"Good God! Oh, his poor father! Surely, surely, Cleek, you do not believe – "
"My dear Mr. Narkom, I never suffer myself to 'believe' anything until I have absolute proof of it. What I may think is a different matter."
"And you think of that boy – what?"
"That he is either a hot-headed, quixotic, loyal, lovable young ass, Mr. Narkom, or he's a remarkably dangerous and crafty criminal! I'm put to it for the moment to decide which. One thing is pretty certain, and that is that young Geoffrey Clavering knows more of this crime than he will admit, and that the woman he is shielding is Lady Katharine Fordham, who was not only on the Common but in Gleer Cottage itself with Master Geoffrey."
"Good heavens! Cleek, how do you know that?" cried Mr. Narkom, his voice hoarse and shaken.
"Firstly, because his clothes are all scented with that peculiar scent of violets, and although I know from the dead keeper that another woman, probably Lady Clavering, was on the Common, he is certainly not shielding her; otherwise he would not have admitted that she had absented herself from her guests. No, I think you will find that both the young people were out here to-night. Let's hear now what Dollops has to say."
A minute later there sounded the familiar cry of a night owl, which brought the boy himself running up at full speed.
"Lor' lumme, sir!" he cried disgustedly, as a quick glance revealed the absence of his former prisoner. "You never went and let 'im go after me a-showin' of you the footprint wot he'd left on my drorin' paper! It's just the same as one of 'em in the lane wot you told me to measure, sir; measure 'em off yourself and see. And him a-playin' off innercent and actin' like he was a respectable gent as was comin' here unsuspectin' and got copped by mistake! He wasn't, the bounder! He was tryin' to sneak away, that's wot he was a-doin' of – trying to do a bunk before anybody dropped to where he was a-hidin'."
"What's that? Hiding? Did you say hiding?"
"Yes, I did, Mr. Narkom, and I'd a-told you of it at the time, only you wouldn't let me open me blessed mouth, but jist shuts me up and orders me off prompt. Hidin' in that blessed 'oller tree there – look!" He flashed the light of his torch upon a tree which stood about three or four yards distant. "In that he was," he went on, "and jist as soon as the motor had went and the way was clear, I sees him sneak out and make toward the Common; so I ups and does a tiptoe run along this strip o' grass, sir, so's me feet wouldn't make no noise, and jist as he starts to do a bunk I does a spring, and comes down on his blessed back like a 'awk on a guinea 'en."
Narkom twitched up his chin and looked at Cleek; and for a moment there was silence, a deep significant silence, then Cleek spoke.
"How shall we sum him up by the measure of these things, Mr. Narkom, as a hero or as a scoundrel?" he said. "If he is innocent, why was he hiding? And if not for a criminal purpose, why did he come to this place at all?"
"Heavens above, man, don't ask me!" returned Narkom irritably. "It's the most infernal riddle I ever encountered. My head's in a positive whirl. But look here, old chap. Supposing he did have a hand in the murder, how on earth could he have coaxed De Louvisan to this house – a man who had cause to dread him, a man whose life he had threatened?"
"Perhaps he didn't, Mr. Narkom; perhaps somebody did the coaxing for him. A woman is a clever lure, my friend, and we know that one or two, perhaps three – Oh, well, let it go at that."
A faint sound of an automobile horn sounded its blare through the distance and darkness.
"Lennard is coming back with the local authorities. I'd know the hooting of that horn among a thousand, Mr. Narkom. And with their coming, 'Monsieur de Lesparre' returns to his native kit bag. This way, Dollops – look sharp! Pick us up at the old railway arch as soon as you can, Mr. Narkom. We'll be on the lookout for you. Now then, Dollops, my lad, step lively!"
"Right you are, gov'ner. So long, Mr. Narkom. We're off – as the eggs said to the cook when she got a whiff of 'em."
"Good-bye for a little time," said Cleek, reaching out and gripping the superintendent's hand. "At the arch, remember. It has been child's play up to this, Mr. Narkom. Now the real work begins. And unless all signs fail, it promises to be the case of my career."
And so, like this, he stepped off into the mist and darkness, and went his way – to the beginning of the chase; to the reading of the riddle; to those things of Love and Mystery, of Faith and Unfaith, of Sorrow and of Joy, whose trail lay under the roof of Wuthering Grange and which walked as shadows with Lady Katharine Fordham and Ailsa Lorne.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE"
Once the affair had been reported to the local police, news of the tragedy spread over the neighbourhood with amazing velocity, and by nine o'clock next morning there wasn't a soul within a radius of five miles who had not heard of it; by ten the Common and the immediate vicinity of Gleer Cottage were literally black with morbid-minded sightseers and reporters.
As yet, however, none but the police and the representatives of the press had been permitted to cross the threshold of the house or to obtain even the merest glimpse of the murdered man. For all that, certain facts relative to the position in which the body had been found, together with the mysterious marks upon his shirt bosom, had leaked out, and as Scotland Yard, as represented by Cleek and Superintendent Narkom, had chosen to remain silent for the present relative to such clues as had been discovered, this gave room for some fine flights of fancy on the part of the representatives of the press.
The special correspondent of the Evening Planet "discovered" that the Count was "a well-known Austrian nobleman" who had offended the famous Ravaschol group, and was the author of the equally famous "Ninth Clause" which had acted so disastrously against it – a circumstance which, the Planet claimed, left no shadow of a doubt regarding "the true meaning of the mysterious markings upon the shirt bosom of the unfortunate gentleman." Whereupon the representative of its bitterest rival, the Morning Star, as promptly discovered that he was nothing of the sort; that he had been "positively identified" as the former keeper of a sort of club in Soho much frequented by Russian, German, French, and Italian anarchists; and that, on its being discovered by those gentry that he had sold to the police of their several countries secrets thus learned, he had been obliged to disappear from his regular haunts in order to save his skin. And, furthermore, as the address of the house in which that club had been maintained, and from which he had carried on his system of betrayal, was 63 Essex Row, the explanation of the markings was quite clear – to wit: "Four and two make six; one and two make three; furthermore, the peculiar formation of the repeated figure 2 is, of course, a rude attempt to make it serve for the letter S. as well; which, taken in conjunction with the three X's, leaves no room for doubt that these markings stand for Number Sixty-three Essex Row and for nothing else."
Now as it happened that 63 Essex Row had, at one time in its career, been the seat of just such a club and just such a proceeding as the Morning Star stated, nothing was left the Evening Planet but sneeringly to point out that "the imaginative genius of our esteemed contemporary should not let it fail to remember that the man Lovetski – to whom it doubtless refers, and whose mysterious vanishment some years ago has never been cleared up – had his supporters as well as his accusers. It was clearly shown at the time that although he dwelt in the house where the 'club' in question held forth, there never was any absolute proof that he was himself in any way actually connected with it, his vocation being that of a maker of dressing for boots, shoes, ladies' bags, and leather goods generally, which dressing he manufactured upon the premises."
This statement, being correct, gave the Morning Star a chance to clinch its argument yet more forcibly and to prove itself better informed than its rival by coming out in its next issue with the declaration that "there can no longer be any question relative to the identity of the murdered man. That he is, or rather was, the long-vanished Ferdinand Lovetski who was formerly identified with the club and the boot-dressing industry carried on at 63 Essex Row, is established beyond all cavil, since the marks smeared upon his shirt bosom are now known to have been made with shoe-blacking of that variety which is applied and polished with a cloth, and which has of recent years almost entirely superseded the brush-applied variety of our fathers' and grandfathers' days!"
Narkom, much impressed thereby, showed these two articles from the Morning Star to Cleek.
"An ingenious young man that reporter, Mr. Narkom, and his deductions regarding those marks reflect great credit upon him," said the latter. "For it is positively certain that whoever he may or may not have been, the man certainly was not the Count de Louvisan, for the simple reason that there is no 'Count de Louvisan' in the Austrian nobility, the title having lapsed some years ago. The theory that the dead man is that Ferdinand Lovetski who formerly lived at 63 Essex Row, however, will bear looking into. It is well thought out. I should, perhaps, be more impressed with the genius of the chap who worked out so likely a solution to those mysterious figures if he hadn't made me lose faith in his powers of observation by the 'shoe blacking' statement. It is not a bad guess, in the circumstances – for each would leave marks very similar, if one trusted to the eye alone – but I happen to know that the figures were not smeared on with shoe-blacking, but with a stick of that greasy, highly scented black cosmetic which some actresses use for their eyelashes and some men employ to disguise the gray hairs in the moustache. You know the kind of stuff I mean. It is always wrapped in a brilliant, ruby-coloured tin foil; is to be found in most barbers' and hairdressers' establishments, and is very heavily and peculiarly perfumed. You will remember that, when I wanted to ascertain if the odour of the Huile Violette emanated from the body of the dead man or not, I told you he was scented, but not with violets? Very well, the scent which was upon him was the peculiar spicy fragrance of that particular kind of cosmetic; and I had only to get one whiff of his shirt bosom to understand what had been used to make those marks upon it."
"My dear Cleek, could you be sure of that?" ventured Narkom. "I know the kind of stuff you mean. But few Englishmen use it these days, though I remember it was once very popular. It comes in light brown shades for fair people, as well as in black for dark ones; and the Count was extremely fair, almost flaxen. Could you be positive then that what you smelt was not on his hair or moustache? If he had used the light sort it would not show, remember."
"My dear Mr. Narkom, have you so poor an opinion of my methods that you fancy I would be likely to be slipshod in my examination, and to pass over so important a possibility as that? The man had brilliantine on his hair and moustache, and the latter had been dressed with curling irons! Believe me, when we find who put those marks upon him, we shall find some one who is addicted to the use of black cosmetic of the kind which I have mentioned."
And afterward, when the rush of events had crowded yet more important ones from his mind, Mr. Maverick Narkom remembered those words and set that statement down in his diary as another proof of the amazing thoroughness and the shrewd far-sightedness of this remarkable man.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AILSA LORNE
Mrs. Raynor positively jumped as the premonitory knock trembled on the door before Johnston the butler opened it and entered. Ordinarily she was but little given to "nerves" and was by no means easily startled, but this morning was a decided exception to the rule. And why not? You don't get called up out of your bed every morning to learn that a gentleman who had been walking about your tulip beds yesterday afternoon had been barbarously murdered during the night in a house but a few yards away. Nor is it pleasant to face the likelihood of getting your name and your residence mentioned in the daily papers in connection with a police affair, and to know that before nightfall every groom, washerwoman, and chambermaid within a fifty-mile radius will have read exactly what the interior of your home is like, exactly what you wore when "our representative" called, and will know a good deal more about you than you ever knew about yourself.
"Begging pardon, madam, but a gentleman – " began Johnston, but was suffered to get no further.
"If it is a reporter I will not see him," interrupted his mistress with a decisive wave of the hand. "You know very well that your master and Mr. Harry have gone over to the scene of the abominable affair to ascertain if there is or is not any likelihood of its being a case of mistaken identity; and you ought to know better, Johnston, than to admit strangers of any sort during their absence."
"Your pardon, madam, but nobody has called – at least at the door," replied Johnston with grave politeness. "The gentleman in question is asking over the telephone to speak with Miss Lorne."
"With me?" exclaimed Ailsa, turning around in the recess of the big bay window of the morning room where she had been standing with her arm about Lady Katharine Fordham and looking anxiously down the drive which led to the Grange gates. "Did you say that somebody was asking over the telephone for me, Johnston? Thank you! I will answer the call directly."
"My dear, do you think that wise? Do you think it discreet?" said Mrs. Raynor rather anxiously. "Consider what risks you run. It may be a reporter – I am told that they are up to all sorts of tricks – and to be trapped into giving an interview in spite of one's self – Dearest, you must not let yourself be dragged into this abominable affair."
"I think it will be a clever man who can do that against my will – and over the telephone," replied Ailsa gayly. "I shan't be gone more than a minute or two, Kathie dear; and while I'm away, you might get your hat and be ready for a stroll in the grounds when I come back. And you, too, Mrs. Raynor, if you will. The weather is glorious, and one might as well spend the time waiting for the General's and Mr. Harry's return in the open air as cooped up here at half-past nine o'clock on a brilliant April morning."
"My dear, you are wonderful, positively wonderful," said Mrs. Raynor admiringly. "How do you maintain your composure under such trying circumstances? Look at Katharine and me – both of us shaking like the proverbial aspen leaf and looking as washed out as though neither of us had slept a wink all night; and you as fresh and serene as the morning itself. No, I don't think I will go out, thank you. There may be people with cameras you know; and to be snapshotted for the edification of the readers of some abominable halfpenny paper – "
Ailsa did not wait to hear the conclusion of the remark, but slipped out, went hastily to the library and the telephone, and lost not a moment in making her presence known to the caller at the other end of the line. She had barely spoken three words into the receiver, however, when she gave a little start, eyes and lips were involved in a radiant smile, and her face became all red and warm with sudden blushes.
"Yes, yes, of course I recognize your voice!" she said in answer to a query unheard by any ears but hers. "How wonderful you are! You find out everything. I had meant to write and tell you, but we came up so unexpectedly and – What! Yes, I can hear you very distinctly. Pardon? Yes. I am listening." Then letting her voice drop off into silence she stood very, very still, with ever-widening eyes, lips parted, and a look of great seriousness steadily settling down over her paling countenance.
She had said that she would be absent for but a minute or two; it was five or six, however, before she came back, to find Lady Katharine and Mrs. Raynor just as she had left them.
"No, it wasn't a reporter," she said gayly in response to Mrs. Raynor's inquiring look. "It was a dear old friend" – blushing rosily – "a Mr. Philip Barch, whom I first met through my uncle, Sir Horace Wyvern, in the days before his second marriage. Mr. Barch has asked if he may be permitted to call this morning, and I have taken the liberty of saying that he may."
"Take a further one, dear, and ask him to stop to luncheon when he comes," said Mrs. Raynor. "When a girl blushes like that over the mere mentioning of a man's name – Oh, well, I wasn't always fifty-two, my dear, and I flatter myself that I know the duties of a hostess."
Miss Lorne's only response was another and a yet more radiant blush and an immediate return to the side of the slim, dark girl standing in the recess of the window.
"Kathie, you are positively lazy," she said. "You haven't budged an inch since I left, and I distinctly asked you to get your hat."
"I know it," admitted Lady Katharine. "But, Ailsa, dear, I simply couldn't. I am afraid Uncle John and Harry may return, and you know how anxious I am."
"Still, Kathie, staying in will make no difference," said Ailsa gently, "and you will soon know when they arrive."
Reluctantly Lady Katharine let herself be piloted through the open French windows and out into the grounds, ablaze with flowers.
"I should think Geoffrey would be here, too," said Ailsa, with a swift glance at her companion's pale face. "He must have heard the news by this time, but something has evidently delayed him."
A wave of scarlet surged into Lady Katharine's face.
"Oh, if only he would!" she muttered. "I am so tired – "
"I daresay, dear," said Ailsa sympathetically. "You did not sleep well, darling, did you?"
"Yes, but I did – that's just the strange thing," said Lady Katharine quickly. "What made you think not, Ailsa?"
"Well, for one thing, I thought I heard your door open and shut in the night. I came within an ace of getting up to see whether you were ill, but fell asleep again myself."
Her companion looked puzzled. "It must have been a mistake on your part, Ailsa. I fell asleep almost directly my head touched the pillow, and slept like a log until morning. But don't let's talk about last night." She turned impulsively to Ailsa, her voice thrilling with emotion. "It's no use," she said. "I simply can't feel sorry over it. I know I ought. Death is always horrible, and such a death!" She shuddered involuntarily. "But you don't know what a release it is to me. If this had not happened, I think I should have died – "
Ailsa pressed her arm in silent sympathy, but before she could speak Mrs. Raynor appeared on the scene. She had guarded herself against attacks of possible snapshotters by carrying an open parasol, and Ailsa was glad to change the topic of conversation.
It was some twenty minutes later, when they were still strolling in the gardens, that a taxicab halted at the lodge gates, and they saw a tall, slim figure arrayed in an exceedingly well-cut morning suit, with a rose in his buttonhole and shiny top hat on his closely cropped fair head, advancing up the drive toward them with that easy grace and perfect poise which mutely stands sponsor for the thing called breeding.
"My dears!" began Mrs. Raynor admiringly, "what a distinguished looking man!" She had time to say no more, for Ailsa, with a face like a rose, had gone to meet the newcomer – who quickened his steps at sight of her and was now well within earshot – and was greeting him as a woman greets but one man ever.
"My dear," said Mrs. Raynor to Lady Katharine, in a carefully lowered tone, "if I know anything, you will be parting with that dear girl's companionship for good and all before the summer is over. Look at the man's eyes: they are positively devouring her. Of course we shall have to remain to welcome him, but I think we shall earn their gratitude if we leave them to themselves as soon as we decently can."
A few minutes later the opportunity to do this was offered her; and having lingered just long enough to be introduced to "Mr. Philip Barch" and to become even more impressed with him at close quarters as not only a man good to look at, but as an apt and easy conversationalist, she suddenly remembered that she and Lady Katharine had promised to gather some hyacinths for the lunch table, and forthwith spirited her away.
Cleek followed her with his eyes as long as she remained in sight, then he turned to Ailsa. "A very tender and sensitive girl I should say, Miss Lorne, although she bears herself so well under the cross of last night's tragedy. I see by your manner of looking at her that you are attached to her in many ways."
"Not in many, but in all, Mr. Cleek. She is the dearest girl in the world."
"We won't go into that, otherwise we should disagree for the first time in the whole course of our acquaintance. Let me thank you for adhering so closely to all that I asked over the telephone. I didn't mean to, at first. My original idea was to come here unknown to all, even to you; but when I came to think over it, it seemed so disloyal, so underhanded, as if I didn't trust you in all things, always– that I simply couldn't bring myself to do it."
She looked up at him with grave sweet eyes – the eyes that had lit him back from the path to destruction, that would light him up to the gates of heaven evermore – and smiled on him, bewildered.
"I am afraid I do not follow you," she said. "I don't quite grasp what you mean. Oh!" with sudden fear, "if you thought from my cry of surprise when I recognized your voice over the telephone, that I was not glad – Why, I was going to write to you this morning. But I expected it to be Geoffrey Clavering asking for Kathie, you know – "
The name brought a ridge between Cleek's brows as of a sudden disconcerting thought.
"Geoffrey Clavering? But he has been over here, this morning, has he not?" he asked anxiously.
"No, he has not, and that is what seems so strange," said Ailsa.
"Did he write no note to Lady Katharine then – send her no message, Miss Lorne?"
"No. I see that surprises you, Mr. Cleek, as, to be perfectly frank with you, it surprises me. I can't make it out. I know that his whole life is bound up in Kathie, as hers is bound up in him. I know that it nearly drove him frantic when he was told their engagement would have to come to an end; so one would naturally think that when there is a rumour that the man who came between them is dead – And he must have heard by this time."
"Miss Lorne, let me tell you something," said Cleek gravely. "Geoffrey Clavering does know of the murder. He has known of it since twelve o'clock last night, to my certain knowledge."
"Mr. Cleek! And yet he has made no move to communicate with Lady Katharine! But" – with sudden hopefulness – "perhaps he wishes to make absolutely sure; perhaps the identity of the murdered man is not yet wholly established! Perhaps it is not really the Count de Louvisan after all."
"It is the Count de Louvisan, Miss Lorne! That was settled beyond all question last night."
"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then?"
"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then – yes! The man slain is, or rather was, the one known as the Count de Louvisan; on his dead body numbers whose total make up the sum of nine were marked; and – I fancy you remember what Geoffrey Clavering threatened when the fellow went to Clavering Close last night."
Ailsa looked at him, her eyes dilating, the colour draining slowly out of her cheeks and lips. It was impossible not to grasp the significance of these two circumstances, one of which – the mysterious markings on the dead man's body – she now heard of for the first time.
"Oh, Mr. Cleek, oh!" she said faintly. "You surely can't think – A dear lovable boy like that! You can't believe that Geoffrey Clavering had anything to do with it?"
"I hope not, for, frankly, I like the boy. But one thing is certain: if he didn't kill the man, he knows who did; knows, too, that there is a woman implicated in the crime."
"A woman! Oh, Mr. Cleek, a – a woman?"
"Yes – perhaps two women!"
"Women and – and a deed of violence, a deed of horror, like that? No! Women couldn't. They would be fiends, not women. I hold too high an estimate of my sex to let you call them that! And for him, for Geoffrey Clavering, there is but one woman in all the world! Even you shan't hint it of her! No, not even you."
"Hush! I am hinting nothing. Now that I have seen Lady Katharine I would almost as soon think evil of you as of her."
There was a little summerhouse close at hand. He saw that she was faint, shocked, overcome, and gently led her to it, loathing himself that even for one moment he had brought pain within touch of her.
"Who knows better than I how false appearances may be?" he said. "Who should be less likely to take suspicious circumstances for proof?"
"Oh, but to suspect, even to suspect, Kathie – the dearest and the sweetest girl on earth."
"Again I dispute that!" he threw back with repressed vehemence. "And again I declare that I am not swayed by facts, black as they may be, black as they undoubtedly are. If I believed, should I come here and openly tell you of these things? My duty is to the law. Should I not carry proofs there if I believed that they were proofs? But my faith is as a rock. Shall I prove it to you? Then look! I know that you will tell me the truth; and it is because of that, because in my heart I know it is a truth which you can and will face openly and with no cause for fear, that I have declined to hold this thing of sufficient importance to be called a clue, and as such to be handed over to the police. Miss Lorne – Ailsa – tell me, will you – have you ever seen this thing before?"
While he was speaking his hand had gone to his pocket and come forth tightly shut. Now he opened his closed fingers and let her see that there was a scrap of pink chiffon edged with rose coloured stitchery lying on his open palm. Her eyes, fixed earnestly upon his face heretofore, dropped to the gauzy fragment held out to her, and a ridge dug itself between her level brows.