“Excuse me,” he exclaimed, suddenly twisting his ring again round his finger. “I’ve just thought of something else. I won’t be a moment,” and he rushed from the library and ran upstairs to the floor above.
His absence gave me an opportunity to re-examine the little object which I had picked up from the floor at the earlier stages of the inquiry; and advancing to the window I took it from my pocket and looked again at it, utterly confounded.
Its appearance presented nothing extraordinary, for it was merely a soft piece of hard-knotted cream-coloured chenille about half-an-inch long. But sight of it lying in the palm of my hand held me spellbound in horror.
It told me the awful truth. It was nothing less than a portion of the fringe of the cream shawl which my love had been wearing, and just as chenille fringes will come to pieces, it had become detached and fallen where she had stood at that spot beside the victim’s bed.
There was a smear of blood upon it.
I recollected her strangely nervous manner, her anxiety to ascertain what clue we had discovered and to know the opinion of the police. Yes, if guilt were ever written upon a woman’s face, it was upon hers.
Should I show the tiny fragment to my friend? Should I put it into his hands and tell him the bitter truth – the truth that I believed my love to be a murderess?
CHAPTER IX.
SHADOWS
The revelation held me utterly dumfounded.
Already I had, by placing my hand in contact with the shawl, ascertained its exact texture, and saw that both its tint and its fabric were unquestionably the same as the knotted fragment I held in my hand. Chenille shawls, as every woman knows, must be handled carefully or the lightly-made fringe will come asunder; for the kind of cord of floss silk is generally made upon a single thread, which will break with the slightest strain.
By some means the shawl in question had accidentally become entangled – or perhaps been strained by the sudden uplifting of the arm of the wearer. In any case the little innocent-looking fragment had snapped, and dropped at the bedside of the murdered man.
The grave suspicions of Ethelwynn which I had held on the previous night when she endeavoured to justify her sister’s neglect again crowded upon me, and Sir Bernard’s hint at the secret of her past thrust the iron deeply into my heart.
My eyes were fixed upon the little object in my palm – the silent but damning evidence – and my mind became filled by bitterest regrets. I saw how cleverly I had been duped – I recognised that this woman, whom I thought an angel, was only a cunning assassin.
No, believe me: I was not prejudging her! The thought had already occurred to me that she might have entered the room wearing that shawl perhaps to wish the invalid good-night. She had, however, in answer to my question, declared that she had retired to bed without seeing him – for Nurse Kate had told her that he was sleeping. She had therefore not disturbed him.
Then, yet another thought had occurred to me. She might have worn the shawl when she entered after the raising of the alarm. In order to clear up that point I had questioned the servants, one by one, and all had told me the same story, namely, that Miss Ethelwynn had not entered the room at all. She had only come to the door and glanced in, then turned away in horror and shut herself in her own room. As far as anyone knew, she had not summoned sufficient courage to go in and look upon the dead man’s face. She declared herself horrified, and dared not to enter the death chamber.
In the light of my discovery all these facts as related to me made the truth only too apparent. She had entered there unknown to anyone, and that her presence had been with a fell purpose I could no longer doubt.
If I gave the clue into Ambler Jevons’ hands he would, I knew, quickly follow it, gathering up the threads of the tangled skein one by one, until he could openly charge her with the crime. I stood undecided how to act. Should I leave my friend to make his own investigations independently and unbiassed, or should I frankly tell him of my own startling discovery?
I carefully went through the whole of the circumstances, weighing point after point, and decided at last to still retain the knowledge I had gained. The point which outbalanced my intention was that curious admission of Short regarding the possession of the knife. So I resolved to say nothing to my friend until after the inquest.
As may be imagined, the London papers that afternoon were full of the mystery. Nothing like a first-class “sensation,” sub-editors will tell you. There is art in alliterative headlines and startling “cross-heads.” The inevitable interview with “a member of the family” – who is generally anonymous, be it said – is sure to be eagerly devoured by the public. The world may sneer at sensational journalism, but after all it loves to have its curiosity excited over the tragic dénouement of some domestic secret. As soon as the first information reached the Central News and Press Association, therefore, reporters crowded upon us. Representatives, not only of the metropolitan press, but those of the local newspapers, the “Richmond and Twickenham Times,” the “Independent,” over at Brentford, the “Middlesex Chronicle” at Hounslow, and the “Middlesex Mercury,” of Isleworth, all vied with each other in obtaining the most accurate information.
“Say nothing,” Jevons urged. “Be civil, but keep your mouth closed tight. There are one or two friends of mine among the crowd. I’ll see them and give them something that will carry the story further. Remember, you mustn’t make any statement whatsoever.”
I obeyed him, and although the reporters followed me about all the morning, and outside the house the police had difficulty in preventing a crowd assembling, I refused to express any opinion or describe anything I had witnessed.
At eleven o’clock I received a wire from Sir Bernard at Hove as follows: —
“Much shocked at news. Unfortunately very unwell, but shall endeavour to be with you later in the day.”
At mid-day I called at the neighbour’s house close to Kew Gardens Station, where the widow and her sister had taken refuge. Mrs. Courtenay was utterly broken down, for Ethelwynn had told her the terrible truth that her husband had been murdered, and both women pounced upon me eagerly to ascertain what theory the police now held.
I looked at the woman who had held me so long beneath her spell. Was it possible that one so open-faced and pure could be the author of so dastardly and cowardly a crime? Her face was white and anxious, but the countenance had now reassumed its normal innocence of expression, and in her eyes I saw the genuine love-look of old. She had arranged her hair and dress, and no longer wore the shawl.
“It’s terrible – terrible, Ralph,” she cried. “Poor Mary! The blow has utterly crushed her.”
“I am to blame – it is my own fault!” exclaimed the young widow, hoarsely. “But I had no idea that his end was so near. I tried to be a dutiful wife, but oh – only Ethelwynn knows how hard it was, and how I suffered. His malady made him unbearable, and instead of quarrelling I thought the better plan was to go out and leave him with the nurse. What people have always said, was, alas! too true. Owing to the difference of our ages our marriage was a ghastly failure. And now it has ended in a tragedy.”
I responded in words as sympathetic as I could find tongue to utter. Her eyes were red with crying, and her pretty face was swollen and ugly. I knew that she now felt a genuine regret at the loss of her husband, even though her life had been so dull and unhappy.
While she sat in a big armchair bowed in silence, I turned to Ethelwynn and discussed the situation with her. Their friends were most kind, she said. The husband was churchwarden at Kew Church, and his wife was an ardent church worker, hence they had long ago become excellent friends.
“You have your friend, Mr. Jevons, with you, I hear. Nurse has just returned and told me so.”
“Yes,” I responded. “He is making an independent inquiry.”
“And what has he found?” she inquired breathlessly.
“Nothing.”
Then, as I watched her closely, I saw that she breathed again more freely. By the manner in which she uttered Ambler’s name I detected that she was not at all well-disposed towards him. Indeed, she spoke as though she feared that he might discover the truth.
After half-an-hour I left, and more puzzled than ever, returned to the house in Richmond Road. Sometimes I felt entirely convinced that my love was authoress of the foul deed; yet at others there seemed something wanting in the confirmation of my suspicions. Regarding the latter I could not overlook the fact that Short had told a story which was false on the face of it, while the utter absence of any motive on my love’s part in murdering the old gentleman seemed to point in an entirely opposite direction.
Dr. Diplock, the coroner, had fixed the inquest for eleven o’clock on the morrow; therefore I assisted Dr. Farmer, of Kew, the police surgeon, to make the post-mortem.
We made the examination in the afternoon, before the light faded, and if the circumstances of the crime were mysterious, the means by which the unfortunate man was murdered were, we found, doubly so.
Outwardly, the wound was an ordinary one, one inch in breadth, inflicted by a blow delivered from left to right. The weapon had entered between the fourth and fifth ribs, and the heart had been completely transfixed by some sharp cutting instrument. The injuries we discovered within, however, increased the mystery ten-fold, for we found two extraordinary lateral incisions, which almost completely divided the heart from side to side, the only remaining attachment of the upper portion to the lower being a small portion of the anterior wall of the heart behind the sternum.
Such a wound was absolutely beyond explanation.
The instrument with which the crime had been committed by striking between the ribs had penetrated to the heart with an unerring precision, making a terrible wound eight times the size within, as compared with the exterior puncture. And yet the weapon had been withdrawn, and was missing!
For fully an hour we measured and discussed the strange discovery, hoping all the time that Sir Bernard would arrive. The knife which the man Short confessed he had taken down in self-defence we compared with the exterior wound and found, as we anticipated, that just such a wound could be caused by it. But the fact that the exterior cut was cleanly done, while the internal injuries were jagged and the tissues torn in a most terrible manner, caused a doubt to arise whether the Indian knife, which was double-edged, had actually been used. To be absolutely clear upon this point it would be necessary to examine it microscopically, for the corpuscles of human blood are easily distinguished beneath the lens.
We were about to conclude our examination in despair, utterly unable to account for the extraordinary wound, when the door opened and Sir Bernard entered.
He looked upon the body of his old friend, not a pleasing spectacle indeed, and then grasped my hand without a word.
“I read the evening paper on my way up,” he said at last in a voice trembling with emotion. “The affair seems very mysterious. Poor Courtenay! Poor fellow!”
“It is sad – very sad,” I remarked. “We have just concluded the post-mortem;” and then I introduced the police surgeon to the man whose name was a household word throughout the medical profession.
I showed my chief the wound, explained its extraordinary features, and asked his opinion. He removed his coat, turned up his shirt-cuffs, adjusted his big spectacles, and, bending beside the board upon which the body lay, made a long and careful inspection of the injury.
“Extraordinary!” he ejaculated. “I’ve never known of such a wound before. One would almost suspect an explosive bullet, if it were not for the clean incised wound on the exterior. The ribs seem grazed, yet the manner in which such a hurt has been inflicted is utterly unaccountable.”
“We have been unable to solve the enigma,” Dr. Farmer observed. “I was an army surgeon before I entered private practice, but I have never seen a similar case.”
“Nor have I,” responded Sir Bernard. “It is most puzzling.”
“Do you think that this knife could have been used?” I asked, handing my chief the weapon.
He looked at it, raised it in his hand as though to strike, felt its edge, and then shook his head, saying: “No, I think not. The instrument used was only sharp on one edge. This has both edges sharpened.”
It was a point we had overlooked, but at once we agreed with him, and abandoned our half-formed theory that the Indian dagger had caused the wound.
With Sir Bernard we made an examination of the tongue and other organs, in order to ascertain the progress of the disease from which the deceased had been suffering, but a detailed account of our discoveries can have no interest for the lay reader.
In a word, our conclusions were that the murdered man could easily have lived another year or more. The disease was not so advanced as we had believed. Sir Bernard had a patient to see in Grosvenor Square; therefore he left at about four o’clock, regretting that he had not time to call round at the neighbour’s and express his sympathy with the widow.
“Give her all my sympathies, poor young lady,” he said to me. “And tell her that I will call upon her to-morrow.” Then, after promising to attend the inquest and give evidence regarding the post-mortem, he shook hands with us both and left.
At eight o’clock that evening I was back in my own rooms in Harley Place, eating my dinner alone, when Ambler Jevons entered.
He was not as cheery as usual. He did not exclaim, as was his habit, “Well, my boy, how goes it? Whom have you killed to-day?” or some such grim pleasantry.
On the contrary, he came in with scarcely a word, threw his hat upon a side table, and sank into his usual arm chair with scarcely a word, save the question uttered in almost a growl:
“May I smoke?”
“Of course,” I said, continuing my meal. “Where have you been?”
“I left while you were cutting up the body,” he said. “I’ve been about a lot since then, and I’m a bit tired.”
“You look it. Have a drink?”
“No,” he responded, shaking his head. “I don’t drink when I’m bothered. This case is an absolute mystery.” And striking a match he lit his foul pipe and puffed away vigorously, staring straight into the fire the while.
“Well,” I asked, after a long silence. “What’s your opinion now?”
“I’ve none,” he answered, gloomily. “What’s yours?”
“Mine is that the mystery increases hourly.”
“What did you find at the cutting-up?”
In a few words I explained the unaccountable nature of the wound, drawing for him a rough diagram on the back of an old envelope, which I tossed over to where he sat.
He looked at it for a long time without speaking, then observed:
“H’m! Just as I thought. The police theory regarding that fellow Short and the knife is all a confounded myth. Depend upon it, Boyd, old chap, that gentleman is no fool. He’s tricked Thorpe finely – and with a motive, too.”
“What motive do you suspect?” I inquired, eagerly, for this was an entirely fresh theory.
“One that you’d call absurd if I were to tell it to you now. I’ll explain later on, when my suspicions are confirmed – as I feel sure they will be before long.”
“You’re mysterious, Ambler,” I said, surprised. “Why?”
“I have a reason, my dear chap,” was all the reply he vouchsafed. Then he puffed again vigorously at his pipe, and filled the room with clouds of choking smoke of a not particularly good brand of tobacco.
CHAPTER X.
WHICH PUZZLES THE DOCTORS
At the inquest held in the big upstair room of the Star and Garter Hotel at Kew Bridge there was a crowded attendance. By this time the public excitement had risen to fever-heat. It had by some unaccountable means leaked out that at the post-mortem we had been puzzled; therefore the mystery was much increased, and the papers that morning without exception gave prominence to the startling affair.
The coroner, seated at the table at the head of the room, took the usual formal evidence of identification, writing down the depositions upon separate sheets of blue foolscap.
Samuel Short was the first witness of importance, and those in the room listened breathlessly to the story of how his alarum clock had awakened him at two o’clock; how he had risen as usual and gone to his master’s room, only to discover him dead.
“You noticed no sign of a struggle?” inquired the coroner, looking sharply up at the witness.
“None, sir. My master was lying on his side, and except for the stain of blood which attracted my attention it looked as though he had died in his sleep.”
“And what did you do?”
“I raised the alarm,” answered Short; and then he went on to describe how he switched on the electric light, rushed downstairs, seized the knife hanging in the hall, opened one of the back doors and rushed outside.
“And why did you do that, pray?” asked the coroner, looking at him fixedly.
“I thought that someone might be lurking in the garden,” the man responded, a trifle lamely.
The solicitor of Mrs. Courtenay’s family, to whom she had sent asking him to be present on her behalf, rose at this juncture and addressing the coroner, said:
“I should like to put a question to the witness, sir. I represent the deceased’s family.”
“As you wish,” replied the coroner. “But do you consider such a course wise at this stage of the inquiry? There must be an adjournment.”
He understood the coroner’s objection and, acquiescing, sat down.
Nurse Kate and the cook were called, and afterwards Ethelwynn, who, dressed in black and wearing a veil, looked pale and fragile as she drew off her glove in order to take the oath.
As she stood there our eyes met for an instant; then she turned towards her questioner, bracing herself for the ordeal.
“When did you last see the deceased alive?” asked the coroner, after the usual formal inquiry as to her name and connection with the family.
“At ten o’clock in the evening. Dr. Boyd visited him, and found him much better. After the doctor had gone I went upstairs and found the nurse with him, giving him his medicine. He was still sitting before the fire.”
“Was he in his usual spirits?”
“Quite.”
“What was the character of your conversation with him? I understand that Mrs. Courtenay, your sister, was out at the time. Did he remark upon her absence?”
“Yes. He said it was a wet night, and he hoped she would not take cold, for she was so careless of herself.”
The coroner bent to his paper and wrote down her reply.
“And you did not see him alive again.”
“No.”
“You entered the room after he was dead, I presume?”
“No. I – I hadn’t the courage,” she faltered. “They told me that he was dead – that he had been stabbed to the heart.”
Again the coroner bent to his writing. What, I wondered, would those present think if I produced the little piece of stained chenille which I kept wrapped in tissue paper and hidden in my fusee-box?
To them it, of course, seemed quite natural that a delicate woman should hesitate to view a murdered man. But if they knew of my discovery they would detect that she was an admirable actress – that her horror of the dead was feigned, and that she was not telling the truth. I, who knew her countenance so well, saw even through her veil how agitated she was, and with what desperate resolve she was concealing the awful anxiety consuming her.
“One witness has told us that the deceased was very much afraid of burglars,” observed the coroner. “Had he ever spoken to you on the subject?”
“Often. At his country house some years ago a burglary was committed, and one of the burglars fired at him but missed. I think that unnerved him, for he always kept a loaded revolver in the drawer of a table beside his bed. In addition to this he had electrical contrivances attached to the windows, so as to ring an alarm.”
“But it appears they did not ring,” said the coroner, quickly.
“They were out of order, the servants tell me. The bells had been silent for a fortnight or so.”
“It seems probable, then, that the murderer knew of that,” remarked Dr. Diplock, again writing with his scratchy quill. Turning to the solicitor, he asked, “Have you any questions to put to the witness?”
“None,” was the response.
And then the woman whom I had loved so fervently and well, turned and re-seated herself. She glanced across at me. Did she read my thoughts?
Her glance was a glance of triumph.
Medical evidence was next taken, Sir Bernard Eyton being the first witness. He gave his opinion in his habitual sharp, snappy voice, terse and to the point.
In technical language he explained the disease from which his patient had been suffering, and then proceeded to describe the result of the post-mortem, how the wound inside was eight times larger than the exterior incision.
“That seems very remarkable!” exclaimed the coroner, himself a surgeon of no mean repute, laying down his pen and regarding the physician with interest suddenly aroused. “Have you ever seen a similar wound in your experience, Sir Bernard?”
“Never!” was the reply. “My friends, Doctor Boyd and Doctor Farmer, were with me, and we are agreed that it is utterly impossible that the cardiac injuries I have described could have been caused by the external wound.”
“Then how were they caused?” asked the coroner.
“I cannot tell.”
There was no cross-examination. I followed, merely corroborating what my chief had said. Then, after the police surgeon had given his evidence, Dr. Diplock turned to the twelve Kew tradesmen who had been “summoned and sworn” as jurymen, and addressing them said:
“I think, gentlemen, you have heard sufficient to show you that this is a more than usually serious case. There are certain elements both extraordinary and mysterious, and that being so I would suggest an adjournment, in order that the police should be enabled to make further enquiries into the matter. The deceased was a gentleman whose philanthropy was probably well known to you all, and we must all therefore regret that he should have come to such a sudden and tragic end. You may, of course, come to a verdict to-day if you wish, but I would strongly urge an adjournment – until, say, this day week.”
The jury conferred for a few moments, and after some whispering the foreman, a grocer at Kew Bridge, announced that his fellow jurymen acquiesced in the coroner’s suggestion, and the public rose and slowly left, more puzzled than ever.
Ambler Jevons had been present, sitting at the back of the room, and in order to avoid the others we lunched together at an obscure public-house in Brentford, on the opposite side of the Thames to Kew Gardens. It was the only place we could discover, save the hotel where the inquest had been held, and we had no desire to be interrupted, for during the inquiry he had passed me a scrap of paper upon which he had written an earnest request to see me alone afterwards.
Therefore when I had put Ethelwynn into a cab, and had bade farewell to Sir Bernard and received certain private instructions from him, we walked together into the narrow, rather dirty High Street of Brentford, the county town of Middlesex.
The inn we entered was close to a soap works, the odour from which was not conducive to a good appetite, but we obtained a room to ourselves and ate our meal of cold beef almost in silence.
“I was up early this morning,” Ambler observed at last. “I was at Kew at eight o’clock.”
“Why?”
“In the night an idea struck me, and when such ideas occur I always seek to put them promptly into action.”
“What was the idea?” I asked.
“I thought about that safe in the old man’s bedroom,” he replied, laying down his knife and fork and looking at me.
“What about it? There’s surely nothing extraordinary in a man having a safe in his room?”
“No. But there’s something extraordinary in the key of that safe being missing,” he said. “Thorpe has apparently overlooked the point; therefore this morning I went down to Kew, and finding only a constable in charge, I made a thorough search through the place. In the dead man’s room I naturally expected to find it, and after nearly a couple of hours searching in every nook and every crack I succeeded. It was hidden in the mould of a small pot-fern, standing in the corridor outside the room.”
“You examined the safe, then?”
“No, I didn’t. There might be money and valuables within, and I had no right to open it without the presence of a witness. I’ve waited for you to accompany me. We’ll go there after luncheon and examine its contents.”
“But the executors might have something to say regarding such an action,” I remarked.
“Executors be hanged! I saw them this morning, a couple of dry-as-dust old fossils – city men, I believe, who only think of house property and dividends. Our duty is to solve this mystery. The executors can have their turn, old chap, when we’ve finished. At present they haven’t the key, or any notion where it is. One of them mentioned it, and said he supposed it was in the widow’s possession.”
“Well,” I remarked, “I must say that I don’t half like the idea of turning out a safe without the presence of the executors.”
“Police enquiries come before executors’re inventories,” he replied. “They’ll get their innings all in good time. The house is, at present, in the occupation of the police, and nobody therefore can disturb us.”
“Have you told Thorpe?”
“No. He’s gone up to Scotland Yard to make his report. He’ll probably be down again this afternoon. Let’s finish, and take the ferry across.”
Thus persuaded I drained my ale, and together we went down to the ferry, landing at Kew Gardens, and crossing them until we emerged by the Unicorn Gate, almost opposite the house.
There were loiterers still outside, men, women, and children, who lounged in the vicinity, staring blankly up at the drawn blinds. A constable in uniform admitted us. He had his lunch, a pot of beer and some bread and cheese which his wife had probably brought him, on the dining-room table, and we had disturbed him with his mouth full.
He was the same man whom Ambler Jevons had seen in the morning, and as we entered he saluted, saying:
“Inspector Thorpe has left a message for you, sir. He’ll be back from the Yard about half-past three, and would very much like to see you.”
“Do you know why he wants to see me?”
“It appears, sir, that one of the witnesses who gave evidence this morning is missing