things. But I don’t know—I suppose we shall feel it more when—when we realize it more, eh? Just now there’s the other thing to think about, isn’t there?”

Peggie mopped her eyes and looked at him. He was such a quiet, unobtrusive, inoffensive old gentleman that she wondered more than ever why Barthorpe had refused to admit him to the informal conference.

“What other thing?” she asked.

Mr. Tertius looked round the room—strangely empty now that Jacob Herapath’s bustling and strenuous presence was no longer in it—and shook his head.

“There’s one thought you mustn’t permit yourself to harbour for a moment, my dear,” he answered. “Don’t even for a fraction of time allow yourself to think that my old friend took his own life! That’s—impossible.”

“I don’t,” said Peggie. “I never did think so. It is, as you say, impossible. I knew him too well to believe that. So, of course, it’s–”

“Murder,” assented Mr. Tertius. “Murder! I heard a man in the street voice the same opinion just now. Of course! It’s the only opinion. Yet in the newspaper they’re asking which it was. But I suppose the newspapers must be—sensational.”

“You don’t mean to say it’s in the newspapers already?” exclaimed Peggie.

Mr. Tertius handed to her the Argus special, which he had carried crumpled up in his hand.

“Everybody’s reading it out there in the streets,” he said. “It’s extraordinary, now, how these affairs seem to fascinate people. Yes—it’s all there. That is, of course, as far as it’s gone.”

“How did the paper people come to know all this?” asked Peggie, glancing rapidly over Triffitt’s leaded lines.

“I suppose they got it from the police,” replied Mr. Tertius. “I don’t know much about such matters, but I believe the police and the Press are in constant touch. Of course, it’s well they should be—it attracts public notice. And in cases like this, public notice is an excellent thing. We shall have to hear—and find out—a good deal before we get at the truth in this case, my dear.”

Peggie suddenly flung down the newspaper and looked inquiringly at the old man.

“Mr. Tertius,” she said abruptly, “why wouldn’t Barthorpe let you come into that room down there at the office this morning?”

Mr. Tertius did not answer this direct question at once. He walked away to the window and stood looking out into the square for a while. When at last he spoke his voice was singularly even and colourless. He might have been discussing a question on which it was impossible to feel any emotion.

“I really cannot positively say, my dear,” he replied. “I have known, of course, for some time that Mr. Barthorpe Herapath is not well disposed towards me. I have observed a certain coldness, a contempt, on his part. I have been aware that he has resented my presence in this house. And I suppose he felt that as I am not a member of the family, I had no right to sit in council with him and with you.”

“Not a member of the family!” exclaimed Peggie. “Why, you came here soon after I came—all those years ago!”

“I have dwelt under Jacob Herapath’s roof, in this house, fifteen years,” said Mr. Tertius, reflectively. “Fifteen years!—yes. Yes—Jacob and I were—good friends.”

As he spoke the last word a tear trickled from beneath Mr. Tertius’s spectacles and ran down into his beard, and Peggie, catching sight of it, impulsively jumped from her seat and kissed him affectionately.

“Never mind, Mr. Tertius!” she said, patting his shoulders. “You and I are friends, too, anyway. I don’t like Barthorpe when he’s like that—I hate that side of him. And anyhow, Barthorpe doesn’t matter—to me. I don’t suppose he matters to anything—except himself.”

Mr. Tertius gravely shook his head.

“Mr. Barthorpe Herapath may matter a great deal, my dear,” he remarked. “He is a very forceful person. I do not know what provision my poor friend may have made, but Barthorpe, you will remember, is his nephew, and, I believe, his only male relative. And in that case–”

Mr. Tertius was just then interrupted by the entrance of a footman who came in and looked inquiringly at Peggie.

“There’s a taxi-cab driver at the door, miss,” he announced. “He says he would like to speak to some one about the news in the paper about—about the master, miss.”

Peggie looked at Mr. Tertius. And Mr. Tertius quickly made a sign to the footman.

“Bring the man in at once,” he commanded. And, as if to lose no time, he followed the footman into the hall, and at once returned, conducting a young man who carried a copy of the Argus in his hand. “Yes?” he said, closing the door behind them and motioning the man to a seat. “You wish to tell us something! This lady is Miss Wynne—Mr. Herapath’s niece. You can tell us anything you think of importance. Do you know anything, then?”

The taxi-cab driver lifted the Argus.

“This here newspaper, sir,” he answered. “I’ve just been reading of it—about Mr. Herapath, sir.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Tertius gently. “Yes?”

“Well, sir—strikes me as how I drove him, sir, this morning,” answered the driver. “Gentleman of his appearance, anyway, sir—that’s a fact!”

Mr. Tertius glanced at Peggie, who was intently watching the caller.

“Ah!” he said, turning again to the driver, “you think you drove either Mr. Herapath or a gentleman of his appearance this morning. You did not know Mr. Herapath by sight, then?”

“No, sir. I’ve only just come into this part—came for the first time yesterday. But I’m as certain–”

“Just tell us all about it,” said Mr. Tertius, interrupting him. “Tell us in your own way. Everything, you know.”

“Ain’t so much to tell, sir,” responded the driver. “All the same, soon’s I’d seen this piece in the paper just now I said to myself, ‘I’d best go round to Portman Square and tell what I do know,’ I says. And it’s like this, sir—I come on this part yesterday—last night it was. My taxi belongs to a man as keeps half a dozen, and he put me on to night work, this end of Oxford Street. Well, it ’ud be just about a quarter to two this morning when a tall, well-built gentleman comes out of Orchard Street and made for my cab. I jumps down and opens the door for him. ‘You know St. Mary Abbot’s Church, Kensington?’ he says as he got in. ‘Drive me down there and pull up at the gate.’ So, of course, I ran him down, and there he got out, give me five bob, and off he went. That’s it, sir.”

“And when he got out, which way did he go?” asked Mr. Tertius.

“West, sir—along the High Street, past the Town Hall,” promptly answered the driver. “And there he crossed the road. I see him cross, because I stopped there a minute or two after he’d got out, tinkering at my engine.”

“Can you tell us what this gentleman was like in appearance?” asked Mr. Tertius.

“Well, sir, not so much as regards his face,” answered the driver. “I didn’t look at him, not particular, in that way—besides, he was wearing one of them overcoats with a big fur collar to it, and he’d the collar turned high up about his neck and cheeks, and his hat—one of them slouched, soft hats, like so many gentlemen wears nowadays sir—was well pulled down. But from what bit I see of him, sir, I should say he was a fresh-coloured gentleman.”

“Tall and well built, you say?” observed Mr. Tertius.

“Yes, sir—fine-made gentleman—pretty near six feet, I should have called him,” replied the driver. “Little bit inclined to stoutness, like.”

Mr. Tertius turned to Peggie.

“I believe you have some recent photographs of Mr. Herapath,” he said. “You might fetch them and let me see if our friend here can recognize them. You didn’t notice anything else about your fare?” he went on, after Peggie had left the room. “Anything that excited your attention, eh?”

The driver, after examining the pattern of the carpet for one minute and studying the ceiling for another, slowly shook his head. But he then suddenly started into something like activity.

“Yes, there was, sir, now I come to think of it!” he exclaimed. “I hadn’t thought of it until now, but now you mention it, there was. I noticed he’d a particularly handsome diamond ring on his left hand—an extra fine one, too, it was.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Tertius. “A very fine diamond ring on his left hand? Now, how did you come to see that?”

“He rested that hand on the side of the door as he was getting in, sir, and I noticed how it flashed,” answered the driver. “There was a lamp right against us, you see, sir.”

“I see,” said Mr. Tertius. “He wasn’t wearing gloves, then?”

“He hadn’t a glove on that hand, sir. He was carrying some papers in it—a sort of little roll of papers.”

“Ah!” murmured Mr. Tertius. “A diamond ring—and a little roll of papers.” He got up from his chair and put a hand in his pocket. “Now, my friend,” he went on, chinking some coins as he withdrew it, “you haven’t told this to any one else, I suppose?”

“No, sir,” answered the driver. “Came straight here, sir.”

“There’s a couple of sovereigns for your trouble,” said Mr. Tertius, “and there’ll be more for you if you do what I tell you to do. At present—that is, until I give you leave—don’t say a word of this to a soul. Not even to the police—yet. In fact, not a word to them until I say you may. Keep your mouth shut until I tell you to open it—I shall know where to find you. If you want me, keep an eye open for me in the square outside, or in the street. When the young lady comes back with the photographs, don’t mention the ring to her. This is a very queer business, and I don’t want too much said just yet. Do as I tell you, and I’ll see you’re all right. Understand?”

The driver pocketed his sovereigns, and touched his forehead with a knowing look.

“All right, sir,” he said. “I understand. Depend on me, sir—I shan’t say a word without your leave.”

Peggie came in just then with a half a dozen cabinet photographs in her hand. One by one she exhibited them to the driver.

“Do you recognize any of these?” she asked.

The driver shook his head doubtingly until Peggie showed him a half-length of her uncle in outdoor costume. Then his eyes lighted up.

“Couldn’t swear as to the features, miss,” he exclaimed. “But I’d take my ’davy about the coat and the hat! That’s what the gentleman was wearing as I drove this morning—take my Gospel oath on it.”

“He recognizes the furred overcoat and the soft hat,” murmured Mr. Tertius. “Very good—very good! All right, my man—we are much obliged to you.”

He went out into the hall with the driver, and had another word in secret with him before the footman opened the door. As the door closed Mr. Tertius turned slowly back to the study. And as he turned he muttered a word or two and smiled cynically.

“A diamond ring!” he said. “Jacob Herapath never wore a diamond ring in his life!”